2 bitters & a sweet thang

Whoa. Can't believe it's April already. What did the last month bring?

Well, March was a bittersweet journey for me. Actually, more bitter than it was sweet.

First bitter issue in the month of March: work. The bosses are hiking up the stress levels, pressuring each and every member of my team to come up with award-winning creatives. The shittier part is, we have two bosses to go through—Ms Creative Director, and her big boss, Mr Executive Creative Director. And these two are as similar as night is to day, i.e. the former’s idea of a kick-ass idea is the latter’s yawn-inducer. And we gotta please both of them. Near-impossible task, people. Tension tension tension.

On top of that, I am still on contract. It’ll be two years come June. Meaning, I haven’t had any annual leave for almost 24 months. Meaning, whenever I go MIA, it’s on unpaid leave. Meaning, not only do I have to pay for my own medical bills, but when I’m on MC, I get zilch. Meaning, I think I’m shortchanged here.

Their excuse? Headcount issues. My take? My ass! I’m the only writer on my team, they obviously need me, and they can still hide behind this lame-ass justification? Puh-lease. Friggin cheapskates.

Anyways, on to my second bitter highlight en el mes de marzo. My true passion, futsal. My team have been working our butts off for this one particular annual ladies-only tournament, sponsored by popular TV show 3R. This year, the 3R tournament entered its third edition. You’d think that it could only be better than last year’s right? WRONG. To cut a super-long story short, the organisers of this year’s don’t give two shits about how far the local ladies futsal has come. We paid them for a futsal tournament, they gave us a triathlon instead.

The preliminaries were held at the usual futsal venue in Sunway. Prior to that, a manager’s meeting was held. Typically, this is an avenue for discussion between team managers/captains and the organisers. This time, however, it was more a one-way street—the organisers announced the way they wanted the tournament to run, and no worries nor suggestions were entertained.

Tournament day came, prelims played. Representatives from the last ten remaining teams (out of 60) stayed for the manager’s meeting. Again, it was a one-way communication. What’s worse, the organisers couldn’t even agree on a format, and were screaming at each other like little brats.

Worst still, the organisers announced that the ten finalists would not be playing futsal per se at the (so-called) Grand Finals, scheduled for two weeks after. Why? Because the organisers wanted to “showcase” ladies futsal to the public by having the Grand Finals at Berjaya Times Square. INSIDE Berjaya Times Square.

Meaning, the court size was a joke. Worst still, the rules were an even bigger joke. It was a mish-mash of sports… Borrowing the words of the Fly FM promo, “Made from 80% street soccer, three cubes of futsal, a little hockey, and voila!”

I kid you not. In the supposed interest of “protecting” the players, we futsallers were forced to play a game which we aren't familiar with. Kick-off the futsal way. The rest of the rules, follow street soccer, i.e. no entering the D, keepers can’t defend outside her D, keepers can’t throw in, oh, and kick-ins within close proximity only, a la like hockey. WTF?

On top of that, the intelligent organisers refused to pay extra to put upper netting. Meaning, they couldn’t give two cahoots about safety. I mean, come on, this is a game of ball. It don’t take no fortune teller to foresee that without upper netting, the ball might just bloody well go up so high, it’ll break something. Or worst still, some poor child’s head. But nooo, the organisers are too dense to think of such things. Anyways, halfway through our Grand Final games, organisers called for a short meeting with team managers.

“You guys have to keep the ball low. Please control your shots. Berjaya have warned us that if the ball goes over once more, they might just put a halt to today’s event. Please help us out, yeah, or else if anything breaks, we organisers gotta pay for it.”

The nerve! When we demanded “why didn’t you put upper netting?!” they just did what they do best—ignore.

Now you tell me. How are we supposed to play our usual game of futsal—the thing we’ve been working at for the past three-or-so years—with such restrictions?

And the golden question: how do they expect people to take our beloved local ladies futsal seriously when they witness such idiocy (i.e. a banner that says “Grand Finals of Ladies Futsal” but see us ladies playing, in the words of the ref, “like a bunch of piranhas attacking the ball”)? Very, very upsetting this.

Thanks gosh for my sweet thang au mois de marche. Can’t really get too much into this just yet, but let’s just say this wildcat has finally found a home that she's comfortable in. Purr ;)