Sneak Peak

Anyway, my point is, as a company grows bigger, are the people getting more efficient ? Look at the coldhard truth - no one knows how to communicate humanely anymore.  The bloke sitting behind me sent me emails on tasks to do when all he can do is lean over and tell me.

Nevermind that. It’s about delegation now. A whole technical specification attached to my email with instruction on the tasks needed to be carried out seems logical. How about delegation getting way out of hand? My colleague sent me a specification to write an entire program. I was done last 2 months ago. Then, the user decided to dislike it and wanted something else. My colleague sketched the report on the file using a computer, sent it to me and told me she wanted the report to look like what she had manually amend on the digital report. Okay, so you wan autogenerate, huh? I’ll give you an auto-generated one.

It’s ridiculous how she logs on to the system open up the program code and then tell me to add a space here and add a digit there and highlighting it is URGENTLY needed within an hour or 2 because she is seeing the user face to face and cannot bear delays.

So, my point is. When you are already there, may as well you just add in those 2-3 words and run the program and show the user? No. She had to sent an email all over from the other side of the world to tell me to do it.

Next, this guy keep giving me tasks that he even knows when i click ’send’  on y email submitting my other works to other colleagues. It’s so amazing how he just pops over 5 seconds i hit Send. Then, it really gets annoying. I got so many tasks from him to juggle that when the last one was off, another email came along to tell me that he saw a file on the system and he wants me to download it and send it to him.

Where is common sense, I scream. Just metaphorically-not real. No, it’s nothing to do with having an FTP program or not because all of us have one that is working. He just couldn’t resist delegating that as well.

Moreover, while I was rushing my work, he was whining over the phone to his girlfriend and all the disgusting baby noises and conversation are all heard.

God knows, why there is an antidote for delegation now. Don’t you know? It is called the Work-Life Balance where work don’t dictates your life.

Remember the orca toothbrush holder? Not long after it get into the market, a slew of orca-like-but-of-different-brands starts crowding around it offering lower prices to consumers.

This situation was repeated over and over again, which I am not sure if the inventor is taking it as a compliment to get so many followers of his/her idea or was too enraged to say or do anything.Oh, there was the copyright, but it still never stop the idea parasites much.

A little background of 99designs (from a user point of view) is that the website serves as a place where people who wants to buy a design(business card, website, blog, poster, T-Shirt, buttons, etc) will create a contest stating the requirements and the prize value. Then, designers who had registered on the site will get to submit in as many designs as they want for as many contests as they want. When a contest ends, the buyer will select one winner from all the designs that were submitted. That makes it one winner per contest, unless stated by the contest holder/buyer in additional terms to split the prize among few winners.

Now, another such site has emerged - a malaysian version knowned as Graphixchange.com. There’s no reason to condemn such sites as they have their reasons on launching it in the first place.

From the designer’s view, alot of effort were put in for a contest and it doesn’t gurantee that he/she will win it. It’s up to the designer to redo his/her work after the contest holder had given back feedbacks on changing the designs before the contests end. The frustration is not only not winning the contest but the amount of time spent of the work for the designers. Not winning the contests may seems like the designer ended up putting precious time and doing freework.

However, the copyright of the work is solely the designers, unless it is a winning entry and paid by the contest holder/buyer, that is fair enough. If the designer did not win the entry it doesn’t mean that he/she did a lousy job. If it’s good enough, it can be an extra item to help bolster his/her portfolio.

Students and amateur designers sometimes aims at these sites as a place for them to practise, or to get ideas, inspirations, project ideas from the types of contests or just for fun of it. It may be frowned upon the professional designers who feel that it is an insult to their artwork or art in general. Most of them opted not to get involved in these sites with various reasons that buyers might abuse the service of the site to lower the price of a piece of art.

Doesn’t this sounds like the same problem writers are having? Copywriters disagreeing with bloggers who wrote about products or services without stating it is an advertorial due to the terms and conditions by the sponsor. Non-professional writers may not have the same passion and the same dignity as the professionals to feel that such act is an insult, like how professional designers are objecting the idea of what amateur designers think is harmless.

End of the day, everyone have the right on the decision they make. If we don’t agree with the idea, we don’t follow it. If we think and have calculated every penny and think it’s not loss, we go ahead with it.

The first  new experienced for me is the Nasi Dagang. It looks like nasi lemak on banana leaf usually seen at the mamak stalls. The rice is absolutely delicious and has a heavy coconut scent. It is topped with fish curry. The little portion can be deceiving as it can be really filling. Maybe, I’m a small eater.

Used the expensive time for useless visiting like to the museum and the crstal mosque. Why useless? It is not because these places are of no purpose and waste of space but the time could be used for important tasks such as

1. checking into the hotel
2. shower/nap
3.Beach games.

But no. We were late. All 2 busses full of ‘us’ and we had no choice but to leave checking in for later. Scurried off to the office where we meet our group members, lots of shoving and pushing into the Shell petrol station toilet because all of us don’t want to miss the boat.

The boat ride took around 1 hour and I fell asleep countless times until we reached somewhere out there in the sea.Some precautions.

1. there’s no toilet in the boat as it is just a sampan with an engine, a shade and spot lights( for night jigging use).

Dinner went bad before we eat it. I did the reckless - eat the entire box of sour fried rice without thinking of 1).  Lucky me, there was no loose bowel experience.

By the time we went back to the jetty, it was 11 pm. Checked in the hotel, showered and fell asleep until the next morning. The buffet was okay. The staffs were not that courteous and they just sweep any plates off the tables regardless you have finish eating or not.

Checked out of hotel, did the usual tourist-y things like visiting some places and buying some souvenirs. Went to the market and see how batik is being sold at rm 100 and above. I never thought batik was that expensive.  It’s not even considered expensive after visiting Nor Arfa batik place. Batik was sold at rm800. So, I did the inexpensive tourist-y thing like snapping pictures at the people who weaved, who painted the batik. who stamped batik prints and who made some glassware. It’s interesting to watch how they burn the glass, shaping it to swans, dolphins and customize it for you ( such as making your name or any messages you want). I bought a pair of swans for RM18 out of boredom.

On the way back, we went to this place called Paradise Deluxe restaurant that serves halal Thai and Chinese food. I salute the organizer again for screwing the plan even when we are leaving Terengganu. We were horrified at all the tables, filled with food. Even more horrified to know that the food was as cold as our frozen squids in our ice box as it was laid on the tables at 10:30 am. We were there at 1:20pm, at this air-conditioned restaurant.  Nevermind that, warm rice and the heated soup compensate as we were all too eager to leave.

The plan was to LEAVE Terengganu at 4:30pm. By 5:30pm, we actually left the last tourist destination. Not knowing the way, we sat in the bus as it rumbles and rumbles, by 8:00, it stopped at this rundown atap restaurant. Said it was dinner time. The lady at the back of the house arrogantly told us that we have to pay after using the toilet.

Had a quick bite ran up the bus and trying to guess where the hell we are. The shop sign screams a us literally as it says Terengannu.

I personally thinks Terengganu is like a maze and it seems much bigger than KL. It took so many hours and we are still not out. After many many many calculations, we figured out we will reached home by 3 am. By George, yes we did arrived at that time.

Anyway, I had a conversation with a colleague over lunch and asked the question of why some banks credit cards are seen less or are not listed in the preferred card in many merchants offers. As a customer, it wears my patience off. I will soon see myself flocking over to the preferred cards accepted by majority of the merchants/sellers/stores.

His blatant reply was that some banks wants to remain prestigeous and not accept many links to merchants. That meaning, these banks who thinks that they are ‘posh’ are selective on their partners.

It is good to be selective and to maintain the quality but not choosing this and not choosing that gives them a SMALL circle of merchants. And who are they targetting? I presume ultra rich people to be their credit cards’ users.

The situation has take a turn around and many things don’t work like it is. Young people are having credit cards, even younger people are already carrying handphones with the latest specs. The target group of credit card users have change and probably grew wider.

Maybe, the banks that refuses to get linked up with as many merchants are playing it safe. Less usage, less frauds incidents, less problems, less losing of trusts from customers.

But from consumers, they are declining these banks cards as it is merely useless. It don’t give them the flexibilty and priviledge to purchase something they need in their lifestyle.No doubt, many people are joining fitness clubs. If the card is preferred, they get the flexibility to pay in installments. Another example is the postpaid phone lines. With the preferred cards, customers can immediately sign up for the postpaid offer. Those without have to suffer by waiting(whilst they get a card approved by the preferred banks) or they pay it through their nose in one big lump sum.

The consumers have changed, the way credit cards is being used has changed, is it time for them to change as well? That is to join the group of other banks that have linked to many merchants,sellers and stores to give better priviledges to its card holders or stay put in the rut, not taking the risk to be ‘grouped’ together with those banks, play safe and not grow innovatively?

I was doing some writings few days back and I was asked to think about the ‘keywords’ to use in the articles. Then, it hit me. Was that SEO I was unintentionally doing?

It seems pretty simple and I obviously don’t believe it. Just include keywords into the articles and that’s it? What nonsense. How about tweaking the Meta tags, submitting the website or blog or the post to the search engines, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Digg,Del.i.cious in hope to spread the word about the site?

I tried those out of curiosity, and nothing really happens. Then there is the nofollow tag. Remove it and there are more people ( seems like robots…:/) that crawls about your site and more spam comments. Hell, even its not real people clicking at least, it shows some signs of visits or acknowledgements?

Okay, cheap thrill. Now, finally I am attempting the plugin for Wordpress. Just randomly selecting the one that came up on the list in Google, I’ve got it HERE

After uploading into the wordpress plugins folder, activate the plugin under PLUGINS in the wp-admin. THEN, Go to OPTIONS. You will find a tab created for the plugin. Click on it and fill up the information and save.Not sure how it works or if it is effective because I just got it done minutes ago.

Let’s hope for good news? I’d love to hear about some SEO tips from you too!

Sometimes, I have to cheat myself into believing that it is not work and give it another term. There is more satisfaction after it is done.Lol.

It’s good to hear “I will pay you $200 if you can beat that guy’s logo” than to hear ” This is your job. Make a logo.You know you are getting $after this small project”.Now, you tell me which sentence sounds more enticing?

I enjoy yoga lessons and the ever permanent friendliness in the yoga instructor. I envy their stress-free occupation until the sales consultant suggested ” Why don’t you think about taking the teacher training and consider teaching as a side income?” The thoughts of doing the asanas will be different if I were to be an instructor because, I will be doing it becacuse its a responsibility or a commitment. Instead, I’ll prefer to put it in ” Why don’t you teach this class?” After teaching they come and say ” Here’s $$$ for your teaching” Cool, it was like a bonus. Then, maybe I will love that job very much.

Just don’t tell me here ’s YOUR JOB .You are REQUIRED to do this in this checklist EVERYDAY/according to the WEEKLY SCHEDULE. That is called bounded.That is terrible and all my freedom is gone.

It is a common reaction and a scene seen most of the time when the cashier who accidentally hid his stash of precious bags under his counter gets yelled or glared at with comments such as

Oi, how am I going to take my things?
So selfish ah?
You think you own those bags??

And the cashier sheepishly pull out the plastic bags up to the counter top while the customer snatch a few more extra bags in a deserving manner.

So, some nicer folks called up the station with some life questions IF that new idea is going to take place. They thoughtfully suggested that they do not mind bringing their own Green Bags but what about the trash at home? Without the plastic bags, then their home will not have plastic bags to store their garbage. Instead, they have to BUY garbage bags which they resfused to because it means they are going to use plastic garbage bags to stuff their rubbish in and then throwing it out in the trash. It means they will be throwing PLASTIC garbage bags which also means, not biodegradable bags that is not at all eco-friendly, making them the “murderer”. So, back to supermarkets giving out plastic bags, the customers can use the garbage bags that are the plastic bags they bought their goods in and psychologically, they are actually reusing it thus compensating the guilt leading to a stress-free night when they take out the trash.

The idea is good because it cut off the starting point of encouraging the use of plastic bags but how is it going to replace the problem for garbage bags? Something to ponder about. As a good example, take Netto, a supermarket implemented the idea of charging customers who wants a plastic bag for around 3 pence per bag. Their goods are cheaper than other supermarkets which is a factor that kept the customers going there despite a price to pay for the convenience of lugging the goods back home.

Another way of solving the place-for-trash problem is by distributing recycle boxes to homes. During my uni days in a small town in West Midlands, the town council actually gave out plastic boxes for the residence to put in trash that can be recycled. I like that idea because it is neat and organized. Imagine, every house have that 3 recycle bins setup. I am pretty sure the bin’s quality is not a problem since Malaysian’s government can even come up with a specially designed,sturdy, state-of-art box during the election that is as tough as Incredible Hulk, to prevent it from breaking and spilling the votes.

Will it affect the sales in the supermarket, especially those that is inside a shopping complex? Will it drop as the customers would probably wants to do their shopping in boutiques as well without the hassle of carrying their things without the bag or perhaps not looking nice enough to shop at high end stores. That’s when the trolley comes in handy to help them lodge their goods into the car before continueing to shop at boutiques, going to cinemas and restaurants. Will they hate the trouble of getting the goods off their car at home? Imagine opening your car booth and staring at 20 canned food, 5 packs of instant noodles, some cabbage, a rack of eggs (with some broken eggs), carrots, and all the whatnots groceries you usually buy. Serious inconvenient truth.