Sybreon Ones Nought

Google had just release data on the number of government requests it gets for both information and take-down on its services, including YouTube. Since I am naturally a concerned citizen of Malaysia (read: busybody), I decided to look at the numbers for our Malaysian government. Turns out that our government is not too concerned sending take-down nor information requests.

According to the raw data, our government did not make any requests for data at all and only made less than ten take-down requests, of which none of them were complied with by Google. It is really interesting for me to note that our government is more than willing to order a take-down of content without first doing proper investigations, which is the reason why they issued take-down notices without any corresponding request for data. So, it comes as no surprise if Google refuses to take-down the content that was identified without due-cause.

Our government really needs to buck up on this. The data presented is only for the second half of 2009. I wonder how it would look come the next general election, once campaigning starts to heat up.

We live in interesting times.

A random thought occurred to me the other day regarding the appointment of professionals as ministers in our various ministries in contrast to taking in politicians. My basic argument behind this is simple, divorce the politics out of the everyday running of the country. Elected politicians should stay within the legislative branch and leave the executive branch to people who are truly qualified.

The worst kind of minister is the kind who is appointed as a senator and then parked in a ministry to collect a fat check for no reason. This person is neither there on technical merit nor political support. This kind of minister just smells funny and is a lame duck. With neither superior technical skills and experience nor strong political support, this kind of minister will be hard pressed to convince anyone to do anything. So, this kind of minister will only sit there and collect a fat check at the end of the month.

Another reason for wanting a non-political minister is to ensure continuity. If a minister is appointed because he/she is the best person for the job, ideally, that minister would be able to do a job regardless of the winds of change. That person would not be held sway to the whims and fancies of the day but rather to do the right thing to get the job done. Practically, this would require that these ministers be granted certain immunity from legislative or judicial interference.

However, finding the right people like that would not be easy.

A friend of mine and I were just talking about how working in the civil service wipes away idealism really fast. So, I suggested that maybe we should make it compulsory for every Malaysian to serve a short stint in the civil service in order for us to learn the inner workings of government.

I suggested that we should just do it as a form of national service. Such things are practised in other countries, with national service, where young citizens can choose to serve in any branch of the civil service in order to learn a thing or two about how their country works.

We could replace the present 3-month national service with a 1-year internship or apprenticeship programme design for high-school leavers so that everyone can gain some valuable work experience and also learn a thing or two about our government and how things work. All this knowledge will help equip our young people with real-world experience and inculcate a spirit of nationalist pride.

I think that it is a much better use of our tax-dollars to pay these people a small allowance during this programme than to spend it on the facilities and logistics for running a 3-month long nationwide team-building camp. We would probably get a better ROI on it.

The programme could be structured in such a way as to rotate the kids between 3-4 departments for between 3-4 months each. If a kid was interested to be a lawyer, for example, they could apply to intern with our courts. If a kid was inclined towards medicine, they could intern at a hospital. I think that it would be invaluable to the kids as well.

Of course, I do not expect the kids to cure cancer or put people behind bars.

I just read this interesting article and it voiced out certain things that I have also been thinking about and certain ideas that I have been toying with. I think that I’ll write down my ideas here and see if anyone will give me any feedback. My personal HR policy is simple – the cost of losing an employee is more than the incremental cost it takes to implement a fair system.

The trouble with most companies is that salaries are kept secret – that is just a recipe for trouble if people find out that they are earning less than their underlings or if newbies are getting paid higher than senior people because they came in during a market boom. Also, promotions are another sensitive issue as superiors decide who to push up the ladder – another recipe for disaster as it encourages unethical behaviour due to imbalances in power.

Salaries
The article said that salaries should be objective and transparent and be pegged at a single value – I fully agree. I will go even one step further. There should only be four salary grades at maximum – Experts, Masters, Adepts and Noobs.

There is no need for intermediate salary grades as it just does not make any sense. Like I always say about grades – they are good as a relative indicator, not an absolute measure. It is easy to differentiate a noob from an expert but it is difficult to differentiate between different experts. Once a year, adjust everyone’s salaries accordingly to cater to market rates and inflation but everyone in the same grade gets the same pay.

My main argument for this is because salaries are used for bread-and-butter things. We use them to pay for our mortgages and bills. So, what is most important about salary is not their absolute values but rather that they come in at a fixed value regularly, which helps people plan their lives.

Now, if we want to reward performance, that can be done through other means like bonuses, dividends and royalties – depending on the nature of the job. These things are usually quite measurable. If a product sells well, people should get a share of the profits. There is little to hide here as well since these things are obvious.

Promotions
I would like to talk about something that the article did not address – that of promotions. Instead of having promotions from up the hierarchy – I feel that promotions should be from down the hierarchy. Placing promotions in the hands of the superiors is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. There are just too many ways to abuse this.

For starters, promotions should be peer-evaluated. In order to decide who gets promoted, everyone at the same grade sits down and votes on it. Peers are usually more honest with each other because they need to work with each other and they will know whether or not the others actually did anything worthwhile. Furthermore, they will be really stupid to promote someone useless to be their boss. This is self-regulating.

In addition, this should be extended to those working under the person. If someone were to be promoted, they would inherit more responsibility and probably run a bigger team. So, we need to be sure that they will make a good boss. The best people to decide whether or not they are good bosses would be their existing staff. Easy.

Just my 2 sen.

I just read an interesting quote on SAI and I thought that I should share it here:

Entrepreneurs should NEVER lie. Even exaggeration blows your credibility.

Obviously good salesmanship is important, as is how you present information. But having listened to thousands of entrepreneurs tell their stories over the years, I can tell you that the thing that immediately raised my suspicions was any statement that damaged the credibility of the entrepreneur.

Some entrepreneurs just don’t know what they’re talking about when they make grandiose claims and projections. Some have no idea how hard it is to succeed, what successful companies’ financials look like, etc. That’s called “cluelessness,” and it also hurts your credibility. But it doesn’t hurt it as much as lying.

NEVER lie.

A good principle to live by.

According to the online article, our government paid nearly RM77 million to APCO, an Israel-based public relations company from what I understand, to help manage a bunch of stuff including the recent greet-and-meet between Najib and Obama. According to the article, our Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department claims that due to the deteriorating relations between our two countries, it can only be mended by spending some good money.

Well, I won’t deny that our fences need mending. Goodness knows that our dear old Tun, spent a lot of his time pointing fingers at the US for causing all sorts of ills in this world. However, I cannot really understand one thing and one thing only.

Malaysia does not recognise Israel’s existence. That is why, we have “Israel” stamped in our passports as the only country where it is not a valid entry document. I think that this was largely done in a stance of solidarity with our Palestinian brothers because our country cannot condone the kinds of things happening there. Okay, the historical, political, religious and other reasons are not important here.

By extension, we should not recognise any Israel-based entities because it would not be possible for us to enter into contract with an entity in a country whose laws we do not recognise. It also baffles me that we managed to issue payment to an invoice issued from a company that, for all intents and purposes, cannot exist because it is based in a country that we do not recognise.

However, I don’t see any of our opposition politicians asking this question and that worries me. Can’t anyone else see the flaw in the business logic of our government?

Don’t let your mouth write checks your ass can’t cash

I had better make a note of this while the memory is still fresh in my head.

I was brought into a meeting by my boss today, to explain why it is that it is so difficult to deliver the system that we needed to deliver by a set deadline. On one side, my boss has been making promises of delivery without checking to see if the thing can be done. On the other side, I just cannot deliver the thing that they need within the time-frame that they want it by. So, I said this during the meeting with my CTO present. He asked me why and so I gave him the reasons.

Firstly, I said that I will not be around for a couple of weeks next month because I need to go back to Cambridge (some other people would also be going for their Umrah next month). My CTO threatened to cancel my leave application and that I have my priorities wrong. He asked if I agreed with him that my priorities were the wrong way around and I totally agreed with him that my personal priorities should be myself first.

Secondly, I said that the machines that we got arrived very late. In fact, we ordered the machines in Oct 2009 but due to various fiascos we only got the machine in Mar 2010. He said that this was not his problem and I told him that it was not my problem either. The problem started because our vendor refused to process our purchase due to substantial outstanding payments that our organisation had with them.

Thirdly, I said that I needed time to make things work because I do not have expertise in this area, which is true. My area of interests and expertise is in computer architecture and chip design. I am not interested at all with writing web applications or doing systems administration work. I am most certainly not an expert in these areas as I only do these things in a limited way for my own purposes at home.

It was right after I mentioned the first point that he advised me to leave. He said that I had my priorities the wrong way around and that he did not need people like me around. I totally agreed with him on that too – I am most certainly not needed by the organisation, which is the reason why I was put to work in a totally alien field to me.

What my boss needs to do is to hire more people, which was what I told my boss last week. If he gave me six people to do the work, I might be able to deliver it on time. I am single-handedly doing the work that another department has more than twenty people doing. While it is not that difficult, there is only so much that ten fingers on a keyboard can do at a time.

Furthermore, my colleague helping me out with this work is already leaving at the end of this month. So far, she has been handling the Windows portions and documentation work. I do not know anything about Windows and the documentation is all written in Word. I would not touch any MS stuff after she leaves.

Anyway, at least I finally got some face time with my CTO and got to put a few words across. Goodness knows that I have been trying for months to schedule an appointment to see him, months ago, to no avail and I have already given up. He probably did not think that I was his problem to handle either.

On another note, another manager said that I am an easy person to manage – which is true. I am honest, rational and logical. If something can be done, and I can do it, I will say that I can do it. If something cannot be done or I cannot do it, I will say that I cannot do it. I won’t weasel around and promise to deliver a system that I cannot. That’s all.

PS: Today, I turned down the invitation to have breakfast with my CEO tomorrow. He likes to touch base with the staff to get some ‘honest’ feedback. Unfortunately, since I did not think that I would have anything positive to say, I decided that it was best for me to stay away. However, I like this idea and I think that I will adopt it in the future – but less formally. If I had been invited a year ago, I would probably have gone but now, I kind of doubt that it would be a good idea to go.