Last weekend was interesting for me. It was the last week of Ramadan month and quite a lot of forks have gone back to their kampong to prepare for Eid al-Fitr. Last Saturday, despite warnings from my friends not to venture into TAR area during this season or you'll be stuck inside the crowd, I ignored their warnings.
I went there by taxi and just before entrying the main street, the jammed was unspeakable. Cars parked everywhere as long as there're adequate space. Then humans were everywhere from 5-year-old to 60-year-old on the streets, shops, make-shift stores, walkways, common areas. Most are busy with their last minute shopping before they go back to their hometown to celebrate the festive season. Mothers selecting songkoks for their children, Teenagers looking for the best deal for their al-Fitr clothes. Men tried on shoes, shirts at the stores. Some of them waited at a nearby restaurants with their children while the mothers doing all the shoppings.
As I entered one of the shopping malls in TAR street, the crowd was everywhere that I felt claustrophobic. I managed to find the career section after jostling though the human sea. I go through the clothes and jackets, and found that some of the prices are very reasonable. The cutting are neat and nice too. After trying on a few I bought a jacket that has no button. After that, my sister and I went into the make-shift stores bargain hunting for good stuff. We walked from one store to another inspecting the baju kurung and the crafts. All stores are having the lelong sales. Most put up RM50 for a pair of baju Kurung. Unfortunately, there was no place to try on the clothes before we buy so we decided not to get any. A few minutes later, I saw a wooden tissue box on sales for RM15 each. I like the design and selected one with better craftmanship. For a price like that, one has to inspect the quality before depart with our money. Or else, you will regret it when you reached home.
Since there were not much to see and interest us, we went to a mall a black away. There I visit a fashion shop that I used to frequent. The clothes there are always reasonable priced and in-style. Everytime I went there, I will buy a few clothes and this time is no different. Every corner and nice looking outfit. Now the trouble is that I've gained so much weigh that I have difficulty to find a suitable outfit. I pick up a few and tried them. Luckily, a dark green shirt fits nicely on me. I then look at the jacket section and tried on a few. I ended up bought 3 jackets with good quality. I also bought a pair of pants that goes with one of the jackets.
It was a good buy. I bought 3 jackets, a shirt and a pair of pants. End of that session, I decided that I have to lose some weigh. Even though I can't shades all 25kg, at least I must start with 5kg.
Wish me luck!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Shopping
Last week, during one of my many and long meetings, the company new HOM revealed that the best time for business to profit is during the Ramadan month, before Eid al-Fitr. During this season, people has the spending power. In fact, the spending power is the highest during Ramadan season followed by Christmas and Chinese New Year in desending order. During this time of the year, all department stores and shopping complexes will come up with the latest fashions, latest arrival. Furthermore, I found out that the latest arrival will bring forward till after Chinese New Year. Shoppers are banking in profit now so that they can sustain low spending seasons in the next 6 months.
For the next 6 months, people like me will be paying our monthly installment fees of my credit cards to the commercial banks. I wonder if his theory was true... I haven't shop during festive seasons for more than 4 years now. Just thinking of the crowd and the jostling make me lost interest in shopping during festive seasons. I am the kind that like to shop in shopping complexes that have fewer petrons. I have a piece of mind to shop, think wisely before I purchase, and find the right items. That is why I like to visit bookstores.
Now, I want to put the HOM view to test. Today I went shopping. Brave myself though the crowd, I was surprise to see items on sales everywhere. All the latest collections are on sales or arrived. Amazing. Everyone is buying as if they have tons of money to spare and spend. All the clothes are the latest fall-winter collections, the shoes, watch, bags, you name it, it's there. I believe my HOM is right after all.
Since I haven't shop for about 6 months, seriously, I took the opportunity to follow the crowd and did my window shopping and see if anything that caught my attention and worth buying. After walking for a while, I found a pair of nice and comfortable heels. The price was reasonable and the cutting was elegent. After trying it on, I bought the brown colour. After that I stopped at Swatch store. My, my... their winter collection has arrived. Looking at the crowd, I didn't bother to check out the display uints. I went straight to the collection brochures and browsed through. There were a few watches that I am attracted. So I asked the sales personal to take out all that I like and tried it. I narrowed down to 2. Then I finally pick the one I like best. As I am a skin fan, the one I selected is a skin collection with a feminine twist.
Teddy, nice or not?
For the next 6 months, people like me will be paying our monthly installment fees of my credit cards to the commercial banks. I wonder if his theory was true... I haven't shop during festive seasons for more than 4 years now. Just thinking of the crowd and the jostling make me lost interest in shopping during festive seasons. I am the kind that like to shop in shopping complexes that have fewer petrons. I have a piece of mind to shop, think wisely before I purchase, and find the right items. That is why I like to visit bookstores.
Now, I want to put the HOM view to test. Today I went shopping. Brave myself though the crowd, I was surprise to see items on sales everywhere. All the latest collections are on sales or arrived. Amazing. Everyone is buying as if they have tons of money to spare and spend. All the clothes are the latest fall-winter collections, the shoes, watch, bags, you name it, it's there. I believe my HOM is right after all.
Since I haven't shop for about 6 months, seriously, I took the opportunity to follow the crowd and did my window shopping and see if anything that caught my attention and worth buying. After walking for a while, I found a pair of nice and comfortable heels. The price was reasonable and the cutting was elegent. After trying it on, I bought the brown colour. After that I stopped at Swatch store. My, my... their winter collection has arrived. Looking at the crowd, I didn't bother to check out the display uints. I went straight to the collection brochures and browsed through. There were a few watches that I am attracted. So I asked the sales personal to take out all that I like and tried it. I narrowed down to 2. Then I finally pick the one I like best. As I am a skin fan, the one I selected is a skin collection with a feminine twist.
Teddy, nice or not?
Monday, October 09, 2006
Sleepless night in KL
It's now 4.30am, Monday and I'm still wide awake. I should be sleeping soundly by now, in my moo-moo land. But alas, my sleeping patern just got screwed. Since I started my new job, so many task to acomplish and so little time. On top of that I had to train a group of so called designers of 10 - 14 years who can't design. These 'designers' are dupe as CUT AND PASTE ARTIST.
As the design department is getting more demanding and moving towards a restructuring, these group of people have to buck up or ... I have to admit it's the most difficult task i had to faced. When I thaught them, they will forget it in just a mare 2 minutes. I didn't want to provide notes because I would like them to write their own notes. Well, as you might know the answer, that didn't really happened. They can even forget what they write on their notebook.
Another sad thing is that out of the 7 loads, only 2 showed up on Saturday. I had to sacrified my Saturday for them. Yet, they preferred not to come. I mentioned in my meeting prior to the class that it's not compulsary and we are all adults. I would assume all will showed up as they failed my test. Nope, only 2 showed up.
These 'designers' goes back on time but my CD, an intern and myself had to work all out till late nights every day. Now that my Sat is gone for 2 months, I better get something worth my sacrifice. The answer, productivity target, start in a few hours.
After I came home Saturday, I slept at 8pm till 2pm, Sunday. Then I did some routine and back to bed again at 6pm. Woke up at 8pm, Sunday till now. I'm going to get panda eyes in a few hours.
Well, I better start work early today and rest tomorrow. Tomorrow is a public holiday.
As the design department is getting more demanding and moving towards a restructuring, these group of people have to buck up or ... I have to admit it's the most difficult task i had to faced. When I thaught them, they will forget it in just a mare 2 minutes. I didn't want to provide notes because I would like them to write their own notes. Well, as you might know the answer, that didn't really happened. They can even forget what they write on their notebook.
Another sad thing is that out of the 7 loads, only 2 showed up on Saturday. I had to sacrified my Saturday for them. Yet, they preferred not to come. I mentioned in my meeting prior to the class that it's not compulsary and we are all adults. I would assume all will showed up as they failed my test. Nope, only 2 showed up.
These 'designers' goes back on time but my CD, an intern and myself had to work all out till late nights every day. Now that my Sat is gone for 2 months, I better get something worth my sacrifice. The answer, productivity target, start in a few hours.
After I came home Saturday, I slept at 8pm till 2pm, Sunday. Then I did some routine and back to bed again at 6pm. Woke up at 8pm, Sunday till now. I'm going to get panda eyes in a few hours.
Well, I better start work early today and rest tomorrow. Tomorrow is a public holiday.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Grass is still green on my side of the fence
It has been a month since i started work as a HOD in a new company. Life was never the same again. Workload is crazily a lot and I feel that 24 hours is not enough. So much to do yet so little time. So much implementation to do and process to change. But above all, I love the work challenges. It make me wake up every morning looking forward to go to work and plan my day the best I can. I said it because it usually ends up with hours of meeting.
Meeting in a local company seems to be a fav. That's solely based on my personal observation and opinion. I never had meeting that last longer than an hour. Here sometimes a meeting can last up to 4 hours. Amazing. However, if you cut the jokes and small talk, I think we can make it in 2 hours. I shall wait and see.
I've a CD now and this make job a lot easiler. He has been the backbone of my operations and I enjoy working with him. Quote from my previous employee, " We are a great team". I believe we are. i have to admit not many people can handle the way I work. I can be very pushy and demanding. Sometimes I forgot to take into account others feelings and readiness. That was what happened yesterday when we had our disagreement. We both need space and time to cool off so he went home early. It did us good. I had time to reflex my action and view it from outside the box.
Indeed I was at fault. Forgeting that he is only into his second week here, I gave him too much workload and pressures. Not to mention a lot of responsibilities that he is not ready. No doubt he is a very capable guy but he hasn't receive any training yet. Even I haven't finish my training. As I mentioned, time is my enermy now. I have to adjust my time much better. This means late nights in the office again. Saturday in office again.
Despite all this, I believe I can overcome the challenge after 3 - 6 months. Changing a process is easy, changing a work culture that ahs been the same for over 14 years is the hardest. Anyway, it's good to have a friend to share your burden and go through the tough time with you together.
Grass is still green on my side of the fence.
Meeting in a local company seems to be a fav. That's solely based on my personal observation and opinion. I never had meeting that last longer than an hour. Here sometimes a meeting can last up to 4 hours. Amazing. However, if you cut the jokes and small talk, I think we can make it in 2 hours. I shall wait and see.
I've a CD now and this make job a lot easiler. He has been the backbone of my operations and I enjoy working with him. Quote from my previous employee, " We are a great team". I believe we are. i have to admit not many people can handle the way I work. I can be very pushy and demanding. Sometimes I forgot to take into account others feelings and readiness. That was what happened yesterday when we had our disagreement. We both need space and time to cool off so he went home early. It did us good. I had time to reflex my action and view it from outside the box.
Indeed I was at fault. Forgeting that he is only into his second week here, I gave him too much workload and pressures. Not to mention a lot of responsibilities that he is not ready. No doubt he is a very capable guy but he hasn't receive any training yet. Even I haven't finish my training. As I mentioned, time is my enermy now. I have to adjust my time much better. This means late nights in the office again. Saturday in office again.
Despite all this, I believe I can overcome the challenge after 3 - 6 months. Changing a process is easy, changing a work culture that ahs been the same for over 14 years is the hardest. Anyway, it's good to have a friend to share your burden and go through the tough time with you together.
Grass is still green on my side of the fence.
Monday, September 11, 2006
A dog's life
My interpretation of a dog's life. That's how i felt with my previous employment. I am happy that I have move on to a better career advancement. My boss is a very intelligent and agressive boss. I will learn a lot from him.
Employment contract - Read carefully before you sign
I recently resigned from an multinational company and the ending wasn't what I'd expected. All the contribution I gave to the company went down the drain. After i resigned, they slapped me with a REMINDER letter about my employment contract. The strange thing was that when I resigned the first time (this is the second time I resigned), I didn't have to go though all that. In fact, first time i resigned, I joined a product solutions company too. No REMINDER letter.
The different of this second time is that I somehow hold a 'managerial' position. The company I joined now is their sister company's client. What amazed me is that they would think that I can't differenciate personal and business. In fact they came up with a law that if I don't sign the letter, they won't release my last salary. What a brave attempt. What they don't realise is I have facts, lots of facts to back up myself. Information that i can give to my govenment and authorities that will affect their business in Malaysia. Word of advice, when you want to sue, make sure you don't have problem with the Malaysia labour law. Word of advice, if you want to sue, make sure you're a local company or foreign company with good reputations.
When a company already had 2 cases that was settled outside the court, 1 case of labour law that had to settle payment in front of a judge, one has to rethink its action against an employee who didn't nothing wrong but contributed much to the company. when a company owe a few months of overdue contributions to EPF and income tax department, one need to realise its pro and con should the company go ahead with legal or commercial action.
The company need to realise that the law in a developing country might be different from the origin country of my ex-beloved company. An example: I have so many good friends who works in international and local advertising companies. When they resigned, they ONLY go to their competitors. Besides that, quite a number of my friends brought alone their accounts too. Trust from their clients enable them to do so. However, I have never heard of anyone suing them, specially this industry is so competitive.
Here's some of the site about labour law:
http://www.lawyerment.com.my/library/doc/empl/hr/
http://www.mohr.gov.my/laws.php"
http://jtksm.mohr.gov.my"
I might be persive as a gullible person, but I'm not and when I have to defend myself, I am all focus and facts only kind of person. It helps being an honest person.
I will post the clauses from my reminder letter in my coming post.
The different of this second time is that I somehow hold a 'managerial' position. The company I joined now is their sister company's client. What amazed me is that they would think that I can't differenciate personal and business. In fact they came up with a law that if I don't sign the letter, they won't release my last salary. What a brave attempt. What they don't realise is I have facts, lots of facts to back up myself. Information that i can give to my govenment and authorities that will affect their business in Malaysia. Word of advice, when you want to sue, make sure you don't have problem with the Malaysia labour law. Word of advice, if you want to sue, make sure you're a local company or foreign company with good reputations.
When a company already had 2 cases that was settled outside the court, 1 case of labour law that had to settle payment in front of a judge, one has to rethink its action against an employee who didn't nothing wrong but contributed much to the company. when a company owe a few months of overdue contributions to EPF and income tax department, one need to realise its pro and con should the company go ahead with legal or commercial action.
The company need to realise that the law in a developing country might be different from the origin country of my ex-beloved company. An example: I have so many good friends who works in international and local advertising companies. When they resigned, they ONLY go to their competitors. Besides that, quite a number of my friends brought alone their accounts too. Trust from their clients enable them to do so. However, I have never heard of anyone suing them, specially this industry is so competitive.
Here's some of the site about labour law:
http://www.lawyerment.com.my/library/doc/empl/hr/
http://www.mohr.gov.my/laws.php"
http://jtksm.mohr.gov.my"
I might be persive as a gullible person, but I'm not and when I have to defend myself, I am all focus and facts only kind of person. It helps being an honest person.
I will post the clauses from my reminder letter in my coming post.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Taxi Executive
A few days ago, I heard on the tele that the tourism ministry will be introducing a group of premier taxi service called Taxi Executive in conjunction with Visit Malaysia 2007. The plan is excellent to attract more visitors and to show them we are coutesy people.
However, the execution of this wonderful plan is in doubt. In fact, I'm not sure if it was carefully plan out. In the past, we have seen a few similar taxi services that fell after a while. Why, because there wasn't a proper planning for the poor taxi drivers and no follow up from the authorithies or company that came up with the idea/project. We had the GPRS premier airport taxi services that wasn't well thought and result in a lot of money wastage and unhappy drivers that the government had to interven to resolved the issues. Then we had the yellow taxi premier. The local as well as expats had experiences that the metre of the taxi is running super fast. Can you imagine going from Ampang Point to Semarak costed over RM30 on a not-so=busy traffic hours. Very few people would travel in it too.
I wonder how this taxi executive will work. It's great that they want to kick start with 300 taxis on the streets by 2007. As it is double the charges, is there a survey prior to the launch carried out? Did tourists prefer a double pay taxi ride in the city or standard taxi? How many percent prefers to walk and sight-seeing? How many percent has a family more than 4 travelling together? How many percent willing to pay the price? Where can the tourist call or find taxi excutive service? Will the taxi drivers only rely on passengers who can afford them? What happen to those taxi drivers during low tourist season? How many locals or expats working here would like to use this service at all times? How many percent of tourists visit Malaysia due to the low currency exchange? There are many more questions...
My point is that I don't want to see the 300 taxi drivers have to struggle later to find customers because the people responsible didn't do a proper follow up and planning after 2007. I won't want them to resort to the scene I see daily at KLCC Suria where a bunch of taxi drivers fishing for Middle East and Western tourist with a fixed price. Even the many guards in front of KLCC and a big signboard don't deter them from fishing expensive customers. I won't want to see the taxi executives ending up doing the same thing in famous mat-salleh areas. Everyone is trying to make a living and the fittest and toughest survive.
However, the execution of this wonderful plan is in doubt. In fact, I'm not sure if it was carefully plan out. In the past, we have seen a few similar taxi services that fell after a while. Why, because there wasn't a proper planning for the poor taxi drivers and no follow up from the authorithies or company that came up with the idea/project. We had the GPRS premier airport taxi services that wasn't well thought and result in a lot of money wastage and unhappy drivers that the government had to interven to resolved the issues. Then we had the yellow taxi premier. The local as well as expats had experiences that the metre of the taxi is running super fast. Can you imagine going from Ampang Point to Semarak costed over RM30 on a not-so=busy traffic hours. Very few people would travel in it too.
I wonder how this taxi executive will work. It's great that they want to kick start with 300 taxis on the streets by 2007. As it is double the charges, is there a survey prior to the launch carried out? Did tourists prefer a double pay taxi ride in the city or standard taxi? How many percent prefers to walk and sight-seeing? How many percent has a family more than 4 travelling together? How many percent willing to pay the price? Where can the tourist call or find taxi excutive service? Will the taxi drivers only rely on passengers who can afford them? What happen to those taxi drivers during low tourist season? How many locals or expats working here would like to use this service at all times? How many percent of tourists visit Malaysia due to the low currency exchange? There are many more questions...
My point is that I don't want to see the 300 taxi drivers have to struggle later to find customers because the people responsible didn't do a proper follow up and planning after 2007. I won't want them to resort to the scene I see daily at KLCC Suria where a bunch of taxi drivers fishing for Middle East and Western tourist with a fixed price. Even the many guards in front of KLCC and a big signboard don't deter them from fishing expensive customers. I won't want to see the taxi executives ending up doing the same thing in famous mat-salleh areas. Everyone is trying to make a living and the fittest and toughest survive.
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