First week of Working at Crop and Food

I work at Crop and Food Research for almost a week now. I'm still adapting to the work environment, the work atmosphere is really laid back, and my supervisor talks alot. Gosh, people are very talkative. The first day of work, morning tea, lunch break, and afternoon tea are very much encouraged to go. I found it very strange and funny because when I was working in Pak'N Save you have the impression that "Dont you even think of having a break!" Haha. But, you know why, they are trying to get you to be sociable, know your colleagues well, cos CFR kinda forming a bit of a community. This is really scary for me. I was not ready to say "Hi" to many "strangers" during morning tea because they are much older than me and most of them know each other very well. So first day work was not good. I was so tense, trying to get and say everything right, and not ready to open myself for others. I've listened to many people in CFR (of course, I had to say hi to a couple of people and talk a wee bit).

I really want to be myself and let them know somehow that I'm a christian and not ashamed of it. Current challenge is to say grace before my lunch. Obviously, you'll be sitting with people that you dont really know and they are your colleagues from different culture and background. There is this fear of being rejected. Last time, I managed to do that in front of my supervisor (which give me such a relief actually) because I have been stressing out if he really knows who am I, he'll probably wont like me. Though very little he knew me, suddenly a person talked about listening a radio in the morning and they got the american church broadcast. My supervisor's reaction was to say "Christians huh, these snobbish evangelists". But, I didnt get to say anything. I was so thankful If I could meet the challenge at the moment to witness Christ through saying grace.

I thought that my supervisor seems to be a carefree person. Eventhough He appears to have long years, He still pursuing career in Food industry. Just strucked by what He said last time that soon a couple of projects will fund him and it'll be the climax of his career. Last week, his mother in law was very sick and getting older. Then I said we are all getting older everyday. But, He said that he is becoming older but I still have a long years to go. I wished I say that "No, we do not know, only If God allows."

I had a chat with his wife which is the lab technician. She said during the morning tea that in every organization you should come for morning tea and that's when you meet people. She then said that it is easier to ask favors to them. The thought of meeting people (socializing) is good but the thought of using others is rather selfish. I thought she'll be a kind of person that is quite perfectionist, you can tell from the way she does the experiments and handling her lab "toys". Well, today i broke seven tubes not in a row though. I tried to fit these tubes to centrifuge bucket and spin them. But, the first centrifugation resulted in two broken tubes. Because the solutions were not separated enough, the tubes were spun again and I did check the fitness of each tube in the bucket. I asked her a couple of times too before running it. After coming back from lunch time, the disaster happened. Another 5 tubes were broken after centrifugation. So, the wife was not happy at all. That's alot of tubes broken in one day. But, my supervisor comforted me, telling me not to worry and it was not my fault. I was so thankful for that cause I was nervous and feeling bad. But, I did not know what was wrong with it and If i was wrong where did I go wrong. Now, they entrusted me plastic tubes instead. We'll see how tomorrow goes.