Given the freedom to talk about whatever he wanted on his last day at work, Our content intern Lingjie Tuang sneakily tells everyone what we REALLY think of Valentine’s Day.
When the office isn’t busy thinking about new colourways for a Flying Mechanic t-shirt or has some leftover caffeine running in their blood, everyone comes together to talk about important, worldly issues like sneaker drops, spirituality and current events. Any occasion as important as Valentine’s surely has made its way into a casual watercooler conversation at the office.
After plenty of eavesdropping, it wasn’t hard to gather that within these partitioned walls, V-Day was a pretty much universally disliked event. And the reasons we’re about to present aren’t just purely anecdotal, we’ve brought receipts, too.
From an economic standpoint, it wasn’t difficult to pinpoint what the finance folks at PMC had to say. COO Eddie believed that it’s simply not worth having the sight of dead flowers, especially when everything is so expensive. Impermanence is an important lesson, but not in the form of wilting flowers. It’s definitely no wonder that the local demand for roses has dropped, even when prices have been lowered. Mark, our CFO also chimed in with similar frustrations about inflated prices on meals and gifts as a declaration of love. I don’t disagree, though. Gee, what Pandora charm would you like to have this year? And do you start over again with a new bracelet when you have a new boyfriend?
“Spending. And that it happens every year.” expressed Jack, our designer when asked about the worst part of Valentine’s Day.
Julian from Marketing seemed pretty unfazed about the occasion, other than it is a fantastic marketing opportunity to push gifts. His intern Anandh felt like he was at the other end of Julian’s figurative stick, though. As a consumer, he’s definitely felt the immense pressure to succumb to capitalist marketing ploys.
On the socio-cultural side, Fei from Major Drop brought up his rhetorical question of “Guess who’s paying?” when it came to celebrating the occasion. The discussion on gender norms spiralled even further when Lawrence from the Operations team made the bold statement of how some women expect gifts yet fail to return them. Photographer Waqqas just expressed how most people can be romantics on this one day, but be shitty throughout the rest of the year. Nothing mutually exclusive, of course.
At a male-dominated office, the ladies at Pencil Produce make sure they’re heard, loud and clear. When it comes to Valentine’s Day, Mary from Digital Operations along with a few others want love to be celebrated on the daily, and prefers her chocolate without any seasonal branding. Other than joking about the horrors of having Julian as a date, ‘ye mum’ felt rather lethargic about having the need to actively look for the best restaurants, or having the perfect date. She just wants to lay around in her pyjamas.
There’s still a smidgen of love left at Pencil Produce, though. ‘Captain America’ only felt frustrated for not being able to find a girl who he’s able to say “I like you a latte” to, or have Netflix and pizza with. While Shaakir from Operations does not share the same level of hatred as the rest of the company, he does feel annoyed at the hiked up rates of usual hotels he takes his dates to.. for a nice buffet.
We think it’s great if you’re going on a nice date, but don’t throw yourself a pity party if don’t have one. You know it’s never a bad time to bring out that bottle of lotion and tissues — it’s always good to moisturize and dab away the sebum, kids!
