The letter R

On Tuesday, I woke up to find Dad still at home, I was kinda surprised and later found out that he and mum had left the house at night to go to the hospital.

Apparently Dad had some breathing problems which he needed to attend to but didn't wanna alert the kids, so he quietly snuck out with mum that night, gave me quite a scare actually.

I later sent him that day to see a traditional doctor to find out more about his problem. Both the hospital and traditional doctor couldn't find anything, and derived to the conclusion that it was stressed.

Tonight I had a really late dinner with him and brought up the issue, apparently he has been rather stressed recently.

The company he's in is apparently downsizing, and has apparently pulled out of a large market, leaving him with a smaller portion of his trade to work with. They also capped off profits to 35% of their usual earnings reduce taxes, making business in the company even lower than usual.

That wasn't the least of his problems though, my Dad's the kind of person who could adapt to a very low-level lifestyle easily, he did grow up from the kampong days after all. A salary drop or even the loss of his job was something he could deal with.

Thing now is that he's been asked to downsize the company further, with the need to retrench workers in the company...a good 2 figure number.

Now my Dad always believed in whatever u do, if its good, you share, if it's bad, don't drag anyone else down with u. I try to adopt his practice from time to time if possible, maybe that's why I'm fine with people who suck up, I always felt that it doesn't concern me and they could carry balls as much as they like as long as they don't cause harm to others.

Right now though, the decision he would have to make involves the livelihood of a number of people, and my Dad never liked making decisions that would ultimately cause harm to them. This apparently was his second time having to retrench anybody, the last time round was 6 years ago, when he wasn't the general manager and had little say in the overall retrenchment.

This time round it's real, and he feels it, it's hard for him, a guy who doesn't like to treat people as figures on a board, to have to retrench people because the numbers don't add up. He'd love to avoid retrenching people altogether but now it's an order coming from a higher authority.

So far since he's come to this company, my Dad has reduced the cost of the company car by switching to a purchased Lexus instead of the monthly rental Volvo which would have cost 3-4 times more in the long run cause it was a rental. I asked why he didn't get the smaller models instead to save more, knowing my dad didn't mind driving small cars, he figured his clients will mind it more than he would.

He's also moved out of the former office space and found the company another location, which dropped rental by more than 70%, so as to save the business some cash.

Still, at the end of the day, the board of people above needed to do more, which resulted in this final ultimatum.

I've always been stressed with school, with projects, assignment, etc...but I know at the end of the day, if I don't do well, it's on me.

Taking on the kinda responsibility Dad has is a totally different issue.

I'm not sure if I can ever have that kinda strength to handle such a situation.