Tiresome things

I have never felt like I needed a full body massage until today!!!

Had attended a workshop on park management in Malaysia since yesterday. In one breakout session, we had to rate the adequacy of policies related to environment and protected area management. We had a good mix of park managers, private sector consultants as well as forestry and wildlife dept officials. Each point was well debated within the group. However, the government officials successfully insisted that we rate everything as adequate and add our concerns as notes! It was so frustrating I tuned out after a while! It was ridiculous. There was one guy who was so obviously afraid to record anything was amiss when everyone knew there were serious issues regarding staffing, funding, enforcement, etc, etc. God!! I felt like chewing his balding head off!!

At one point I got really mad when he cited his main stakeholders as the Government and political parties. What??? Those self-serving, money grubbing politicians were rated higher than the public you were supposed to serve??? This was the same guy who booted us to another campsite when some bloody VIPs decided to visit. Should we allow this kind of unethical practices? Simple boot the minions aside to accommodate these vultures?? We had gone through so much trouble to make plans, book, arrange for transportation, not to mention the difficulty of getting a time when a mixed, highly international bunch could actually be together; and you spoil everything by giving our booked dorms to some VIP. And he had the cheek to say that as a Muslim I had to accept that it was not my time, tak ada rezeki... What crap is that?? Tak ada rezeki is if I wanted to go on the spot and the place was full. THAT is tak ada rezeki. If I make plans in advance, book, pay, and you simply shunt me off to kiss some guys' butt, YOU are being UNETHICAL. Grrrh!! And thru all this I had to be sweet and nice and gentle because if I showed how annoyed I was, they would simply shut me off and that would be bad for future networking opportunities... Ugh... the price of being female and professional....

But it wasn't all bad. I met some interesting people. I met Hilary Chiew, the Star reporter - I really like her articles. And the award for coolest dude must go to Tg Nazim from MEC. He knew his stuff, sharp and witty. Lean and distinguished, he rides a (motor)bike instead of driving. Excellent dude. Also met a lot of people from various depts, companies and organisations. Thanks, Surin, for inviting RESCU. I owe you one. :-)