When's there's nothing else, there's always Writing...

I am frustrated! Frustrated by the lack of civic consciousness, love for the environment, lack of corporate social responsibility and sheer waste of it – paper that is!
Currently, I am obligated to print and print reams and reams worth of my work. Nobody here at my workplace reads off the monitor and nobody amends and critiques off the computer. Here’s the process flow:

1. You do the work
2. You print the work
3. Boss reads the work and amends
4. You make the changes (do the work)
5. You print the work
6. Boss reads the work and amends/finalises.

(This is by no means a criticism of my work mates, merely a lament at the way time and resources are not as efficiently managed as they could be)

The last time I have had to undergo this vigorous never ending cycle was when I worked at The Garage, Penang where my boss wasn’t always boss and didn’t carry a laptop that we could send him documents on. When he came into the office, he would, more often than not, be happy enough to sit at the desktop and read through the work, then change it as he likes it (which happens more often than not because he was a man of his own mind and his mind didn’t always concur with mine). Even then, my colleagues and I were very conscious of the fact that the company was a new start-up and the boss was already spending millions on the building. Hence we penny-pinched all the way – gosh, we cut up the card board that came with your stockings/panty-house and used them as filofax cards to write our clients’ contact details on! (Btw, on a little detour – you can’t buy loyalty, pride and ownership like that in employees anymore)

Then of course I went on to a more corporate, proper, professional career in a consulting MNC. We printed what we had to, we did always endeavour to stay within the budget, even though the personal phone call bills could run up high, especially when you’re calling Penang during peak office hours from KL…….I MUST stress I wasn’t the only Penangite on the team! The work came and went but I was quite quite happy there. Until 2 years later when I joined the foreign bank of yore that I left to join this local bank of present. Many wonder a thunderous ‘WHY???’ but heck I had a good feeling about it and I wanted more banking experience – which I didn’t feel I was building up in my ex bank (actually a global service centre subsidiary of the actual bank). Which brings me here, at this point in my life, feeling frustrated and sad that I am not doing my part in saving the trees!

I have always been a frugal person (except when it comes to shoes and diamonds and items that I really love and must have (usually high-ticket, go figure – I don’t choose them, they call out to me)) (I seem to always look up from a rack of clothes and see ‘ New Arrival, No Discount’ or ‘Normal Price Merchandise’ when all around me, I am mocked and inundated with signs of ‘50% Off’, ‘70% Off’ and ‘Buy 1, Free 5’’!!! But I digress – I have always been careful with resources that are not limitless – paper, money, dogs…..

And in my ex-bank, this attitude was amply satisfied and rewarded. We were very cost-conscious and printed double sided, recycled non-sensitive papers, printed 4 or 6 slides to one page…..Now coming here, nothing is recycled but printed again and again and they use good quality paper!!!!! I am SO SAD! I have just been on the intranet looking for avenues where I can suggest a recycling campaign but can’t find the proper avenue. I guess I have to find another way.

I guess all big bosses don’t really think about saving cost, they’ve got more important decisions to make while lil’ole me is too busy focusing on the little things to change the world.