384. A lots of laughter birthday lunch

Toilet Training Your First Puppy in Singapore

Aug 23, 2006. Lunch appointments tend to be boring. I was not looking forward to this birthday lunch at Suntec City's Swizzler. The office workers queuing for food, the noise, the poor quality of food court stalls and the crowd at Suntec City was not my idea of a peaceful lunch. But Ms Kwek's 7 colleagues in her team had booked Swizzler. I need not go, she said. A thorn among roses.

I was to give Ms Kwek the birthday card in a red pink envelope, the organising girl said after presenting two teddy bears in a basket of ribbons. Ms Kwek showed me the card.

"Open it up," the organising girl said. A Hallmark card of a blond girl with a green blouse. I read the colourful wordings of the organising girl and the 6 others. The card had some wording like "What I don't like about my age is.... Gravity."

When I opened the card, I was engrossed reading the wishes. Something green moved down suddenly. I did not take much notice as there were too many best wishes to read.
The girls said "Open it up." I did so. Ms Kwek explained to me what I missed.

OK. The green chest of the blond girl swung down by more than 3 cm. Yet I missed the humour of the effects of gravity or aging on the bust.

"So you think Ms Kwek is busty?" I asked the girls.

"Voluptuous" is the correct word," the human resource girl laughed.

"Have you heard about the Dolly Parton joke?" I asked them. "Ms Kwek did not appreciate me repeating this joke." The girls were all ears.

"I read this in a magazine. Dolly Parton said that when she fell down, she had to be milked before she could get up."

Nobody laughed. Most of them probably were too young to know who Dolly Parton was and I forgot to explain. Ms Quek kindly explained that Ms Parton had such large boobs that she was top heavy.

The lunch was a buffet. Talk about the office matters was animated. A day off for people with birthdays? 3 days' paternity leave and 3 calender's month of maternity leave were now available. "So get married fast," Ms Quek told the young human resource girl who was still courting.

I asked whether the human resource has a counselling room for workers who have complaints or needed a talk.
One girl suggested the use the Chief Executive's outdoor garden for counselling workers who have work problems? "I pity the CE," I said. "You girls don't give him his private space? Maybe he need it to meditate as he has so many board meetings and other appointments such that he had no work-family life balance."



"I am not a quarter of a century old yet," the younger assistant said who had just been recruited. Ms Quek furrowed her elbows, "I can't believe that I have lunch with such a young girl! A quarter of a century younger than me!"

She gave a speech about life and the important thing for her was good relationships. "When you are young, you hope for birthdays to come. Now, at my age, I don't look forward to birthdays." We kept silent. She could not know how life passed by so fast but was grateful for having a smooth path.

There was no birthday cake. The lunch terminated. Fortunately, I reminded the girls to take pictures using their camera phones. Her Indian colleague took picturs of me with Ms Quek.

I took pictures for her. "Molestation, molestation," Ms Kuek budged away from the seat as her colleque of some ten years tried to unbutton her top button, for the pictures. She protected her modesty and pushed her away. She persevered. She pushed her away. I was trying to take pictures. Fortunately, the Swizzler manager did not intervene. Who said ladies don't know how to have fun? I was prim and proper.

It was much laughter at this birthday lunch with 7 office girls. I was surprised that Ms Kwek had such good rapport with her team.