Sybreon Ones Nought

I just read a letter in M’kini which is worried that Zaid is being made into a scapegoat at Hulu Selangor and that when he loses there, he will be crushed. Personally, after reading that letter, I think that is exactly the kind of problem that we have in our country’s politics regardless of political affiliation. The fear of losing. Kiasu.

Firstly, I don’t see why everyone is predicting that Zaid is going to lose when we do not even know who the BN candidate is yet. Even after we know who the competition is, it would still be pure speculation, although a slightly better one than the random speculation going on now. This is loser mentality. If you think that you are going to lose, you will.

Secondly, I don’t see why Zaid has to win and if he loses it will be the end of his political career. Winning and losing is part of life. Both Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang have both lost their parliamentary seats before and both are still kicking arse in parliament today. Losing Hulu Selangor would just mean that PKR has lost a battle, not a war. If they phrase the problem as anything other than that, they are already lost.

If you have the balls, you will do what Nurul Izzah did and run against a seasoned politician, a UMNO wanita leader, a Minister, a partner at one of our country’s leading law firms, a friend of various local celebrities and businessmen. Now, that is the kind of leader that I want – someone who goes against all odds and wins. Someone who has the tenacity and grit to stare the impossible straight in the eye without blinking.

If our opposition politicians are unable to take risks, they are just the same idiots that we have in BN today, all running in safe seats in Johor and other BN strong-holds. If you don’t have the balls, just go away.

PS: The same applies to our opposition politicians who run in opposition strong-holds like a certain someone who has a 36,000 majority. You do not keep your best generals in the base, you send them out to conquer territory!

A couple of my colleagues at work today, suggested that I should consider doing some professional writing – they said that I write with emotion. This was not the first time that somebody came up with that suggestion after reading some of my writing here. I’ve had several other people tell me that I do not write like an engineer and that I write well.

I would have you know that engineers write very well. Engineers tend to be fairly explicit and specific in their writing because engineers need to communicate well in order to convey their concepts and work to other engineers. So, they cannot help but learn to communicate very well, in writing.

That said, creative writing is not really our forte as what we do is generally technical writing.

Now, back to this notion of me doing some creative writing. I have to admit that the thought has crossed my mind many times. Unfortunately, I need a reason to write and I have yet to find a topic or cause that is compelling enough to motivate me and just like every other thing that I do in life, I need a reason to write.

Penning my thoughts down on paper will only be interesting if there was a reason to do so.

To any of my friends considering a career in consulting, you should know why it is an amalgamation of the words con and insult. This is a well written, heart-wrenching article on the inner workings in one of the world’s top strategy management consulting firms. The rest of the companies are just the same. I shall just quote one part of the entire text here:

I was not surprised the day I lost my job. The writing was on the wall. BCG’s management might have been releasing reports claiming countries like Dubai would be islands of stability in the world’s rough financial seas, but to the ground troops, it was obvious the economy was not doing well. From the very beginning of my employment, I hadn’t met a single employee who planned on staying with the company — all of them were scrambling for lifeboats, trying to land cushy jobs with cash-stuffed clients or find their way back to their home countries.

What did surprise me was the offer BCG made to me as I was on the way out the door. In exchange for me signing an agreement, BCG would give me the rough equivalent of $16,000 in UAE dirhams. Much of it looked boilerplate, like any common compromise agreement used in Europe — in return for some money, I would stipulate that I hadn’t been discriminated against on the basis of race or gender, etc.

But the rest was very clearly a non-disclosure agreement, and it made me uncomfortable. I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I first took the job, but that only covered BCG’s intellectual property and client identities, things that seemed entirely reasonable to protect. This agreement went much further. Not only did it bar me from making any disparaging comments about BCG or my work experience, but I wouldn’t even be allowed to reveal the existence of the non-disclosure agreement itself. The implication was clear: I could either be a cheerleader for BCG or stay silent, but anything else would bring swift legal retribution. When I asked to have the non-disclosure clauses removed, I was told that the agreement was a standard offer to employees, and that its terms were non-negotiable.

As hard as it was to decide whether or not to stay at my job, it was easy to pass up the hush money. Mistake or not, my future hypothetical children deserved to hear their father’s story, and $16,000 did not seem like a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. After rejecting the offer, I enjoyed a full night’s rest.

A friend sent this to me and I thought that it was quite good – the way that he combined the two songs so seamlessly together. Simple, yet nice.

… calls Code 8, which it started six months ago. This is an initiative where it hires 70 of the best students from public universities to train them (because they apparently do not have the right market skills) [sic] to become domain experts in the eight areas it is working on. This is an accelerated programme as the graduates focus on the proof of concepts that …

When I read this in The Edge (blunt one at that), I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. This is such a blatant spin on the truth that the quote is evidently self-conflicting. I guess that the editor must have found it rather weird too and decided to add a few words to highlight it.

The programme claims to actually hire the best students from public universities to train them because they do not have the right market skills. Since I know some of the people who are actually under this programme, I have to say that they are most definitely not the best students from our public universities. In fact, they are far from it – very far from it – there are candidates in the programme who barely passed their undergraduate degrees and none who actually came in anywhere near the top of their class.

However, I will grant that it may have been the original intent of the programme to take in our best and brightest to accelerate them with the right market skills. If that was the case, then it just reflects extremely badly on the state of our public universities when our best students do not have marketable skills. I think that our local universities may take offence at such implications. Again, I would have to say that this is not true. I know many local graduates from both private and public universities. The good ones have many marketable skills, good communication skills and hard technical skills.

Unfortunately, I think that if the CEO is pointed out as selling vapourware, he will just claim to have been misquoted by the press – as our local leaders are oft to do. Our local press corps must be made up of the most incompetent reporters that are hard-of-hearing if they are always misquoting our leaders – and we all know that is not true. Our local press may sometimes be a bit short-sighted and need some glasses to help them see clearly, but I doubt that they are intentionally incompetent.

So, while I think that the programme is a good one, because it takes in some of our local graduates who lack any marketable skills and gives them a second chance by providing skills based learning through real-world projects, I do not understand why our leaders have to lie spin the story like that.

I went for a local musical production with a bunch of friends tonight. The musical was a spoof of random Broadway musicals but with a Malaysian twist to it. Boy was it good! It is showing for only a limited time only and I would totally encourage everyone to go watch it. You won’t regret it!

Seriously, go buy your ticket now! It’s hilarious! However, a lot of context is needed to understand it so don’t drag your expat friends along without giving them a thorough induction in all things Malaysian. The musical touches on all things Malaysian such as – our love for food, our adoration for Pak Lah, how much we like our neighbours down south and much more.

I particularly liked the reasons that they gave for why people should not venture down south – because their water is not fresh and the food here is better!

Now, let me talk about the venue. This was my first time to The Actors Studio @ Lot 10. I did not even know that there was anything on the roof-tops of Lot 10. Turns out that there is a bar, restaurant, gym and a small musical theatre. The construction of the facility seemed a little naked but it was good enough for its target audience.

Next, let me give you a list of the songs that they sang:

1. I Feel Hungry
2. Under the Tree
3. I’ll Eat Anything
4. Empty Chairs at Plastic Tables
5. I Go2 Gt D Msg 2U
6. Love Letters
7. SMS
8. Sambal Nights
9. Mak Cik Life
10. Over the Causeway
11. If I Were a Tan Sri
12. Bare Celebrities
13. The Low Class Bad Word
14. No Pork No Pork
15. Bo Doh
16. What I Had for Lunch
17. Peas and Rice
18. Mamak Mee-Ah

Sounds tasty, doesn’t it? 🙂

I observed my 3-year old nephew playing games on the iPhone the other day and a random thought occurred to me – Apple has won the next generation market. We now have an entire generation growing up with the touch interface, thinking that is how a computer is supposed to work instead of using a keyboard and mouse. Genius. Apple has a corner on the touch interface, which is protected by patents.

This got me thinking – a dangerous thing – we are set for a massive change in the world of UX design and computing usage in the next decade or so. These kids will fully expect everything to have a touch interface and will probably not even learn typing skills when they grow up.

This is where the iPad comes in. Like I mentioned before, I do not see it as an e-book reader but as a souped up tablet. As a tablet PC with a touch interface, it will find uses where there were none. It will open up markets that were previously untapped. Apple has the product that will carry them through the next decade.

I am quite excited by it all but I won’t be buying one as yet. I am still interested to see what other competing products will come out of their competitors before deciding on which tablet to bet my money on. For now, a single source of useful tablets is a dangerous thing to have. The market has enough room for several – maybe Apple, Nokia and Freescale – but who knows.

PS: I wonder what will happen to Apple after Jobs.