i think i've always been blessed to have wonderful colleagues at my work places.

At MOE, the 1st place I worked at after my "A"s while waiting to enter uni, I worked as a clerk in the Higher Education Department and my colleagues were this group of young female teachers who were posted to MOE HQ for a period of time. Crazy and wild and very pretty young mothers who took great care of me while I was working there. I remember the farewell lunch they bought me on my last day at Holland V.

At the private school, the 1st place I worked at upon graduation from uni, my colleagues who happened to be all female, were all in their 20s, and together, we hated our bosses. haha.. lunchtime would always be at the nearby Redhill market, or if the bosses were not around, Ikea meatballs. We all worked together in this room (prob half the size of our office now) and i guess adversity binded us together. All the crazy cost-cutting measures, even to the point where we had to hide rims of paper under our table for our own use..or worse still, bring our own toilet paper! It was a crazy fun time... we hung out a lot after work...even for gatherings after we left the school one after another...

At MCYS, I worked at the family policy unit. Within the unit, there were many small teams working on different issues, such as the effect of IR on families, etc. I worked in a small team handling women issues with just our manager, an officer and another contract staff like me. F Ikram was 2 years older than me, but because we shared the same desk, we would spend a lot of time chatting away. She's one pretty lady..in fact a year later, she got married to a guy she met while we were working here. :) I've met many great people in the unit itself, especially the team handling Malay families issues. The Malay guys were always very friendly towards me, and helping me when I faced difficulties imposed by our DD. (deputy director) I remember they used to joke that I sounded Malay, like one of them. :) The last time I met them was at F Ikram's wedding, and as usual, being so nice, they actually came to sit and chat with me. One of them is actually a prison warden now!

Even at my current working place. On friday, i hung out with 3 other ladies for dinner and a movie. On Saturday I attended a colleague's son's birthday party together with a few others.

I think what made my working experience at these various places so memorable were the people I worked with. Sure, we had bosses that we simply cannot tolerate, but the working environment was/is made so much more pleasurable with wonderful people around us for almost 8 hours 5 days a week.