It has been a very long time since my last update. My bad! The last time I was busy trying to get a job and did not update for a long time. This time, I was busy with work and I do not have much time left for me to update as frequently as I used to be. Nevertheless, this blog will not be left to die and that is a promise. I just need to add some extra motivation to my life so that I would be able to write more often… We will see whether that would actually happen or not… haha!

Anyway, maybe I will let you all know what is going on at work and why I did not have time to update aka the excuse of not updating…

The thing is that I was taking care of 6 projects. I said was since a few days ago, I got to transfer two of my projects to another project manager and that leaves me with just 4 and may be then, I would have some time to just pop in here and write a word or two ha…

My first project is to manage the development of a portal for the agency that takes care of all the wild animals in West Malaysia. This is an agency where animals go to lodge complaints against the human… just kidding but really, they do take care of the animals welfare…

My second project is to attend monitoring meetings for a digital library project for the ministry of defence. Nothing much to do but lots of time taken to travel to the meeting sites. The previous meetings were held in Lumut, Port Dickson, Johor Bahru and Alor Star. The next meeting would be held in Port Dickson again.

My third project is to manage some hardware and software subscription and maintenance services for one of the local universities. The fourth (given to another PM recently) was about the same thing but for the agency that takes care of the Prime Minister… Lucky guy for having a whole agency making sure that he is okay…

The fifth (also given to another PM) was another digital library project and this time it is for the agency that take cares of the lawyers… No wonder they are so…. err… choose your own descriptions to describe them… heh heh!

The last and the latest and the one that has been taking most of my time is a data leakage prevention project for one of the oil and gas giants in Malaysia… Lots of meetings just to complete the scope of work… Guess what? It is not complete yet…

So, there you go! Those are the things that have been keeping me busy! Till then, see you later and take care!

That would be one of the most asked questions at some fast food restaurants but that would not be the case if you are buying something to eat at the Machap rest area. Over there, the question would be: “Do you want flies with that?”

If you are travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru on the NSE, you would not miss a rest area called the Machap R&R. Last week, while driving back from Johor Bahru to Shah Alam, we had the “luxury” of stopping over for a short break at this rest area . From the car, everything looked great as the rest area was recently renovated by PLUS.

They Are Everywhere!

However, once I stepped out of the car and went to one of the stalls there, I was greeted by hundreds of flies. While the few hundred of them were doing the welcome to rest area Machap song, there were few thousands other flies were busy “promoting” the food and goods for sale to travellers… What a sight!

I went to the upper portion of the rest area. The automatic escalator was impressive and once I reached the top floor, I saw the whole eating place was sealed by glass walls. I thought that was a noble idea to ensure that the flies stay out while people are eating inside…

Let’s Do Some Maths

Well, it did not really 100% work as there were thousands of flies queueing up on the glass walls and doors waiting to enter the area. Imagine this:

1000 flies waiting to enter the eating area. If one person open the glass door to enter, and1% of the flies would take the opportunity to sneak in. There would be 10 flies per person. If 100 people went in, there would be about 1000 flies and each person that goes in must come out and that would mean at least 2000 flies in there…

They Can See You

With that, you can imagine that whatever you order in there, flies are complimentary… Not bad for a free source of protein ha! At the same time, you would get to experience a scenario that is normally common in some sci-fi movies and in this case, you would be trapped in a glass enclosure surrounded by thousands of flies staring with their compound eyes… Would you still eat there? Some people did but no way for me…

Blame It On The Chickens

I talked to one of the sellers there and I was told that there are some chicken farms nearby and things would get extremely bad during the rainy seasons and there was no way to get rid of the flies…

Luckily my son was asleep and therefore, he stayed in the car with my wife… If not he would have a freaking time chasing after the flies and my wife would have been having a busy time wiping his hands and feet shoes…

So, the next time when you drive on the NSE, look out for Machap rest area and stop to look at the wonder of the flies.

P/S:

There was a fly in our car a day after we came back and looking at the size, it must have followed us back from Machap…

On Friday May 15th, 2009, my wife and I went to KLCC to meet up her friend who would be going back to Jakarta. One of the things that she wanted him to bring back is an activated Maxis Hotlink SIM card for someone there. Somehow, due to some technical problems with my short term memory retaining capabilities, I had forgotten to purchase the card from the shop near my office.

So, right after dinner, all of us decided to walk over to the LRT station where they normally would have those prepaid cards sold there. It was not really a normal walk for me as my son had dedicated me to carry him all the way there. If you have been to the Suria Mall in KLCC, then try to imagine carrying a a load of more than 12kg from the centre court to the LRT station…

Registration vs Activation

When we got there, a lady was behind the counter. At 9:00pm, she looked like a person who has been working for the last 96 hours or so. There was no smile and we could just forget all about greeting the customers. What a fine example to show one aspect of Malaysian hospitality to our Indonesian guest that had to walk with us all the way there carrying all the stuffs that he had bought at the mall.

Me: Can you please activate the card for us.

Lady: There is a technical problem with Maxis and we can’t activate it right now. I will register it for you.

Me: Will you activate it later for us?

Lady: I will register the card and it should be okay…

At this time, I started to get agitated with this lady as she was not answering my question.

Me with voice getting louder: Registration is one thing but will you activate the card for us or not?

Lady: No.

A guy behind the counter: Why don’t you go to the Maxis centre and you can get it all done there…

You Must Be Kidding Me!

What a waste of time and energy. So we went back all the way to the Suria Mall and walked over to the Maxis centre.

We went to the Hotlink counter and:

Me: I need to buy a new number.

The counter guy: We have no more card.

Me: What! Aren’t you the owner of the Hotlink services?

The counter guy: Yes but we ran out of card since 6pm.

Our Indonesian friend had a big disbelief expression on his face and that was probably the combination of hearing my conversation with the counter guy and looking at the face that I had after learning that by going to Maxis did not guarantee that you can buy the Maxis Hotlink Prepaid number. What a bullock!

The thing that really pissed me off is the fact that they had run out of card since 6pm and did not do anything about it. They are not resellers or some free lance prepaid card agents but they are Maxis! The owner of Hotlink! What was that all about?

How About We Go For DIGI or Others?

And our Indonesian will for sure be happy to stick to his Digi prepaid services. If not for my contract with Maxis until September 2009, I would have changed my mobile phone service provider as that was not the first time when their services had gone below par…

This one was not really my last interview but it was actually in between the others. The only reason that I put it to the last is that it was the interview that got me this current job.

To begin with, I got the HR contact from a fellow blogger Nina and I shot an email to them. It took them about a week to respond and I was called for the first interview. The first interview lasted about 2 hours where I was made to listen to stories rather than being interviewed per say… He got lots of things to share and since I had nothing else to do, I might just as well listen to him…

Then, a week after that, I was called for a second interview. This one actually caught me off guard as I was not expecting a totally opposite character from the first interviewer. This guy was very particular about certifications such as PMP and business processes experience such as CMMI. I have none of them and as far as I was concerned at that time, I failed!

Note: Now I understand why the PMP and CMMI was emphasized as the customers that the company works with are looking into those as part of the criteria to show how capable the vendors are.

Anyway, with little hope in securing that job, I went about searching for the next job vacancies.

However, after about a month, I got a call from HR to negotiate the salary. Well, I was surprised as I thought that without the things that they needed, I would not stand a chance.

Anyway, after some negotiations, I had agreed to the offer and since nothing better came along the way, I accepted the job offer with a 30% pay cut. It is a substantial cut but it is much better than having no job and no salary at all.

I guess the time has come to start all over again and work myself up and maybe things would not that bad after all.

So, there you go! In the end, what I gathered from all these are:

1. It is not that easy to get a job out there.
2. Stick to your job if you can.
3. Get yourself certified (anything that is relevant to the current market and your expertise).
4. Save your money when you can.

P/s: They offer a good medical benefits and that has somewhat made it a bit easier for me…

Back to my adventure in attending interviews and this part is about a company that provides support for Oracle Applications located somewhere in Kota Damansara. Talking about companies that carry and support Oracle products, they are generally financially stable and money should have not been an issue. However, in this case, I was proven wrong…

Before the first interview, I had to go through a 3-hour profiling exercise where I had to answers some questions that tested the way people process their thoughts. It was something like the IQ test and it felt as if I am applying to enter a degree program at a university where you took a test to determine the most suitable place for you to go.

Anyway, the questions are mostly easy and in the end I only failed to answer 1 logic question. Not supposed to be a big deal at all.

After the test, I met up with the GM and it was a rather quick and easy interview. He noticed that I had done Oracle before and therefore, I was a natural fit for the position. However (always the case), he told me that since the salary that I was applying for is more that what he was authorized to process, I had to meet up with the MD.

At this point in time, I could already feel that this would be just another time waster…

Anyway, after a week, I was called to meet up with the MD. As the MD he was surprisingly his questions were too technical and even after I gave my answers based on technical facts, he ended up confusing himself towards the end. What the…

In the end he told me that my experience and qualifications were impressive and yet, it would be difficult to place me within the organization due to the global financial crisis and bal bla bla… He could have made it simple by saying that he would not want to pay me the amount that I had requested.

In conclusion, money still makes the world go round!

Anyway, back to my interview session. The next interview that I went to was at a Dutch software company located at the KLCC. This is where the development requirements for Asia are done and I must say, it is not a bad company to work for.

My first interview was with two young and energetic middle management staffs and from the 2 hour session, there were two questions that caught my attention:

1. Would you have any problem reporting to someone who is younger than you are?
2. Would you have any problem working with staffs who are all Chinese (referring to Malaysians who are from the Chinese race and not people from China)?

The first question was not really something that bothers me but the second question made me wonder why is that something that should be part of qualifying questions when hiring a new staff…

I told them that during my 8 long years of managing people in my previous company, I only had one Malay staff and the rest were all Chinese. To me race has never been as issue since what a person can produce at work is far more important than whether they are Malay, Chinese, Indian, American, British, Arabs or any other race in this world.

I had no idea what was going on in their mind after getting that answer from me. The only thing that I noticed was that they were eager to set me up for the next interview.

One week later, I was called for the second interview and that time I would be facing the more senior managers in the company. As expected, the same question about my comfort level with non-Malay staffs was brought up. I am a Malay, by the way…

I gave them the same answer but I could see that there was something bothering them…

Anyway, before the meeting, I had the chance to observe the people who came to work. Apart from an Indian HR executive and two Indonesian general workers, there was no other race there beside the Chinese. Is it coincidental or carefully planned?

Based on the way the asked questions, I had to believe that they would not want to have things changed over there. The prospect of having a non-Chinese manager instructing all-Chinese staffs must have been too scary a thing to happen and on top of that, it must have been unsettling to actually find out that Malays could really perform contrary to their beliefs that Malays are generally lazy…

In the end, to protect their little comfortable world, high up on the twin tower, they told me that I am too technically inclined and therefore, not suitable for a manager’s post. I was hoping that they would come up with a more solid reason and yet, they let me have some craps.

It goes to show that something could never change or be change. Half of my friends are Chinese thus it makes me sad knowing that some people are still using race as an excuse…

To be continued…

I came in about 15 minutes early as I usually did with any interview session. I was sent to a small room and asked to fill the normal form that we need to fill when applying for a job. I really hate that form since I believe that interview can be based on the resume itself and we only need to fill that form if we are accepted for the applied position. If not, it would just be a waste of paper and time. “Save the Earth!” echoed in my head for about an hour while waiting for someone to interview me…

Finally somebody came and apologized that the person who was supposed to interview me was busy with some meetings and therefore, she would be doing the so called first round interview.

After exchanging some answers and questions, she looked at the application form and look at the salary that I wanted and she gave me the Oh-My-God-face. A face showing how unbelievably high was my requested salary. Then she asked how much was I earning from my previous job and I gave her the figure. She gave me another OMG face… That didn’t feel good at all…

She told me that my application would be forwarded to her boss and I would be called for a second interview.

A week later I went back for the second interview. I was again made to wait in the room that I was waiting for them previously and I spent those time wondering whether I would be seeing anymore OMG face or not.

Finally the head of the department a.k.a the boss came in with a side kick. Just like last week, after exchanging questions and answers, they scanned the salary part on the paper. The the boss gave me his OMG face. He then showed the figure to his sidekick and he gave me an even bigger OMG face. Jerks!

Finally he gave me a figure to think about. The figure was almost 40% off of my last drawn salary. He told me that if he were to offer me higher than that, a few people would resign from his company.

The way I read the situation, based on the amount that he offered me, his own salary might be lower than my previous salary and definitely much higher than his sidekick’s. Duh!

I was given two weeks to consider…

After two weeks, I told them I accepted the offer and they went quiet for another two weeks.

Then I decided not to go for it.

Two weeks later the HR Manager called and I told them that since they did not respond on time, I assumed that they are not interested…

A week later, one of the Directors called and I told her that firstly, her people failed to respond on time and secondly, the amount offered was a joke… That’s the end of this episode.

To be continued…

As far as job hunting is concerned, you can either win or lose and you just can’t go and buy a job… Most job that is… err… By the way, McD’s happy meal is a big hit with my son…

In conclusion, job hunting sucks, especially when you are in one of these categories:

1. Too senior or high ranking
2. Too much experience
3. Too old
4. Too young
5. No experience

Most company out there were looking for somebody who has some experience and probably have been working for less than 5 years. These people have the basic knowledge that they required and would not be too expensive to hire.

Anyway, my first interview was with a plastic manufacturing company located somewhere in Pulau Indah, Klang. I have the qualification and the experience that they required. The middle management team certainly felt that I could contribute a lot in improving the way they do things and I was ready to embark on that challenge although a small part of me was thinking about how dull life would be to work in Pulau Indah.

If you have not been to Pulau Indah, think of a commercial port where the vehicles that would be fighting for the right of way on the road would be those huge trailers rushing in and out of the port and your daily view of the landscape would mostly be stacks of cargo containers waiting to be filled or waiting to be put on ships. Not really that bad if they were stacked with alternate coloured containers…

Anyway, things were all great during the interview and the fact that my previous salary was quite high did not seem to bother the HR manager. According to that HR manager, the company is big enough to pay such salary. Not bad ha!

The job scope was not that hard either. I would be responsible for improving and fine tuning their manufacturing processes and making sure that cost are managed and output are optimized. Those are the basics things that I learned in school and therefore, it would be a good fit for me there.

I waited for days and then weeks and finally 2008 left the world and finally, after asking around, since the HR manager decided to play a hide and seek game, I got to know that the CEO did not really want any process improvement guy to mess around in his factory. I guess, he feels that it is okay to scrap a few plastic buckets rather than having someone that could change how a plastic bucket can be better produced… Who really cares about plastic buckets anyway?

To be continued…

One of the reasons for the merger was that 2009 is going to be a tough year and consolidation was one of the ways to go through the hard times. That sounded convincing enough.

Then towards the end of the year, we got another message from the major shareholders and this time the plan has changed. The would not be any merger and the current company would not be bought by the competitor. However, they would just want to take over our customers at a disgustingly cheap price.

Shortly after that, the new owner of the customers came over and met up with all the staffs. I was last to see him. That was when I got the shocked of my life. He told me that he has no place for me in new organization. The reason given was that I am too expensive and the biggest reason of all was that the two jokers who work from Sydney and Bangalore put a condition for the take over. The condition was that I should not be included in the new setup.

I knew exactly why they had that condition enforced on the new setup. Firstly, on many occassions I had managed to make them look stupid with their crappy software and secondly, I was always on my customers’ side as the way I figured it out, I was paid by my customer and not them. I guessed that that was their best opportunity to get rid of me.

That’s okay and they won this time…

To be continued…

Let me start from the beginning and that is from the time before I went missing in action and the event that took place following that so that you would have the whole picture on what happened back then.

I worked for a small IT company that had 15 staffs at the time when I joined them in 2000. Things was going fine where I worked myself up from a senior consultant to the software manager. In 2004, they had some financial crisis due to some super duper business planning where the overhead became more than the profit. Due to some pressures from the owners and other factors that I did not know, one by one started to leave the company, including the managing director, which left the company with a malnourished body, a weak tail and without a head. Just imagine that…

The owners than made an offer to a few of us to stay back and mend the sinking ship. We were offered a mall amount of shares and in return we had to patch up all the holes and ensure that it remained afloat.

By the way, for your information, the company was a reseller of a technologically challenged piece of ERP software called SYSPR*, where the principal managed it from Sydney, Australia and Bangalore, India. And yet they claimed to be well versed with the customers and market trend in Malaysia. It beats me until now how they manage to arrogantly claim that.

Anyway, I took over the company as the general manager, software manager, account manager, project manager, debt collector, runner, etc officially in 2004 with a total headcount of 3 staffs. It was really tough in the beginning where we even did not get our salaries for a few months so that we could pay our suppliers and principal, which was acting worse than a loan shark, first.

However, our hard work and perseverance paid off and we managed to break even in 2006 and eventually made profits in 2007 and 2008. That’s when the whole trouble began…

To be continued…