Old Colleagues

There is a colleague at work who is quite old but he picks things up very quickly. However he talks a lot and has a tendency to encroach on other people’s roles. “He knows a lot,” I said to myself, “but he throws some terms around that are not exactly correct. He likes to correct people though, when he knows he is in the right.”

Wait a minute, that sounds a little bit like me!

There’s another acquaintance who also talks a lot, and sometimes he speaks cynically. He is also very clever and I respect him a lot. Sometimes though he voices out uncomfortable truths about the industry.

These two gentlemen are among the many senior professionals that I have met working in the UK, and I believe there are more here compared to the ones in Malaysia, mainly because you can’t progress career-wise in Malaysia, unless you jump from an engineering role to a managerial role. Here you can still get by with the salary, by just working as a senior engineer (or other professional), but of course becoming a manager brings more benefits.

Looking at these people, makes me wonder how I would be when I grow old(er). Would I be a jaded old man, quietly grumbling at younger colleagues, or would I be complaining and comparing to my good-old days? I remember one of my brothers said to me, when our mother was lecturing us, he said that our mother was overreacting and we should not be like that when we get old. He added too that there’s nothing wrong with our mom and that’s the way she is, but we should not be the same too when we get older. Ironically he passed away when he was in his mid thirties.

To my future self, keep trying to become a better a person, and to my current self, keep trying to become a better person too. Because trying doesn’t need to wait.

Thank you for reading.