People do play tricks

After a week-long Gawai break, we were back in the meeting room. The LAF (Lembaga Akademik Fakulti) meeting was held this morning. This is one important meeting not to be missed. I have been planning for months to present our newly-reviewed diploma curriculum—Diploma in Computer Science. It is one of the oldest programs in UiTM. I am honored to be part of the evolution process of DCS.As I studied the curriculum, I saw many flaws and shortcomings. It’s like mending an old house—you renovate the kitchen at one point, and then the living room for the coming Raya, or extending the bedroom for more space etc. The house does not look better but it serves the ever-growing needs of the family. That what happened to our DCS. Over the years we changed this and that to meet certain purposes or solved problems but had never been successfully reviewed the curriculum thoroughly. I am not gonna try to do it either because it is a never-ending task. Anyway, my presentation at the meeting was okay—so I thought. I could have never imagined that today I would learn another lesson in board room meeting—people do play shit. I brought into the meeting a proposal of a new curriculum that we have put a lot of man hours into it. Workshops , meetings, debates and discussions have been initiated to come up with this proposal. I have put a lot of time putting together the bits and pieces to support our arguments. Today I learned that those are shits that people like to play around in a board meeting.  I was speechless to see my words were twisted around, my arguments were not seen and understood and my justifications were irrelevant most of the time. I learnt today that you don’t go into a meeting with a big pile of working papers or properly aligned documents. It’s like a kid going to the football field in the kampung wearing soccer boots, knee pads and guards where as the other kids are playing with kaki ayam—they will create a whole new game to make you look like an ass. The same thing happened in the board meeting today, I was stunned as the others were playing a whole new ball game. I just did not understand at all. I was cornered last time in the same board meeting and now again in this meeting. I feel so stupid as I could never learn my way around this game in a board meeting. How do you feel when your own buddy  had turned  against you…hey wait a minute you said something else last time….nothing can help you now…as if you were alone in a crowded room, gasping for air to nurture your disbelief of the circumstances.

I went on trying to get a new footing in this mad and noisy situation but nothing helped as if I went deeper and deeper into a shit hole. What went wrong? I don’t have the answer but I know I don’t have something that I should have—and I don’t know what that is. I thought democracy plays well in a board meeting—nope, that’s how they will officially kill you or make you suffer by sending you away with a big question mark and ask you to come back and ask the same question again and again. I thought having friends would save my ass, nope people see that as an opportunity to gang up that would include everyone else but you. I thought a good paper work will strengthen your argument ; nope, they will play around with your words and plans until the whole thing collapsed. I am really confused. Now I have to go back and explain the whole thing to my department and get another round of kick-ass thingy.  How positive can I be at this point and time ? am I being punished or something?

So far I am still at it trying to get through. Deep down I know there are answers to all those questions. And I know I will get to them eventually….in my own way. Maybe I need that X-factor the next time I walk into the meeting room.—whatever that is. Or maybe I just keep talking until someone listens ……

By the way, good luck in your next meeting.