Lite n’ Easy – Miss Moneybags.

I was listening to Lite n’ Easy in the cab this morning (101.5 FM in Ipoh, 105.7 FM in the Klang Valley) and they were talking about an email from “Miss Moneybags”.

Miss Moneybags is dating a guy who is “fun, sensitive, and interesting”, but who earns less than her. Their dates tend to be in budget locations, to accommodate his budget, but she is fine with this. Her only problem is that she has tried to pay for their meals a few times, but he has refused to let her do so. She asked Simon and Caroline “at what point does it become OK for the woman to start sharing the cost of the dates”.

I did not have a phone to call in then, so I will just blog my response. I had two issues with this question.

The first was not with the woman or her boyfriend, but with the people whom I heard giving advice before I got out of the cab:
People gave advice in a tone that said “You should share the cost, and not expect to get things paid for for you.” The advice totally missed the issue, which is that the guy does not want Miss Moneybags to pay, and prevents her from doing so. The thinking behind the advice seemed to be that Miss Moneybags was in need of advice and ‘correction’. No, Miss Moneybags is perfectly correct. It is the boyfriend that needs correction.

I think in this day and age, a man who thinks that he must provide everything for his woman and that she will expect him to do so needs his head examined for delusional behavior, and living in a twilight zone with values from 15 years ago.

Woman today can be as assertive and independent as any man. She knows her abilities, and how to use them in her environment. What she needs from her man is not a patronizing, paternalistic attitude, but a partnership. Woman is ready to move (in Miss Moneybags’ case, has already moved) out of the shadow of man and contribute her own perspective to the world. Man now needs to be able to move away from the “me and my woman” mentality.

The attitude of “me and my woman” is not only insulting to woman, but diminishes the worth of man too. It insults woman because the attitude implies that the woman is an extension of the man, or part of, the man’s property. It diminishes man because by treating woman as a vassal or as property, man immediately creates a barrier – the ‘owner’ and the ‘owned’ can never communicate as freely as two equals.

So, I would suggest that Miss Moneybags tread carefully, and find out more about her boyfriends’ perspectives;
Does he expect, perhaps, that she should depend on him for her income after marriage?
Or perhaps he believes she will give up her career to take care of home and children in the future?
Or maybe he does not mind her working, as long as the house is kept clean and dinner is on the table when he gets home?

One of the suggestions given by the callers on the show was “get a pre-nuptial agreement”. To me, this is like planning to fail. Unfortunately, and this is definitely a reflection of where our society is heading, failed marriages are becoming entirely too common. So even though it goes against the grain for me, I must admit that might be good advice.

All my best to Miss Moneybags, and I hope things work out well for her.

Not Leaving a job.

From an old friend, I got the following email:

Hi Cicak-Man,

I have just continued reading your 'beloved masterpiece'. ..blah.. ..blah.. ..blah.. Coffee-drinker has also made up his mind to leave ACME to venture into another company/place. I have been working closely with him for the past Y years!

So I refresh my memory by going thro' your 'Leaving A Job'. Wish I have the opportunity to do the same.
For the past XX years, I think I have at least 6 good and close friends who have left this dept and yet I am still here. Something must be very wrong with me, do u agree?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Warmest Regards,
She-Ra

My response to She-Ra is;

Hello She-Ra,

By no means should you think that there is something wrong with you. In fact, you are possibly closer to the “normal” behavior than the rest of us who have been hopping jobs. There are a lot of issues to be faced by someone moving jobs, and it is not an easy decision. So there is nothing wrong with a person choosing to be certain of their environment, rather than take a risk and venture into the unknown.

Many people will say – and I do too, to a certain extent, that we all have to get out of our ‘comfort zone’ and try something new, or, like in my blog, one should not stay in a place that makes one unhappy - - - but understand this; all these statements are general, sweeping comments, and by their nature can not apply to all people. Every person has to balance his or her own needs and ambitions against those of the family, spouse and children. (In typical unfair fashion, our patriarchal society expects the women to do this, but I believe this applies to men as well, and I do know men who follow this philosophy.) Wanting a better job sometimes needs to take a back seat to bringing up the children, or supporting a spouse who has a better paying, but also high stressed job, or taking care of elderly parents.

So who has a right to judge if you have been doing the right or wrong thing? No one, not even you. You have been making the best decisions you can, based on all that you know for XX years. Be happy with what has passed, and don’t make the mistake of looking back and asking “What if…?” That is perhaps the last trump card the devil will play, when he fails to destroy you though greed, lust, and pride. “What if…?” can sour decades of happy family life, waste a long and productive career, and empty a retirement fund that took a lifetime to save.

Look back, and savor the good things and good experiences you have had; looking out over 2 oceans from Table Mountain, shopping in Los Angeles, riding the Metro in Paris. Learn from the mistakes you have made along the way. Try something new today if you want to. But never regret.

Regards,
Cicak-Man

How To Shower Like a Man

(No, Sweetie, I didn't write this either. It came in the same mail as the "woman" one.)

Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile. Walk naked to the bathroom. If you see wife along the way, shake willy at her making the 'woo-woo' sound.
Look at your manly physique in the mirror.
Admire the size of your willy and scratch your bum.
Get in the shower.
Wash your face. Wash your armpits.
Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off.
Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.
Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area. Wash your hair.
Make a Shampoo Mohican with your hair.
Pee.
Rinse off and get out of shower.
Partially dry off.
Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of bath the whole time.
Admire willy size in mirror again.
Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on.
Return to bedroom with towel around waist. If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake willy at her and make the 'woo-woo' sound again.
Throw wet towel on bed.

How To Shower Like a Woman

(No sweetie, I didn't write this - it was emailed to me)

Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks.
Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Look at your womanly physique in the mirror - make mental note to do more sit-ups / leg-lifts, etc.
Get in the shower.
Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth.
Use long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.
Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.
Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.
Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner enhanced.
Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red.
Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.
Rinse conditioner off hair.
Shave armpits and legs.
Turn off shower.
Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower.
Spray mold spots with Mr Muscle Bathrooms.
Get out of shower.
Dry with towel the size of a small country.
Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.
Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

More readers!!!

Well well well..!! It looks like "Vroom" has also started reading my blog. He called and asked about job opportunities, and sent me his resume....
(Yeah sure - like I can make decisions on anything more than which button on the coffee machine I am going to push. Still, one should help one's friends, so I passed his resume over to HR.)

Anyway - he had some good things to say about this blog, so THANK YOU "Vroom", and keep reading. Hope to keep you entertained.

This pushes my official readership number up 50% to a massive total of 3.
Assuming, of course, Kyun and Phillipi still check out these pages....
But wait. I just got a note from Jan saying he will read this too.
OOh la la !! 200% readership increase in the month of Jan 2007. Things are looking good.

Guess this means I have to get off my fat a** and actually start writing on a more regular basis.
Would be nice to get comments posted once in a while...

Where's my Breakfast?

"P" has gone on this health program, which consists of having muesli and low-fat milk for breakfast. He may have bak-kut-teh with us for lunch, but his breakfast will be a healthy bowl of cereal. I suppose he doesn't care if angles weep in the afternoon, as long as they sang in the morning when they saw him at breakfast.

I thought about it, and decided breakfast time was a good place in the schedule to start my own health program: a.k.a. "Loose some weight before none of my office pants fit around my jelly belly." I have been adding on the padding lately - actually, ever since NOV 2005 when mum passed away. No, I dont want to go into that now - back to the breakfast.

So over the weekend, I shopped for a couple or cartons of FULL CREAM MILK. Why not low fat you ask? Well, there was this health article I read once (sorry - no web references of the original article; it was hardcopy, and some time ago. But this might help.) that said the cream does not actually affect the body negatively, and the calcium is good for you.
Anyway - I got a couple of cartons - 2 litres total. Then I dug in my cupboard and unearthed those boxes of 'healthy cereal' that I bought months ago... (oops - 1 has expired. but only 1 month ago. OK, still edible by my standards.) What! you'd throw it away? check first man... its possible that it could still be good after the expiry date, just as its possible that it could have gone bad BEFORE the expiry date.
Anyway - I got the milk and the cereal, and loaded it into a duffle bag. A bright red one, so I would not miss it Monday morning. I put it at the front door, so that I would not miss it Monday morning.
Today (Monday, 04 Dec), I dressed, brushed my hair, combed my teeth, packed my office bag, and sailed out the door. 45 minutes later, leaving the car park and walking into the office, I remembered the red duffle bag.

Apple Ad's

Why dont they show these ad's in Malaysia?

These Apple ad's are so entertaining while maintaining an element of truth, it makes me wonder why we still use PC's.

Here's just one of the many in YOUTUBE.

Leaving a job

It is not an easy decision to leave a great company. And yet, people being people, there is no way anything could be perfect: even a great company will have areas that need improvement, or where things are simply not being done right. And so the question is;
“Would you stay in an environment that makes you unhappy, or would you go searching for a new environment in the hope that the future might be better than the past?”
That’s a tough question, and an important question, and like all important questions it has no simple, one-dimensional answer.

To me, it is a matter of degree. I have worked in 6 (six) different organizations in the last 20 years. My longest service: almost 9 years. My shortest service: 1 month. In all cases, the key motivating “push” that started me looking outside was that there was no satisfaction at the end of the day when I packed up to go home. But don’t get me wrong – we all have days when we go home disappointed. We all have bad days – that’s why Daniel Powter’s song rings so true in our ears.

But we pick up the pieces, find a resolution or work-around, and things start moving again.

Sometimes, though, there is no resolution, no work-around. People want to do things in a certain way, and no amount of psychology or rationalization or cajoling from your favorite manager can make you forget that in your heart of hearts, this is wrong. Now - to quit for ONE reason seems petty. But things can start to add up, like a mountain of small boulders that finally becomes too tiresome or too stressful to scale day after day.

And so, I found one day that I was exhausted, wanting to go home, but staying in the office till 10pm putting together information that I really thought someone else should have done if they had done their jobs end-to-end and not just piecemeal. That was the day I seriously decided I would accept the next reasonable offer I got (I had already declined one job offer).

So that’s how I started looking out. How I got my new job? Well, that’s another story.

Kill the blog!

Hello again.
My last update was 16Aug, and today is 13Oct.. almost 2 whole months, but it seems like 2 whole years. !!
There have been many changes in my life in just 2 months, but the big ones will have to wait till I have more time to formulate a coherent story.

For now, I only wish to mark the passing of a small yet somehow significant event:
I had another blog - "Absolute Rubbish" I called it, and in retrospect, I realise that my entries there were exactly that - absolute rubbish.
So it is now deleted - there are more important things to do than to dwell on absolute rubbish.

Company IDOL

They are doing it again.
The "Company IDOL" competiion.
Last time, I didn't quite crash and burn, but I didn't get through to the finals either. In fact, I was so terrified at the audition, I tough I'd turn blue from not breathing in enough oxygen.
This is a source of embarrasment. In other situations, as a volunteer, I have sung for free in front of audiences of several hundred, without batting an eyelid..... and here in front of 50 of my collegues, I was scared witless. Of course, the fact that I was being evaluated, and that there was a CASH PRIZE up for grabs did put on the preassure.

Well, this time, my friends, I have more realistic targets: I aim to sing my chosen song without getting too nervous. Ridiculous you say? Well, I would agree, except for my remembering my terror the last time. So forget about the finals, or the grand prize of a 32-inch TV. I aim to have fun, and maybe entertain some people while I am at it.

Any suggestions what I should sing?

JULY 11 at JPN

This was a day to be remembered:
July 11th 2006 - the day I went to the National Registration Department (Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara) to have my "race" changed from "Chinese" to what I really am.....

How on earth could they make a mistake like that? I brought my birth certificate as proof. What I learned was interesting and horrible.

"Your original record says you are Chinese sir" said the lady. How could that be, since my original (pre-MYKAD) i.c. listed my race correctly?
"Well, I am looking at your original record in the system, and it says you are Chinese. Before MYKAD, changes to your status were sometimes not updated into the system." Now how would a person be able to change his RACE to something else? And can you not see it written CLEARLY on my birth certificate what race I am?

She took my application and my Birth Certificate into a room, and came out a few minutes later - I believe this was to get approval from an officer to waive the RM10.00 charge for making changes to your MYKAD.

After me, 2 sisters were trying to change their religion from Buddhist to Christian. One had a certificate of baptism dating from 1 month after her birth. They said their parents were both Christian, and they both had been baptised within months of birth.

"Your original record says you are Buddhist. We will always follow your parents religion, and since you are Chinese you must be Buddhist." No, the sisters said, our parents were always Christian.
"Your registration was when you were still a baby - how can you know if your parents were Buddhist or someting else?"
I was so shocked at this senseless statement I had to pay attention. As it turned out, the sisters were asked to pay RM10 each for the change in MYKAD information. The JPN staff refused to accept that it was their error. If the sisters insisted, they would have to wait for "the officer". Where was this officer?
"He is attending a tribunal now. You can't expect him to come out to handle your problem. He maybe will be finished at 12 noon (thats in 2.5 hours). Otherwise, you have to pay the RM10."

I only escaped paying a penalty because I had a government document, my birth certificate, as proof. These ladies had a church certificate dating back to 196x and it was not accepted. The JPN has stated in the newspaprers that citizens need not pay the fee if the error is the fault of the JPN. But note well: your birth certificate does not document your religion. For all those with a wrong religion in their MYKAD (a church I know recorded about 30% of its people having MYKAD errors), a penalty will still be extracted, because JPN will not recognise your other documents.

Still worse: the counter staff insisted to both me and the 2 sisters that the MYKAD followed the original record. And yet, our old (pre-MYKAD) I.C. had no errors. This means that the JPN data was wrong from the point where it was converted from paper documents into computer records. Judging from the experience of the church I mentioned earlier, this means that for non Malays, we may have 30% of the population with MYKAD errors.

And another thing: If JPN was going to ignore everything we wrote in the form when we applied for our MYKAD, then why have a form at all? Why should we give the correct information, and still be provided with wrong information in our MYKAD? Was it so that people would believe that they were being given what they had written down?

The JPN office I was in had a machine in the corner that could read the MYKAD. Good, I thought, it helps people check the contents. But when I tried it, it only showed a scanned image of my MYKAD, not the encoded information or religion and race that is not printed on the card. This is not only useless, it borders on criminal negligence - giving citizens the impression that all is well, but hiding the information that might be (and for 30% of us, may well be) wrong.

JPN should change its operations IMMEDIATELY, and accept proof provided by citizens about their race and religion. JPN must establish a process to print ALL details of a MYKAD and provided them to the citizen at the point of collection of their MYKAD.
Our schools must STOP teaching this crap that a person's racr automatically fixes their religion. I have met children who have been told as much: an Indian is a Hindu, a Chinese is a Buddhist, a Malay is a Muslim. I dont know what the 'others' end up as; Christian I suppose. What about Ceylonese Buddhists? Chinese Taoists / Christians / Muslims? Ah - becoming a Muslim is "masuk Melayu". Wrong! And we must get that phrase out of our language. It says nothing that is true.

IT skills shortage — fact or fiction?

Here's an interesting article.... one of many I saw on digg.com. Thanks K for introducing me to the site.

Basically, Linda Musthaler makes a case - and a good one I think - for blaming the lack of available IT skills on the avarice of corporations. This is something close to my heart too. No, not because I got laid off, but because I believe it IS a cold blooded way to operate when the accountants look at the bottom line, and then tell the KL branch manager "Look, your GP isn't double digit - give 3% of your staff their walking papers."

Of course, the fault (if such a deep, systemic, fundamental can be called a fault) is not purely with the corporation or the accountants. Responsibility also is shared by us shareholders. Why? Because if a stock does not perform, you unload it of course.

"Dear stockholder. Despite a 30% growth in revenue, there are indications that the projected 33% growth in GP may not be achieved in the near term.

This will be corrected in the next reporting period, however, as the corporation is taking prudent steps to improve our control posture in expenses.

Your sister Mavis and uncle Martin are being laid off with 498 other employees next week."

iTalk: The New Mobile Phone from Apple?

What if Apple created a mobile phone?
What if it was also an iPOD?
What if it had a camera and PDA function?

UTUBE has an entry that breathes life into these "what-if's" . Let me tell you, it blew my mind! The simulated ad is remarkably Zen, and yet succeeds in delivering a dream of technology convergence that will make you drool from the corners of you mouth, or dribble from the tip of ... well, never mind.

Just remember to read the intro text - this is fiction. At least, until Apple works out the bugs......

Procrastination #2, and a job interview.

This is better than the little verse i penned some time ago. But this time, it's not original. Thanks to the G-man for brightening up my day.
(the usual caveats - I do not own the rights to this, and I dont know if this is really public domain - i got it via email. If this infringes on anyone's copyright, please inform me and I will remove this picture immediately)

In other developments, I have (sort of) re-entered the job market - was called for an interview last Friday.
The guy was really friendly, partly because we had previously met (years ago) and he knew me by reputation (some of it good, judging from the way it went).
Anyway, this is a job that will throw me back into a purely technical job. And here I have been slowly learning how to think in terms of process and management.
Well - I will have to wait and see if they make an offer. Meantime, I should really think more deeply if I want to go back into being technical, or moving on into management.

Sweet dreams...

Where email jokes come from.

Do you ever wonder where email jokes come from?
At least once a week, i get spammed by a friend with a joke that has been making the email circuit. Sometimes these are jokes I saw 2 or 3 years ago, but are rolling through new audiences.
Well, I may have found the home base of at least SOME of those old (yet undeniably funny - the 1st time you read them) jokes.
Here it is: the

Owain F Carter

homepage. Below are a couple of jokes I remember reading in email:
The Bank of Canada's president's balls - love this one....
Special High Intensity Training - I read this before 1997. Thats how old this stuff can be.And here is something new (to me at least)
Student Bloopers — History of the World.

Enjoy....

Why Is It Malaysians dont want to come home? #2

One more thing I thought I'd like to blog about.... below is an article from the SUN news service. To see the page I got it from, go [here].
==================start of paste===========================
An open letter to the PM
Jacqueline Ann Surin

Dear Prime Minister Abdullah, When you first came into power after the 2004 general election, you promised us that you would be prime minister for all Malaysians.

In fact, I still have the letter you sent out to voters before the elections that promised you would fulfill your duties with sincerity, integrity, efficiency and fairness.

It was a letter that moved people, including staunch Opposition supporters.

There was hope that a new leadership which was more conciliatory, more willing to listen to differing views and more just was in store for the country.

And people invested in that hope by voting the Barisan Nasional back into power with a clear majority.

But recent events, including your administration's reactions to these events, have been deeply troubling.

The most recent has been the disruption of a peaceful and legitimate public forum in Penang organised by a group of non-governmental organisations that wanted to help people reclaim their rights under the Federal Constitution.

It was unfortunate, but really no longer inconceivable, that those who opposed such a civil discussion should frame their opposition in ways that incite hostility, threaten violence and make false accusations in the name of Islam, a religion that in fact promotes peace and justice.

What is actually more troubling is that as prime minister, you have also publicly announced that these issues of Constitutional rights are "sensitive" and the organisers of such events must be careful not to tread on "dangerous ground", lest the government has to use the Sedition Act against them.

Why would you lend legitimacy to the argument that Malaysians should steer clear of discussing issues which affect us all as citizens, whether Muslim or non-Muslim?

By continuously telling Malaysians these issues are "sensitive" and "dangerous", isn't your administration really creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? Aren't you in fact supporting the argument that these issues should not be discussed?

Additionally, Malaysians have been reminded by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz that it's not for no reason that the word "amok" comes from the Malay community.

Non-Muslims - and that easily translates to non-Malays in this country - are told we cannot speak out about the way Islam is used to formulate laws and public policies in this country even though they affect all of us.

We are told that not just the Sedition Act can be used, so can the Internal Security Act which allows for detention without trial.

In fact, I found it deeply paradoxical that Nazri could repeat the threat of the ISA at an international meeting of experts on Islam and human rights last month.

How can an unjust law be Islamic? We know it cannot, and yet, it would seem your administration is wielding it as a way to silence citizens in a democracy.

The way I see it, naming something "sensitive" and "dangerous" is just a disingenuous way of saying, "This is not open for dialogue and discussion. We might tolerate your views but only to a certain extent."

What that extent is, is left to be seen. We hope your election promises will be kept for all Malaysians, but really, many of us are more fearful than reassured.

From a non-Muslim perspective, the events leading up to the need for public discussions such as the Article 11 forum in Penang, have been disconcerting and troubling.

The painful injustice suffered by S. Shamala who found that her estranged husband could unilaterally convert their children to Islam, and the widow of M. Moorthy who discovered she could not bury her husband according to Hindu rights, are real and frightening.

But those instances of injustice are not being framed as "sensitive" by non-Muslims. They are not being used to threaten violence or incite hostility in order to silence discussion of the issues at hand.

Additionally, when you upheld the decision for the tudung to be used in police parades, did you consider how it would make non-Muslims feel? How can it still be a surprise then that most non-Malays will not join the police force?

Really, I don't need to be a Muslim or a Malay to have a stake in this country. But even that might be delegitimised because in more ways than one, I'm a minority.

And I'm constantly reminded that my views and concerns must give way to the privileges and rights of the dominant race, and a specific interpretation of the faith they profess.

But really what I want to ask you is this: Why do I have to constantly feel afraid in my own country? Why am I continuously told I have less rights to discuss important issues affecting my community?

You promised to be prime minister for all Malaysians. We hope you will remember that promise.

A Malaysian citizen.

Jacqueline Ann Surin believes that you cannot be neutral on a moving train. She is an assistant news editor at theSun.

Updated: 04:32PM Thu, 01 Jun 2006
==================end of paste===========================

Manigorament - Management from a position of ignorance.

Is this an ASEAN or Malaysian trend? Perhaps not, since DILBERT documents the same trends in corporate America.

I see management investing enthusiastically in the development of Managers, and managemet skills. All employees have been instructed to bone up on their 'core skills' of
1. communication
2. taking leadership
3. teamwork

Now the joke:
When a review was done in my location, and gaps were found in key implementation areas, we got the attention of powerful people all the way up to Asian HQ. There must be 5 levels of managers tracking our progress to close the gaps. More spreadsheets, more reports every week, more people calling or dropping by to check your progress.

But there has been not one mention, not one chirp, of technical skills training to make sure the technical grunts know exactly what is required of them, and how to achieve it. The excuse/mantra used is "you are the S.M.E. (subject matter expert) for that system, you should know how it's done". Yeah - right. But you gave me this checklist of system settings.... and your policy is not to know how to implement it?

ok, ok, to be fair, there was the telecon with the Australian who gave us a 1 hour overview of how to implement XXX and YYY. But what we need is a skilled person HERE, on site, to lead the project. We are still grappling with how the technology works.

I still feel we are recreating the wheel. And the reason we are doing that, is that there are more people telling us what gaps to close, than there are people who can show us exactly HOW to go about closing the gaps.

Corporate life sucks. If I had a million bucks, I might just quit and become a voluntary Sunday School Teacher.

Why is it Malaysians dont want to come home?

This has been in the papers recently, not without the requisite self-righteous opinions hinting that people may be less than patriotic, or are greedy, or are lazy (yeah, sure - like lazy people have much easier lives in the US and UK).

But basically, for me, the reason people dont want to come home is in the papers every day.

Opaque government (and this is only a miniscule example).

Processes that victimise the people (rakyat), and protect incompetence.

The reported ability of some to ask customs to ignore illegal activities
( background on the above )

The ability of government to ignore the plight of the poor.

The triumph of narrow mindedness over rationality. (links are not in chronological order)
1. Film does not glorify Chin Peng
2. Government will decide on screening of film, not Umno
3. View screening of "Last Communist" with an open mind
4. Differing views after MPs watch The Last Communist
5. It’s the end for The Last Communist

All this appears in the papers on a daily basis - and yet we can not guess why Malaysians dont want to come home?
come ON.

RSS settings

Updated RSS settings - now you get the full blog entry on RSS. Per request by 50% of my readership...
(he asked for it this afternoon)
:)

How to loose a friend

I guess we all have our own patented ways to loose a friend, and for the most part, these ways are all intended or willful.

My way is different. My way, I am trying to help, and to be a good friend, but I make such an ass of myself that it ends up pushing the other person away. This is how you can loose a friend:

Wait till he has a problem with someone else he knows. This will happen eventually, since every relationship goes through both good and bad times. Then, make it your business to 'resolve' the conflict. Offer to bring the 2 parties together. Perhaps over dinner or lunch. Offer to arbitrate and help them understand each other. Unless you are a psychologist, with a known track record for resolving conflict, your friend will likely decline to let you wash his dirty laundry for him...

Now here's the clincher...

Be persistent. If you can not convince him to let you solve his problems, then hint vaguely that he is too proud, or to stubborn, or whatever....
And there you have it - one friendship down the drain, and not because of him, but because you were an insensitive asshole and just assumed you could solve other peoples problems for them.

But there's more.....

Invite him over to join your family for a holiday celebration - say Christmas or Hari Raya or Chinese New Year.... the dynamics of such celebrations are always focussed on family, so making such an invitation is fraught with risk and assumptions. More likely than not, your 'good' intention will offend your friend for any number of reasons, and that would put the proverbial last nail into the coffin of your friendship.

How do I know all this? - well, I am guessing, but then he has not accepted my dinner invitations for a long time already, and I dont think it is purely because he is busy.

I'm sorry Al, I was an asshole. Twice. Forgive me?