Following up on a nice tea on Saturday with TYM, in which the following topic was mentioned (albeit in a different form), I just had to get this off my chest.
It’s about work, and how busyness is often mistaken for the sign of a good worker.
To me, a good worker is one who gets the job done, whichever (ethical) way he does it. I don’t care if he spends 16 hours a day 7 days a week doing it or just finishes the job in one highly efficient spurt of 4 hours. (No, actually, I do. I think the one who spent the huge amount of time is inefficient and should be the first to go in the next reorganisation because that fellow is obviously in the wrong job. As far as possible people ought to be in jobs they can do well). So busyness is not necessarily a good thing. And people who put in 110% but get the same work done as those who only put in 80% are not necessarily better workers. Equal pay for equal work done, I say.
This brings me to the next point, which is about rewards. I would like my rewards for my work to be substantial. That could mean keeping my job when everyone else around me is losing theirs. Or it could mean getting a steady salary. Or it might even mean perks at the local Community Club. Priests and missionaries get their rewards in Heaven. I want mine here and now.
This doesn’t mean I won’t work for rewards in Heaven - I will if the Big Boss chucks me into the belly of a Big Fish. But while I’m here working for Men I expect to be compensated accordingly. And that means if I’m expected to put in extra effort I expect to see extra pay. Or other compensation.
Which brings me to my final point. Compensation comes in many forms. Material wealth and social recognition are both good categories of compensation. Personal satisfaction is also good (and probably the ideal we should strive to, but it doesn’t pay the bills). And the key to getting the best out of your workers? Give them what they want, and they’ll give you what you want.
Otherwise, back off and stop polluting my air.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
the first of many "Which ... Are You?" posts
Hey, the bandwagon's big enough for all of us.
Powerful. Intimidating. Trivia Nazi. President Bartlet is all of these and more. A super-nerd who's into chess, National Parks, and rambling off things in Latin, POTUS is the 'real thing.' Not being completely upfront with the American people may cause him re-election headaches, though...
:: Which West Wing character are you? ::
Powerful. Intimidating. Trivia Nazi. President Bartlet is all of these and more. A super-nerd who's into chess, National Parks, and rambling off things in Latin, POTUS is the 'real thing.' Not being completely upfront with the American people may cause him re-election headaches, though...
:: Which West Wing character are you? ::
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Cars And Kings Are Not Personal Things
I have been wondering if I should name my impending set of wheels, and if so, what.
Rosinante came to mind, as did Rohir, and Boxer (the old workhorse from Animal Farm). Each had its own merits, but I didn't think they were quite fitting. I then considered Dolly, because I saw an ad for Toyota, which featured a sheep outrunning horses at the racetrack.
But then I realised that to name something before it shows its true character can turn out horribly wrong - much like naming children. In an ideal world one would have two names - one given at birth to signify your parents' hopes for you, and another later in life to show the person you really are.
The difference between children and cars (or at least one of the differences), however, is that children are people, and cars, after all, are things. No matter how much fun you have with or in the car, it's still just a piece of machinery. And this is a big deal coming from a usually sentimental guy. (Check with me again after I've had it for a year)
So I have decided to classify it in the same order as Kings, Queens, and other Things of Importance For Their Role Rather Than Their Selves. It shall be known as La Voiture (The Car), and, some years later, I will with the appropriate gravitas say, "La Voiture est morte; vive la Voiture."
That is, until it develops a personality.
Rosinante came to mind, as did Rohir, and Boxer (the old workhorse from Animal Farm). Each had its own merits, but I didn't think they were quite fitting. I then considered Dolly, because I saw an ad for Toyota, which featured a sheep outrunning horses at the racetrack.
But then I realised that to name something before it shows its true character can turn out horribly wrong - much like naming children. In an ideal world one would have two names - one given at birth to signify your parents' hopes for you, and another later in life to show the person you really are.
The difference between children and cars (or at least one of the differences), however, is that children are people, and cars, after all, are things. No matter how much fun you have with or in the car, it's still just a piece of machinery. And this is a big deal coming from a usually sentimental guy. (Check with me again after I've had it for a year)
So I have decided to classify it in the same order as Kings, Queens, and other Things of Importance For Their Role Rather Than Their Selves. It shall be known as La Voiture (The Car), and, some years later, I will with the appropriate gravitas say, "La Voiture est morte; vive la Voiture."
That is, until it develops a personality.
Saturday, October 09, 2004
The Murder of Palms
They committed a heinous crime this week at the workplace. I was shocked at the sight, and stood unblinking, mouth agape, as they chopped at the victims.
The roots were the first to go, methodically hacked by coldly calculated swings in a savage rhythm. As each bunch of roots was severed from the trunk, the palm shivered and was only prevented from falling by the rough hands of a callous collaborator.
After the roots were cleared, the tops were lopped off and the carnage left on the ground for sun and wind to devour. The perpetrators unabashedly left open graves.
Later in the week, the holes were filled, and in place of the old comforting palms stood thin bamboo stalks, so fragile they were held together with pieces of string. Even they will not last long, as I hear they will be replaced by something else for political reasons.
I wonder where the secret shrine to Shiva is. I can't think of any other explanation.
The roots were the first to go, methodically hacked by coldly calculated swings in a savage rhythm. As each bunch of roots was severed from the trunk, the palm shivered and was only prevented from falling by the rough hands of a callous collaborator.
After the roots were cleared, the tops were lopped off and the carnage left on the ground for sun and wind to devour. The perpetrators unabashedly left open graves.
Later in the week, the holes were filled, and in place of the old comforting palms stood thin bamboo stalks, so fragile they were held together with pieces of string. Even they will not last long, as I hear they will be replaced by something else for political reasons.
I wonder where the secret shrine to Shiva is. I can't think of any other explanation.
Caught in the Timestream
Over the past few weeks I have encountered several of my neighbours at slightly different times of the morning as I leave for work.
On the days I am early, I meet one set. On the days I am late, I meet another.
I have since been using them as reference points for how early/late I am. If I see neighbour family with primary-school-age daughter, I'm early. If I see ACS tennis brothers, I'm very early. If cute neighbour takes the same lift, I'm late. I've never been very late. (And I always get to work on time). At other times the irregulars will turn up at the lift - the neighbour who lives in Little Amazonia, the retiree out for a walk, the maid with the big dog (who is very considerate and takes the next lift since I'm not good around animals, and certainly don't want to be shedded on before work).
I wonder if they also use me as a reference point. Do they also think to themselves "Shite it's that guy from the other end of the corridor - I'm late," or do they check their watches thinking "Maybe I could have slept five more minutes?"
Someday everybody will be earlier or later than usual at the same time and everything will go wrong.
On the days I am early, I meet one set. On the days I am late, I meet another.
I have since been using them as reference points for how early/late I am. If I see neighbour family with primary-school-age daughter, I'm early. If I see ACS tennis brothers, I'm very early. If cute neighbour takes the same lift, I'm late. I've never been very late. (And I always get to work on time). At other times the irregulars will turn up at the lift - the neighbour who lives in Little Amazonia, the retiree out for a walk, the maid with the big dog (who is very considerate and takes the next lift since I'm not good around animals, and certainly don't want to be shedded on before work).
I wonder if they also use me as a reference point. Do they also think to themselves "Shite it's that guy from the other end of the corridor - I'm late," or do they check their watches thinking "Maybe I could have slept five more minutes?"
Someday everybody will be earlier or later than usual at the same time and everything will go wrong.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Improving the gene pool
Hooray for SMRT! They've decided not to put up barriers at the boarding platforms.
People need to learn to be responsible for themselves. That means if you see train tracks, you should know that a train is likely to run on them. Especially if you're going to board that train when it arrives. That also means you should stay away from them until the train arrives. If your children are high-energy and adventurous, it's up to you to make sure they live to have adventures that will take them places (like Mount Everest). Natural selection will take care of those people who can't figure that out.
I normally wouldn't hurt a fly (Terz and G will attest to that) but stupidity has to have consequences. If we protect stupid people from themselves all the time they'll never learn. And if there are enough of them around they might actually outvote the smart ones on things that really matter, like who's going to be the next POTUS.
Sometimes I think Education ought to be more about learning to make intelligent decisions and learning common sense than anything else. Of course it's good to know how the world works, but theory is still theory after all, and like Adam Smith's invisible hand, you never know when something that you've always taken for granted could just be a case of misplaced faith.
The rest of the time I think Education is about Moulding the Future of Our Nation.
Which includes nurturing and developing Innovans. Or are they Innovates? Do they speak Innovish? Will Innovese culture be significantly different from ours? Is Innovology going to be offered as a contrasting subject? Is Innova something that's in the midst of blowing up (kind of like a reverse Atlantis)? Or is it a reference to a reproductive cell in a place of lodging?
I'll find out from my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues soon enough.
On a side note, the Sony Ericsson website has the abbreviation "spg" for its Singapore link. Looks like they've had close encounters of the Boat Quay kind before.
People need to learn to be responsible for themselves. That means if you see train tracks, you should know that a train is likely to run on them. Especially if you're going to board that train when it arrives. That also means you should stay away from them until the train arrives. If your children are high-energy and adventurous, it's up to you to make sure they live to have adventures that will take them places (like Mount Everest). Natural selection will take care of those people who can't figure that out.
I normally wouldn't hurt a fly (Terz and G will attest to that) but stupidity has to have consequences. If we protect stupid people from themselves all the time they'll never learn. And if there are enough of them around they might actually outvote the smart ones on things that really matter, like who's going to be the next POTUS.
Sometimes I think Education ought to be more about learning to make intelligent decisions and learning common sense than anything else. Of course it's good to know how the world works, but theory is still theory after all, and like Adam Smith's invisible hand, you never know when something that you've always taken for granted could just be a case of misplaced faith.
The rest of the time I think Education is about Moulding the Future of Our Nation.
Which includes nurturing and developing Innovans. Or are they Innovates? Do they speak Innovish? Will Innovese culture be significantly different from ours? Is Innovology going to be offered as a contrasting subject? Is Innova something that's in the midst of blowing up (kind of like a reverse Atlantis)? Or is it a reference to a reproductive cell in a place of lodging?
I'll find out from my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues soon enough.
On a side note, the Sony Ericsson website has the abbreviation "spg" for its Singapore link. Looks like they've had close encounters of the Boat Quay kind before.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing*
I have just come back from a choir rehearsal and my throat's feeling a bit strained, which is to be expected since I don't have formal training and the only singing I do is in church once a week.
It's all my pastor's fault, really. Last Sunday his sermon was on BeholdMePeople (yes he insisted it was one word) and he challenged each parishioner to be a BeholdMePerson. A BeholdMePerson is one who answers God's call for people to do His work. It's kind of like those people who jump up and down and wave their hands and shout "Me! Me!" when someone asks for volunteers (my interpretation). Of course I didn't stand up and jump up and down and shout "Me! Me! I wanna be a BeholdMePerson!". But I did remember an urgent appeal by The Celebration Chorus for male voices sent to me just a couple of days before. So I went back and looked at it, and it seemed that the yoke was easy and the burden was light, and I saw that it was good.
So I will be lending my unpolished and comparatively mediocre voice (the tenor next to me tonight was far better) to the effort for the next 6 weeks, and by God's grace it will turn out well. The only disappointment tonight was discovering that we were going to sing the English translation of F. B. Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise. I was so looking forward to the German. :P
*Wesley wrote this hymn to commemorate the first anniversary of his conversion to Christ. This origin is reflected in the lyrics, “On this glad day the glorious Sun of Righteousness arose.” The stanza that begins “O for a thousand tongues to sing” is verse seven of Wesley’s original poem. This work first appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1740.
It's all my pastor's fault, really. Last Sunday his sermon was on BeholdMePeople (yes he insisted it was one word) and he challenged each parishioner to be a BeholdMePerson. A BeholdMePerson is one who answers God's call for people to do His work. It's kind of like those people who jump up and down and wave their hands and shout "Me! Me!" when someone asks for volunteers (my interpretation). Of course I didn't stand up and jump up and down and shout "Me! Me! I wanna be a BeholdMePerson!". But I did remember an urgent appeal by The Celebration Chorus for male voices sent to me just a couple of days before. So I went back and looked at it, and it seemed that the yoke was easy and the burden was light, and I saw that it was good.
So I will be lending my unpolished and comparatively mediocre voice (the tenor next to me tonight was far better) to the effort for the next 6 weeks, and by God's grace it will turn out well. The only disappointment tonight was discovering that we were going to sing the English translation of F. B. Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise. I was so looking forward to the German. :P
*Wesley wrote this hymn to commemorate the first anniversary of his conversion to Christ. This origin is reflected in the lyrics, “On this glad day the glorious Sun of Righteousness arose.” The stanza that begins “O for a thousand tongues to sing” is verse seven of Wesley’s original poem. This work first appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1740.
Monday, September 13, 2004
The Raveler
It used to unnerve me that the Universe is made up of mostly nothing.
I remember a feeling of incredulity when I first realised the implications of what my physics teacher taught me - that everything is made up of atoms, and that there's a lot of empty space between atoms. If you haven't figured out what that means, basically, we're all made up of little bits of matter with lots of empty space in between. What we think of as solid is really as fluffy as the cotton wool we use to simulate gunsmoke in battlefield dioramas.
What brought this on? I was feeling bored invigilating as usual, so I turned to the familiarly reassuring act of taking apart cotton thread - the kind used to tie answer scripts together.
If you haven't taken thread apart before, then you should know that that kind of thread is made up of 3 interwoven thinner threads. In turn, each thinner string can be separated (with great care) into 2 more even thinner threads. After that, any attempt to take it apart yields the most beautiful wisps of fibre which, if properly spread, can form an enchanting veil over one spectacle lens (though I am sure a skilled craftsman could make it cover two lenses).
So I spent my time ravelling, which means
To separate the fibers or threads of (cloth, for example)
according to Webster (the dictionary, though I'm sure it's someone's online nick, amongst other things).
I first came across that wonderful word in The Scottish Play by Shakespeare, when M talks about "Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," and since then have seldom come across it in similar contexts (the sleeve of a CD doesn't count, and I'm not that much into Ravel's music anyway). It originates from an Old Dutch word meaning "loose thread".
So here I am in the Age of Computers and Gadgets Too Advanced To Be Named, ravelling thread, and through the ravelling of thread rediscovering an old truth - that we are actually made up of very little physical matter, but ah! the wonders we have done with so little!
And still there is so much left to do. And so much more thread to ravel.
I remember a feeling of incredulity when I first realised the implications of what my physics teacher taught me - that everything is made up of atoms, and that there's a lot of empty space between atoms. If you haven't figured out what that means, basically, we're all made up of little bits of matter with lots of empty space in between. What we think of as solid is really as fluffy as the cotton wool we use to simulate gunsmoke in battlefield dioramas.
What brought this on? I was feeling bored invigilating as usual, so I turned to the familiarly reassuring act of taking apart cotton thread - the kind used to tie answer scripts together.
If you haven't taken thread apart before, then you should know that that kind of thread is made up of 3 interwoven thinner threads. In turn, each thinner string can be separated (with great care) into 2 more even thinner threads. After that, any attempt to take it apart yields the most beautiful wisps of fibre which, if properly spread, can form an enchanting veil over one spectacle lens (though I am sure a skilled craftsman could make it cover two lenses).
So I spent my time ravelling, which means
To separate the fibers or threads of (cloth, for example)
according to Webster (the dictionary, though I'm sure it's someone's online nick, amongst other things).
I first came across that wonderful word in The Scottish Play by Shakespeare, when M talks about "Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," and since then have seldom come across it in similar contexts (the sleeve of a CD doesn't count, and I'm not that much into Ravel's music anyway). It originates from an Old Dutch word meaning "loose thread".
So here I am in the Age of Computers and Gadgets Too Advanced To Be Named, ravelling thread, and through the ravelling of thread rediscovering an old truth - that we are actually made up of very little physical matter, but ah! the wonders we have done with so little!
And still there is so much left to do. And so much more thread to ravel.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Back from the Land South of the Clouds
I just came back from Yunnan, China, on Wednesday night, and can only say one thing:
I love mountains.
There's something about being 3000 ft. above sea level that really clears the sinuses and the brains (which lends credence to the old superstition of sneezing your brains out and letting the Devil in, hence the custom of saying "bless you", but I digress) (second digression: be prepared for more digressions)(note to self: cut down on digressions).
But really, it was most refreshing to see vast tracts of land, and vast opportunities to do just about anything with your life. I sometimes forget what a big and wonderful world it is, especially when caught in the daily shuttle between work and home.
I'm such a visual person, just seeing things does wonders for me. To see buildings within 100 metres everywhere I turn cuts off the supply of something indescribable that is essential to my soul. To see a city stretching out before me, with its mix of old and new, its history unfolding and evolving in its architectural landscape, lifts me halfway to rapture. It is at those times when I feel in communion with a greater cosmos.
I could sit all day and night and watch a city wake, live, and sleep.
Looks like I need to find a really tall building to live in.
I love mountains.
There's something about being 3000 ft. above sea level that really clears the sinuses and the brains (which lends credence to the old superstition of sneezing your brains out and letting the Devil in, hence the custom of saying "bless you", but I digress) (second digression: be prepared for more digressions)(note to self: cut down on digressions).
But really, it was most refreshing to see vast tracts of land, and vast opportunities to do just about anything with your life. I sometimes forget what a big and wonderful world it is, especially when caught in the daily shuttle between work and home.
I'm such a visual person, just seeing things does wonders for me. To see buildings within 100 metres everywhere I turn cuts off the supply of something indescribable that is essential to my soul. To see a city stretching out before me, with its mix of old and new, its history unfolding and evolving in its architectural landscape, lifts me halfway to rapture. It is at those times when I feel in communion with a greater cosmos.
I could sit all day and night and watch a city wake, live, and sleep.
Looks like I need to find a really tall building to live in.
First post
What can I say? I've succumbed to peer pressure and started a blog.
Like TYM I've got, well, too many thoughts to say out loud (and I really don't like talking too much) so this is my dumping ground, or will be. Sort of like a thought clearinghouse.
Ok that's enough for a first post.
Like TYM I've got, well, too many thoughts to say out loud (and I really don't like talking too much) so this is my dumping ground, or will be. Sort of like a thought clearinghouse.
Ok that's enough for a first post.
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