playing mahjong

it's been a long long while since i played mahjong.

and i did so again on friday night after dinner. you see, i joined my colleagues for dinner friday and by the time we ended, it was about 10-ish. and since a few felt rather energetic and didn't want to go home, we decided to head to the house of one colleague to play mahjong. such a refreshing experience for me, considering i had not touched the mahjong set since more than a decade ago!

and as usual, i ended up losing. i've never had any luck when it came to gambling... heh heh. but yeah, it was fun. then again, the game was just an excuse to continue being together into the night. most of the time during the game, everyone was just bitching about their respective department office politics and how people are being "mistreated" by their new colleagues. and it was such an enlightening experience cos for the first time, i was exposed to the internal dynamics of some other departments. lots of angst and lots of tensions. 

and through these sharing, i learned a couple of things. and they include firstly, the negative effects of the integration are more pervasive than i had expected. and while it was interesting to learn of their respective department internal dynamics, it was even more interesting how they see and interpret developments within the company, and i must say, many a times, what they interpret were very accurate. secondly, such sharing allows people to vent. it releases their pent up tensions. and i could see the maturity of my colleagues such as how, despite their young age (most are in the late-20s, early-30s), many were able to draw their lines clearly between what's their personal opinion and how they should respond professionally. it reflected well on them.

however, sadly, i do also sense a the loss and helplessness for a couple of them. this was so because it is their first job or that they had just joined the company less than a year ago. and for these colleagues, they know that it would not do them any good to quit as it would affect their resume. they didn't want to come across as job hoppers, especially so in the current weak job market.

sighs....