I got in to work this morning, for the last day of my penultimate week working for my organisation, only to find that my desk and surrounding area had been overtaken by oranges, not even orange oranges, but yellow skinned oranges, must be because we’re in Asia, ha. This is not the first time this has happened to me lately, but i think it could be a sign that i am close to accomplishing my task of sustainably revolutionising the way we work so that even oranges could do what i do, or perhaps that i am in need of vitamin c, or maybe they just want me to leave, any other suggestions?

In a previous organisation I was replaced by a human sized inflatable penguin. Apparently it sat at my old desk for several months with my name tag on it, and no one noticed, except to comment that i had looked decidedly more handsome in my new suit and was much better with children rubbing my belly.

So i was chatting with a work colleague today when i started to notice a rather putrid smell exuding from his general vicinity. We’re at the point now where i can be fairly direct and insulting towards him, he’s kind of like my understudy, so i mentioned that he was exuding a putrid odour, which in my Vietnamese 4 year old tongue would have translated to “you smell notta gooda”. To which he replied “I’ve been sick, and haven’t showered since Saturday”. His theory was that when you are sick (he just had a head cold as far as i could tell) you shouldn’t shower, which perhaps makes sense historically when water was less clean and without heat. But Saturday was 5 days ago! and his smell consumed most of the available oxygen in our office, luckily he decided that he was well enough today to take a bath, perhaps tomorrow will be odour free.

Nothing says happy new new year more than a watermelon on your balcony with a “happy new year” sticker on it.

It finally happened. A plastic stool succumbed under the weight of my weightiness. Luckily I had prepared for this moment, with a nightly routine of squats, pulling chairs away from myself, graceful backward rolls, observing others in similar incidents, and practising my “a chair didn’t just break from under me, let’s get on with the meeting” face, it’s a very specific look.

Most activities that involve sitting in Vietnam will likely be facilitated by a plastic stool if anything at all. Plastic stools range from the tiny plastic stool which is really just the lazy man’s squat to a full adult sized chair with a backrest. The one I had was a tall variety without a backrest, similar to the top most picture. They also tend to come in red, yellow and green but i don’t think i’ve ever seen black.

It was kind of a lucky break I had though. I was coming to the end of a meeting and was just chatting casually with colleagues when the *crack* sound came which you wouldn’t hear in a crowded Little Italy restaurant or Dinh Liet Bia Hoi for instance. This triggered my training instincts to tense up my quad muscles and go into a kind of tall squat formation. As the crumbling of the chair leg occurred I was able to remain reasonably upright, I thought about preforming a backward roll, but figured it would just be showing off and rather unusual for my colleagues to see, then came the reflex to in a flash replace the broken stool with a fresh one and lay on the “a chair didn’t just break from under me, let’s get on with the meeting” face. My colleagues didn’t know what hit ‘em as the conversation flowed naturally onto why I wasn’t married and how that made me ugly and pitiable.

So there was a work planning get-together trippy thing on the weekend, at a place called sam son. Busy beach resort with the brownest sea water you could hope to swim in, and local beer sold in what looked like old car oil containers for 25000 dong ($2AUD) for 5 litres, how insane!

Anyways, an ideal time to meet all other staff in my organisation you would think. Unfortunately i suspect any good rapport building i had done over the weekend was overshadowed by my last 30 minutes of the trip.

So we were nearly back in Hanoi after having driven for about 4 hours. I noticed some rumblings in my gut, to be expected after the eating, drinking and singing weekend that was had (work was done, just not much by me). I thought i could hold on, we were nearly in Hanoi, until all traffic came to a standstill. Any mental strength and will power i had to hold on immediately evaporated, there was nothing else left to be done, the side of the highway was beckoning. So off i went, whilst climbing over seats (the bus was full) my first step was straight through a polystyrene box containing fish, bad start, i managed to jump out the driver’s door, the main door was jammed closed by overzealous pineapple purchases.
I don’t really need to describe the next event, but i was grateful for my colleague who came as well and stood watch, like an officer waving people away, “nothing to see here.” After feeling much relieved, my colleague and i noticed the traffic had started moving again, we bolted after the bus, but given that we could only enter through the driver’s seat, catching up to the bus wasn’t much help with the traffic still moving. It got to a point where the traffic stopped again, we dashed out onto the road, the driver shifted slightly, indicating that i could then climb in and over him, somehow. I gave it a shot, leaping up, butt hanging out of the door, my colleague still outside, traffic starting to move again, truck honking furiously and coming up beside us, bus driver starts screaming “oh my god, oh my god” expecting the truck to crash through his open door (guarded by my hanging butt), panic setting in, i gripped the drivers seat, ripped apart his massage beads, beads flying everywhere and somehow ended up in the second row of seats, and off we went. 20 minutes later my colleague managed to get on in less dramatic fashion after we cleared the jammed door of pineapples. I suspect that incident has defined me in the organisation.