A Job

I’ve just accepted a free-lance job from one of my colleagues.

She’s right now in the process of acquiring an existing business that provides a full range of beauty treatments and she wants a new ‘look’ for it. So she asks me to do that for her.

‘I want to talk business with you,’ was how she started as she walked into my office.

She didn’t go a lot into the style that she wants. In fact, she didn’t say about it at all. But she did say she wants a new logo, a cool font for the business’ name and a signboard design.

‘You do what you want’, she said. Which is a lot, I thought to myself. I guess it’s for the better. Gives me a lot more leeway to explore what I think would be the right look for this beauty business of hers, an industry which I had absolutely ZERO experience with, personally and professionally.

And the punchline: ‘So later you tell me how you want to be paid, okay?’ she said as she started to go out the door. In a split second, she turns back and added, ‘But jangan terlampau mahal lah.’ Which is Malay for ‘But not too expensive lah.’

I like it when they are forward like that.

I didn’t need to think too long about it. I didn’t want monetary reward for this job.

I told her to come back, tore a scrap of paper from my notebook and scribbled:

EXERCISE MAT

PAIR OF 2.5 KG DUMBBELLS

PAIR OF 5 KG DUMBBELLS.

‘Cheh, so little?! That’s it? You can buy these things very cheap from sporting stores,’ she said after a glance at the list.

I wanted those things because I’d just started working out in my room. The dumbbells are pretty obvious but I needed the mat because I’ve been resorting to using bath towels to line the floor and that isn’t such a good idea.

I just grinned at her and told her to check the prices out first. Because if those things are as cheap as she said, I’d want to add on some items to bring the ‘remuneration’ up to a reasonable level.

Bah, boleh bah kalau kau, was what she said before going back to her desk. Loosely translated to ‘Can if you.’

I winked at her and went back to what I was doing on the computer.