Thursday, August 31, 2006

Chief Reverend Passed Away

The Chief High Priest of Malaysia and Singapore, Venerable Dr K. Sri Dhammananda Nayaka Maha Thera passed away peacefully at 11:32am on Merdeka Day.

Please pray and dedicate your merits to Chief Reverend...

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

WHY DO TALENTED EMPLOYEES LEAVE COMPANY?

I was going through some emails and I came across this email. Just want to post it up...

Largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. Why do talented employees leave companies?

Come to think of it. This is almost 100% true. Read below & find out the answer. Early this year, Arun, an old friend who is a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO of this company, a charismatic man often quoted in the business press for his visionary attitude.

The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, the very best technology, even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Arun was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined. "It's a real high working with such cutting edge technology."

Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of the job. He has no other offer in hand but he said he couldn't take it anymore. Nor, apparently, could several other people in his department who have also quit recently. The CEO is distressed about the high employee turnover.

He's distressed about the money he's spent in training them. He's distressed because he can't figure out what happened. Why did this talented employee leave despite a top salary? Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away. The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called First Break All The Rules.

It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition.

"People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue." If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away?

Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he's treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find - you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one.

Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees. Here are some all-too common tales from the battlefield: Dev, an engineer, still shudders as he recalls the almost daily firings his boss subjected him to, usually in front of his subordinates. His boss emasculated him with personal, insulting remarks. In the face of such rage, Dev completely lost the courage to speak up. But when he reached home depressed, he poured himself a few drinks, and magically, became as abusive as the boss himself. Only, it would come out on his wife and children. Not only was his work life in the doldrums, his marriage began cracking up too.

Another employee Rajat recalls the Chinese torture his boss put him through after a minor disagreement. He cut him off completely. He bypassed him in any decision that needed to be taken. "He stopped sending me any papers or files," says Rajat. "It was humiliating sitting at an empty table. I knew nothing and no one told me anything." Unable to bear this corporate Siberia, he finally quit. HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he starts looking for another job. When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job."

Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, too nit-picky. But they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit -often over seemingly trivial issue. It isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that went before. And while it's true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons - for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed - had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun's boss did: "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you."

While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today's waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.

There's the cost of finding a replacement. The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime. The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry. The loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others.

Plus, of course, the loss of the company's reputation. Every person who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse. We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales. "Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee,"

Jack Welch of GE once said. Much of a company's value lies "between the ears of its employees". If it's bleeding talent, it's bleeding value. Unfortunately, many senior executives busy travelling the world, signing new deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what may be going on at home. That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The Wind Of Quit

The wind of quitting is sweeping through the group of companies that I am currently working with. Since last month, at least three of my colleague has left the group and this week alone, another two would be departing and soon, at least another two would be heading the same way.

It is such a sad sad day for me.

Out the those that has left or leaving the group, four of them can be consider pretty and with them gone, I would not be able to "wash my eyes" anymore. Those leaving are actually really good employees but due to some unforeseen circumstances, they opt to leave.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Beware of Scam 2

Remember the post about the scam sms I have written not so long ago?? (read here)

Well, those people involved in the scam are getting bolder. Why? It was reported that these people are making calls instead of just smsing you and hope that you got hook.

Anyway, the report also said that the people would try to hypnotize you through the phone. In the end, you would go and deposit some money to their account.

Beware!!!

If you see any call with long numbers (especially from China), just forget about it.

* Someone called me yesterday and this person is not Malaysian. Reason is that his number are +8613751341190. So, if you got a call from this number or from something similar, take your chance to swear that fella to hell. (be careful that it is not your boss or someone that you know)

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Shocking / Surprising

For the past few weeks, I have been getting alot of shocking/surprising news from within the company that I am working in. A few of my colleague has given their letter of resignation to my head of department. From my last count, there are exactly 3. One of them has left while the other two are counting their days in the company. What is going to happen next in the near future is really unpredictable. Anything can happened, really.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Beware of Scam

TAHNIAH. Simcard Anda Meme-nangi hadiah Cek Tunai RM.9000 dari AFM < Akademi Fantasia 4>. Sila hubingi:006281334037499 Terimakasih


I received the above sms on 20/08/2006 at 14:04 and the first thing that came into my mind is that this is a scam. I didn't bother to make the call because from the look of it the number are not Malaysia... (Malaysia: 0060...).

I remember there was such a scam that look exactly like this...

So, this is a warning to all of you that if you ever receive a sms that is similar to this, never be tempted to make the call. You would never get the cash you "won". Instead, you would be told that there are some special requirement for you to be eligible for the prize and you would be told to bank in some money (as registration fee, etc.) into some account before the prize are released to you. But once you bank in the money, you would never see your money again or even heard from those people that promise you the prize (in this case, cash cheque worth RM9000).

As the chinese saying goes, "there won't be such a big toad jumping around the street"...

Last but not least, if you are asking that question... my answer is "No, I did not fall into the scam"

Friday, August 18, 2006

Seven

Q. There's no magic in the number 7, but it does have an uncanny way of turning up places. Such as where?

A. Seven is a prime number, with no divisors except one and seven, says Richard Phillips in "Numbers: Facts, Figures & Fiction." More famously, there are the Seven Deadly Sins (avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, pride, sloth and anger), the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man, the Seven Levels of Hell, the Seven Dwarves, and of course, seven days in a week. The 1960 movie "The Magnificent Seven" was based on the 1954 Japanese film "The Seven Samurai." The soft drink 7-Up was originally called Bib-label Lithiate Lemon-Lime Soda (gulp!) but didn't catch on until the name change.

And in 1956 George Miller wrote of "The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two" to describe the limits of human memory: If someone gives you four random digits, such as 6 6 2 5, you will probably be able to recite them every time, likewise with five digits or six or seven, but beyond this people start making lots of mistakes. "The longest number of digits people get completely right is called their 'digit span' and for most people this is about seven digits."


Courtesy of Richmond.com

Thursday, August 17, 2006

A Dumb Quiz

Dumb, dumber, dumbest... you pick the winner here:

1. A museum guard when asked the age of certain dinosaur bones said 60,000,005 years. "But how can they know this so precisely?" the visitor wondered. "I don't know, but when I started working here I was told they were 60 million years old, and that was five years ago."

2. So many fans of "Star Trek's" Spock confused Leonard Nimoy with his on-screen persona that the actor felt impelled to write a book, "I Am Not Spock."

3. Following the movie "Forrest Gump," viewers began showing up in droves at Gump's supposed alma mater, the University of Alabama, asking to see his football trophies.

4. Shortly after the switch to daylight savings time one spring, a Colorado woman complained to a local newspaper that the extra hour of sunlight was burning up her lawn.

5. Terming this type of mental inertia "mindlessness," Ellen Langer had students approach users at photocopy machines with one of three requests: "Excuse me, may I use the Xerox machine?" "Excuse me, may I use the Xerox machine, because I have to make copies?" "Excuse me, may I use the Xerox machine, because I'm in a rush?" Normally, people demand a good reason before letting someone cut in front of them, but here the "mindless" second reason worked as well as the legitimate-sounding third.

A. They're all winners (losers?), along with many others. The above examples were provided by Professors John D. McGervey, Carol Wade and Carol Tavris.

Maths Problem: Funny

Q. You know that 1 + 0 = 1, 1 - 0 = 1, and 1 x 0 = 0. So what does 1/0 (1 divided by 0) equal? And a related question, when does Wayne Newton become the Pope?

A: Dividing by 0 would bring on the "nonsense" cops because in our mathematical system, this gives an answer that doesn't make sense, says Ithaca College's Aaron Weinberg. To see why, check out the following progression: 1 divided by 1 = 1; 1 divided by 1/2 = 2; 1 divided by 1/3 = 3 ... 1 divided by 1/100 = 100 ... 1 divided by 1/1000 = 1000 ... The smaller you make the divisor, the bigger the answer becomes, until as you approach 0, it grows too enormous to even write on the page. Try to divide by 0 itself and the answer becomes infinity, which if treated like an ordinary number leads to some mighty strange things.

How strange? If 1/0 equals infinity, then so does 2/0. Which means 1/0 = 2/0, and since the denominators here are the same, you can conclude that 1 = 2. It gets better, says Weinberg. "We know that Wayne Newton is 1 person. The Pope is also 1 person, so together they're 2 people. But since 2 = 1, this also means that Wayne Newton and the Pope are 1 person, so Wayne Newton must be the Pope!"

Courtesy of Richmond.com

Realistic, Unrealistic and Brain Damage

Q: Hey, comics fans: Who's the most realistic Superhero, who's the most unrealistic and who seems at greatest risk of suffering brain damage? Vote here!

A: Our vote goes to James Kakalios, author of "The Physics of Superheroes," who declares: The first is easy, as Batman always manages to find a way to win using just his razor-sharp mind and highly trained body. The second isn't tough either: While Superman banks on his super-strength, super-speed, flight, invulnerability (except to Kryptonite and magic), super-hearing, X-ray vision, heat vision, telescopic vision, microscopic vision, super-breath, super-ventriloquism, super-hypnotism, "he always obeys all the rules and has never tried to take over the world! Superman is totally unrealistic - and thank goodness for it!"

Another aspect of the Caped Crusader's believability, writer Robert Weinberg told "National Geographic News," is that much of the equipment in this tool wielder's utility belt is available for sale today in some form, such as his grappling gun and Bat-line. "That's pretty accurate science for a comic book hero."

On the other hand, says Kakalios, given the number of times Batman, in more than 60 years of fighting crime, has been knocked unconscious without suffering severe brain damage, "maybe he too has some hidden superpower."

Who is smarter?

Question: Ask people if their cat or dog is smarter and opinions will fly. What do the hard data say?

Answer: Been asked this lots of times, says Katherine A. Houpt, animal behaviorist and clinician in Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine. A cat's brain is about 1 percent of its body weight, a dog's 0.5 percent (brainy humans: 2 percent). Smaller dogs do better, with Toy Poodles more than 1 percent, Great Danes around 0.2 percent. So on average, cats seem to win on this one.

In "delayed response" trials, a dog can remember for five minutes which of three containers holds a treat, a cat for six minutes. But in "multiple choice" trials, when given four door choices to escape an enclosure, dogs got the correct door more often by figuring out that the unlocked door was never the one unlocked the time before. And in an "avoidance-response" experiment, dogs learned to jump up on a ledge after only four tries, cats took 12, more than any other species tested. Finally, in maze-running, dogs on average made fewer errors than cats, who were actually outscored even by sheep, an embarrassing defeat for the cat.

So that makes our final score, an IQ of sorts: cats 2, dogs 3. A close win for the dog, who undoubtedly jumped up on his owner, barking with glee at the news. The cat however just lifted her tail and calmly walked out of the room, since there are more important things to life than silly experiments designed to amuse humans.

"I guess in the end it all depends on one's definition of intelligence, doesn't it?"

Courtesy from Richmond.com

When Your Eyes Lies To You

Count every " F " in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

How many " Fs " really?

Don't scroll down yet. Count the " Fs ".

Wrong! There are 6 -- no joke. READ IT AGAIN !

Monday, August 14, 2006

Sony-Ericsson W700i

This is my third mobilephone in 9 months and I have no regrets on this.

My first: Sony-Ericsson K700i was not really original and it would hang every one month. Unable to stand this, I decided to change to a second mobilephone: Motorola V360.

My second: Motorola V360 is consider a very good and reliable phone for me because it look nice and it function very well...

My latest: Sory-Ericsson W700i. Not that I don't like V360 but I found this mobile in a offer that I cannot resist. The mobile comes with Bluetooth's handsfree, flashlight for taking pictures and aloot of freegifts...

The specs for this phone:

Sony-Ericsson W700i CHARACTERISTICS

General Network GSM900 / GSM1800 / GSM1900
Introduced 2006 Q1
Status Available
Form factor Block
Antenna Internal
Size Weight 99 g (including battery)
Dimensions 100 x 46 x 20.5 mm
Display Type Graphical
Colours TFT, 256K
Size 176 x 220 pixels

- Wallpapers, screensavers
Memory Numbers 500
Outgoing Calls 30
Received Calls 30
Lost Calls 30
Shared Memory 34MB

- Memory Stick Duo Pro, 256 MB card included
Ringtones Polyphonic Yes, 40 voices

- MP3
- Composer, download
Networking GPRS Yes, Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32-48
Modem Yes, HSCSD
USB Yes
Bluetooth Yes
Browser Yes, WAP 2.0/xHTML
Infrared Yes
Email Client Yes

- Instant Messaging
Features Vibration Yes
SMS Send / Receive
MMS Send / Receive
Camera Yes, 2 MP, 1632x1224 pixels, video, flash
Java Yes
Changeable Games Yes
Games Yes
Clock Yes
Alarm Yes
Calculator Yes
Voice Memo Yes
T9 Yes
Handsfree Yes
FM Radio Yes

- MP3/AAC player, up to 30h playback if the phone is switched off
- Video player
- Image viewer
- Picture editor
- Organiser
- SyncML
Standard Battery Type Li-Ion
Standby Time 400 hours
Talk Time 9 hours

Have a look on my new mobilephone




Friday, August 11, 2006

Emptiness

I am having this feeling for a few days and this is the first time I am telling the world. It seems like I have lost my direction of life. I don't understand why am I here in this world. I feel that I am lost. I feel empty.

I feel that is this really what life have to offer? Wake up at 6.45 am to go to work by 7.30 am. Start working from 8.30 am to 6.00 pm. Come back home by 7.00 pm, eat, bathe, watch tv and go to sleep by 12.00 am???

I am asking myself if this is really what I want... but the only answer that I can give myself is that I dunno. I am sure that there are some who have just the same feeling as I am and there would be nobody in this would that can give us a satisfactory answer on this question...

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Something is Wrong with Me

I dunno why but I somehow realize that there is something wrong with me but I just cannot tell what is it...