The Lord Is My Shepherd...

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want,
He makes me lie down on green pastures,
He leads me beside still waters,
He restores my soul.
He leads me on the path of righteousness for his name's sake.

Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death,
No evil will I fear,
Your crook and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a banquet for me in the sight of my foes,
You anoint my head with oil,
And my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And in the Lord's house I shall dwell for ever.

Amen.


(I keep thinking of my late father every time I hear this psalm. Rest in peace, dad!)

The "Beauty" of Operating Expenses (OpEx)

You just simply cannot run away from it.

Lousy corporate culture will be reflected in it. And if you couple that to the fact that the company just can't sell what it wants to sell, you're a ticking time bomb.

Unfortunately, we still see organizations having wasteful habits, and "unusual" working styles. I mean, you're not a global organization like an Investment Bank or some other financial-institution-equivalent. What the hell are you guys doing up at 3.00am in the morning, every day? Disregarding the fact that you're working your employees to DEATH, you're chalking up electricity, water and telecommunication bills! And from what I can deduce, the reason you guys are consistently burning the 4.00am-midnight-oil is because you're trying to sell something that you're probably not that good at!

Voila, we have a spiral.

I predicted that this will happen to one particular organization. Months later, it did.




Memang tak buang masa ler aku kerja Global Expense Management nih... hahahaha...

Tidak Berhati Perut

Ever known of anyone who has no 'hati perut'? Ever had to team up or work with such people?

I guess my friends and I will understand how it really feels to be with such people. And please, do not even bother to think and put in effort to help them when at the end of the day, it will lead you nowhere but give you more heartache.

I just spoke to my friend who slaved himself *name changed for his own privacy* Willy. He had been with 3 people through thick and thin, slaving himself to keep everything afloat. Working with him sometime back really got me to know him more. Although I once thought of him as an opportunist, the kind of person who really uses you to the max just to gain something for themselves. But now I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. If I didn't help him, he would have died trying to live up to their expectation.

Willy is not an extremely competent person, like what many of us are. We are multi-tasking 'super hero' according to him. But he knows he is not, that's why he relies a lot on his friends to help him. But the months I was away, he couldn't sustain himself well and ended up being scolded, criticized and was given harsh treatment.

Even during the Chinese New Year holidays, he was not really given a chance to get a few days off. After all, what's the point of starting work so early when half of your contact is literally scattered all over Malaysia and overseas, having their CNY break? Fine, if it is their requirement. But it was not fair, as the 3 other people were off. So much for comradeship.

Sweating it all off and doing everything, Willy was not really an accountant. But he was forced to do the job of a secretary, accountant, telemarketer, toilet cleaner, whatever not you have in the office, Willy is the handyman you get to do the job. And when I was around, we had fun cleaning up stuff and doing work together. Willy always needed help to proofread anything and everything before he sends it out. That also includes e-mails. FML.....

Now I found out also that Willy had been seriously reprimanded for stupid things like, "You forgot to switch off the lights, the switches, the this and that.. You know how much this costs?"

In his heart, he was burning with rage. Of course! Who wouldn't? You asked Willy to work till 2am everyday (he felt like an investment banker in CIMB for such a job) and you paid him peanuts instead of giving what he deserved. But he swallowed it all in. Why? Why would someone be stupid enough to do that? I don't know too....

Willy. I am your friend. You can tell me what happened. After all, people without hati perut will not try to understand you. They will use you, take advantage of you and make you look like a fool at the end of the day. Everything right you do, someone else gets the credit. Everything wrong you do, they point a finger instead of saving your ass.

Nobody sticks out for nobody in such an environment. Welcome to Kuala Lumpur, my friend.

There are just too many heartless, gutless and brainless people out there. And most of them are bosses.