All in the mind now...

It's Sunday but I look out my window and there's no sign of the sun. Bleak. The weather forecast had warned us of this: cloud and rain all day long. I think: "no big deal - have loads of things to do today and they don't require a sunny day on the lawn. Just a clear table to sit to."

I list down the things to do for the day

• catch up on reading
• plan out next week's schedule
• finish off students' review
• bake the promised cookies for kids

This is how I often spend my weekend - catching up with unfinished business, which are often never-ending. Yesterday was cleaning-up day + kitchen day - all clothes washed and ironed (yipeee!!), kitchen scrubed, rooms vacuumed (Mr D helped here: double yipeeee!!), and more cooking in the kitchen (excluding lunch and dinner, made cucur badak in the afternoon for friends and baked choc cake post-dinner).

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I have been working part-time since April and surprise, surprise: I still haven't got a single penny!!! You see, I work with the City Council, of which Mr D keeps reminding me. This would be the equivalent of our Majlis Bandaran. This is how it's supposed to work: you'd get April's pay by the end of May, and so on. Since I am new, they said that they needed more time to process the paper work. Hence, I'd only get my first pay at the end of June. Okay, I understand. It's just like teachers back home: no salary for the first three months. You're expected to beg from family and scrape off them.

Eagerly, I awaited for 29th June. Still nothing. Called up people from all sorts of departments: Human Resource, Payroll, Central Office... It seems that they have all received my timesheets ON TIME, all signed by my line manager, but someone somewhere has kept it longer than necessary, and not meeting the deadline. Oh, bugger.

They realised that it wasn't my mistake so they assured me that some interim payment would be given. All I had to do was to get my line manager to get in touch with them: the HR dept.

The following day, I got my line manager to run around like a headless chicken (nice to see him all red-faced and flushed!). He explained to me, that the interim payment of 60% will be banked in by the following Thursday (12th July) as soon as he gets some documents sent - before 11am Friday 6th.

On Thursday 12th July, I went to the autoteller. The money's still not there. The day before, I received a letter informing me the amount I would get as interim: which was definitely less than half of my 60%. I was confused and ... furious, in fact. Am I actually paid less than what I was promised?

On Friday, I checked my bank balance again and nothing had changed. I was still a pauper. Well, not that the small amount I was expecting would make me a millionnaire! This time, I went to my super-duper boss. My line manager wasn't in on that day, so what I did was more than appropriate. I enquired about the exact amount I'm getting and why I still wasn't paid. She made some phone calls but had to wait for some to open up my records (?!) and explain to her my situation. Oh, well, at least I've made my point clear.

I made more calls to people from the departments I had called on the week before. One was away for the day, the other was busy attending another. Finally, the man who is in charge of my interim rang me up. He explained that the reason the money is not yet banked in was because my line manager did not meet the deadline: 11am 6th July (when he told me he had sent it!!!). Therefore, the money will only be in next Tuesday, 17th July. I don't know whether to count on it or not. I've grown numb.

He further explained that he had miscalculated the amount I was supposed to receive, indeed considering only about 40% of what I am actually worth!!! However, being the level-headed and most-considerate person that I am, I didn't shout at him or scream my head off. He offered an apology and told me that the balance would be banked in by the 24th July.

Now?

I'm waiting for 17th July.

And I'm thinking of writing a letter of complaint.

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Meanwhile, maybe I should make some roti jala for breakfast today...