in today's management meeting .... one issue raised again by one of my colleagues was a new staff supposed to join us but turned down last minute ....reason - other irresistable offer from the middle east .... the same thing happened about two months ago where a few people resigned because of more seductive offer from singapore .... yes as we are pushing very hard to become a global player, we are suffering serious brain drain at home ....our local based companies with good track record and portfolio just cannot compete internationally because we do not have good people to do work on the ground .... reason is MONEY ...
the problem was asked to a minister during a conference last week .... seeking for a solution ...but the answer received is just .... 'well as a young professional we must be patriotic to our country ! ... the country needs you .... bla...bla...bla' ..wow!.. full of rhetorics ! ...but in this materialistic world ... we can't feed people with rhetorics words ....pls be real ...on one side we are talking about becoming industrialised first world developed nation etc...etc...etc but on the other side, professionals-pretty large pool of national resources if not treasure - expensively created through various education programs are paid at the third world rate and being pinched by other countries ... what a waste !
our professionals pay rate have been stagnant for at least 10 years ...yes there have been pay rises every year ...but there was massive pay cut during 1998 crisis that have never been restored ... with current cost of living with ringgit buys less ..i believe proffesionals should get at least 2.5 times what we are getting now ...that is the only way we could retain good local brain whom jpa, mara, petronas etc invested years ago and at the same time attract international experts that would smoothen the transfer of technology and bring the country to another height .... but as for now our country could only attract the cheapest labour the world could offer .... pls address the professional brain ... we do not have enough thinking people ......
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
pulau pisang : history lesson is not boring !
i watched majalah 3 last night ... featuring pulau pisang? pulau what ? ...yes like other small islands surrounding our great nations .... nobody realised its existence.... just like we do not really know what are inside boxes in our store rooms eventhough we had carried the same boxes 3 times in the past because we moved houses 3 times ....see how ignorant we are..
back to pulau pisang stories ...well from the visuals nothing spectacular can explicitly be seen from the physical of the island ... no beautiful long white sandy beaches ...no colourful corals ... what could be appreciated are mouth watering durians, juicy mangoes and abundant of other tropical fruits.... hey hang on a minute .... have we viewed it from geographical aspects? ... there must be some strategic values to it to earn it having a light house on it .... and the light house is managed by singapore government ! ... yes singapore ... our good sophisticated neighbour ...
as a simple man on the street ... the fact that a foreign government 'invade' our 'sovereign' land and manage our resources just not in! ...yes we are living in a sovereign land - merdeka and berdaulat since half a century ago and we stick our little national flags on our cars every year to remind us that we live in a merdeka country ... and yet we allow other people to sit on our land and they could be snooping into our backyard or even worst peeping into our bathrooms!
of course there are historical baggages and legal complications attached to this issue ...but again for a simple malaysian like me, i just could not understand why we allow other country to manage our strategic property .... and who knows one day they could go to the beautiful 'the hague' again and claim that it belongs to them .... a fact that just being recorded in our history book few months ago .... see history is interesting afterall ... it guides us so that we would not repeat the same mistakes again !
back to pulau pisang stories ...well from the visuals nothing spectacular can explicitly be seen from the physical of the island ... no beautiful long white sandy beaches ...no colourful corals ... what could be appreciated are mouth watering durians, juicy mangoes and abundant of other tropical fruits.... hey hang on a minute .... have we viewed it from geographical aspects? ... there must be some strategic values to it to earn it having a light house on it .... and the light house is managed by singapore government ! ... yes singapore ... our good sophisticated neighbour ...
as a simple man on the street ... the fact that a foreign government 'invade' our 'sovereign' land and manage our resources just not in! ...yes we are living in a sovereign land - merdeka and berdaulat since half a century ago and we stick our little national flags on our cars every year to remind us that we live in a merdeka country ... and yet we allow other people to sit on our land and they could be snooping into our backyard or even worst peeping into our bathrooms!
of course there are historical baggages and legal complications attached to this issue ...but again for a simple malaysian like me, i just could not understand why we allow other country to manage our strategic property .... and who knows one day they could go to the beautiful 'the hague' again and claim that it belongs to them .... a fact that just being recorded in our history book few months ago .... see history is interesting afterall ... it guides us so that we would not repeat the same mistakes again !
Friday, July 25, 2008
mosque in your building
i have a bit of spare time during my lunch break today ... i guess i can squeeze in some thoughts here... the reason is illustrated in the scenarios below...
last week i went to perform my friday prayers in klcc mosque not very far from my office in jln yap kwan seng ...the ordeal was... with slippers i have to walk along the narrow footpaths (pretty common in kl) along jln yap kwan seng, jalan ampang by the side of the 'posh first world' building - petronas twin towers (remember i was wearing my 'selipar jepun' of different colours since i lost the perfect match ones the week before in the same mosque ) under the hot sun for more than 1 km to reach the mosque. Once reached there, i could not find space inside the shaded prayer hall ... have to make myself comfortable by the side of the steps again under the hot sun whilst listening to the khutbah and continued my prayer at the same spot . On the way back i followed the same route except for slight diversion to another 'posh high end building' - avenue k (again - i still dragging my 'selipar jepun' on the polished marble floor ) for my quick bite ... and reached office 5 minutes after designated lunch break for friday of 1 and 1/2 hrs ...1/2 hour more than normal days. with sweaty body due to midday forced work out i was ready to work !
now lets compare with the friday prayer experience today ...instead of walking... i pressed the lift button to my office basement parking ... got into the comfort of controlled environment in my car and drove off to tabung haji building ...well not that smooth tough due to lunch hour traffic but the time was well spent enriching my knowledge from ikim.fm ...once reached the level 6 parking of the building ...jumped into the lift, went down straight to basement hall where friday prayer was conducted.... yes i still wore the same 'selipar jepun' but nobody noticed since i was all the while in the car and in the building where everybody wear slippers...after prayer went out to the front of the building ...got myself a tapau of nasi beriyani with 3 dishes for 6 ringgit only !...plus 2 ringgit for parking ... reached the office 20 minutes from time ... took lunch and still have 10 minutes to spare here ...relax and calm to spent the rest of the day working - no sweat at all!
mmm ... where is this writing leading to? ... don't you ever wonder why can't the mosques located in our office building like the one in tabung haji building instead? Rather than providing a small surau in the oddest corner of a building where you need pretty good navigational skills to find and hardly 7 people can squeeze in for the population of hundreds muslim in that building ... why can't provide a real mosque ...say for 200 people ? what? cannot justify the investment due to wasted rental space? ... i guess you can double up the mosque or rather the prayer hall as multipurpose hall for other usage during non-praying time... for muslims and non-muslim as well (more transparency to non-muslim) ...i believe with the added facilities sure the building could fetch more premium rental rate more than enough to cover the lost rental space ...no.. you dont have locate it on the 'expensive' penthouse level...it could be located possibly on top of parking podium where close enough to the office community ...as close as the facilities such as gym or food court ....the side effects would be ... additional avenue to promote interaction between people in that community + more covenient for people to pray (friday prayer or 5 times prayer) + more people would pray + more praying people would create people with better value + people with better value would become better and more efficient workers (well they got back to their desk quicker and fresher to begin with)+ better worker would create better society and so forth... dont forget opportunity opened up for non-muslim to get to know islam better ....better understanding of islam would make them more tolerable when announcement such as 'no lipstick for muslim women except for theirs husbands were made '...special additional 1/2 hour lunch break for friday may also not needed anymore ....... sorry ladies no more shopping on friday yaa!
the immediate side effect is ... just imagine if the futsal court on the basement of the petronas twin towers converted to prayer hall ... the sights of hundreds of people wearing 'selipar jepun' marching in front of marks & spencer in suria klcc attracting weird looks from japanese tourist would become things of the past ... klcc mosque can also nicely fit comfortable number of people .... no more sight of people from more than 50 other surrounding buildings praying on the pavement next to the mosque's steps...
you could also imagine no more sights of people praying along the klang river bank eventhough the physical presence of the mosque is on the other side of the river...yes in masjid jamek .. and also no more people praying in front of masjid jamek lrt ticketing machines competing with people buying tickets to get back to their office...all this is because buildings like bank muamalat, ocbc, hsbc and others in the vicinity have their own mosques inside.
on the environmental aspects ... less cars would jammed up the road to the mosques or to the tabung haji building ... less situation of double or triple parkings in front of mosques ....and etc etc
in the age where impression, branding and image are important, i feel that the sight of muslim people dragging 'selipar jepun' , praying on the road sides, cars recklessly double or triple park in front of mosques blocking the traffic ignoring the traffic law do not do justice to the image of islam.... afterall muslims are rule and law abiding civil people ....and muslim should always look 'hebat'... well in the case of illegal parking of course traffic police would not issue you tickets ... how worst policemen could be than issuing summon tickets to people who are praying!
of course this is just a broad brush thought that need more refinement and detailed study and planning especially on the aspects of compliance to the al quran and hadith ... but i think it worth to look at ....to make it happpen is the political will .... they key word for the present lifestyle is 'convenience'... the difficult things would distract people ... lets bring the mosques and islam to the people .... mosques are not for people to look at and admire ... but i believe it is the heart of the community .... if the muslims working in the tabung haji building can have the privillege of having mosques few steps away from their desks why cant muslims in ambank tower or wisma selangor dredging ....?
last week i went to perform my friday prayers in klcc mosque not very far from my office in jln yap kwan seng ...the ordeal was... with slippers i have to walk along the narrow footpaths (pretty common in kl) along jln yap kwan seng, jalan ampang by the side of the 'posh first world' building - petronas twin towers (remember i was wearing my 'selipar jepun' of different colours since i lost the perfect match ones the week before in the same mosque ) under the hot sun for more than 1 km to reach the mosque. Once reached there, i could not find space inside the shaded prayer hall ... have to make myself comfortable by the side of the steps again under the hot sun whilst listening to the khutbah and continued my prayer at the same spot . On the way back i followed the same route except for slight diversion to another 'posh high end building' - avenue k (again - i still dragging my 'selipar jepun' on the polished marble floor ) for my quick bite ... and reached office 5 minutes after designated lunch break for friday of 1 and 1/2 hrs ...1/2 hour more than normal days. with sweaty body due to midday forced work out i was ready to work !
now lets compare with the friday prayer experience today ...instead of walking... i pressed the lift button to my office basement parking ... got into the comfort of controlled environment in my car and drove off to tabung haji building ...well not that smooth tough due to lunch hour traffic but the time was well spent enriching my knowledge from ikim.fm ...once reached the level 6 parking of the building ...jumped into the lift, went down straight to basement hall where friday prayer was conducted.... yes i still wore the same 'selipar jepun' but nobody noticed since i was all the while in the car and in the building where everybody wear slippers...after prayer went out to the front of the building ...got myself a tapau of nasi beriyani with 3 dishes for 6 ringgit only !...plus 2 ringgit for parking ... reached the office 20 minutes from time ... took lunch and still have 10 minutes to spare here ...relax and calm to spent the rest of the day working - no sweat at all!
mmm ... where is this writing leading to? ... don't you ever wonder why can't the mosques located in our office building like the one in tabung haji building instead? Rather than providing a small surau in the oddest corner of a building where you need pretty good navigational skills to find and hardly 7 people can squeeze in for the population of hundreds muslim in that building ... why can't provide a real mosque ...say for 200 people ? what? cannot justify the investment due to wasted rental space? ... i guess you can double up the mosque or rather the prayer hall as multipurpose hall for other usage during non-praying time... for muslims and non-muslim as well (more transparency to non-muslim) ...i believe with the added facilities sure the building could fetch more premium rental rate more than enough to cover the lost rental space ...no.. you dont have locate it on the 'expensive' penthouse level...it could be located possibly on top of parking podium where close enough to the office community ...as close as the facilities such as gym or food court ....the side effects would be ... additional avenue to promote interaction between people in that community + more covenient for people to pray (friday prayer or 5 times prayer) + more people would pray + more praying people would create people with better value + people with better value would become better and more efficient workers (well they got back to their desk quicker and fresher to begin with)+ better worker would create better society and so forth... dont forget opportunity opened up for non-muslim to get to know islam better ....better understanding of islam would make them more tolerable when announcement such as 'no lipstick for muslim women except for theirs husbands were made '...special additional 1/2 hour lunch break for friday may also not needed anymore ....... sorry ladies no more shopping on friday yaa!
the immediate side effect is ... just imagine if the futsal court on the basement of the petronas twin towers converted to prayer hall ... the sights of hundreds of people wearing 'selipar jepun' marching in front of marks & spencer in suria klcc attracting weird looks from japanese tourist would become things of the past ... klcc mosque can also nicely fit comfortable number of people .... no more sight of people from more than 50 other surrounding buildings praying on the pavement next to the mosque's steps...
you could also imagine no more sights of people praying along the klang river bank eventhough the physical presence of the mosque is on the other side of the river...yes in masjid jamek .. and also no more people praying in front of masjid jamek lrt ticketing machines competing with people buying tickets to get back to their office...all this is because buildings like bank muamalat, ocbc, hsbc and others in the vicinity have their own mosques inside.
on the environmental aspects ... less cars would jammed up the road to the mosques or to the tabung haji building ... less situation of double or triple parkings in front of mosques ....and etc etc
in the age where impression, branding and image are important, i feel that the sight of muslim people dragging 'selipar jepun' , praying on the road sides, cars recklessly double or triple park in front of mosques blocking the traffic ignoring the traffic law do not do justice to the image of islam.... afterall muslims are rule and law abiding civil people ....and muslim should always look 'hebat'... well in the case of illegal parking of course traffic police would not issue you tickets ... how worst policemen could be than issuing summon tickets to people who are praying!
of course this is just a broad brush thought that need more refinement and detailed study and planning especially on the aspects of compliance to the al quran and hadith ... but i think it worth to look at ....to make it happpen is the political will .... they key word for the present lifestyle is 'convenience'... the difficult things would distract people ... lets bring the mosques and islam to the people .... mosques are not for people to look at and admire ... but i believe it is the heart of the community .... if the muslims working in the tabung haji building can have the privillege of having mosques few steps away from their desks why cant muslims in ambank tower or wisma selangor dredging ....?
vermicelli in the price control item
just happened to watch morning news today and a piece of good news is that vermicelli or 'bihun' and 'susu tumbesaran' had been included in the price control item.... yeah surely it would help in reducing the 7% inflation as reported recently. I guess it would certainly reduce burden to some people as i noticed that a lot of my colleagues now start having 'bihun goreng' (sold for breakfast) for lunch nowadays. This is i supposed in line with the 'changing of lifestyle' suggestion due to 'worldwide' oil price hike.... i hope somebody would start cracking their heads to revamp our economic architecture at 'macro' level for the betterment of daily lives in malaysia so that our honourable minister would not have to make piece meal announcements like this....
Thursday, July 24, 2008
july thought
It seems very long time since i last penned down my thought or add any post here. Many things had changed since then more so on the political velocity. I dont think it matters so much because i dont believe this page attract that many visitors anyway. It just serves to provide virtual transit to link to other interesting sites. To those who happen to lay your eyes on this piece i pledge that i would write more regularly .... till then enjoy hopping to other 'cyber thoughts' from here!
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