The Job that isn’t the IT anymore…

Call me melancholic, or emotional, drama queen, or just tired because I am writing this at 01:30 in the morning. I don’t care. I have been thinking about my job for weeks and just when my body was ready to shut down my laptop, my mind wouldn’t let me rest until this job-thing settles comfortably in my conscience.

I remember when my job used to make me feel challenged and make me look sparkling. I remember the days when I got home tired but feeling satisfied with what I had done in the office. I remember the ignorance feelings when I looked at the numbers on my paycheck wasn’t quite equal with the hard work I had done to finish the job. I remember the feeling I had those days and it was called CONTENTMENT.

Now, I have (almost) everything in my job that it feels (almost) wrong to complain. For weeks -a lot of weeks- I am struggling to convince myself that this job I have is still the IT job I had years ago. Somehow I know I’m struggling to lose. This is not IT anymore. And how do I know that?

It’s when I get home from work and doesn’t feel contented anymore.

It’s time to move on…

illustration from www.gettyimages.com

Happy Place

Malam buta begini, saya ingin merindukan suatu masa. Masa ketika yang ada hanya kebahagiaan, bahkan bila saat itu saya berurai air mata. Kenapa saya harus merindukan masa lalu itu? Karena orang bilang saat kita butuh merasa bahagia, kita bisa pergi ke Happy Place kita. Dan memang rasanya seperti ada energi baru. Cinta baru. Untuk hidup saya. Saya. Bukan kita.

Saya tak begitu peduli apakah kamu memercayai Happy Place atau tidak. Toh Happy Place saya bukan untuk kamu datangi juga. Apa yang ada di Happy Place saya pun mungkin tidak akan bisa membuat kamu bahagia. Saya hanya ingin bilang saat ini saya ingin pergi ke Happy Place saya. Jadi, biarkan saya pergi.

Dr House, I feel you…

I don’t know if you know Dr Gregory House from the TV series House MD. But if you know him, you might have mixed feelings toward him. Love him, admire him, totally hate him, and then you wonder what makes him be such a misanthrope.

House hates people. He doesn’t believe in happiness. And we are wondering what had happened in his life that made him how he is today. In one of the series, House tried to help a trapped young woman whose leg was severely hurt. The woman asked him if her leg needed to be amputated. House said no. He said his leg was hurt too but he refused to be amputated and now he still had his both legs intact. Cuddy, his boss, was angry at House’s advice to the woman. Refusing to cut her leg would risk her life. House, as usual, ignored Cuddy. Then Cuddy said this thing that made me want to write this post…

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It’s a sign

Do you believe in signs?

I do. I believe in signs, although not as much as I believe in God. And that’s supposed to be a joke. I see signs everywhere anytime. Or, I want to see signs everywhere anytime. It gives me a suggestive feeling that heaven’s watching over me.

Take Gede Prama. On my normal days, I never hear his wisdoms aired in radio stations. Believe it or not, every time I feel I have enough of the world, suddenly his voice is everywhere on the radio talking about a specific thing I am experiencing. One early morning when I was so mad at something, I sped up along the toll road. Suddenly, Gede Prama voice greeted the listeners and talked to us about ANGER. He saved me from my suicidal attempt of being a car racer. So, yes, I do believe in signs above my logical being. And may be one day I’ll write a novel about it.

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What are you complaining about?

Just arrived at the office at 11 this afternoon. I drove my car all the way from the very Eeeeeeeeast of Jakarta coret to the central of Jakarta. Almost 30 kilometers and 50 minutes by the toll road. The sun was scorching hot, even when I turned on my AC to the maximum.

Not far from Kilometer 0 (zero) Cawang intersection heading to Wiyoto Wiyono toll road, cars were slowing down. On the right side, right in the median of the road, several road signs were laid because there were 2 workers wearing orange uniform and head mask were working on the plants. They were trimming the plants. In the middle of the scorching sun. In the middle of a busy and dangerous toll road.

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Just sit there and watch

The one moment when I feel that I am me is when I just sit silently among the crowds and observe. It can be in a waiting room waiting for a customer service staff, in a hospital lounge when I have to wait for my turn, in a meeting which lacks importance, in class where I don’t feel like being there, in a family gathering where discussion I don’t feel like joining… it can be anywhere.

My junior high school friend -whom I not-so secretly admired- told me once how he liked to observe me when I was in my own world. We were in the Osis together and we spent many meetings together.

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Atas Nama Eksistensi?

Cerita saya kelupaan password atas berbagai akun jaringan sosial di internet seperti Friendster, hi5, WYAN, jaringan-apa-itu-yang-saya-lupa-namanya, Multiply, dan seterusnya, itu sudah biasa. Lebih biasa lagi kalau saya tidak pernah membalas salam kawan-kawan yang menyapa saya di berbagai akun itu. Si Nenek itu sudah hapal kebiasaan saya yang cuma sempat buka akun lalu menghilang. Dan setelah itu tentu saja saya lupa passwordnya.

Toh saya tidak pernah kapok. Walau tahu saya akan tidak sempat memperbaharui Friendster milik saya, saya ho-oh saja sewaktu teman-teman Papap di Jepang mengajak saya buka FB. FB pun sempat saya lupakan -apalagi setelah balik ke Indonesia- sampai FB ngetren lagi disini. Beberapa waktu lalu, saya yang sebelumnya bergeming dengan maraknya penggunaan twitter, ikut buka akun twitter demi melihat status twitternya John Legend yang akan manggung di Indonesia. How silly is that?

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