Star attitude

I got to the office late today (as usual, man, I dunno why I keep telling you guys something you all already know). The CT Ed was walking around apprehensively - judging from my experience this could only mean one thing: there's a CT assignment that needs to be done, and the CT Ed can't find any journalist to do it.

I don't want to be the one doing it either, simply cause I already have tonnes to do for CSM. So I slipped behind my com and pretended to be very very interested in the booting process.

Suddenly my nose twitched. Uh oh, I know this smell - it's the CT Ed's BO plus some kind of aftershave/cologne/perfume. Since it's still morning it isn't so bad, yet having my desk located so close to his cube with him walking in and out of it daily for the past three years had made my sense of smell evolved in an AI-like manner to recognize the scent.

And he stood right next to me and asked, "Can you please interview that Lina Teoh person for me? It'd be just about how she handles that IT segment in the show that she's hosting." He has an I-bet-this-is-going-to-be-fun-for-you look on his face.

Huh uh. I'm not buying it. I hate to say this, but I sincerely detest people who host IT segments without truly understanding what he/she's really telling viewers. It is almost as intolerable as an IT writer who doesn't truly understand about the IT stuff she's writing about (hmm.. sounds like a person I used to know..).

I told the CT Ed I've never done People in IT features before. He told me he'll help me out so that I'll be handing in a good story at the end of the day.

Ah ha! Journalism training!

I could not resist! So I told the CT Ed, make it two weeks of training in writing features, I'll take the assignment. He said no problem.

So I got my notebook and pen ready, in my head I was already forming sensible questions like "So, what kind of preparations do you do before hosting the IT segment?" and unsensible ones like "Do you need people to tell you the difference between Gigabyte and Gigahertz?", as well as challenging ones like "Do you think IT is a field dominated by men?"

But I was more excited about having the CT Ed train me on how to properly write features articles. If he asks what kind of features I'd like to do, I'll tell him its wireless and mobile technologies, music: digitizing and streaming it, or something mind-boggling like knowledge management within oneself. Wow, sometimes I impress myself - I didn't know I actually have genuine interest in such topics.

In the meantime, the TV crew is still doing shooting of Lina Teoh doing her thing in our office lab. Actually there has been several shooting sessions done there for the past month, and frankly the lab donkey and the receptionist must be the ones who are most pissed for having to move from their spot.

The rest of us are simply annoyed that the front door gets sealed everytime hence we can't enter the office using the good lift and our visitors had to be shown our messy back route (via a lift as slow as the one in Liza's SIC office on top of that - incorrigible!).

I was ready to receive the enlightenment. The training-session I've been waiting for is finally coming to me...

... but Lina Teoh isn't?! What?

The marketing guy who was pitching the interview came to us and said "Apparently Ms Teoh refused to be interviewed today, as she wasn't told earlier about it."

As the guy rant about how eksyen Lina Teoh was when she was dealing with him and that our company has done a wrong move by letting her crew use our office facilities and lab bla bla bla [please insert the usual what-an-ungrateful-celebrity talk here] all I could think was..

... there goes my training!

Ah well, I heard the CEO's coming to visit this subsidiary today, so maybe I'll pitch in the idea to him if he ever looks my way...