The one with wearing batik

Now I am obligated to wear Batik every Thursday. That is equivalent to 4 times in a month! Well, that's a lot of Batik wearing! And it also means that I need to have one Batik for one week. I think I have about 3 decent ones so probably have to find one more.

Okaylah, I think the requirement to do that should be appreciated and will be very good for the industry but why should we have exception in red?

PENGECUALIAN

5. Arahan pemakaian batik pada setiap hari Khamis ini tidak terpakai kepada pegawai yang dibekalkan dengan pakaian seragam, pegawai yang menghadiri acara-acara rasmi seperti persidangan-persidangan antarabangsa, perjumpaan dengan pelawat-pelawat asing atau pegawai yang menghadiri majlis rasmi yang menetapkan pemakaian jenis pakaian yang lain.

Why not wearing Batik while meeting with foreigners? I do remember few overseas meeting and courses that I attended where the officers from other countries such as Pacific Island Countries and Africa proudly wearing their national dress. This is the best way to promote as surely when they meet you they will ask about the dress that you are wearing and if they like it they might want it!

I do recollect parted with one my favourite Batik because my foreign friend wanted it so bad!

The one with multitasking and prioritizing

Multitasking is the performance by an individual of more than one task at the same time.

Prioritizing is to arrange or deal something with in order of importance.

That was the definition for both words according to the free online dictionary.

I was told by that I must be multitasking in doing my task. What the heck? I am not, all this while? I was surprised when I heard that when I know for a fact that I was more like prioritizing my task at the moment rather than multitasking them.

For me, you need to be multitasking when you are face with many tasks at the same time with the same deadline for every task. But when you have a different deadline and mind you that the next task deadline was far beyond the other task deadline, and then I do believe we can prioritize and put the resources at hand to the task that will come earlier!

The one with the school fees

Year 2008, the new school term has started. To parents, especially the first timer in sending their kid, good luck in waking up your children. To teachers, especially the new ones, good luck in teaching the next genereation of Malaysian. At the moment, I am spared from all of this as my kid is still enjoying his crèche life. For me, the thing about school term is good luck for me on the traffic jam that I’m gonna face everyday.

Anyway, this year should be great for parents. No need to buy textbooks as Government has agreed that it will be free for all, rich, middle-class or poor. Even the RM50 school fees has been abolished. This should be louded!

However, in the past few days, everyday in the newspaper I read about parents’ complaint about other kind of fees imposed by the school. It ranged between RM100 to RM200 per student depending on what the school covers. It can be PIBG, computers, maintenance and I even heard cleaning of toilet fees. This has been the subject of some parents’ yapping for the past few days and I’m totally sick of it! I do feel that we are living in a society that expect too much subsidies in everything and this should stop sometime ... and it better be soon!

Seriously, I can probably understand if we are talking about hardcore poor family which I do believe should be allowed some slack in paying the fees or zero payment installment or something. But when you read in the paper or watch it on TV you can see the ones who complaint didn’t actually come from the poor. I would say middle-income earner with pretty decent car and some shiny gold bracelet or necklace wrapped nicely around them.

To this people, I would say this, if you don’t have any qualm whenever you change your sport rims or tinting your car’s window or adding your already heavy gold necklace on your neck, you should be ashamed of yourself if you complaint about paying some few hundred bucks for your childern’s school fees.

I hope we should start being humble and learn the word sacrifice. Our children is our future. Tell your son or daughter, I will pay your fees, I will buy your books but promise me to study hard as this is the investment that I put in you so that one day you can become someone who will give meaningful contribution to the country. Maybe this is too much but something like this la!

“It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich”

Average graduate salary

While waiting for my turn doing something, I came across this article in November The Edge. It was about Watson Wyatt's 2007 Total Reward Survey in Malaysia. It was the 13th times, this company did this survey in Malaysia. They covered 114 companies both local and foreign in more than 10 sectors, among others automotive, banking, chemical, construction yada yada ... the boring stuffs.

Well, the thing that interest me on the article is this:

And this:

I do remember seeing one of my junior colleague who just entered Government with salary of RM2,800++. Now, that's something to ponder upon. No wonder so many people applying for Government jobs.

But then again, the one in the survey probably just the basic salary .... hahahaha!

Nowadays kid!

This conversation took place at Ampang Point between my wife and my FOUR year old son on new year's day:

Afif: Mama, please buy this for me ... (pointing at PSP)

Mama: You have a game boy already dear, play with that first okay ...

Afif: Alaaa, Afif suka PSP ... please laa ...

Mama: Mama didn't bring enough money la today Afif ... (bohong sunat)

Afif: Alaaa, kan Mama ada CARD ...

(I was laughing and got a mild headache rightaway ...)

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

To all family and friends ... may 2008 brings all of us more prosperity, joy and better life.