It's gonna be tough on Monday without her.


Before she left, work was much easier as we depended on her to solve problems that arose from day-to-day operations. Although sometimes she expects a lot from us to a point where I get frustrated with myself for not being able to do something properly [sometimes due to my lack of experience in this field] , or even sometimes with her for being too much of a perfectionist, the things she did for us and the advice and guidance that she provided overrule every negative trait of her that I have thought of for the past few weeks.


I'm really glad that we had THAT OT that night. All 3 of us got to clear all misunderstandings that we developed over the course of our work due to that perfectionist streak in her which was good for the job but not necessarily for those working under her [aka. us]


It was during that OT night that we got to know more about the company and its people, [interesting revelations I must say] and it opened our eyes to why some people in the office were behaving nastily to certain people. Office politics really suck. If there was unity, I'm sure the company would have a larger revenue man.


Yesterday was a bittersweet day for me. I'm not sure if the rest of them felt that way too cos that was her last day of work. Sarah and I concluded that it was a day where we got paid to eat cos we seemed to be eating about three quarters of the time!

In the morning, she treated us to Spinelli and spent half an hour with us. Lunch was a grand affair at a Japanese restaurant across the street with almost half the Finance department, as well as the 2 Big Bosses , coming along. Sarah and I bought a dozen Munchy Donuts for her. [Emma and Yi Si chipped in too] During our training, we were munching on donuts as well and not long after that, we went for dinner at Han's....

Judging from the many lunch/dinner treats she received from different cliques of colleagues, I can say that she was highly respected and loved by so many in the company.

One thing I liked about her was that she really took care of us: gave us many treats [I can vividly recall the time where she bought muffins for the department and specially saved the only double chocolate one for me cos she knows that I love chocolate even without me telling her], always remembered us whenever she went to buy her favourite Teh Tarik or vegetarian bee hoon, shared the taxi ride with us home after OT and made sure that we were home safely. When we couldn't finish the work allocated to us that day, she had to do OT just to finish it and only went home in the wee hours of the morning.

Even though these acts may seem insignificant to others, they really mean a lot to me, especially when others in the office only regard you as "an inexperienced temp staff."

It would be really hard to find a supervisor like her: someone who encourages us as well as someone who is not afraid to reprimand us when the occasion calls for it. Like what the Bible said, if you spare the rod, you will spoil the child. Why didn't I realise that earlier?


Perhaps it really is human nature to take the poeple around you for granted and only appreciate them when they are out of your life. Now that she's not working with us anymore, it is inevitable to ignore her absence but hopefully, we will be able to remember what she has imparted to us during her work tenure here.


Elaine, I wish you well wherever you are going. You will be greatly missed...