A few weeks late in writing this up but
been a busy old week at the Big D again (when is it not?)
A few months ago an email came out
regarding a Supply Chain Christmas Celebration; mindlessly I signed it up for
it; basically if it's not in direct relationship with my job or the items I
have to do on a daily basis the usual practice is I never have time to read it
so I either delete it, archive it (parking it in corporate lingo) or I
mindlessly accept / respond and in this case it was the latter.
On Friday 9th December the day was here,
the celebration was here and we were booked in the morning for the 2nd Annual
Big D Ethics Day - I won't bore you with all the nitty gritty details of this
exuberant day but gladly it were only half a day and were scheduled to finish
at 12. In the afternoon as part of the Celebrations we were booked to go to a
Child’s Orphanage near the Malaysian Border called Sunbeam. I didn’t really do
much (any) research on it and when the time came I used the usual excuse of
I’ve too much work to take half another half day out but I didn't resist too
hard and before I knew it was nearly 1.30pm and we were approaching the
location for the day.
It was a beautiful day in Singapore on
Friday 9th December 2011; I jumped off the bus with the others and it was 32
Degrees outside; the sun was bouncing off the pavement and the place we'd been
taken too were serene; akin to those really posh Garden Centers you see in the
countryside of the UK. The itinerary for the day was basically to help bake
cookies with the kids of the orphanage, eat with them, then a balloon artist
and a face painting pro were coming in to entertain the kids this was then
followed by a Big D only after work drink and mini celebration. Needless to say
with my phobia of Children I was dreading it and running through my head over and over again
why I'd accepted the invite as it wasn’t even mandatory.
I was part of Table 5; when we arrived we
were all assigned a specific child to sit with for the day. Mine was an 11 year
old Indian / Singaporean lad called Gabriel and my first observation with this
kid was his energy levels were through the roof and in comparison with some of
the other kids close by I felt I was being punished for a conglomeration of past
sins by being assigned to this one. He was loud, obnoxious, and rude and oh did
I mention energetic?
We started making the cookies and over time
he seemed to rely on me for the complicated things; when I say complicated we
had 4 ingredients and it was one of the easiest recipes in the history of
mankind but he seemed uneasy with some of the tasks such as rolling out the
final mixture for shape cutting etc. We worked together as an epic team and
churned out a ridiculous volume of cookies which we sent off for baking to
revisit later for the icing competition. I tried to be as friendly as possible
so was addressing him as bro to which one particular comment he retorted
"I’m not your bro, you're white and I’m brown" I had to struggle not
to laugh out loud. So I switched the bro to dude and everything seemed more
manageable from them on. The balloon artist came and the face painter and the
kids had to queue for both. My kid was desperate for a balloon. So I decided to
go queue for him; I asked him what he wanted for a Balloon and as if it was a
magic lamp with three wishes these were his requests:
2 x Swords - I Purple and 1 Brown
1 x Train - Red and Blue in Colour with
three x passenger cars and a cargo car carrying coal.
1 x Vacuum Cleaner
I managed to get him a train and an awesome
one it was...
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| Thomas the Tank Engine - Or an attempt at it anyway; this is a basic train and looked more complex that Astro Physics during creation.. |
On a side note; has anyone recently seen a
balloon artist or magician or whatever the sugared job title is for them now?
They're AMAZING to watch! It's akin to witchcraft I have to say...
I wanted to get my face painted into
something sinister or maybe match the Spider Man T-Shirt I was wearing with
some Spidey face paint but the queue was too long and didn't want to take the
fun away from the kids.
On the way back from the balloon artists to
my table; a few of the girls at the Sunbeam centre wanted me to sit with them
and in fact told me I looked like Edward out of Twilight? They complimented me
on my handsomeness and also on the fairness of my skin. Then I got very
uncomfortable when they started asking me for face book details and to kiss
them!! It was strictly communicated by those above beforehand that contact
details were not to be given and I would have gone to jail for the kissing! A
part of me wanted to say "give me a call in 10 years time" but I
thought it wasn't appropriate so kept my mouth closed…I'm learning.
After the balloon artist and face painters
it was time for us to decorate the cookies we'd made earlier. We got a
selection of M&Ms and coloured Icing and basically just had to go for it to
make the craziest shapes and colour combinations possible. Gabriel didn't
really like getting his hands dirty so I took care of most of the icing for him
(I enjoyed it perhaps a little too much). After the icing was done we gave out
gifts to the children and said our goodbyes.
For me it was a joyous day; a day I've
never experienced before and my buddy Gabriel (can officially call him Bro now
as by the end of the day there was a definitely a connection) he thanked me for
my time and wished me a very merry Christmas and asked me to come back again
someday. On my departure he gave me his balloon (pictured above) and one of his
cookies.. I had to rush off into a shitty work call with Scotland and missed
the actual waving the kids off but I felt extremely touched and in a
potentially selfish nutshell felt like I had helped someone and done something
worthwhile in my life. Even if it just was for an afternoon.
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| The epic Christmas Tree Cookie By Gabriel complete with missing M&M |
Another lesson I learned this day; was how
fortunate I was as a child; never wanting for anything and made me feel a bit
ashamed of those tantrums I had thrown when I got the Die Hard Trilogy Game for
my Play Station and not the Original Resident Evil game I'd asked for. What a
douche I was as a child.
Happy Holidays everyone.
Jack
