Lessons in hiring staff

A blonde is explaining to her girlfriend the bad day she'd had at work, and that her boss had suffered a heart attack and died.

"How horrible!" said the friend, "What did you do?"

The blonde replies, "Well there was nothing I could do. He kept yelling at me to call 9-1-1, but he wouldn't tell me the rest of the numbers!"

When hiring blondes and the like minded, always hire another too, to do the actual work!

Further on ..relationships...

The Perfect Girl: "A friend asked a gentleman how it is that he never married?

Replied the gentleman, 'Well, I guess I just never met the right woman ... I guess I've been looking for the perfect girl.'

'Oh, come on now,' said the friend, 'Surely you have met at least on girl that you wanted to marry.'

'Yes, there was one girl .. once. I guess she was the one perfect girl.

The only perfect girl I really ever met. She was just the right everything .. I really mean that she was the perfect girl for me.'

'Well, why didn't you marry her,' asked the friend.

'She was looking for the perfect man,' he said. "

Relationships. Its all a matter of understanding needs

I never quite figured out why the sexual urge of men and women differ so much. And I never have figured out the whole Venus and Mars thing. I have never figured out why men think with their head and women with their heart.

FOR EXAMPLE:

One evening last week, my girlfriend and I were getting into bed. Well, the passion starts to heat up, and she eventually says, "I don't feel like it, I just want you to hold me."

I said, "WHAT??!! What was that?!"

So she says the words that every boyfriend on the planet dreads to hear...

"You're just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man."

She responded to my puzzled look by saying, "Can't you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?"

Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to sleep.

The very next day I opted to take the day off of work to spend time with her. We went out to a nice lunch and then went shopping at a big, big unnamed department store. I walked around with her while she tried on several different very expensive outfits. She couldn't decide which one to take, so I told her we'd just buy them all. She wanted new shoes to compliment her new clothes, so I said, "Lets get a pair for each outfit."

We went on to the jewellery department where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you... she was so excited. She must have thought I was one wave short of a shipwreck. I started to think she was testing me because she asked for a tennis bracelet when she doesn't even know how to play tennis.

I think I threw her for a loop when I said, "That's fine, honey." She was almost nearing sexual satisfaction from all of the excitement.

Smiling with excited anticipation, she finally said, "I think this is all dear, let's go to the cashier."

I could hardly contain myself when I blurted out, "No honey, I don't feel like it."
Her face just went completely blank as her jaw dropped with a baffled,

"WHAT?"

I then said, "Honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for a while. You're just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me to satisfy your shopping needs as a woman."

And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me, I added, "Why can't you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?"

Apparently I'm not having sex tonight either....but at least that *%^@!h knows I'm smarter than her.

(OK, this is an old email floating around. Someone sent it to me again today. So, what better way to keep then to blog it here. But somehow, i have a feeling two other scenarios could occur. One, the couple would break up. The other would be the optimistically unrealistic scenario of man and women finally understanding their needs and having great sex together that night, and moderate shopping within budget!!)

Politicians...

HE KNOWS NO
FEAR

HE KNOWS NO
DANGER

HE KNOWS
NOTHING

What if we, as a nation, had taken a different path

Something was discussed over a heavy lunch yesterday. There was no alcohol served, so we were all pretty sober and knew what we were talking about.

How would Malaysia be, or how much could we have achieved as a country, IF the government of the day had truthfully implemented the noble policies of the National Economic Policy in terms of poverty eradication and restructuring of the wealth/communities.

By this i mean, no cronyism, no favouritism, no denying of education aids to our brightest regardless of race and religion, meritocracy to be the basis in the civil service, no arbitary issuing of huge inflated contracts to friendly parties, and the like.

Instead of the 6% - 8% growth per annum achieved since the 80s, would we have achived double digit growths till today? Would we have become the financial hub for the south east asia region? Would we have become a developed state in the 90s itself? Would we not be so far ahead of other financial hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong?

Success breeds success. If we had achived all that, considering the numerous natural resources that we have, multi racial and lingual young population, kind weather and stable political climate, wouldnt poverty been eradicated long ago? Wouldnt everyone be financially better off? Wouldnt even the rural areas be thriving economically?

These are all thoughts worth pondering.

Instead of the above, what we have achieved thus far is a pittance. Cronies get richer. The poor are generally not so much the better. The wealth gap amongst the rich and the poor widens more. The rural sector continues to struggle.

And chest thumping and keris wielding continue to occur. They celebrate the somewhat miserable achievements (at the expense of much losses). They keep harping on 2020 as the target, when in actual fact we should have achieved that ages ago!

The SJER is supposedly to be fashioned and developed along the lines of Shenzen. Yes, we are extremely good in talking but suck big time in walking the talk. We are blind to the fact that our southern neighbour, with hardly any natural resources, has outpaced and outthinked us in various fields. Surely there must be something right in the manner they have developed their city state. Surely there is much to be learnt from them. By the way, many of their administrators were once upon a time our citizens.

So, in this month of august when the country celebrates its independence, i feel nothing but disappointment and pessimism. The question "What IF?" will forever continue to be asked.

JKR

They're in the limelight, yet again, for the wrong reasons. The Health Ministry is not happy with the excessive delays in the Hospital Sultan Ibrahim, Pandan. Neither is the Education Ministry and Perak State happy with the works done by JKR on the hockey pitch at KL and the Velodrome Rakyat at Ipoh.

Over the years we have seen numerous complaints against JKR, though most were not truly of their fault. Some of the major probs relating to uncompleted buildings e.g Matrade, PMCs (project management companies), were actually not caused by JKR per se. They were just players in that gigantic puzzle of a scheme to enrich some. Decisions are almost always made at the Finance Ministry and JKR were only the monitoring or implementing body.

Well, these are my ignorant simplistic thoughts on JKR. It must be chopped down to size. Its too big and powerful. The federal government has a Jabatan Perkhidmatan Harta dan Penilaian (JPPH) thats filled with valuers and property managers. And yet none of them are involved in the management of the country's physical assets. Perhaps a tiny percentage. Management and maintenance of the assets are almost always under the purview of JKR.

Years ago, the waterworks department within JKR was chopped off and privatised. I believe it is about time that the JPPH is asked to play a major role in managing and maintaining the country's physical assets. The top cannot be lamenting of poor maintenance and then think that the solution is throwing RM500 million or thereabout to Class F contractors in the form of maintenance contracts. There just has to be a structural change in the way things are done here.

Horny, bored and the like

Men are horny creatures (women too ..but theyre almost always too nice, shy or reserved to admit it).

But when youre busy and not bored, you wont think of being horny, unless youre busy having "not-boring" sex. (But then again, is there such a thing as boring sex for males?)

So, when youre not busy, and not having sex, you will tend to get horny..sex comes into the mind.

Unless of course youre impotent or in menopause. Am neither, yet.

monday blues just never seem to go away

Only some time back the Government was encouraging or allowing EPF contributors to shift their funds to insurance companies for the latter to manage and then distribute annuities along the lines of pensions upon retirement.

And now, this happens. Thankfully, the scheme had long been disbanded.

Then we have this reported:

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has ordered a temporary freeze on the sale and purchase of land in the Southern Johor Economic Region (SJER).

He said the move would prevent land prices in the region from skyrocketing and tempting local residents to sell their properties for short-term gain.

However, owners who wish to mortgage their land to financial institutions to obtain development capital would be exempted from the freeze order, he said in a special interview with RTM.

Now, they failed to freeze things when Gelang Patah was first being acquired in the early 1990s, resulting in excessive speculation. The latter resulted in compensation payments far exceeding what was deemed to be realistic prior to the announcements and gazette notifications. In the present instance, its all talk yet again.

We had talks of RM15Billion coming into this region, even before anything is in the pocket. Now we're told land transactions are frozen. Surely they are aware that the district of Johor Bahru is huge, and the area covered by the South Johor Economic Region is equally big. Perhaps I need to verify with some friends if an intended acquisition notice under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act 1960 has been gazetted.

To top it all up, we have the all too familiar story of a high achiever in SPM, with 10A1s, being denied scholarships to further his studies by the Federal Government. This time around though, its the good people at UTAR who agrees to sponsor the guy on a year to year basis. This is a guy who has lost his dad and works in school canteen to supplement the family's low income. If the powers that be do not help such people, it boggles the mind the rationale behind their decision making. But then again, weren't these the same Government who decided that 15A1s were better results than 15A1s + 1A2.

As for the newspapers, as the days pass by, one thing becomes very clear yet again. There is a lot of spinning going on to further certain parties' agendas and interests. One who reads only the newspapers it would seem are being deprived of a lot of truths. A lot of questions being asked are valid to me. A lot of dirty linen is being washed in the public sphere. While this is good in the long run, IF the system improves later, it would seem that the business community is very uneasy. I know i am. Things are slow. That sort of explains the number of posts i've made of late.

oh Johor.....sigh. I cry for you.

Learnt more of the State last night. Was watching part of the news late nite. I cant remember which particular channel it was. But the person interviewed or giving a lecture was the head honcho of Perbadanan Johor aka the corporatised version of the old State Economic Development Corporation.

He was talking about CSR if my bad memory serves me well, in the context of the muslim environment. No probs or worries there.

But what caught my attention was his statement which was something alone the lines of ... "Johor Corporation being a body that belongs to or owned by the muslims..."

And so the head honcho feels the State Economic Development Corporation with a modern name of Perbadanan Johor, which they conveniently prefer to call Johor Corporation, is a body thats belonging to persons of a particular religion. Does that mean also that the every other government department or agency, is also one thats belonging to that race? Here I was being so ignorant. Thinking that a state agency like SEDC was actually a body that belongs to every citizen of that state. To protect the State's interest and that of all its citizens. How can I have such idealistic views in the first place.

Sigh, me so stoopid. I had to learn this via the tv.

Food outlets and me

Why is it that I am the one almost always getting the wrong order delivered to my table, or having the waiter/waiteress forgetting my order, or screwing it up totally. I believe i blogged about this earlier.

These two ladies and myself were out in town this afternoon to look for some material to buy for an association.

We passed by the nasi kandar outlet and gave it a pass cos it appeared a bit noisy and next to a busy road. We thought Compact Hotel would be a nicer place, as the coffee house would be airconditioned. We ordered fried kuay teow for the ladies, with one requesting specifically for no squids. I ordered for a spanking orange chicken, which the waiter had to go back to the kitchen to find out what it was. We werent any wiser but I still went for it just for the heck of it. After more than 10 minutes, he says the orange chicken dish is "out of order". I didnt know whether to ROTFLMAO or to curse and swear for wasting 10 minutes. Changed the order to chicken chop. The fun had just begun.

The kuay teow came after another 10 to 15 minutes. Both had squids. We requested for another plate with no squids. Within 2 minutes, super fast cooking my foot, the dish came back, minus the squid. The green-still-new-at-his-job waiter told her the squids were removed and this was her kuay teow. The drinks came, and we wondered why my hot chocolate looked like milo with too much milk. It sure did taste like milo. It didnt help when the waiter actually did say "here's your Milo" or something like that. He only corrected after I pointed out I had asked for hot choc. Sigh.

The chicken chop was huge. But the squid-less dish was a big issue. Insisted on the restaurant manager to come, but alas the person was out, during lunch time summore!! Nobody senior. Each time we complained, the waiters went into the kitchen.

We got up. Insisted on paying only for the drinks and an appetiser. We refused to pay for the 3 meals. We just did it, paid, and walked off.

First time ever entering the place, and got screwed service.

Yes, Sic. JB is a screwed place for food and service. Theres just too few places where one can truly go and enjoy a good meal.

... no idea what the title of this should be....

In reply to a comment made by a buddy in an earlier post, what to do lah. Some of us got to struggle to earn a living in the wrong industry. No. Thats not it. I've just not been able to sit, and write.

I've been troubled of late on the directions the corporate sector is taking. Professional firms seem to need to have Bumiputra shareholders and directors to remain in the panels of some banks, regardless of how long you have been in their panel, or how good you are. At least 2 local banks have implemented this rule to our detriment, supposedly. Supposedly, cos only one bank was forthright about this issue, and the other just avoided commenting. Yes, I am totally aware of the 30% requirement in all stock exchange listing exercises, almost all FIC approvals on investment, in State Authority approvals for land development etc.

I have nothing against equal rights and fair competition. That is after all the basis of free trade. The stark reality which people have to know is this. The good professional Bumis come out and set up their own firms. And generally, they are doing very well. We wish them well. What the market is left with is the not so good ones. and almost all of them are contented to remain as employees and not seek professional status which would enable them to be shareholders or directors. Why are we being punished for something that is not of our fault. We have tried for many years, but have not found someone. Even the ones we train and groom, eventually leave to the corporate sector, not staying and growing with the company.

Johor

How I wish I had the liberty of a few hours of free time, to sit here at my pc, and hammer away my thoughts on this state and country of mine. The trend amongst some bloggers is to say...how they cry for the country. Well, I have yet to reach that stage I guess.

In every aspect of our lives here, there are substantial shortcomings. I read somewhere, my memory fails me yet again, that live life not thinking of all the problems one faces and all the negativities in our midst. Just look ahead, look at the little good stuff, and live it. To ponder on things beyond one's control could be merely a mechanism to hold you back. Or something to that effect.

Desaru International Resort in the early 90s. Numerous proposed billion dollar investments or projects. Numerous world trade centres and mega-projects, some of which were privatization projects. We've been swamped with such grandiose proposals over the past 15 years or more.

The mind has become numb. There is one thing in common in all the above proposals. Nothing came out of it. Well, hardly anything.

The thing is, our administrators have that knack of announcing to gain whatever milleage when things are not even signed and sealed.

We have the South Johor Economic Region. First, we needed to be reinforced by the PM himself that this was a project that he and he himself came out with, not some other person. (I sensed hidden uncalled for tone there)

The 9thMP has been announced many weeks back, and theyre still talking about proposals. Proposed billions to be invested. On-going discussions with numerous foreign entities quequing to dump their cash here. And then we have the bombshell today, that the masterplan would only be ready at the end of this year. Huh??

In the meantime, billions of dollars continue to pour into our little red dot of an island neighbour in the form of FDIs. And, we continue to talk of proposals.

Time doesnt permit me to write a comprehensive take on the SJER at the moment.

I would end with this short story, which sort of says it all about our government and the people within it.

Recently, a foreign investor set up a museum in Melaka town. Spent millions, supposedly, within a row of 3 old shops. He had the MB come for its opening late last year when it was completed. Now, its revealed, he cant even get the CFO for one of the units as the building doesnt conform to standars or some other excuse. And the guy threatens to pull out his investments and move his museum to Indonesia.

Now. How did a building that hadnt secured the CFO, get to have an MB to come and do the opening ceremony?