F**K

Hey,

Apparently Titien is not the only one with issues with work environment. I'm not going to say that my colleagues are wrong, nah. I am gonna say that I'm not in the same page with them. I am a very direct person. I do not take comfort behind sweet words, polished sentences, or cynical smiles. Every time we argue about something, I tried to be direct and clear and ended up feeling like a bad guy because my words sounded rude and crass. I just wanted to make a stand of my opinion.

I had a thesis supervisor once and I told him not laugh at me. I said, "you can be angry or insult me as hard as you want, but don't ever laugh at me or talks around the problem."  Well, apparently he is more direct than me (hah). Every once in a while he told me that I was payah, that I should understand the topic better, that my research was full of flaws that needed to be fixed, that my line of thinking is silly, stupid, and unacceptable. He never ever used any quip. He told me my mistakes and helped me figured out what must be done to fix the problem. I could deal with that very well.

My current mentor?
Me: (stating the problem and my opinion)
X: That is a very good idea. I could not agree more. However, we should think further about...bla bla bla (listing all the problems, sometimes talking about irrelevant things, and coming up dry. No solutions. More problems on the table).
Me: (making confirmation on what I should do next)
X: (smiling and playing silence)

Me: we need professional translator
X: that was why we enrolled you to English class
Me: (I thought I applied to become a researcher, not a translator.)
 I am not bragging or something, but even a trivial research (compared with my office's current research) like my thesis, used professional translator to translate its research instrument. Why on Earth they did not see that language is tricky in a research instrument? why did they fail to see the importance?

Me: A is scientifically hard to be done and if you ask my personal opinion on it, then I'd say it cannot be done.
X: I want A no matter what. (End of discussion. Solutions? you wish).

All of those conversation were conducted behind nice words, smiles, and quips. Sometimes I want to stand on a table and yell. Stop playing fucking words. Say what you want to say. But, please, be relevant. Give me solutions for God sake! and if you can't, then stop making new problems!

I thought by working with the seniors I could learn how to swim (well, my last boss taught me how to swim). Here, they throw me into a deep lake, watch, and wait whether I sink or swim. Damn it.

Me