Are You Successful?

Helped a friend of mine today.... no, it is neither rare nor remarkable that I help a friend, and that is not the reason for this blog. What is remarkable is that I helped him prepare a write-up for a job application.

He was supposed to say if he thought he is successful, and why... a daunting task to me, because for all I have achieved, my inferiority complexes and neuroses simply dont allow me to easily think of myself in the terms "successful" or "achiever".

But here is my friend, more than a decade my junior, and yet with a clear idea of what he has achieved, how much he has learned, and what abilities he can bring to bear when required. And all this articulated with a simple modesty both refreshing and endearing.

Unfortunately, his first attempt to put it in the written word dissolved into a soup of bombast and vague references..... but then, that was what I was there for.

"Tell me..." I said, "Do you think, for a person your age and with your experience, that you are successful?"

And he talked to me for a full minute in plain, simple truth, before realising that was exactly what he had to write.

Good luck my friend. I see a future leader in you.... would that the world not loose its chance.

The Daily Motivator

A friend sent me this link to "The daily motivator" page....

Although I find the motivational messages a trifle ... how shall I put it .... strained? forced? trite?, the gist of the messages are worth thinking about.....

Hope this link helps you today....

The Kelvinator

I was getting my afternoon cup of coffee when he came into the pantry and beamed at me.... a sure sign of trouble.

"I have decided," he said as he spooned coffee and sugar into his cup, "that I will call you The Kelvinator."

"My name is KELVIN," I said in as frosty a voice as I could manage, "and I do NOT manufacture refrigerators."

"No no no - don't jump to conclusions" he said, "hear me out. This will make people sit up and take notice of you."

"Its something like being called The Terminator, except....." and here I saw the deadly twinkle in his eye "cooler."

Durian Party

(contextual information for non-Malaysians) The Durian (pictured right) is known in Malaysia as the King of fruits. It can be as large as a football, and smells like the sulphur pools of Rotorua on a bad day. Be that as it may, we love it for its buttery flesh and unique sweet taste. Occasionally, an employer will have a 'Durian Party', where baskets of the fruit are brought in to a convenient place and the office folk can stuff themselves silly...... this story happened at one such party.

I believe the supplier was trying to dispose of the smallest fruit first, so after I had patiently waited for my turn I was rewarded with two rather dissapointing specimens. I carried them back to the table where my collegues were waiting to tuck in, and immediately got flack from one of the ladies there:
"Why are your fruits so small?" She said, and looked me square in the eye.

What else can a man do in the face of such provocation?

"Madam," I intoned, "My fruits may be small, but they are exceedingly sweet."

Durian Parties are such fun.

Procrastination

The great liar, the consummate thief, the slow killer.

Procrastination fools you into thinking there is more time than you need.
It lulls you to sleep, makes mediocre books seem facinating, enraptures you with inane sitcoms.
It whispers of sunny skies, laughing children, flying frisbees.

Procrastination steals your energy, channeling it into a thousand distractions.
It robs you of minutes, pockets your hours, gobbles up days.
It diverts your eyes, types url's in your browser, answers your mail.

Procrastination would be your end.
It alienates you from collegues, builds tension with your partner, chases away children.
It makes you work late into the night, increases your BP, triggers those migraines.

Oh why didn't I do this damn report earlier?

Good Bank, Bad Bank

There's a little ditty they're singing in the city.....
No, it doesn't go Om-pah-pah, it goes "Be rewarded, Feel rewarded"
I mention this because the bank advertising with that catchphrase gave me particularly fecal service (almost as bad a Citibank, but that's another story) when I took a car loan from them last year. So much for a so called 'anchor bank'.

My best experiences ever with banks were/are with;
[1] Phileo Allied
Alas, Phileo Allied was violated, pillaged, decimated and digested by a larger bank, and they (and their good service) are never to be seen again.
[2] Alliance Bank
Why do I like them? They know exactly where to invest so that the customer benefits. To be precise, they have a branch in IKANO that's open Sat and Sunday, when we working class drudges have some time to do banking. Even when the branch is closed, they have USEFUL (please note, Mr 'anchor bank') machines, such as cheque payment autotellers so you can pay your loan/credit card easily while doing your weekend shopping. Of course, the cash ATM's are also there.
Even the tiny Alliance branch in TTDI has a cheque payment machine. Certainly this is one bank I would prefer to do business with.

CAVEAT: Excellent impressions aside, one must note that all institutions have their share of dunderheads who make your life difficult. I am not saying Alliance won't botch up YOUR banking experience. What I am saying is; so far, I have had nothing but excellent service from them. Also note that there ARE other banks which have branches in shopping centres.

ASIDE: By the way... the ass who said that 'banks not working on Saturday' would encourage electronic and/or internet banking was thinking with his rectum.
Making my life harder is not 'encouraging' me to use electronic banking.
'Encouragement' would be:

1. Increasing the security and functions available in all banks' internet banking websites, so we have better facilities as well as more peace of mind.
   
2. Making sure the banks take responsibility for their errors. We Malaysians should not have to accept financial institutions' legal disclaimer's that basically say "if ANYTHING goes wrong, it is the customers' fault".
3. Instituting protocols for inter-bank transfers via internet transactions: why can't I pay my VISA bill from 'XYZ' bank using my savings account in 'ABC' bank? I can do this with a cheque, but not a networked computer.
   
4. Increasing the competitiveness of our ISP's - I regret signing up for streamyx - by making them more service oriented & customer focussed.
5. Improving the infrastructure: if the banks must close, perhaps they should setup kiosks in their ATM rooms so people have access to their internet banking facilities 24X7. I have seen this in one Maybank branch in KL, though I did not check to see if all MBB2U functions were available.
   

Thank You... you may now return to your regular programme.

Made-In-Malaysia Robot

Nothing like the monsters of Sci Fi horrors, though it is a horror of sorts,
Nothing like the helpful servants of Asimov's tales, though it tries to help.

Malaysia's robot is in a class of idiotic-horror all its own.
I could not do better than the writeup by Kenny Sia in his own blog.
go here
http://www.kennysia.com/archives/2006/01/made-in-malaysi.php

And thanks to Kenny for telling it as it is.!!

Verbal Diarrhoea

This is part of an online chat I had one late night in the office just before Christmas 2005. Probably not as funny in retrospect as it was when I was typing, but some people might enjoy the word-play.... I must have been pumped full of caffeine that night.

...him: project plans to write
me....: did you see the note i sent ?
...him: status updates to give
...him: solutions to solve
...him: patches to download
...him: material to study
...him: today?
me....: :) you are soooooooooooo productive.
yes, i sent it just while ago
...him: oh.. lemme replicate
me....: cogitate, ruminate, replicate, abdicate
...him: coagulate
me....: fumigate, surrogate, expectorate
...him: agitate
...him: watergate
...him: oh yea. merry christmas!
me....: castigate, masturbate, vacillate, interrogate
me....: dont forget the vodka
...him: vodka cake!
...him: hmm.. vodka I have
me....: cake you can make
me....: vacillate, fluctuate, oscillate
...him: obfuscate
...him: the delicate
me....: escalate, marinate, urinate
...him: did u eat a dictionary or something?
me....: ?
me....: oh
me....: i am compensating for my constipation of ideas
with a diarrhoea of words
...him: diarrhoea of the mouth you have
...him: slow to download big big stuff
me....: what big stuff ?
...him: code and patches
...him: benson and hedges
...him: starsky and hutch
...him: wallace and gromit
...him: bonnie and clyde
me....: nescafe and coffee-mate
...him: samson and delilah
...him: thomas and guy?
me....: thomas and guyS
me....: cock and bull
me....: tooth and nail
me....: pooh and piglet
me....: tea and empathy
me....: coffee and doughnuts
me....: nuts and bolts
...him: this and that
...him: here and there
me....: rogers and hammerstein
me....: gilbert and sullivan
me....: princess and pea
me....: beer and pee
...him: short and sweet
...him: simple and nice
me....: short and curly
...him: tortoise and hare
me....: hare today, gnome tomorrow
me....: heading3, type in date of completion,
enter name of person completing checklist
me....: walter and gromit
...him: dead and buried
...him: heaven and earth
...him: heaven and hell
me....: hell and health checks
...him: blood and guts
...him: sweat and tears
...him: something and glory
...him: teach yourself shell programming in 24 hrs..
...him: hmm.. something I needed a long time ago
...him: money and you
me....: my left hand is cramping...

And it goes downhill from there.... Feedback please - are we really weird, or do other people have online chats remotely like this?

Silly Notices

#1 on 20060125. Except for the {company name}, the message below is verbatim from a notice a friend showed me. This notice was issued by his companies' General Counsel to be installed in all computer systems:
"This is {company name} computer system that is FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. This system is subject to monitoring. Therefore, no expectation of privacy is to be assumed. Individuals found performing unauthorized activities are subject to disciplinary action including criminal prosecution"
They really should get someone who speaks English as a first language to work on that 1st sentance....

#2 on 20060208. This is the citation (again, verbatim) for the winner of a customer satisfaction survey:
He derives satisfaction by ensuring his clients requirements are contented. He's professional, courteous and quick to help. His skills are sharp and without prompting, he keeps them honed to a razor's edge.
He is a team player who is always willing to go the extra mile to manage his clients. He meticulously ensures every difficult situation seems easy to resolve.
Now how would I get my requirements to be contented?

Inauguration

An so it begins.
It has taken near to 2 months of hemming and hawing, and days of trying different names, and finally after a ridiculously long time to decide on whether I would blog, and if I did what I would call my blog, I commit to posterity this snippet from a line that perhaps has formed one of the major foundations of my development.
It is spoken by the Fox to The Little Prince after the Little Prince discovers why his rose is NOT like a million other roses in all the gardens of the world:
"And now, here's my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."
The book is:The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (translator to English not noted, I am afraid)

And so this blog, this repository of my thoughts, begins on similar foundation as I myself did. See clearly - what is essential is invisible to the eye.