Monday, September 17, 2007

I felt the earth move under my feet

Last Wednesday evening, around 7.15 pm in manager’s fish tank office. Feeling nauseous and stuffy as office air conditioning auto shut off by 6 pm.

Teleconference call with ana* client who went through the report point by point, line by line. I was dying slowly inside. I might not get to eat dinner that night, I thought, all the Shenton restaurants would be closed by the time the client complete his droning. He was beginning to sound foreign.

I felt giddy, damn the client, he’s going to make my head explode. I laid my head on the table. Didn’t help. Ooh the building was moving, I realized slowly…ahhh… that’s why I felt giddy. I walked out of the fish tank and noted all my coworkers looking around, dazed. Whoohoo! Legit excuse to cut off the client.

I yelled over to client who was still online, “We’ll talk tomorrow, we’re leaving the building now!” Client gave a quick ok! His building was moving too.

I grabbed my (really) cute (real) leather hand bag, and wasted a few seconds wondering if I should carry my duty free NZ wine a coworker had bought for me. Nah. Forgot my mobile too.

Laziness overcame life preservation, we took the lift down (from 11th floor), which stopped at almost e-v-e-r-y floor, I felt. Some silly office girl (from the 6th floor office) couldn’t decide if she should run back to grab her wallet, so the lift was held up for another five seconds. I seriously wanted to shove her out of the elevator. Next time, I'll take the stairs, I thought, less aggravation. We made it to the first floor eventually, and headed off for Kopi at a nearby shop house.

That night and the following morning, Singaporeans felt little shakes in their high rise flats and offices, as Indonesia was hit by a series of Richter scale 8 quakes.

2 comments:

fong said...

You're not supposed to take the elevator when there's an earthquake!

Redheels said...

Not earthquake lah. No quakes in Singapore, only shakes and small moves felt in tall buildings on high levels. Mommy and dad slept through each and every one.