just minishorts.

We Malaysians are such unique residents of Planet Earth.

Just walk into any mamak stall at its peak operating hours (beginning 11 pm till around 1 am), and fix a listening ear to the conversation that goes on. For some reason, we're all spokesmen and spokeswomen for the organizations we represent, not even after you shake off the working hours and try to relax into life into being yourself for once, helps you out of the working life shackles.

So sad, really, but society pressure actually starts from young. Well, not so young, but somewhere around the time when you're old enough to have a late curfew, when you're allowed to hang out at family restaurants at allowed hours. Say you're a teenager, fortunate enough to be born as the son of the MD of a famous local MNC in the country. That makes you significantly different from the rest of your peers, but at least, they're not that vicious on you, not yet, because for now at least, things are almost equal. So everyone knows you're richer than them, but no one really holds it against you, because people are nicer when they're younger.

As we become older, we become more bitter, and having social gaps widening at this same time doesn't help either. Soon, the harshness of reality hits hard, and it's about to get worse. Invisible rifts will form, uncomfortable silences that intrude into otherwise comfortable meet-up-with-you-at-the-mamak talk. The fact is this,the moment you step into the working world, you represent the company you work for. At least, some of your friends begin to trash you just because you work at a certain place.

In most cases, we're all required to stand up and be men in areas where we're not in position to say anything–just because someone else has a peeve with the organization we work in. Or maybe, you've been the accuser before, you've met someone who voted for a government who didn't perform as well as you wanted governments to work, and you trash that person up for his choices. Oh almost all of us are guilty of this, at least once in our life. And it's not only when it comes to work, it's also when it comes to food choices, study choices, purchase choices, religious choices. We're such nosey-pokers, don't you think? Each time someone makes a choice, there is bound to be another someone who prosecutes him for that choice.

Talking about working life and company affiliations is easier. Like what happened the other day, that awful silence, that followed this.

'So what if I just end up as a junior management trainee for, say, Shell? (or Maxis, or Streamyx, or IGB, or (insert any big company name here).So what if I'm earning peanuts? You guys think I'm next in line to the company's decisions. Sure I'm happy to be there, to be offered a good salary and all, but come on, I'm not the customer complaints department for my company just because you're not happy that you have to fork out more money just to pay for your bills.

But people don't get it that way. So many think it's a right to complain, customer is king what. Like the accuser—-he was intent on having his way, regardless the cost, 'You earn so much lah, your company got extra profits now. Plastered all over the papers what. And who's to suffer, me. Cost of living has gone up because of you you know? For what? To pay your bonuses. By right shouldn't give you bonus even.'

Smashing coffee shop talk. The things you here over mamak conversations are quite hilarious. And the rest of us, the ones who were there to have a good time, we cringed in awkwardness. I wanted to get out of there.

'Oh so you work for that telco provider, I've got something else to say to you. Now they employ you already, have spend more money to pay you. So what happens? Increase price lor, who suffer? We all suffer lor. ME, YOUR FRIEND. Get you already, service got improve or not? What is this? You don't feel ashamed izzit, go there and work?'

Sure dude, link it up, link it up. 'What's so shameful in wanting to earn a decent living?' the accused cried.

Another bounced back and said, 'There's nothing decent about living off the rakyat's expenses.'

And then suddenly everyone is eager to be a champion for rakyat's rights. Over tarik and canai. And they forget about the other hundreds, thousands of people who also happen to depend on that company to earn a decent living. Teachers, engineers, accountants, executives. Tealadies, sweepers, cleaners. Security guards, technicians. 'All these people, don't deserve bonuses because they happen to work for a company that 'overcharges' its customers.'

I honestly don't know what goes on in your minds, what you really want. You want things to go your way? I want things to go my way too, but it doesn't work, it never does, so we make do, we do our best, and voice our disappointments ever so often, but come on, NOT over idle coffee shop talk where we're there to release the tensions after a hard day's work.

But they, they're there to let you know how much they've been suffering, and let's pull the whole system into the picture while we're it, will you? 'This is all about the rakyat suffering. HOLY SCHMOLY WE'RE ALL DIE-HARD LOVERS OF THIS NEGARA and because YOU work in that company, you're the reason why the NEGARA is going to the dumps.'

I thought everyone has a guilty part in this so-called 'failure'. Everyone. So shouldn't we stop singling out the bastards and focus instead on where we can start with?

And surely, not with the mamak-stall coffee shop talk, because that takes you nowhere.

You know how it is, the selfish rot in human beings, it goes all the way down. So sickening. I've got two friends who have to spend 3/4s of a year overseas just to take home a decent-enough pay to help support a family of five (including two retired parents), and they don't come home often. Everytime they do, we promise to meet up at the local mamak, where we're supposed to have joyous reunions and talk about life. But each time they return home, we welcome them with tiresome chatter about how their positions with their current companies has a direct affect on the deteriorating costs of living back home

'Oh I heard your company sends its executives on company trips abroad via BUSINESS CLASS. What a waste of money. How much you get each day you're overseas? Wow. That's like so much. How's it feel to know that each sen I pay for my phone bills goes towards funding your 'business travels'? Does it feel good now?'

Such friends we are. Hah. No wonder they end up saying, 'Yeah this place sucks. That's why I'm working so that I can live there one day, forever.'

Hatred happens to be infectious. And with so many disgruntled people around, just waiting, waiting, waiting, to find someone else to blame because their lives just did not turn out as well as they wanted it to, the rot spreads. And it gets worser, and worser.

I hate the accusers, can't you see? Because it's always the same. You. You finish your open rant and content yourself in the thinking that complaining over a glass of Milo-Kau-Ais, is going to make a difference. It doesn't matter that you hurt a friend for something quite trivial, it doesn't matter that you pull 'the entire system, this entire lousy country' into your little lecture at the mamak table, nah. That's for them to consider. You think, 'I've said my piece, I've done my part. It starts with someone pointing out the problems. And I did just that. I've cleverly, pointed out the problems, and you guys, you just shut up because you know you're guilty.'

You speech ends, everyone is silent. And oh, you're so smug. Applause to you. I should pat you on the back, really.

But wait a minute, on our way out, back to the car, you see a pile of rubbish on the road side. So, there's where the stench came from. You sigh, you say, 'Ah, Malaysia. So lousy. See, lousy place we live in.'

And then, you put your hands into your own pockets, you dig out that wrapped-up used chewing gum and some other random pieces of rubbish paper, and before you continue your walk, you toss your contributions to the rubbish pile.

Because you say, 'I did my part a while ago, and this, this. Well, it makes no difference.'

I like being a part of the Malaysian blogosphere really, because you see, the thing about growing older is this. I can't stay up that late anymore, and I can't really visit the mamak so late at night to join my friends for the weekly idle chatter anymore. But fortunately for me, and many of us I'm sure, the blogosphere is a decent enough place to mimic that familiar old road-side coffee stall atmosphere. There's no teh tarik, but there's words, and discussions. Open forums.

But sometimes, I wished, the things you overhead on the Net, could be forgotten just like that. Sometimes I wished that there were ways to throw away all these idle banter and cast them away as listened, heard, and considered. Sometimes I wished they weren't recorded on virtual platforms.

Too much junk makes us look really stupid, you know?

I think you know what I'm really talking about here. I just happened to walk past other piles of rubbish, and I think, ahhhhh just throw only lah, but don't throw there, come home to throw here. So you know, this is just a rant. It's quite a stupid rant from some people's point of view. But those of you who happen to think like me might just know what I'm trying to say here.