APC(Anugerah Perkhidmatan Cemerlang/Outstanding Service Award)

Last Wednesday, Mr. Choo, a colleague of mine, cried foul over my Principal's decision to give a teacher an outstanding service award in the teachers' staffroom.

" I should have been given the award. Mr. John did not do anything that benefited the school last year!" said Mr. Choo, fuming. He always takes a vociferous stand against anything which he deems unfair.

"How did the Principal react when he heard that from you?" asked a lady.

"He told me that Mr. John was a more deserving recipient because he contributed to the 100 percent passes for the Art subject in last year's SPM Examination," he answered,raising his voice. "but he taught only one of the six classes that sat for the examination. And I taught five of them!"

"How unfair it is. Of all I know, Mr. John even asked you to give his students extra-classes several months before the examination." said Jenny, the lady teacher.

"You practically taught all of them," A male teacher chimed in.

"Both of you hit the nail right on the head," said Mr. Choo. " The reason given by the Principal was not making sense. It was pure rubbish!"

"Calm down, Mr. Choo," advised Jenny." don't take the award too seriously."

"How can I calm down?" hissed Mr. Choo. " The Principal has exercised great injustice! He totally overlooked all my contributions last year." In anger, he threw his book to the floor.

Everyone was stunned by his outburst of emotion, not knowing how to answer him.

"Last year," he continued," I also helped to settle the school's debts by successfully getting many big companies to advertise in our school magazine. Was my gesture not good enough to qualify me for the award?" he posed the question to those who cared to listen to him.

The same silence ruled over the staffroom. We were too afraid to give our own opinions.

Seeing no one respond to him, Mr. Choo's face twitched and he curled his hand up into a fist.In a stern, determined voice, he said:

"In the upcoming staff meeting, I will bring up the matter and see how the hypocrite responds to it in front of everyone. He is only good at killing motivation. He's nothing but the deadwood of our organization!"

With that, he turned on his heel and walked out of the staffroom, leaving some colleagues murmuring among themselves. I remained quiet throughout the whole thing.

My sympathies are with Mr. Choo, but I doubt his planned showdown at the next staff meeting will have the desired effect. He just doesn't fit into the Principal's elite circle of cronies and sycophants. And there's very little he can do about it.