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Showing posts from April, 2013

The wandering eyes, or being too observant..

Malaysians are known to be attentive and observant - well, at least I think so. I remember hearing many people commenting about Malaysians holidaying by the beach, our eyes wander and lock in on attractive and scantily clad ladies. You can view that as being too attracted, or being disrespectful depending on how you look at it. My personal opinion is the latter: at the rate our eyes are going, it feels not just disrespectful, but often annoying. I had a recent encounter when I was out with 2 foreign friends of mine. Not only did we get stares, but followers @@!#!? It felt like the locals have not seen any foreigners before, rightly so they've not but the stares were too annoying and I sincerely hope my guests were not offended by it. I was not too worried for myself, as I was constantly engaging in conversations with them. Not too much we can do unless to change the mindset of the locals. And as long as foreigners are not too offended by us, they should continue to be our ...

Ethical Savings

Rule of the game: save for your company on your entitlements or enjoy it ? As we undergo restructuring and cost savings across the board in many companies, one would think that it is helpful and ethical to save for your company. The savings I'm talking about is the employee entitlements. This will be in monetary form whether its savings on hotels, trips, flight tickets, etc. Unlike the actual cost savings you help the company with that shows up in the p/l or better known as reflection on the bottom line; these cost savings gets a different stand altogether. The actual cost savings can be done with more effective management, better reliability an yields. What are your opinions on this? I've had many experiences throughout my time as a student, a society contributor, a budding entrepreneur-wannabe and most recently as an employee. The fact is, the few hours you put in to try find the extra option of equal quality - well within your entitlement of course, may not be worth ...

Technical appreciation

I often wonder, how is the world so unfair? Basically, whoever that is the first to touch the monetary transaction will be rewarded the most, leaving little for the rest. This happens across industries and governments. It is always the financial-related people who gets the first cut. In my opinion, this is certainly unfair and the highest reward should be given to the manufacturer, the team behind the products. Without any products, there will not be any monetary transactions. The oil traders, the financial analyst... how many times have you heard a scientist or engineer that makes more than bankers? I may be bias in this as I'm an engineer but the amount of work engineers put in, its proper blood and sweat whilst the pretty-boys strut their stuff in nice offices and designer suits. The agricultural industry, one that is more important than anything else, is again, the least profitable. As sustainable as it may sound, it is a far cry from the oil and gas industry or the elect...