Its the New year... again!

It's started. The traffic has begun to crawl, road closures in effect since afternoon. Mobile phone buzzing continuously as message after message containing wishes for the new year arrive.
I'm not much into making resolutions at new year. I work towards improving myself over the year, little by little, turning each bit into a celebratory milestone, small successes small enough to continue and build into a habit.
Regardless, though, it's impossible to ignore the growing optimism as midnight draws near. Its a chance to start over, to renew commitments, learn from mistakes. A chance to forgive and to rebuild relationships. A chance to hope for the better, and a chance to break free.
To all citizens of the world, I'm proud to be in your company. Let us wish for a better tomorrow, of everlasting peace, of better opportunities and of greater friendship.

Time to breathe... finally!

For many weeks now, I've been running on edge, deadline after deadline, presentation after another.

Today, I crossed a milestone with the last presentation on my to do list.

The content hasn't changed much from the previous sessions, but the look in their eyes, rapt with attention, the questions, the comments, make the experience very new and very fresh.

the rush didn't end till six hours later, and as I drive home, l begin to feel the fatigue.

It's been a long week, but The look in their eyes and their final handshakes inspire me to continue. I'm filling their minds with new perspectives, and know 20 people in that room today now have new thoughts in their minds.

I know today I've changed the world. There nothing other than this realization to inspire me to continue and make things better.

The problem of Free

whenever I travel or visit places, I'm always aghast at the prices for services and amenities. However, recently I found a place in which recreation activities are provided free of charge.

This place is a resort where canoeing, archery, basketball and beach volleyball are provided free of charge. I chose the place specifically because of the free as I remembered once before we had so much fun canoeing and doing archery.

To my dismay, I found that the 2 person canoe were out of commission. Only the one man canoe was available, but the fun was in joyriding with the kids. We`couldn't swim coz someone just got stung by jelly fish and the red flags were up.

We decided to do archery, but the arm guard had seen better days and and the arrows had lost their little guide feathers (believe me, they expected us to use the arrows without the feathers) and finger taps were not avalable.

The target? it was in shreds. Since we weren't competing, we didn't care too much about it.

In the end we paid RM16 bucks for two rounds of shooting practice with a paintball gun. At RM8 for 10 pellets, I guess I'm kinda glad the gun worked.

At the end of it, you may say that I shouldn't be complaining about the equipment 'coz its free, but in all honesty, the hotel isnt that cheap and I do believe that included in my rates would be the cost of maintaining these equipment.

Throwing these as free does increase the image of the hotel, for people who travel with kids of varied interests, but when they don't meet the expectation of free, then the idea of short term, profit hungry multinational company comes to mind.

Definitely, in my family's eyes, we're not likely to patronize this hotel chain ever.

when I first moved here, there was only my beat up Wira, my battle scarred Unser, my neighbor's Kenari and Jazz.

today l still have my trusty cars, but the parking lot's changed. Over a year my parking lot is something like a luxury car showroom. There's a whole row of gleaming Beemer, a Mini, an Alphwd an an X5. All surrounding my Wira that' missing a piece of the front spoiler.

Sometimes when I wake in the morning and step into the parking lot to go off to work, my car is immediately noticeable.

The latest addition right now is a prancing horse, and I guess upgrading my ride isn't a good idea as it will make my car less noticeable. I should offer my neighbor my services to take care of his pet, the prancing horse, and maybe take it out for a run once a week.

Tranquility

There's something about this place that I like.

Just beyond the Batu Dam, nestled between the trees, is a little Eco Resort.

Its an old one really, but it was recently taken over by new management. There's just something about the sound of water rushing by in a rocky stream covered by thick foliage on the sides.

We had put together a module and this place was selected.

Our program was an indoor one and it was conducted in a hot house of a hall. Thick mudbrick walls and zinc roof. As the sun reaches up we begin to bake. Despite all the fans running at full speed, we were sweating away at our curriculum.

I must congratulate my group for sticking through the program in the searing heat.

However, despite all the discomfort, it is all forgotten when I see the eyes following me intently; faces nodding, or lost in thought processing all the information.

And of the end of the day, the heat is all but forgotten when I stand on the river bank, the shade under the trees providing cool confort, the water swirling around the rocks with a continuous rush.

More excellent service..

My wife had to run around a bit the other day one of those days where when someone delays then everything else gets pushed back.

In her rush, she went off to settle stuff with some government agencies. Finishing with one, she went off to another. It wasn't till she got home that she realized she'd left her file with all her documents behind.

She had planned to go the first thing next morning, but, weary after a long day, she didn't. I came home during lunch to find her all dressed and ready to go out. It turned out that the office where she left the file found her file, found her phone number and called her to say that they have her file and that she could come by and pick it up.

This is a government agency, I must remind you. I had already given up the file as lost when my wife didn't pick it up that morning.

Isn't that a nice surprise? Do you have a similar experience?

Sevice Excellence

There is a particular Mamak Restaurant that's been around for quite a while and has quite a following. The food was quite good then it opened and l became quite a fan of it. As the place grew, I stopped going there regularly as I found the place rather crowded and parking was a nightmare. Though not as regularly, I would still stop by once in a way. But service weren't so good anymore blue to the large crowds.

I soon moved to a new neighborhood. By then, the same store had opened a branch (yeah, mamak shops had branches, too!) in the vicinity. l started to frequent the shop again but again kept being let down by the service. The final straw came when I had bad service over three visits in the same week. This time, a table after mine got served their food first while mine didn't. l chose to walk out and as we passed the manager, my wife took the opportunity to tell him why are were leaving. He apologized profusely but we explained that it was our third consecutive bad visit.

That was about two weeks ago. Today for some reason, we decided to stop there again, expecting the same crappy service. We recieved our orders almost immediately, and the manager came by to ask if everything was ok and to tell us that he had improved his production. I told him that I was pleasantly surprised and that, yes, things are much better this time around. He came by again asking if I needed to 'tambah' my roti canai, which I politely declined.

It was nice to know that things improved and that the manager took the trouble to tell me that I'm important enough for him to want my patronage. I don't go there as often as some people.

But here's the clincher in service excellence that not many people get: its about making every single customer important and making him know that his needs are attended to. Simple common sense, no MBA required.

The Buzz

Amongst all the projects I carry out, this particular one has got to be the most arduous. It was a cross functional project that was thrust to us about two years ago. Work commitments and lack of time ("the mind is infinitely creative at not doing what it does not want to do - Tony Buzan) to really think through the problem, resulted in the project not progressing beyond the initial proposal.
In the intervening two years, the rules changed and got tightened; we found an e-mail in our inboxes requesting a status update. We put our heads together and decided that if at all we were to make progress, we would need to look for a better project.
Fully prepared for the worst, we presented our case to resubmit for a new proposal. Surprisingly, the new topic was well received; there seemed to be a buzz of excitement from the committee and we are on our way.
In all honesty, this is not a project we can afford to ignore. Like it or not, to drop out of this program just because we don't want to do a project would be folly on our part. The only thing is to just get it done. So I guess the only thing to do is to chip away at it, 15 minutes at a time, until the block of granite is smoothed into a sculpture, just like Michelangelo's David, or de Milo's Venus.
What else is there?

Growing Customer service

I had the privilege of experiencing good customer service the other day.
I squeezed through a small door, down a tight little corridor to meet some relatives while another was being treated at he government hospital.
The corridor was guarded by a burly female guard, her desk across the corner of the 90 degree corridor, giving her a view of the the entrance that I sneaked through and the treatment room.
It was going to be a long wait, so we decided to use a tiny room with a long sofa while we waited. The room was dark and we scrambled around for a bit looking for the light switch.
I thought I saw the burly lady with the uniform give me a glare; then with both hands on her table, she shoved her chair back and heaved her massive bulk upright. She walked around the table and headed towards us. I was ready to be given a tongue lashing for stepping into that room.
When she reached us, she politely asked if we wanted to use the room to wait. When I nodded, she said,"excuse me" and switched on the lights, and the fan, too. She even offered us the use of the room while we waited, even though it was obvious that that's what we were there for.
As I sat in that room, waiting, I noticed that this lady continued to check on us, and the others who just like us were waiting. As new visitors came, she would lead them to the waiting area and offer the area for them to rest.
I realise that, appearance aside, the government hospital has very much grown in their services. I do realize its not fair to compare them to the profit driven private hospitals, who, despite the direct link between happy customers and profit, even then have service levels that leave much to be desired; but this service I've got is a far cry from the abusive holier-than-thou attitudes of the past.
I hope that this improvement trend continues, as the dream of a customer oriented goverment department becomes closer to reality.

Dinner with The Stars

It was my Father In Law's birthday and we decided to treat him to dinner. My wife, being the gastronomic adventurer that she is decided to try out a restaurant we hadn't been to.
Looking for parking was an adventure going round tight corners and remembering that parking was RM3 for the first hour and RM4 for each subsequent hour.
The restaurant had a high ceiling with stained glass motif of the zodiac; and we spent a good deal of time figuring out which sign was which. I found out later that there were three levels, the ground was buffet, second japanese restaurant and the third was Chinese restaurant. We ate at the ground floor.






In the middle of the restaurant was a wire sculpture of Atlas carrying the world, standing in the center of a giant compass.









The restaurant had a mix buffet fare white rice, beryani and tandoori, sea food, pie and etc. Of course, the sushi bar rolls the sushi to order, and the thrill for kids is seeing the octopus on a plate.
Taste wise, the food ain't all that great. The buffet ran out pretty fast and wasn't really topped up. The really good thing about it though was having a chocolate fountain as part of the buffet. It makes the trip to the desert train really worth while. Hmm, I wonder if that's why food do not get topped up too fast?

Turtle Watching, anyone?

This being a turtle landing season, we took the opportunity to do some turtle watching at the turtle sanctuary in Cherating. Our visit to the Turtle Conservation Center didn't help as it was a public holiday and thus it was closed.
We were told that we could just come at night and wait to watch the turtles land.
We came out to the center late at night and trudged to the center. It was a full moon and we walked quietly along the beach. There was someone at the center gate facing the beach. We went over only to be told that we weren't allowed on the beach; we were supposed to wait in the center grounds until the ranger tells us if there were any landings sighted. A hall was provided for everyone to wait and rest or sleep.
We registered our names and found a chart in which they updated the number of landings over the month. Over the last few nights, there were only 2-3; the previous night, 5. According to the staff, the five turned up nearly morning, so he warned us that it might be a long wait before any landing would happen. He also mentioned that bright moon, low tide were not favored conditions. Typically, they come out if its dark, and if there are anything that make the turtles feel uncomfortable, they would leave. There had been many occasions where the turtles land and leave without laying any eggs.
We waited a while and a group of tourists came, laughing and talking at the top of their voices. Armed with bright flashlights, they were ready to make use of the time to socialize, joking about, shining lights out to the sea. A group of then decide to walk out the gate and onto the beach, the very place where we were not allowed to go.
We figured that if any turtles were around, tonight wont be the night they land. We sought out the staff to inform him that we were leaving; and we found that these were the kinds of things he faces on a daily basis during the holiday season. They allow people to come in to educate them about the turtles, but in allowing people in, they risk scaring the turtles with this kinds of behavior. Rightly, the staff says his priority are the turtles, and if he has to be unkind to people to protect the turtles, then so be it.
With the behavior I saw that night, I would agree with him.

p/s:
For the adventurous, they have tents for rent at RM30 per tent, so you can wait in the center grounds in the privacy of your own tent.

Cherating oh Cherating

We planned to go out to the Turtle Sanctuary up in Cherating to get some news on the turtle watching opportunities. Driving up there, we found that the center was closed due to it being a public holiday. We were then told that we could come later in the night to watch the turtle.
There was a nice breeze (gale?)blowing, so we took out the kite and flew it there. And fly it did! we ran out of string, and it was still tugging away, threatening to fly off. The pix here kinda says it; the speck on the top right is the kite, and the speck on the bottom left is Amalyna.
We drove up to Kuala Kemaman to get keropok and other stuff and ran into and old school mate/ bandmate. He was quite surprised to see us buy out the store.
We recalled having visited an arts and craft village in our previous visits; and along the way, we found nestled amongst village house chalets off the main road a little restaurant calles Intan Seafood. It was a thatched roof hut facing the sea, airy with the sea breeze blowing through; The ambiance was something out of the movie "the Beach" with caravans and tents parked right outside the restaurant. The interesting thing about this place was the fresh, fresh fish, and the size of the buttered prawns was to die for!



No doubt there wasnt much left in the way of leftovers. We found the arts and craft village, but renovations were just completing so they were not open.

More on Holidays

A true holiday should be filled with something different.
We spent the afternoon at the beach and at the evening had the chance to release some turtle hatchlings to the sea. Although it was a rare opportunity, we felt rather suckered at being given a bucket of hatchlings that we poured into the tide.
All said, though, it was a great opportunity to marvel at those tiny hatchlings, knowing full well not many will survive to adulthood. Their first challenge of course is to swim out to the open sea and not get stepped on by excited little feet trying to see their darling hatchlings swim out safely. of course, excited adults with popping flashbulbs despite being told not to do so was just another hazard in the life of a hatchling.
We went to a seafood place for dinner So popular it was quite a wait for food; but, no problem as the sea air makes for a hearty appetite.

The next day we went to kuantan and visited all the places we grew up at.Of course. the itenary includes Teluk Chempedak. Everyone got a chance to experience a fish Spa. On the way back we stopped by every single stall to get local kuihs, which yours truly spent the evening finishing. Can't let food go to waste, you know.

Holidays!

yup, school hols are back again.
So we packed up our bags, and jumped into the car and off we went. Holidays mean switching the phone to "holiday" mode, meaning that no calls will come through unless its from the privileged few.
Queuing up to register, we found that internet bookings were handled in a private, air conditioned room. After check- in, we were told that we were entitled to a Welcome Drink. Expecting the regular special concoction of fruit juices, we took our time. We found our welcome drink to be a buffet of sweet rolls and fruit with a choice of coffee, tea and fruit juice; inclusive of a movie being projected on a screen. Quite a novel welcome.
Now lets see if the beach lives up to expectations.

Living with RA

I’d known her for a greater portion of the last 7 years of my life, thanks to my wife who made me realize of her existence. Since then, I tried very hard to drive her away as I needed my space and my life. For a short while, it worked. She stayed away and my life returned to almost normal, but too soon, she returned. Her visits were occasional, but soon enough grew in frequency and intensity. My professional life was the first to be affected and its not anyones’ guess to find my personal life begin to take its shape around her, too. She’s not one to easily go away.
Without her, my days were like living in perpetual sunshine. In my world, the skies would be blue, the birds would be chirping in the trees and everywhere I go, there would be the gay sounds of laughing children. I would look forwards to each day knowing that I could make it the best day of my life.
Oh, how different things are to wake up with her! When she is around, there would be nothing but pain. Some days I wished I wouldn’t have to wake up; such is the misery she brought me. On some days my wife doesn’t realize she’s here and I would see that impatient glare as I make my way painfully across the living room. The swellings that accompany the pain is not immediately visible, and people around me begin to doubt my sincerity when I am not able to do the things I promise to do carrying the burden of this woman.
Whenever she leaves, my life returns to normal. I spend my days with my workmates and with my family, filling each moment with tiny bits of memory that I could keep with me in the future. Little bits of memory, like getting a roomful of teenagers excited learning about our company; like being told how wonderful to have the team participate because things are always done differently, like watching my daughter go up on stage to receive her school testimonials and watching one son proudly show off his attempt at animation and another showing off the ship he built entirely on his own out of his Lego blocks.
And almost like a display of jealousy, she would appear again; admonishing me for having a good life; and she would make sure that my night is filled with pain. A good nights. Sleep deserts me yet again, and I spend my night fighting the numbing pain, waiting for sleep to come or the sun to rise. And my life becomes dependent on my wife, who, in addition to running her endeavors and running after the kids, now has to shuttle me around as driving becomes a painful task.
Ah, my life with this woman other. Blessed I am that my wife understands the very nature of this relationship and at times I need her most, she’s there. Not many realize of this woman in my life, because no one sees her when she’s with me. Yet everytime she comes, I long for her to leave, and even when she does, I know that it won’t be long before she comes again, because such is her nature. A disease like her you cannot choose, and she chooses the ones she likes best, and once she comes to stay, she is here forever. I can only embrace her coming, and I embrace life when she leaves, because I know it won’t be long before she returns.

Empowering Teams

Over the last year, we spent quite a bit of our time helping groups of departments understand each other and develop a common understanding towards building a winning team. During this time, we left our "real world" personalities behind and work together on equal basis to identify and resolve issues that we all feel are hindering our ability to become a winning team.
What do we need to learn?
1. we all belong to a team, but its not always the "right" team. Sometimes we commit ourselves to the immediate team and forget the existence of the larger team. And sometimes we have to give way and embrace the larger team.
2. We sometimes forget the larger team and forget that management (i.e our bosses) are part of the team; we readily demand our needs against them fully forgetting that they are part of our team just as much as we are part of theirs. As a result we demand solutions rather than to work with them to resolve the issues we both face.
How may times do you ask yourself if management decisions are for the benefit of the greater group and not at your own disbenefit? How often do we find ourselves asking management to "right" their decisions rather than convince them of a better solution to benefit all of us?
These are some of the things that I learn from the team sessions. I wonder if other people also learn some of these things. Its interesting if we can share our learnings.
Empowering teams doesn't necessarily mean that teams get to decide on what's best for them, but more importantly they get to understand what the greater whole needs from them and decide accordingly.

Learning from Mistakes

Every time we facilitate for clients, I make it a point to come back with a retrospect.
A retrospect form is a simple tool where we list things that either went very well or didn't. Then we list the things that caused it to turn out that way and finally decide how things should be done differently the next time. At a recent workshop, we reviewed previous reports and found it to be quite useful to prepare for the next one.
As always, its the content that matters. Sometimes, Some people have such high expectations that they are unable to see the good things they do and events are lumped together such that its not easy to see which aspects can be improved and which need to maintain. Others can be so pessimistic that they think everything went beyond their expectations and nothing much can be improved.
All said, but that the most important part of the exercise is being able to look at the expectations objectively and identify the causes. For some its always reported as someones' fault i.e. "so and so did not..." which the actions to prevent recurrence becomes "so and so should not..." Tone others look at methods and propose controls, which is a good way to go.
Its important that we avoid blame, but to Step back and look at processes objectively. At the end of the day, blame doesn't help improve. Processes can be changed, not actions.
All said, Sometimes improvements like this can only be pointed out during reviews. I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth in the meantime.

Today I learnt what it meant to not be part of a group.
My colleagues were facilitating a workshop over the last two days running several ice breaking sessions, games and simulations. Today they were scheduled to run a tool different from previous sessions, so I took the opportunity to join in today and learn how the tool would run.
Our workshops always run with the objective of breaking rituals and developing intimacy, and that had been the first day's objective. Having missed the first day, I fully expect to be an outsider in the group.
And what an outsider I was. I didn't know their nicknames, wasn't part of their jokes, and wasn't part of the activities, either. These were not new to me as this was something that i was fully aware of in the years of conducting these sessions. But what was new to me was the feeling of loneliness, of being ostracised, and being a helpless bystander. To see people laughing and backslapping, comfortable with each other, no barriers and wearing no masks; having enough sharing to be one of them; yet I couldn't. I was a total stranger to them because I had no memory of what they had gone through; and I had nothing in common to share. I felt that this type of loneliness to be far more intense than being lonely. When one lacks friends, one embraces the loneliness not knowing what is being missed. Here, one sees the fun and the laughter; and is left with the feeling of utter helplessness not having the right faculties to join in.
And what is the point, you may ask.
Imagine coming to a new office whose members have reached *this* level of intimacy, eager and ready to be friends, but not able to readily join in. No doubt, this person would have to go out and make friends; but how comfortable would this team then be ready to upset their balance and take this new person in?
Would the likelihood of this person seeking out the non conformists in the group be greater? and what would be the impact on the teamwork if this happens?
In my mind, then, we need to br fully prepared to welcome new people in by having ready a "welcoming package" that eases the acceptance of someone new into a well knit group. This package should not be just a physical orientation of the person, but should also be an orientation of behavior to make aware the dynamics of the existing teams and to prepare both the teams and the newcomer to accommodate each other's presence.
Too trivial, you say? I don't think so. What do *you* think?

One Chance

I'd been away from the office for a few days, and when I entered my room, I stepped on a little white envelope. I picked it up and found it to be a notice of resignation.
The sender happened to be in the meeting that I was about to leave for, and he was somewhat jovial. Word had already gotten around when I reached that office and everyone was casual and friendly about it.
The next day, we had our monthly meeting followed with departmental-lunch, and I got called away to attend some matters. When I got back I found that they had expected me to say a word or two with regards to his farewell. The following day, a smaller farewell was planned and I stood there, fully expecting to say my piece.
However, things moved fast, and before I knew it, the moment passed.
And I am reminded over and over that I'm always given one opportunity; and the great see this and grab it with both hands, while the weak rue the moment it passes by.
Here is the opportunity that I missed:
I couldnt say good bye to someone who gave his all to do an honest day's work, despite the trials and travails of working here.
I couldnt let everyone know how inspired i am of his courage to seek greener pastures at a time when grass was turning brown all around us
I couldnt let him know how I believed that his short tenure has equipped him with the skills he needs for his endeavour,
and that i bless his heart for all the good he has given me, and i bleed for all the time I couldnt return the same,
and regardless what everyone says, I believe that his tenure was filled with learning; either with the good deeds to follow, or bad deeds to avoid,
and that i dont hope him for success; I believe a man as good as he will never fail and success is there for his taking.

all these now are mere words, because the opportunity to make it matter has passed.

dar friend,
If we meet again, we shall smile, if not, this parting is well made.

5 reasons why boyfriends and husbands should not accompany partners' grocery shopping

1. They are uninterested and get in the way
2. They are engrossed with last night's football scores and get in the way
3. They are thinking of tonight's football scores and get in the way
   
4. They park their trolleys within earshot of their wives and get in the way
5. They lose themselves entertaining the kids and get in the way

The parting of an old friend

It started with reaching home late for dinner. Decided to go out so after much consideration, we decided to have dinner at our old hangout, a restaurant we have been going to for the last 20 years or so.
The regular guys who served us don't seem to be there anymore, and the placed seem staffed by foreign crew. There wasn't, thankfully, a smoking section anymore so we got seated a a fairly nice cubicle. In the need to impress, I guessed, before we could even unwind, the waiter was already there asking to take our order for drinks. To make matters worse, I am hard of hearing, the party across the room was having a reunion of sorts with laughing and screaming kids contributing to the already high ambient noise. The waiter mumbled with a thick foreign accent which very much meant that i could hardly make out what he wanted.
I do believe that as a society our ability to empathise and be considerate is all but gone. Its one thing to gather the famiy at a posh joint; but speaking at the top of their voices, kids allowed to roam free, and uncles snapping photos with an industrial sized flash clearly made my favorite restaurant have much less of what keeps me coming back.
Amongst the good things are that the waiters are always within sight, although they do not smile so much now, they do exercise their level best to keep the glasses filled, and the table cleared. However, I do feel rather uncomfortable that the placemats set for a party of four is not removed when its just the two of us, and when our orders came, we were just served straddling the two place mats on either side of the table. In the midst of it all, the head waiter, standing behind my wife's seat, suddenly slaps the back of the cubicle and walks off, much to our shock. The waiter sees our disgust, and runs off after the guy, and a few short words later brings the man to our table to apologize.
I am sentimental about the place as I enjoyed the friendly waiters who come by with a smile on their faces, genuinely friendly and warming up with a small talk during the good old days. And have always looked forward to the cozy and private ambience, and sadly, this was not there anymore, the last two times i was there.
I may have made the last trip to this place.

The journey

I started the week, back at work after a long break, on my feet facilitating a planning session, and ended it with another facilitation of a planning session. All in all this week I've had to facilitate some five or six sessions, which I suddenly realized I hadn't done in a long time.
As a facilitator, I treat each session as a show, going over the material looking for areas to improve, and looking for "hotspots" or areas in which people may not easily agree, going over the performance over and over again in my mind until I am clear of the paths that need to be taken. However, as the number of sessions grow, suddenly the opportunity to take a close look at each session at the same level of detail become scarce.
At the end of each of these sessions, I am overwhelmed by a sudden wave of tiredness, all the energy consumed, the adrenaline drained. Was it worth it? Sometimes I wonder.
I see my role as a scout. I make no decisions where to go, I make no decisions what to do. Yet, I am there to pinpoint the fastest way to the solution, I let the team find their own way yet I am there to make sure the things that need to be considered are not left out, the weak not jeopardized and the powerful not derailed.
At the end of these sessions, I wonder if I've made the journey easier for the team. Did it help? I wonder. The truth is, we won't ever know. Because the journey we experienced is the only journey we take, and arduous or not, we wont know if the paths we chose to ignore was for the better or for the worse.

Inspire

There are certain people that you just want to see as many times as you can. They're not necessarily your lovers, spouse or families. Neither bosses nor subordinates. These are those who look at you for inspiration, who bend over backwards for their need to do the right thing for you in return for all the inspiration you provide to them.

Its sad that sometimes we are *not* able to see the inspiration in their eyes. The desire to please us, the hope that the trouble they go to to make sure that our lives are easier. In not being able to recognize these people, inadvertently we brush them away and we hurt them.

Once hurt, they never come back.

The truth is that the reason why we wait to meet them over and over again, is because they inspire us as much as we inspire them.

As always, we ourselves do not realize how much they inspire us and instead of seeing the good intention behind their actions, we see only the bad; because we measure them against what we do, and therefore they always fall short.

Sad indeed. What of the cleaning lady whose eyes perked up because we thanked them for emptying the basket?

What of the security guard who got a shelling from the neighbor just because he tried to do his job right? How much more better his day became when we smile at him, and acknowledge that he did the right thing?

Inspire them to do the best they can.

Some time ago, trying to fill up at a nearby petrol station with swollen wrists, the lady came to help me fill up my car, and as i thanked her, she looked at me and said,"i'm really glad u smiled, because its so much nicer when everyone smiles". How perfect my day became.

Life depends on friendship and Roses

I had another test today. Turns out OK, So nothing to worry, lah.
I took the opportunity to visit the office end see if the gang preparing for the show is OK.
Funnily enough, l entered the office to a chorus of "What are you doing here" "You should be at home!" and "You're not supposed to be working"
l can only give an embarrassed grin.
I'm really glad people around me are concerned enough. I'm not really hot on working, but for the last 20 years of my working life, the office has always been more home than home itself.
Like today, it was nice to be able to meet up with friends and chat rather than sit home all alone. And that's all that keeps me coming to office, not the work, but the reminder that here is where your friends are and here is what keeps you getting up every morning.
Take that away from me, and there's very little left to look for when the kids are in school and the woman you love is away at work.

Life without internet? no way!

I was in trouble the other day thanks to my penchant to pull long hours at the office and hogging every single bit of work (ok, ok, I exaggerate, but I'm allowed some literary license, no?). I felt disoriented, and when walking, I felt like I was walking with swimming goggles on.
First, my wife takes away the car keys. "No driving", she says, "until we know what's wrong with you and fix you up." So she drops me off at the hospital, and picks me up later.
I had to suddenly miss work, and it had to happen on the busiest day of the week, and my phone rang, and then rang again, and then rang again with all the cancelled appointments and the like.
I imagined my wife reaching for the phone and stuffing it into her handbag to keep the car keys company. No, no, no.. I terminated my calls and switched the phone off.
Stepping out of the clinic, I call up my office mates, and in a few minutes later, I bundle up at the back of their car and zoom off. After a good time with my friends, I figured I felt recharged. Well, to my horror, the next day when reviewing my bp trend, my BP peaked at the exact hour I spent with them.
The next day, well enough to drive, I stopped by the office to submit the paperwork, and within minutes, the swimming goggles came on. Ok, I took off and went home.
At home, the sight of my shiny black HP, no covered in dust due to 2 days of disuse, gets my fingers trembling. I reach out for the "on" switch and giggle nervously as the LCD display fires to life. An I hit the "outlook" icon and watch the progress indicator start to build as e-mails begin to flow in. at 5 percent done, my inbox was showing 10 unread mails; then 15, 20, 25, 30,... before all the mail arrived, my swimming goggles were back on.
The next day, at my doctor's office, I relayed this experience. And she says, "You are just like my husband,.." her voice trails of as my mind perks at the thought that I have found a sympathetic ally. Then she continues,".. I wouldn't just take away the computer, because you are going to check your e-mails on your phone; I'd tell your wife to take away the car keys, computer AND the phone so that you can rest".
Well, with those words, the swimming goggles came back on. 2 weeks without the office, internet and phone?
With that, I've decided a slight change in routine. I use the pc with no office software so I can still be on the internet but off the officework. My phone's call screening is activated so that all office calls are diverted elsewhere (its supposed to go to my voice mailbox, but I deactivated that a long time ago - thats a story in itself).
Because of that I actually had time to go to the gym, walk to the store and read a book. And the goggles are gone, too.
I wonder what that means.

It helps to have a Sense of humour.

My doctor has a bit of a theatrical flair.
As I enter his office, he swirls his seat around, jumps to his feet and offers me a chair. He rifles through the pages of test results, brandishing his pen across his note pages. In a swish of his arm, he dispatches me to Special Diagnostics for a stress test.
The Lab Tech sticks on the little pads on my body and clips the wires on. The treadmill starts at a slow pace; everything is ok until Stage 4 when I find its a little too fast to walk, and a little to slow to run. My wallet, keys and coins are jumping in my pockets. My shins are screaming in pain, and I'm hanging on for dear life on the handle bar. I had this vision of me stumbling, and getting tangled up between the rollers. And the Lab Tech looks up at me, head cocked to one side, asking me if I'm ok. I'm gasping for air and trying to keep up and say "my feet are *killing* me!" He looks at me and says, deadpan,"hang in there, not much longer to go".
Then suddenly it dawns upon him that I might be in trouble and he asks,"Any pain in your chest?" And I hiss, "Only in my legs!"
He rolls his eyes and say; " Oh, that's because you don't exercise! If you exercise regularly, this is no problem at all."
Well, needless to say, a lesson was learnt. When you need to get your point across, hit the guy when he's in trouble, and when you do, make sure you hit him as hard as you can.

What keeps me up at night?

Deadlines, unfinished work, and a growing To - Do List.
I should manage that better by assigning out work and collecting the deliverables. Still, Sometimes what happens is that the people you need are not there, und they don't-get back to you. So what do you do? You follow up, of course!
It Sounds easy, but what if The person you sent out stuff to is still not available. Hmmm. l do have a problem then.

Stop and smell the roses...

It happened suddenly. I was sketching in between writing a report on my pc and reviewing a workshop agenda. I'm in need of bifocals and things very close to the edge of my table blur out, so whenever I have a lot to read, I take my glasses off to see better. If I dont, I get this feeling that my eyes are jammed in their sockets, and this has always been a sign that its time to take my glasses off. But this time, I found that taking my glasses off didn't help, and my eyes couldn't focus and I felt that everything I tried to focus on was blinking. I pushed myself off the table and took a deep breath, but it didnt help. I got up and took a walk, but it didn't go away. I felt like there were rings behind my eyeballs that restricted their movements. I was left fighting a feeling of disorientation, and after a while a distinct distaste built up in the back of my mouth.
After a long while, the feeling subsided; my eyes felt heavy and I felt extremely tired. I left the office and grabbed a bite to eat, and a cup of coffee and although that made me feel better, I felt like I "wasn't quite all there".
The doctor I met the next day without batting an eyelid listed out the game plan. Firstly, I had to promise to take 2 weeks off work. Then, he would run me through a series of tests, and thirdly, depending on the results, he'd work with me to ensure that he'd bring down the indicators to normal levels.
And that's where I am now. In 12 hours, I'd be in his room and we'd be discussing my test results. In the meantime, I'm here in front of my pc, with a monitor on my arm taking readings every 20 minutes.
Deep down inside, I'm feeling relieved that a whole load of "to-do" items have been taken off my shoulders, but I'm also fighting a sense of guilt that a whole bunch of things I promised to deliver didn't happen. Compounding that is the fact that these things cannot wait for me, and for those people, its bad enough I'm not delivering the stuff I promised, now they have to pick up the bits and pieces, blow the dust off and try to piece together and deliver.
At the same time, as bad as I feel, I'm really touched by all the get well wishes, the phone calls and the e-mails I've recieved. I'm hoping for good news tomorrow, so that I can make up on all the broken promises.
Thank you dear friends, for letting me know that I can count on you all to keep the ship going. Thank you, too, for wanting to come by and catch up on how I'm doing. Lastly, thank you for the prayers.

Breathe

Ever since I came back from the workshop, I've found myself rather tardy with my e-mails and all things electronic.
Boss-man was out of commission, and my meetings that I regularly get him to chair had returned to me. All of a sudden, I found the meeting room to be almost like home.
Everything's moved in a blur of reports, meetings and discussions. And when boss-man returned, things did not let up because all his stuff I did for him I had to clean up, all the stuff that got left behind, had to get caught up and now that boss-man is back, there's a pile waiting.
I'd not been able to catch up with my e-mails during the day, so I'd spend the evenings going thru them.
when the week started I had promised myself that I would take a break this long CNY weekend, but before I knew it, its already here upon me, and just as I thought I'd see the top of my table again, the dumspter of labor stopped by and covered the offensive patch of glass with more paper.
But, as always: it's just work, and the weekend is here, so lets not spoil the weekend with more work, instead lets kick back, relax, enjoy this moment and breathe.
To all my friends rushing home to reunion dinner, drive safe. To those rushing home to make the most of the time with their loved ones, enjoy every moment.
Have a safe holidays, all. Take a moment to draw a deep, deep breath, savor each moment and let the memories linger.
God bless.

An awakening

Its always an amazing experience to run a weekend workshop. This weekend was a milestone in my team's workshop mileage.
We had many weeks to prepare for the workshop as the period chosen initially smacked right in the middle of the December holidays; the hotels were only available in this period in January. The workshop was huge; a total of seven sessions were planned to cover the entire sweep of our client.
All these while our workshops are planned with our good chief being available to oversee or conduct it, so we went about the planning and design in good stead. Two days before the workshop, though, our chief took ill, and it was left to us to make the workshop happen.
We fought the temptation to delay the workshop and decided to proceed as planned. We, after all weren't inexperienced; we each had clocked a reasonable number of workshops. It was only the sheer size of the workshop that daunted us.
Still, despite our fear, we gritted out teeth and proceeded. Every swiftlet reaches a point where it must spread its wings and fly, and every swimmer has to let go of the sides.
The fear of having missed out something was real, and there were moments where self doubt reared its ugly head; but in the end, knowing that you are alone in the swirling ocean of the moment, that to fail or to finish depends on what you decide to do with the rudder and tack in your hands, you grit your teeth and decide that only you know what needs to be done.
In the end, we finished the workshop, and, what matters is that we reached the shore, neverminding that we lost our supplies along the way and that the sail is in tatters and the oars broken.
With the passing of the storm, the morning sun brings a new warmth and lights a new day.