There are times when I feel down in the dumps...

There are times when I feel down and blue. It is not a depression or stress, just a mild feeling of unhappiness and discouragement. Sometimes, it happens for no obvious reason. The feeling just seem to come out of the blue. Sometimes, it happens due to a combination of a few little problems that disturb my mind. Sometimes, it is hard to specifically tell what are the problems that had caused it. Emotion is sometimes hard to describe.

And it happened to me again as I woke up last Monday morning. The gloomy, uneasy feeling accompanied me as I was getting ready for work. It was not a Monday blue.

I drove to work lazily and as usual watched all kind of traffic offences commited by people who want to get to their destinations fast. As I walked to my office, a few people greeted me but it didn't make me feel any better. First thing in the morning, I had to sit in front of a "slow" computer for half an hour to get a five minutes job done. I did asked for a computer upgrade before, but I was told that all the computers here were just upgraded a couple of weeks ago and I have to wait (for how many years?) for the next upgrading exercise to take place. Actually, the computers were not upgraded yet and nobody seems to bother as I kept on sending email upon email complaining about this.

Like I always say, it's not the work that I hate, but it's the way things are managed and the attitude of the people, that make this place unpleasant.

Finished with the computer, I noticed that a senior worker was rubbing down a fibreglass part right in the office and the fibreglass dust were falling on his pants. When he was finished, he shook his pants and all the harmful fibreglass dusts fell on the office floor, I wondered, if he does the same at home. At another corner, a few guys were proudly talking about how they broke the law on the road to save their time.

Am I potraying this place as too unpleasant? Actually, there are nice people here too who make this place a bit better.

I finished my work in the evening and was walking towards my car when a Quality Assurance Inspector (QAI) approached me and asked if I can lend him my spare tyre for a day as one of his car tyres was flat. I was quite surprised as QAIs are much respected here as part of their job is to ensure that all the work carried out on the aircraft are done according to the approved procedures and adhered to strict quality standards, and now, one of them did not even had a spare tyre in his car. I was kind enough to lend him my spare tyre, hoping that I would not get a flat tyre in the meanwhile.

I was still down the next day. I received a reminder from my boss for not updating a newly introduced system which is used to capture the manhours spent on daily tasks. The system was created by a few consultants hired by the company who are not at all familiar with the work here.

Anyway, I got back my spare tyre in the evening and headed back home. I stopped at a roundabout when a driver hit the back of my car. People are too hasty and don't have the patience on the road. I walked out of my car quite angrily but upon seeing the driver, a small sized lady with a frightened face, my anger cooled down, I didn't want to scold this lady, I just want to settle this as quick as possible and head back home. The damage was not too bad. After a short and polite discussion, she paid me some cash for the damage and left. The money she paid me might be enough to cover for the cost of repair but it was definitely not enough to pay for my time that I would be spending to get my car repaired.

There were a few things that were bothering my mind for the past few days that might have caused me to feel down and blue. I guess, I was thinking too much about my younger sister who was going through some difficult situations for the past few months.

I was also much worried about a good friend of mine who was facing some difficult moments last weekend, a friend whom I appreciate very much. I hoped so much that I could help to make her feel better. I sent her a few simple but sincere words which apparently helped, and I'm very glad that she's fine now. Only that, she forgot to inform me that she is okay, that had kept me wondering for some time.

It is great to have friends, and it is a great pleasure to appreciate and to be appreciated.

I guess that most of us have experienced this kind of down, gloomy feelings. During my youth days, I had also felt like the whole world is worthless and no one seems to understand me. It happens for a variety of reasons such as when a relationship ends or having problems at work. It happens when things aren't working out as what we had hoped. But as I mentioned earlier, sometimes it just happen for no particular reason.

It is normal for a person to feel sad over a few things in life and I think that it is alright to be down for a while as long as we know that we will get back to normal very soon. The "down" feeling usually disappears after a short duration but we musn't let it be in control, otherwise, it may lead us to depression and stress. Sometimes, I felt more energetic upon recovering from this down situation.

I felt much better today. The down feeling is slowly passing away. However, I'm sure that there will be another time when the cycle changes again and I would feel down in the dumps...

life