Revengeful Driving? What the hell is it?

If you have heard of defensive driving, you might not have heard of revengeful driving. If you're a driver, at some point in time, you will suffer from revengeful driving for whatever reasons.

Less than half an hour ago, I was the victim of revengeful driving. Like seriously? Yeah. What is revengeful driving? Revengeful driving is the driving style that some people use when other people do things that they don't like to them. e.g. cut you off in traffic.

I was just driving slowly behind a tractor on MRR2 this morning on the left lane and wanted to change lane. So naturally, I turned on my signal light and changed lane. There's this van on by my right that didn't want to let me through. I didn't realize it until I've actually completed changing lanes that I realized I  have forced my way through.

But to this van driver, it was payback less than 20 seconds later when he cut me off right in front of me and tried to sway next to me. Plain stupidity from the van driver. No wonder Malaysians are labelled as the most notorious drivers in the world.

Convocation: What does it mean to you?

Completing our studies in university has been a milestone for many people in their lives. The only ceremony that indicates to you that someone has completed their studies in university is their convocation. Without a convocation, I believe that nothing tells apart a university graduate from a non-university graduate except for the depth of their knowledge. So if someone reads and learns a lot, he would still look and sound the same as a university graduate as long as he's willing to learn.

A convocation is the symbolic meaning of someone officially finishing his education, mostly tertiary education. For some, it may mean a lot because the convocation marks the end of their university studies and their entry into the working world/into open society.

Then, this question suddenly struck me, "If you have been working for several months, what does the convocation mean to you?" And the answer to that question was "Nothing". Why must it be so? When you work, the symbolic meaning of convocation (entry into the working world) is no longer relevant because you have already been working for some time already. 

What do I think about convocation?

The convocation I had was a complete waste of time, energy and resources. There are two primary reasons why I was at the convocation:

1. For my parents and family members so that they can be proud of the fact that I completed my university studies.

2. To meet my friends from university and catch up.

Those are the only two reasons why I went for my convocation. Other than that, I feel like the convocation wasted my time, energy and resources.

Just imagine yourself waiting for 3 hours just so that you can be on stage for 3 minutes to take your 'scroll' which is empty.

After some thoughts, I hope this is not the only convocation that I will be attending in my lifetime. Hopefully, the next convocation will be a more meaningful one for me :)

Madness Knows No Limit

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. The last post was about 5-6 weeks ago after checking my blog.

As a matter of fact, I started working about 5 weeks ago and since then, it has been a little crazy somehow. And madness seriously knows no limit. Here's why:

1. In the past 1 month, I have travelled more than 3,000km by car, possibly more than 5,000km. This is a lot considering that all these travels are not because of work (I can understand how a salesman can travel 5,000km). There were even some weekends that I travelled from KL to Teluk Intan, then from Teluk Intan to Seberang Jaya in Penang and finally from Seberang Jaya to KL again. That should be about 700km. And there was 1 day that I travelled more than 500km @.@

2. I have quite recently started running again (last week to be specific). Here's the crazy part: I went running at 11.00pm at night =.=''' And that's because I can't find time to run in the evening.

3. Was in one of the craziest discussions that I have heard. The topic is political, so I won't share about it here.

That's all for today's update I suppose. I'll try to post more updates whenever I am available.

What Does An Orphanage Need?

Based on my experience of doing community work, let me just share with you on some of my thoughts on this matter, "What does an orphanage need?"

The first and most important thing that the orphanage need is of course money. Why money? Because it is the one thing that will determine the life and death of the orphanage. Is it the most important thing? No, I don't think so. Why don't I think so? Because there are enough good Samaritans in Malaysia who wants to do charity but don't know how to do it. Typically, they just give donations to orphanages, old folks' homes and welfare homes. So, the money is not the biggest concern for orphanages because it's lacking only at the 'want', not lacking at the 'need'.

The second most important thing that an orphanage need are the other things like shelter, occasional support in terms of materials and so on. Why is it so important? There are times when things are expensive and money can't buy it. Partially it is also the reluctance of people and companies to give cash straight to the management of the orphanages. So, these people and companies donate things instead of money. With the increasingly prevalent trend of corporate companies having their own CSR programmes, donations in kind don't come in as difficult as it used to be anymore. 

The last and most important thing that an orphanage needs is long-term commitment. One example of things that need long-term commitment is tuition for the children in the orphanages. Orphanages typically don't send their children to tuition because they can't afford it. So these children lose out in school because they don't get additional guidance at home (lack of attention from their caregivers) on their education. As donors to homes, I believe that it is difficult for the most of them to commit to a long-term project/programme for the children at the home because personally, everyone of us have our own priorities. More importantly, commitment to the home that they contribute to is not the top priority to the donors. 

This leads to a dire need for more contributors, not in monetary or in kind but in terms of energy, time and effort. There are many things that orphans need. But one thing that is lacking for these children is LOVE. By committing our energy, time and effort to love these children, I believe that the children will have a more enriching life. I think that we should try to contribute to orphanages for a longer term which will enhance the benefits of the contribution instead of the one-off cash or in kind contribution. 

With Love,

Alex

Another Update - My Thoughts on Employment

Technically speaking, I have found a job. The job that I have found is a job at Ernst & Young as an Audit Associate.

I have applied to the following companies:
1. CIMB
2. Maybank
3. BAT
4. AmInvestment
5. PWC
6. Ernst & Young (EY)

The only company that came back to me for an interview are Maybank, AmInvestment and EY. I am still in the process of interview for the other two jobs but EY came forward with a job offer for me starting in September.

First of all, I have to commend EY's HR team for their immediate response in arranging for an interview and coming up with the offer within 2 weeks of sending the job application and resume. What I find unfortunate is the fact that a friend of mine who preferred to work in EY only got the call-up for interview after she accepted the offer from KPMG (simply because EY called her late). Too bad for EY for missing out on a good employee,

To the companies that have yet to call me, I guess they're either not hiring or I don't suit their requirement of an employee. The job market at the moment is more of the employer's market than the employee's market. Employees don't always get the choice of choosing the employment of their choice. Only a select few get the option of the employment of their choice.

Having said that, employers nowadays want their employees to pursue professional qualifications during the duration of their employment. I was speaking to a HR Manager from EY and she indicated to me that promotion and progression is based on the performance and progress on professional qualification examinations. To be honest, it's very difficult for employees to be performing and taking professional qualification examinations when they're constantly loaded with jobs and projects.

Then, this question arises: Does it matter that much for an employee to pass their professional qualification examinations? Shouldn't their ability to perform on the job take precedence as a pre-qualification for consideration for promotion?

The lesson learnt on employment: a Bachelor's degree is only like a UPSR exam. There's still professional qualification and other examinations to go.

Update

It's been a while since I updated this blog. The main reason is because of my laziness to update it. I've been unemployed for some time and I think it's time for me to get back to work. It has been 3 months since I completed my internship and I believe that I have made the most of my break by doing some really meaningful things.

Currently, I have already sent out job applications to several banks that I'm truly interested to be working with and two audit firms. I've just been scheduled for an interview and hopefully everything goes all right in that interview. If things are smooth, I think I will have to start work in 3 weeks.

Wishing things will do fine :)

Random-ness

It's starting to feel like there's nothing much to life than work, earn money, spend money and wait for your next pay-cheque. As it is, I'm currently unemployed and I have to admit one thing, I dread joining the workforce.

Here's how I see it, once I join the workforce, the ongoing cycle of going to work everyday to earn money starts. From there on, you only pretty much live from pay-check to pay-check with savings. Once this cycle starts, my fear is that I will be stuck in this cycle, not being able to escape from the so-called rat-race simply because I'm just addicted to my next pay-check and the stability of an employment.

Here's the thing that I realized after internship in my previous company. My wage for one month is RM800.00. However, the company is charging the client RM80.00 for each hour that I put in doing the client's work. This basically means that the company is generating RM640.00 per day from my 8 hours at work. It also means that the company has pretty much broke even after I have worked for 1 day. That leaves me another 21 days more to work for the company generating revenue for the company. Hence, the profit margin for the company from my employment in my previous company is approximately 1500% to 2000%. My thought: why work so hard when most of the benefits of my hard work goes to the company?

This has led me to think of other alternatives other than employment.