12 A Day Out With A Friend

Our conversations often strayed into office politics. It is not a strange thing in the corporate world. Sometimes it gets ridiculously ugly with management turning a blind eye to the situation. It's a common story angle told through books and television shows and surprisingly, not very different in real life except less comedic.

We walked around the mall trying to look for a comfortable spot to continue our chat and at the same time have brunch.

" No...she didn't. " I gasped.

" And she had the gall to deny it! " continued my friend, "This, with evidence of her wrongdoing! "

That's the gist of our conversation, not in exact words.
 
Reaching the end of the shopping mall, we noticed some activity going on down below in the open. The Body Shop, working jointly with Free Tree Society Kuala Lumpur, was giving out free plants in conjunction with Earth Day.

The Body Shop - Free Plants For All

We popped in to see if there was anything that interested us. I was surprised to see Sabah Snake Grass. A flood of unpleasant memories washed over me. It was the thing my aunt took to help fight the cancer that was spreading in her body.

I remember it clearly. She was feeling weakened. A fellow cancer fighter who was also on snake grass revealed a little late that he had stopped taking it after his body reacted poorly to it. It seemed that there was a side effect and it hindered his recovery process instead of improving it. My aunt was upset that he didn't feel the need to mention it earlier. She had a hunch that it wasn't doing much for her either. That's the thing with miracle claims of cancer fix-its  - no one really wants to tell the truth out of fear that it will extinguish what little hope that still lights the heart. It could have benefited some people, I wouldn't know, but there shouldn't be a feeling that you can't tell people honestly how it fared in your case.

Free Plants

We left empty-handed, deciding that it would be a nuisance to carry a plant around with us seeing I was without my car that day and she was taking public transport.

Passion Fruit Tree

We walked towards my regular lunch spot. I ordered the usual iced lemon tea and a rice curry set to go with it.

I guess office politics will never really go away especially not in large corporations. There's only so many managerial positions available for people to get promoted into and they get so caught up in the rat race that all they can think of is a job title to impress friends and family, and a salary to afford a fancy home in the city or the suburbs. An unbranded phone wouldn't cut it. Neither would a handbag from Petaling Street. It's all a charade to look successful, and the more desperate ones resort to unsavory methods to stay ahead.

We ended the day thanking each other for a lovely time, both walking away into different directions with a shopping bag in hand, mine with a new black collared tee.