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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Of disappointments and changes

Have you ever realized or experienced that even the tiniest disappointment can bring a huge change? Well, maybe situations in the office will not make really good examples for this,lah. If the office bitches continue on making your life miserable, it’s most unlikely for the bosses to start a new company policy on handling these creatures or limiting their access to the rest of the staff; regardless of how disappointed/pissed off/’meluat nak mampus’ you’re feeling. But office bitches is another story altogether, and let’s not spoil my good mood today by writing about them. They’ll feel so important if I do so, you know.

Even if your immediate boss keeps on giving empty promises and overloading you with irrelevant works, I don’t think the upper management would change the department’s operational procedure. Maybe they will decide to do it in a few years’ time (after a really high staff turnover in the department), but not so soon. Eh, BFH (Bosses From Hell) is another topic I’m not going to go into deep today because my current boss is a very nice guy. (Proses mengipas sedang berlaku, sila beri laluan… hahaha).

So, what kind of small disappointments that can really turn things around/ change the whole storyline/perform total makeover in someone’s life/career/relationship? (Okay, this is the moment where you, my dear readers are supposed to pause and think for a good 15 minutes…… After you’ve found one or two, then continue reading the next paragraph. Hahahaha. Today kita buat macam aktiviti dalam buku kerja sikit, okay..)

Mine has to be the case of my car stereo that was giving me quite a disappointment. In 2001 I bought a second hand Iswara that was still in quite a good condition (ni kiranya my first car lah ni….) After 2 years, the cassette player became unusable after a cassette was stuck in there. I could only listen to the radio. It was tolerable while braving the usual LDP congestion from Sunway Tol till Kelana Jaya, I could always tune to my favorite station and sang (screamed) along.

I hated it when I entered the basement parkings of Ikano and The Curve. There’s no reception at all. As the two shopping malls are such famous destination for lunch, it’s very common to be driving around for about 10 minutes, looking for parking spot. Imagine 10 minutes without music at the basement parking! If I decided to go to One U, it will be worse; after 20 minutes I might still be behind the wheels sticking out my giraffe like neck, scanning for available (legal) space.

We have a lot of audio CDs at home, but the stereo set didn’t come with CD player. Another small disappointment, but I didn’t really give it much thought until I started working at Messburger* (nama sebenar dirahsiakan untuk memastikan usaha mengipas boss berhasil).

The team I joined consisted of a few people who had good taste in cars. They also shared same interest in golf (strike my name out of this list, please…) One day, I overheard these 2 teammates discussing about changing car stereo and they were planning to go to the car accessories shop during lunch.

I suddenly felt the need to get a new car stereo as I thought it’s about time. Actually, by then the cassette player had been unusable for a few years. So, off we went that day to have a look at the choices available. After about 30 minutes of window shopping, my teammate had his eye on the one priced at RM800 while I fell in love with a car stereo that was about the price of a (not so famous) designer’s handbag; it was RM2.5K. I told my teammate, almost thoughtlessly, ‘Mak datuk, mahal ni. Boleh bayar downpayment kereta ni.’ Then my female teammate said, ‘Kau ni beli ajelah kereta baru. Dah gerenti dapat stereo tip top punya!’

Maybe by now you can already guess what our lunch hour activities were for the next few days. Yeah…… visits to various car showrooms and test drive!

About 10 days after the discussion about the car stereo, I paid the booking fee for my new car….. And the rest was history.

If you call that an instantaneous buy, maybe I should tell you that I bought the car that neither me nor Mr. Hubby test drove. I called it instinct buy! But, hey…. It’s worth every sen. If my teammate never pushed that idea to me, I might still be driving the old Iswara and cursing endlessly when I have to find parking space at Mutiara Damansara/Bandar Utama/MidValley during peak time.

7 comments:

wanshana said...

Errr...I have a confession to make. My hubby and I decided to buy our current house and the new house we're moving into pun macam beli goreng pisang aje...

We didn't look at other houses pun. We saw the two houses, fell in love with both of them instantly, paid the deposits...and as you said - the rest is history...

Take care, dear!

(By the way, you've been tagged. Please visit my blog. Don't worry, take your time :D. Thanks!)

Azer Mantessa said...

good sound system in a vehicle is priority to me so i dun mind stucking in the traffic jam.

Spena said...

Aku rasa kite ni serupa aje. Aku beli my new baby also without test driving it at all. The best part - beli manual pulak tu.Masa nak ambik kereta, budak tu tanya, akak tau drive manual ke?....
Sabor jelah. Memanglah tau. Tapi tak polish je. Hehehe...

D.N.A.S said...

kak shana,
still renovating rumah baru tu, eh? Mesti semangat tengah berkobar2 nak pindah ni.

azer,
yes... once my warranty expires, I'm thinking of upgrading the sound system. My friends told me kat Seremban boleh dapat murah punya.

spena,
itu lah pasal. Kalau nak beli handbag ngan kasut, punyalah lama belek/try test/posing sana sini. Tapi bila beli barang riban2 punya harga, selamba je tutup sebelah mata.

all jazzed up said...

dnas, we are all compulsive shoppers!!!! tapi aku tak mampu nak beli rumah je lagi ni :( Tunggu Datuk K masuk meminang!

F.Idrus said...

K. Dayang, firstly, congrates on the new car, in the pic is that it? Nice.. is that the new proton? Me likey, Rina works in Proton, she designed the transmission box if I am not mistaken, if something's wrong, please kick her ass. Hahahah!

Secondly, just read your blog description, your dashboard is in Bahasa Indonesia, mine is in Dutch! Hahaha! Well, google is trying to be smart, when I get connected to my VPN connection to Holland, my google/blog always Dutch. Now... as a Dutch would say it... Doei!! (that means bye!) hahahaha!

D.N.A.S said...

mimin,
surprisingly, all of my compulsive buys turned out to be really worth it. There are things that took me months to think over but in the end, they don't really deliver (e.g the old Iswara lah... hahaha)
Sometimes, we just have to follow our hearts....

Faiez,
Iye memang, I used to have issues with gear transmission with that 1.5 Iswara. It jerked a lot. The new car is Honda Jazz; performance and driving experience wise: macam langit dengan bumi le if I were to compare it with Iswara. Tapi, apa-apa hal, sokonglah kereta buatan Malaysia!

I purposely choose Bahasa Indon for my Blogger setting because I think it always make my day. E.g: 'Tutup jendela ini', 'Publikasikan komentar ini', 'hapus', 'guna account yang berbeda'.
Hahaha... rasa macam kiut sgt.