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12月3日

良心值几两银子?

当今良心值几两银子?诚实又值几两银子?
 
不想说太多。。只想快快完成该做的事。。是时候该平静下来想想自己的所做所为和将要走的路。
11月27日

Am I Too Demanding Or ................ ?

Today is the second days our team to be on site at new client office. Well, in term of infrastructure and facilities given, this new place is much better than my previous project office site. We are given internet access, a fan, a room with small table solely for 4 laptops occupancy and also air cond but the room itself is quite big for 4 person including more than 10 chairs inside(haha), a pantry with a coffee maker machine which can make 8 different types of drinks(Fu-yoh). Can't complaint much except for the expensive parking rate available.
 
I am not sure if I am too demanding....................
 
Internet connection WAS a luxury in PREVIOUS project site, sitting inside the vendor room means total disconnected with outside world. No emails, no instant messenger, no Googling and life was very difficult for me because I cannot reply or send any mails to anyone except before I go to office or after work at home, everything were delayed and clients blamed me for not responding to them in time. NOW, this new client's office, I can check my mails, reply mails, send emails and the PROBLEM is ........... I cannot feel the concentration on my work except reading and replying emails and answering other client's phone calls during working hours. I told my boss, we should be able to concentrate and delivere in faster speed if we are on site, but honestly speaking, there is no different in working speed as compare with last week sitting in the my office..........
 
My previous project(the longest in the history) team member left Malaysia for 3 weeks because of his Visa renewal and I have to take over his jobs to support the UAT testing. Of all the date and time available since January 2007, everything was delay with unknown timeline given despite of numerous demanding from us on timeline for resource management purposes. Now the client insist of finishing the UAT and demanding for all the attention to be given to them.  They even further demand for network instructure changes which my boss had been pushing them for more than 6 months ago and they choose this time when my boss was away for his 1 week business trip to complete the setup. The client insist me on 'deliver' the request to my boss via email / instant messenger/ SMS or whatever communication to make sure he revert to their requests. Baring teeth
 
Does anyone respect us for the past 1 year ? or they just think we are the vendor and they deserved to be serve and treated as a King? We had been doing almost everything to make sure the project go smoothly, we request and pushing for timeline, we proposed win-win solution (of course as a vendor we win-lesser), we highlighted forseen problems and provide solutions to make sure things are done................but no one ever take us seriously until now when their most capable in charge person is resigning by end of this month end and everyone wants to complete this and that within this week. It is just a total MESS of life.Angry AngryAngryAngryAngry
 
I do wish to be disconnected from the world starting from tomorrow during working hour, no one can call me or SMS me or send me any emails, in order to exchange for a little bit of peaceful-ness to complete what I am suppose to do............GRRRR...........Angry
11月15日

Just Another Blog of Mine

It had been more than 1 month I never blog. Anyway, blogging is not a habit for me. Once I watched a HongKong drama, the actoress said this, "people writing diary is because they are not happy" and i do agree with it.
 
Diary is the place to "express" feeling and it used to be private but now blogging is so common and stories are being shared. I have 1 ex-colleague who blogs every single happy events and places he been to....his blog = happy and interesting and full of food.....yum yumPizzaIsland with a palm tree.......Another colleague of mine, he will blog when he feels the world is not so favour to him.Baring teeth.....but his latest blog shows that he is very touchesssss with his birthday cum allumi celebration. haha.....
 
Anyway, life continue and begin to feel the busy-ness coming nearer and nearer. Bad experiences had 2 effects, ie: it makes me grow up and also make me loss confidence. Cut the long story short, another similar project is going on now, with different environment and team members. Last year, we started the previous project with full of guts and courage. Nothing seems to stop or halted us from any "road blocks" and we had reached so far until today.  No one except the team members which we named ourselves with Star Wars characters remember the 'courages" we had last year.  The team motto was "May the Force be with us!!".
 
Bearing so much of bad experinces, I tried to take all the precaution of not to repeat the same mistakes this time, the more I remind myself, the more I feel timid. Sometime, this new client asked, "why you need this information for your system?". I do not really sure what to answer, but the reason for the request is because last time we never ask for it and we landed into deep trouble. Experince taught me to be more careful and comprehensive this time, but I doubt it really need to be in this way because this new client is having different perspective onto the new system that we are developing now and I feel the pressure as well.
 
May the force be with me all the time!!!! Santa Clause is coming to town next month and I gotto be good to receive his Christmas present.
 
9月27日

Red Traffic Light = Green Traffic Light ?

Not sure if I had missed out today headlines in major newspapers. Disappointed Disappointed Disappointed 
 
On my way back home from office today, I saw 2 cars and 1 motorist stopped at red traffic light but after 5 seconds before the traffic light turn to green, the 2 cars just speed off and the motorist crossed to the opposite side of the road.  Both incidents took place at 2 different areas which are quite far apart and that makes me suspect if there is such new rule exist which "Red traffic light = Green traffic light".
 
I don't seems to remember Ministry of Transportation amended a new rule to treat red traffic light has the same effect as green traffic light recently.............and I am still googling for the news release in case I really missed out.Confused
9月20日

哑子诉苦

"哑子吃黄莲有苦说不出" 这种感受真的非常无奈。。。。唉。。。
 
好不容易完成了一个工程,以为可以安心的继续生活。。却偏偏遇上Maxis改进系统,费了九牛二虎之力,平伏了客户的投诉,更改了程序。。安心了一个星期,又有新问题出现。
 
不知是不是客户的不幸还是我们的不幸,最不可能发生的程序异常竟然可以每天发生至少一次。每天我费了不少时间,从理性和平衡中,耐心的向客户分析问题的原因,同时也让程序员更改代码解决问题。客户竟然堂皇的拒绝了我取的资料核实的要求,并在电邮里教训了我一顿。。。
 
问题发生了,客户却认定是我们的错。 我要拿资料核实他们不给,我能在自己范围内找的都找遍了。。。我已经自主的要求帮忙找出问题所在,客户竟然说我随便提出不实际的要求。。。在电邮里把我批评的一文不值。。。
 
古语说:”当官难,当个清官更难“。 我说:“如今好人更难当”。
9月2日

New Adventures Ahead

Having celebrated Malaysia 50th years of independance mark another new milestone for the nation and country to move forward and continue fostering the harmonic neighbourhood among different races. Bravo Malaysia!
 
A new month has come with new adventures ahead. For the past 1 year, I have been involved in the longest project among all the projects in the company history. Sweet, sour, spicy, numerous laughter of project life had I went through with the team. Time passed, people come and go, my project partner who are the last remaining member of the original team had ended his contract on the same day as Malaysia celebrate its birthday. From now onwards, he is "independence" from all the headache.  His departure marked a new leaf of his working life. His departure also imply me to be strong and firm enough to carry on the project in all aspects of project management and technical skill sets.
 
I remember when we first started the project, our "fear-less" spirits throughout the project is very strong and we do laugh about it until now. Timid I am starting to feel when I finally realised that he will no more be part of the decision making, communicating with the users, handling crisis etc. Why is this feeling of "timid" arise when I had already familiar with the rest of the team and the users(ie: client)? 
 
Well, it is time to stop sighing and complaints about everything. It is time to re-gain back my "fear-less" spirits. Past experinces should had made me wiser than yesterday.
 
Thanks mate, for everything.  R2 wishes : Good luck to your future undertaking and may the force always be with you!!
8月18日

A Sad Case of Cruelty

Having know and realise that I have not improve since ages is a sad case of cruelty to me and myself.
 
Communication exam failed with the same mark as last semeter.
Remarks given : 1) unable to convey the message clearly to the audience and always make the audience confused and agitated with unclear messages.
 
Skill sets remain same mark as last semester.
Remarks given : 1) reason unknown.
 
I used to thought that I am better than yesterday, however, I was shock with myself when I realised that I failed my communication exam again last 2 weeks. I was not happy since then.  The reality is so cruel and I am hoping to find my courage to continue the battle next month when I am the only surviving lieutenant at that time.  Sometime I thought I had gained adequate skills to handle problems but the actual fact is I am still not up to par to complain any misjudgement. I still remember clearly how the lecturer reprimanded me for my unclear statement in the exam. Very sad I am with myself.
 
What can I do to make myself better than yesterday? What can be sadder than being stagnant since last decades..............Very sad I am :(
8月5日

一堂生动的MBA案例课

我要从徐家汇赶去机场,于是匆匆结束了一个会议,在美罗大厦前搜索出租车。一辆大众发现了我,非常专业的、径直的停在我的面前。这一停,于是有了后面的这个让我深感震撼的故事,象上了一堂生动的MBA案例课。为了忠实于这名出租车司机的原意,我凭记忆尽量重复他原来的话。
“去哪里……好的,机场。我在徐家汇就喜欢做美罗大厦的生意。这里我只做两个地方。美罗大厦,均瑶大厦。你知道吗?接到你之前,我在美罗大厦门口兜了两圈,终于被我看到你了!从写字楼里出来的,肯定去的不近~~~”
“哦?你很有方法嘛!”我附和了一下。
“做出租车司机,也要用科学的方法。”他说。我一愣,顿时很有些兴趣“什么科学的方法?”
“要懂得统计。我做过精确的计算。我说给你听啊。我每天开17个小时的车,每小时成本34.5元……”
“怎么算出来的?”我追问。
“你算啊,我每天要交380元,油费大概210元左右。一天17小时,平均每小时固定成本22元,交给公司,平均每小时12.5元油费。这是不是就是34.5 元?”
我有些惊讶。我打了10年的车,第一次听到有出租车司机这么计算成本。以前的司机都和我说,每公里成本0.3元,另外每天交多少钱之类的。
“成本是不能按公里算的,只能按时间算。你看,计价器有一个“检查”功能。你可以看到一天的详细记录。我做过数据分析,每次载客之间的空驶时间平均为7分钟。如果上来一个起步价,10元,大概要开10分钟。也就是每一个10元的客人要花17分钟的成本,就是9.8元。不赚钱啊!如果说做浦东、杭州、青浦的客人是吃饭,做10元的客人连吃菜都算不上,只能算是撒了些味精。”
强!这位师傅听上去真不象出租车司机,到象是一位成本核算师。“那你怎么办呢?”我更感兴趣了,继续问。看来去机场的路上还能学到新东西。
“千万不能被客户拉了满街跑。而是通过选择停车的地点,时间,和客户,主动地决定你要去的地方。”我非常惊讶,这听上去很有意思。“有人说做出租车司机是靠运气吃饭的职业。我以为不是。你要站在客户的位置上,从客户的角度去思考。”
这句话听上去很专业,有点象很多商业管理培训老师说的“put yourself into others' shoes.”
“给你举个例子,医院门口,一个拿着药的,一个拿着脸盆的,你带哪一个。”
我想了想,说不知道。
“你要带那个拿脸盆的。一般人病小痛的到医院看一看,拿点药,不一定会去很远的医院。拿着脸盆打车的,那是出院的。住院哪有不死人的?今天二楼的谁死了,明天三楼又死了一个。从医院出来的人通常会有一种重获新生的感觉,重新认识生命的意义,健康才最重要。那天这个说:走,去青浦。眼睛都不眨一下。你说他会打车到人民广场,再去做青浦线吗?绝对不会!”
我不由得开始佩服。
“再给你举个例子。那天人民广场,三个人在前面招手。一个年轻女子,拿着小包,刚买完东西。还有一对青年男女,一看就是逛街的。第三个是个里面穿绒衬衫的,外面羽绒服的男子,拿着笔记本包。我看一个人只要3秒钟。我毫不犹豫地停在这个男子面前。这个男的上车后说:延安高架、南北高架~~~还没说后面就忍不住问,为什么你毫不犹豫地开到我面前?前面还有两个人,他们要是想上车,我也不好意思和他们抢。
我回答说,中午的时候,还有十几分钟就1点了。那个女孩子是中午溜出来买东西的,估计公司很近;那对男女是游客,没拿什么东西,不会去很远;你是出去办事的,拿着笔记本包,一看就是公务。而且这个时候出去,估计应该不会近。那个男的就说,你说对了,去宝山。”
“那些在超市门口,地铁口打车,穿着睡衣的人可能去很远吗?可能去机场吗?机场也不会让她进啊。”
有道理!我越听越有意思。
“很多司机都抱怨,生意不好做啊,油价又涨了啊,都从别人身上找原因。我说,你永远从别人身上找原因,你永远不能提高。从自己身上找找看,问题出在哪里。”
这话听起来好熟,好像是“如果你不能改变世界,就改变你自己”,或者Steven Covey的 “影响圈和关注圈”的翻版。
“有一次,在南丹路一个人拦车,去田林。后来又有一次,一个人在南丹路拦车,还是去田林。我就问了,怎么你们从南丹路出来的人,很多都是去田林呢?人家说,在南丹路有一个公共汽车总站,我们都是坐公共汽车从浦东到这里,然后搭车去田林的。我恍然大悟。比如你看我们开过的这条路,没有写字楼,没有酒店,什么都没有,只有公共汽车站,站在这里拦车的多半都是刚下公共汽车的,再选择一条最短路经打车。在这里拦车的客户通常不会高于15元。”
“所以我说,态度决定一切!”我听十几个总裁讲过这句话,第一次听出租车司机这么说。
要用科学的方法,统计学来做生意。天天等在地铁站口排队,怎么能赚到钱?每个月就赚500块钱怎么养活老婆孩子?这就是在谋杀啊!慢性谋杀你的全家。要用知识武装自己。学习知识可以把一个人变成聪明的人,一个聪明的人学习知识可以变成很聪明的人。一个很聪明的人学习知识,可以变成天才。”
“有一次一个人打车去火车站,问怎么走。他说这么这么走。我说慢,上高架,再这么这么走。他说,这就绕远了。我说,没关系,你经常走你有经验,你那么走 50块,你按我的走法,等里程表50块了,我就翻表。你只给50快就好了,多的算我的。按你说的那么走要50分钟,我带你这么走只要25分钟。最后,按我的路走,多走了4公里,快了25分钟,我只收了50块。乘客很高兴,省了10元钱左右。这4公里对我来说就是1块多钱的油钱。我相当于用1元多钱买了25 分钟。我刚才说了,我一小时的成本34.5块,我多合算啊!”
“在大众公司,一般一个司机3、4千,拿回家。做的好的大概5千左右。顶级的司机大概每月能有7000。全大众2万个司机,大概只有2-3个司机,万里挑一,每月能拿到8000以上。我就是这2-3个人中间的一个。而且很稳定,基本不会大的波动。”
太强了!到此为止,我越来越佩服这个出租车司机。
我常常说我是一个快乐的车夫。有人说,你是因为赚的钱多,所以当然快乐。我对他们说,你们正好错了。是因为我有快乐、积极的心态,所以赚的钱多。”
“要懂得体味工作带给你的美。堵在人民广场的时候,很多司机抱怨,又堵车了!真是倒霉。千万不要这样,用心体会一下这个城市的美,外面有很多漂亮的女孩子经过,非常现代的高楼大厦,虽然买不起,但是却可以用欣赏的眼光去享受。开车去机场,看着两边的绿色,冬天是白色的,多美啊。再看看里程表,100多了,就更美了!每一样工作都有她美丽的地方,我们要懂得从工作中体会这种美丽。”
“我10年前是强生公司的总教练。8年前在公司作过三个不同部门的部门经理。后来我不干了,一个月就3、5千块,没意思。就主动来做司机。我愿意做一个快乐的车夫。哈哈哈哈。”
到了机场,我给他留了一张名片,说:“你有没有兴趣这个星期五,到我办公室,给我们公司的员工讲一讲你怎么开出租车的?你就当打着表,60公里一小时,你讲多久,我就付你多少钱。给我电话。”
我迫不及待的在飞机上记录下他这堂生动的MBA课。  
7月27日

A Humble Muggle Comment

Every beginning has its ending.............Harry Potter 7 marked the last ending of Harry Potter series.  Finished reading it and sense some characters and story lines reflected upon reality of life. 
 
Feeling sad on professor Severus Snape "tragic" death. He was a good man but being misunderstood for his whole life because he acted "weird" during his teenage life and shown the tendency towards Dark Magic. Professor Dumbledore was selfish person during his teenager life. How James humiliated Snape during their Hogwart school life and James possesion of Invisibility Cloak explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school. 
 
Maybe what Snape had said is correct ............"They're not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are." However, society favour upon Good Force rather than Dark Force and hence made James & Dumbledore great men in Hogwart.
 
So.........What is the definition of good person and bad person?
7月15日

Another Check Point Meeting

Last Thursday,my project partner informed me to attend a checkpoint meeting on Friday morning 10am at client office. As usual, I had a cup of Nescafe at the front stall opposite the client office. My project partner reached at 9.30am, and we had breakfast at the food court. (Luckily we did that). At 10am sharp, both of us, grabbed the chairs and sat on the second row of the meeting room table, because the front row occupied by the chairman, the speakers, and the vendors who are going to do presentation.
 
Meeting started around 10.30am after everything setup to begin our Friday. There were 5 vendors in the meeting room waiting for their turn to present their security implementation on their respective system to the "Mighty Judge of Data Security Unit". Vendor A, which developed the biggest part of the system started their presentation, and this is where his nightmare begun.  As he went through his system against the Central Bank guideline checklist, which I saw was filled up with details and complied to all the applicable items in the listing with the word "Yes".
 
The show began here....
 
Judge      : Where is my Central Bank guideline checklist? Why no one prepare the checklist and we just go through the list?
 
After 10 minutes of photostating process...........
 
Checklist  :  All login IDs must have an expiry day and set to inactive after a period of inacivity set in the policy.
Judge       :  Do your system have that?
Vendor A  :  Yes.
Judge       :  However, my department may not need to login into the system if no user complaining for a very long time. So, my department's IDs shouldn't have expiry date.
Vendor A  :  Err.....(he is starting to scratch his head -- exceptional case?).
 
Checklist  :  All system should have system log files.
Judge       :  Do your system have that?
Vendor A  :  Yes. For process A, log file store in location A. Process B which is in another system, log file stores in location B.....etc.
Judge       :  Is your system log file easy to understand? Can you make it understandable by non-IT savvy?
Vendor A  :  Hmm.....(he is lost in the space of confusion. System log file to be read by non-IT savvy? After the system finished development?)
Judge       :  (Turned her head to the chairman) In our organization, who is responsible to read the system log file?
Chairman :  Currently, there is no such person exist.
Judge       :  I think your department should assign someone to read the log file.
Chairman :  You must be joking, your department is an IT department, why not your department just take over the job?
Judge       :  Nope. That shouldn't be. Auditor, isn't your department to review the log file to scrutinize if there is any abuse to the system?
Auditor     :  Ha?
(And this finger pointing continue for 10 minutes without any conclusion except Vendor A still confuse in his world)
 
This "integerrogation" process continue for more than 2 hours just for Vendor A system because of Judge's new requirements and questions branches out from the Central Bank checklist. Vendor A did complied to all the checklist items but what he not aware of are those "exceptional cases" and he needs to make additional changes. This happened to us last time, we encountered the same problems and we were having the thoughest time to make last minutes changes without any extension of dateline. When we requested for the "exceptional cases" checklist from the Bank, the Bank answered "NON existing item found".  Today, we see our fellow vendors encounter the same problems, we saw our "past".
 
Human never learn from their mistakes and past experiences. All new vendors faced the "exceptional cases" incident with the "Judge", not that we never comply to Central Bank ruling, but we are not inform of such "exceptional cases" and we are forced to make changes within shortest time. "Judge" always attend the project meeting just before the UAT begins and vendors will struggle before UAT begin.
 
If "exceptional cases" is such crucial to our system development, why no one in the Bank have the initiative to create a checklist and give to all vendors to develop accordingly? If this exceptional cases checklist exist, we can save a lot of time, human effort, transportaion, parking fees, electricity, saliva, brain cells....etc on this unnecessary process. (A watse of tax payers money)
 
If the Bank willing to pay me few thousand RM to prepare the checklist, I would accept with great pleasure for the benefits of we, ie: vendors' mental health.
 
7月1日

安静的位置

作者:周国平   

前些时候,有一阵听说我的书卖得挺好。一个人写书当然希望爱读的人越多越好,我也不例外,所以心里是高兴的。但是,接踵而来的热闹,诸如记者采访、电视亮相、大学讲座之类,我就非常不习惯了。我尽量推辞,有时盛情难却答应了,结果多半是后悔。人各有志,我不反对别人追求和享受所谓文化的社会效应,只是觉得这种热闹与我的天性太不合。我的性格决定我不能做一个公众人物。做公众人物一要自信,相信自己真是一个人物,二要有表演欲,一到台上就来情绪。我偏偏既自卑又怯场,面对摄像机和麦克风没有一次不感到是在受难。因此我想,万事不可勉强,就让我顺应天性过我的安静日子吧。如果确实有人喜欢我的书,他们喜欢的也一定不是这种表面的热闹,就让我们的心灵在各自的安静中相遇吧。   

世上从来不缺少热闹,因为一旦缺少,便必定会有不甘心的人去把它制造出来。不过,大约只是到了今日的商业时代,文化似乎才必须成为一种热闹,不热闹就不成其为文化。譬如说,从前,一个人不爱读书就老老实实不读,如果爱读,必是自己来选择要读的书籍,在选择中贯彻了他的个性乃至怪癖。现在,媒体担起了指导公众读书的职责,畅销书推出一轮又一轮,书目不断在变,不变的是全国热心读者同一时期仿佛全在读相同的书。与此相映成趣的是,这些年来,学界总有一两个当红的热门话题,话题不断在变,不变的是不同学科的学者同一时期仿佛全在研究相同的课题。我不怀疑仍有认真的研究者,但更多的却只是凭着新闻记者式的嗅觉和喉咙,用以代替学者的眼光和头脑,正是他们的起哄把任何学术问题都变成 了热门话题,亦即变成了过眼烟云的新闻。   

在这个热闹的世界上,我尝自问:我的位置究竟在哪里?我不属于任何主流的、非主流的和反主流的圈子。我也不是现在有些人很喜欢标榜的所谓另类,因为这个名称也太热闹,使我想起了集市上的叫卖声。那么,我根本不属于这个热闹的世界吗?可是,我绝不是一个出世者。对此我只能这样解释:不管世界多么热闹,热闹永远只占据世界的一小部分,热闹之外的世界无边无际,那里有着我的位置,一个安静的位置。这就好像在海边,有人弄潮,有人嬉水,有人拾贝壳,有人聚在一起高谈阔论,而我不妨找一个安静的角落独自坐着。是的,一个角落--在无边无际的大海边,哪里找不到这样一个角落呢--但我看到的却是整个大 海,也许比那些热闹地聚玩的人看得更加完整。   

在一个安静的位置上,去看世界的热闹,去看热闹背后的无限广袤的世界,这也许是最适合 我的性情的一种活法吧。 

6月30日

A Thought to Think About

My colleague and I were having a "debat" over an action of someone that both of us know. This person left the company within 24 hours notice which was planned 3 months before. Well, anyone may think that, 24 hours notice is not a big deal as long as that person is not being fired and he/she has the capability to continue survive in the next 24 hours or longer. However, this person was entrusted to take up a big project 3 months ago hoping that the project can turn its sail back on course under this person leadership. I "believED" it can be done and I was shock when the resignation news arrived.
 
This person was working under a supervisor which almost all his staff are working against him instead of working together with him. In another word, the supervisor is unable to gather workforce but has successfully created a troop to battle against himself. Leaving the company and abadon the project within 24 hours is a "killing" and "revenge" action to the supervisor.
 
My argument :
1.  If you planned to leave the company within 24 hours for the pass 3 months, why you agreed to take up the massive project which your creditbility are highly entrusted? An act to revenge?
 
My colleague argument :
1. Human are money driven. People left their job for higher salary and better benefits are understandable.
 
Am I too shallow and too innocent about the reality of society?
 
 
6月20日

Life is like a box of chocolates

Another half year had gone and time passed too fast. I wonder do scientists aware of the Earth is spinning too fast.......haha......
 
Having stay in the office for quite sometime after Phase 2a(i) of the project and the schedule production deadline for Phase 2b were passed 2 days, however, we are still not yet in the System Integration Test(SIT) period due to delay by the Bank..........another unknown period of delay again.........is this a good news or a bad news.....not really sure I am.
 
Few discoveries/observations on my recent visits to the Bank:-
1. The vendor room is getting smaller and smaller because 12 tables are seated with almost 20 people at one time. 
    --> Bank is expanding and changing to new system, many opportunities open to vendors
2. Lesser and lesser familiar faces in the building, 75% of the our Bank project team members left.
    --> We are the sole survival, our force and immune system is too strong to be spoilt by evil forces.
3. Communication is getting harder and harder due to 20 laptops accessing 12 LAN points at the same time.
4. Time is important to the Bank, but least important to vendors. Delay by the Bank is always due to unforseen circumstances.
5. Troubleshooting of system failure always belong to vendor's responsibilites. While affected departments are pointing fingers at each other system, vendor has to be utmost efficient and initiative to look for their "dirty windows" which caused the problems.    
6. It is the best place to sharpen our patience. Anyone who has a bigger team, can just walk in the room and demand for spaces to work without proper request and those who are having mild temper will have to suffer in silent.
 
Forrest Gump's mother said... "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you gonna get".........well, quite a true philosophy. Many incidents and things happended during the project, no one know exactly what is going to happen next.  People changed along the time, decisions changed due to circumstances, original schedule and plans shifted due to unforseen reasons.
 
Can any Master forsee when will we complete the whole project? before 2007 Christmas perhaps? or before Olimpik 2008?
5月16日

Be specific - we can make a different

Recently I found that many people do not bother to be more specific when they inform what problems occurred and expecting something to be done to fix the problems as soon as possible.
 
For example:
 
Sometime I received emails or requests stating these ...............
 
1.  "Users reported that they are having problems when accessing the application, please look into this problem and revert as soon as possible"
My questions are :
  • Which part of the application is having problem?
  • What is the error screen or message displayed to the users? 
  • When is the users having such problems?
2. "Client never receive any reply message for his/her request. Please check"
My questions are:
  • Who is the client?
  • What request the client sent in?
  • When the client sent in the request?
3. "Please check for me what is happen to the system because users complaint of delay in performance"
My questions are:
  • Which system should I look into it?
  • Which group of users are complaining?
  • What performance is delaying?

The users may not know what is happening to the services/system that they are using when it go malfunction but as a support personnel, we should be able to "ask" the users for more specific details so that the relevant parties can speed up their investigation and problem solving time. 

When everyone starts to report problems in very general statement, the problem may not be solved in time or may be ignored by the solving parties because they might not found the root of the problems occurred. The cycle will come back to us as a support personnel because users will continue complaining to us and lost patience with us.

Who will face the "anger" from users/clients when the problems not solve?

 

 

5月5日

The King and His People

I used to visit my old friends at thier office which happen to be a bank branch. A friend of mine told me that, he is very disappointed with the atitude and mentality of the new generation of bank staff. According to him, nowaday, clerical staff only will do what is being told and not more than that. Officers need to give reminder constantly or else the work will be left there.
 
Being a senior in the branch, he felt that the enthusiasm towards work and positive mentality is no more important to this new generation of staff. They joined the bank because the bank called them for interview before other companies do. Once they are in the bank, they are being pampered with the stablity of their work life because bank provides better remuneration to its staff compare to other companies. Benefits such as : lower housing loan interest rate, lower car loan interest rate, medical leave, compensation etc.  The last time bank offer VSS(Voluntery Seperation System) was 4-5 years ago. Since Malaysian economic has recovered after recession, banking sector is now actively recruit new people to expand their business and compete with foreign banks.
 
There is a Chinese proverb said "山高皇帝远" means the king's palace is too far from his people and he will not know what is happening to them. Any big companies and government departments will always have its own bureaucratic system to follow. Same goes to banking institution.  Browse to any bank's internet banking web site, you can find corporate info link of the bank. All the people whose name published at the corporate info section are important people of the bank and they manage the bank with the help of their "ministers" below them which will further escalate the power to their donwline and the process go on.  A bank staff especially lower ranking staff eg: clerical, middle ranking officers may never meet all these corporate section people in real during their whole working life in the bank. Their career path and development are largerly depend to their managers who are reporting to several levels of top managers above them. In other word, the managers are still having a big gap from those coporate people.  No one actually know what you had done during your working life unless you had made a "suprise" and done something "big" enough to be noticed by the bank.
 
Hence, the conclusion is:
 
  1. If you only do what is being told and not making any mistake, your career life is safe. No challenge, no risk. Salary credited promptly  and you can last until retirement age.
  2. If you work beyond your job scope, you are a "risk taker" and hopefully your effort count and being promoted when the time come.
  3. If you work beyond your job scope and you made mistake, prepare yourself for punishment. Do not give excuse because no one will understand why you did beyond your job scope.
Well, if you are a new bank staff, and you notice some of your colleagues who are working very hard for years and they are doing the same work as what you are doing now because all of them were a "risk taker" before this, which conclusion you will jump into? 
3月31日

Game and Players

Today is the last day of the first quarter of year 2007.
 
A discovery made by me is human get bored pretty fast than I can expect........How should I put it...
 
When there is a new game invented, all players are very exited and want to join the fun of playing the game. Game started with a lot of stumbling over the stones on the journey and not goes well as planned. However, players are still putting high hope on finishing the game and initially everyone is still very eager to correct whatever that is not right and continue the game with full enthusism. After all the struggling and failing down, players begin to master the game and continue to next level as expected.  Too much of failling and struggling begins to make players tired and boring and the feeling of leaving the game arise but they still need to finish at least the current level. Finally, when completing current level, players begin to look for other new games and try not to continue to the next level even though these players are still tie with the current game contract.
 
As time passed, the intention of leaving the game become stronger and stronger and influence the other players as well.  The game need to continue and the game initiator needs to find new players to replace the absence.  Now the game is tougher to continue with lesser players and more time needed for new players to familiarise the game.
 
Why players dare to aviod the participation while they are still bound to the game contract that signed before enroll in the game? Is the process of the game that scare players away? Is the game is too tough to continue or not worth to continue?
 
Think I must.......
 
3月7日

Mentality on Demand and Supply

Attending the Java Sun Tech Days 2006-2007 and met Father of Java Mr. James Gosling is one of the greatest honour for everyone who involve in Java technology either on work or study. Having said so, I was shock to see how my nation people behaved in this seminar.
 
My colleagues and I attended the JFS, Visual Web Pack and NetBeans seminar of this event today. The speaker was great, he talked about JSF and showed the audiences how easy the development can be done using NetBeans and the magic that JSF can do. Towards the end of his speech, he gave a few Java branded T-shirts to those who came on stage talking and exchange knowledge with him. Finally when everyone left the stage, I saw 1 guy and 1 lady were "calculating" the T-shirts that they managed to get from the speker just now. What I can see is, each one of them had one T-shirt on their hand(not sure about their goodie bags). However, what suprise me is, the guy knowing that the T-shirts are actually kept under the table on the stage, he went and took 2 more T-shirt beneath the table without any permission and both of them walked out from the conference room with much satisfaction and happiness. (The table was actually covered by a piece of red clothing material in the front)
 
Is this act consider "stealing"?  From the economic lessons that I learned, rare supply will have greater demand. Java branded T-shirt is "rare" and hence the demand will be high and when the T-shirts are free, it will have higher demand from consumer. My point is, why the 2 of them took the T-shirt without permission from the event organizer? If anyone of the event organizer would had noticed this, what will be their impression to our country people? There are a lot of foreigners attending the event and our government always remind its citizen to potrait good impression to the foreigners as a free advertisment to promote about our country and these 2 people had just "helped" to "impair" our impression.
 
How can a nation become strong if its citizen mentality is low and inferior? Who or what should be blamed for the "act"? Government? Education? Environment? Culture? 
 
 
3月2日

A Humble Road User's Experince

Being a road user, my dreadful experince was yesterday night when a motorist suddenly speeding from 20 meters away towards me while me making a turn into the road near my house's junction. The road was clear without any vehicle for at least 20 meters, and this "insane" motorist came out suddenly was speeding faster and faster towards my car. As he/she came nearer, he/she make a corner turn in front of my car. My heart was almost fall to the floor when I saw this "fear factor" performance. It was lucky for both of us because I gave my way. If I did proceed without stoppping, the motorist will never perform his/her 45 degree corner turning but he/she will end up to be at God's side forever.
 
Why are such irresponsible people do exist in this world and manage to get their driving licence to perform "fear factor" actions on the road? These people are not only causing problems to themselves but also implicating other innocent people as well.
 
Where is the authorities while these irresponsible group of people performing their life threatening actions?
 
When can human "dispose" selfishness within him/herself for mankind sake?
2月20日

Wisdom Born of Experience

2 day before Chinese New Year arrival, our project passed the UAT for the new phase commenced early of Jan 2007. Once again, our team had proved to have better quality to accept challanges and faced adversity. Bravo....to all my team mates!!!!
 
While we were standby during UAT period, the team members were "reviewing" own past records and talked about how we should face the future. We laughed about our past in this project and all the difficulties and sleepless nights we had due to our inexperience, we were sad because we were not able to turn back the clock. Although we are better now but reality is cruel. Human tends to remember others' failures more than success stories. We are happy because we grow up a lot with all our mistakes and success.
 
A Chinese proverb said "经一事,长一智", which means "wisdom is gain from experince". I am glad I had the chance to gain more wisdom, so do everyone in the team. 
 
A long Chinese New Year break will be a good time for everyone to relax and recharge, working life will resume after 1 week, as such Yuen...........wishes everyone “新年快乐,身体健康, 步步高升, 事事如意“ -- Happy Chinese New Year with good health and good fortune accompany you in all your undertaking!!! GongXi! GongXi! 
 
1月27日

New Learning Year 2007

A good year to start with by proving to the client we are not that "stupid" at all. Do not under estimate our limit!! 
 
New year new starts but same old problems appear one after another within the project. Who to blame is not important but the team is getting weary and tired of everything happened. Endless waiting due to bureaucrats happened within the bank. We are still very patient and able to face the adversity with much laughter and positive thinking to boost up our spirit and stay positive.
 
Looking back to our failure last year, the team members had openly criticized each other weaknesses and work together to improve from experince.  We are now getting and learn to be better from last year, we will handle matters with due diligent. While team members thinking that I will get agitated easily, my project partner who had always a patience person released his mild anger in the last meeting because of all the annoyance we received. 
 
Being a non sales person, we need to take care things without offend the business team but can it be vice verse? Is it really a universal trend that in a project, technical people always need to struggle for the target that sales person promised during closing a deal? Money is everything?(I choose not to believe but I may need to reconsider my thought). To what degree we can be professional enough to satisfy every parties without offended anyone internally and externally?
 
Learn we must.....learn we must........