Definitely Not By Chance

Recently, my colleague John and I have been sharing a bit more about ourselves, and I am very thankful to have found this friend at my workplace. John is 7 years my senior and very experienced in several industries. Personally, I find that he is over-qualified for this position that we are working in this project team. Yet we both recognized that it is helpful to gather relevant working experience working on ground projects with external companies.

There is also another colleague Tham; 13 years my senior and married with 2 kids. With more than 10 years of working experience, I am also thankful to have this ‘big brother’ working together in this project team. Tham and John have been a significant addition to this team and I have learnt much from both of them.

But what really impacted me was their influence in this team. Before they joined this department, the culture was very much tensed and compliant. However, over these recent months, their thoughts and initiatives have revealed a slight change in department culture and I am beginning to see a different side of things now.

I am really thankful for this new perspective as I see the importance to having an open channel of communication and learning in the workplace. This is the type of open workplace culture that encourages individuals to explore new perspectives and ways of viewing and doing things; at the same time giving flexibility to each distinct individual. Personally, I feel that a homogenous and compliant culture is out-dated and rather uncomfortable to work in. Each individual should not work such that he/she begins to lose his/her identity and style.

Of coz, this view would vary depending on whose perspective one looks at. From a superior’s perspective, compliance is definitely a much easier way to get things done. However, from the employee’s perspective, having his views heard and being accepted for who is he, makes a huge difference to his self-esteem and belongingness to the department and organization.

I thank God for friends at my workplace. Even at my previous department, God also provided me with 2 good colleagues (Raymond and Alvin) whom I could trust and share my struggles. Before I transferred to work in this department, God had also provided with 2 good colleagues (John and Chai Joo) as well.

I hope that through such times, I can be reminded that God is watching over me and preparing the way ahead for me. May each experience strengthen my faith in Him! Praise the Lord! =)

Seafood Dinner Treat at JB

Last Friday was Friday the 13th, but realizing this doesn’t matter to me coz I don’t believe in it anyway. Yet what was supposed special about this day? Well, my Dept Head has invited our Project Team and a few colleagues from the Training Dept for a seafood dinner treat at Johor Bahru!

Honestly, I am not exactly a fan of seafood (especially since it is regarded as a harmful food category), but what sparked me up was that this was my first dept outing together with my colleagues!

The dinner treat wasn’t important to me; but rather, I hoped to experience for myself, how it is like to go out for an outing together with my project team mates. Work, as usual, can be a stressful rush for us, and I was curious to observe how this tensed group of colleagues would relate when it’s not about work.

The evening began with a group of 10 of us traveling to JB in two cars. We chatted just as usually do, except that this time, there was a traffic jam which made our stomachs growl in hunger. It was soon reinforced that Friday night is one of the worse nights to cross over to JB because many people will be driving to Malaysia and huge crowds of foreign workers would be rushing back to Malaysia on their motorbikes, squeezing in and around fellow motorcyclists, just to get as far as possible towards the checkpoint. It was a stressful sight just watching them horn at each other, while other squeeze in between the queues of motorcyclists! Indeed, watching this scene just makes me reflect and be really thankful that going home in Singapore is still very much more accessible compared to other countries.

On a few instances, both cars lost track of each other in the midst of so many vehicles traveling on the road, leaving those at the backseat to turn around every few minutes to check if the other car is still following behind. The worse still is that bigger vehicles such as private buses just force their way through coz they know that expensive cars won’t want to squeeze in with them and run the risk of getting scratched in the process.

The car which the Training Manager was driving was ahead of us and it stopped next to a yellow bus, waiting for us to catch-up and look out for this big yellow bus stopped at the left side of the road at Johor Bahru. As our car got nearer (about 450 meters away), John suddenly called me saying that the yellow bus suddenly drove away! It made all of us roared in laughter! This lesson is to tell us not to use a vehicle as a road marker! *Laugh*…

Finally, we reached this place called Taman Sentosa (or something like that) and walked towards this hawker centre. My Dept Head laughed at me for carrying my black bag containing all 5 passports and 1 mobile phone from those in the same car as me. I thought this was weird too, but what to do… everyone passed their passports to me, since I had the biggest bag to keep them. Hmm…

Seeing such a big group, one of the hawkers immediately took out this huge aluminum cover to use as a large table top! Now we had more space, but this aluminum cover was bent and uneven, causing the plates to incline towards the centre of the table! It was comical…

My Dept Head ordered about 7 dishes of food to share (fried sotong, fried oyster, crayfish, deer meat, butter prawns, hotplate egg tou-foo, etc) and we had a good time of chatting and laughing. But this was where I noticed a difference in nature of conversation.

At work, it was often objective. At a casual setting like this dinner, it was teasing and laughing over nonsense. These two aspects are fine with me, but somehow I felt that something was missing – thoughtful sharing and conversation. Perhaps this is not often possible in a big group setting, but I felt that we didn’t really learn much about each other through the process, except building rapport with each other. Maybe that’s the point – to establish rapport and not friendships; after all this is a gathering of colleagues, and both Dept Heads were present as well.

After everyone had visited the toilet, we stood outside while waiting for everyone else to gather back. It was then that I started to notice that there were several cats lying around outside and one kitten was so cute! I felt like bringing it home!

We split into the 2 cars again, however this time it was decided based on who stays at the East and others who stayed at the North. It was an enjoyable time, though most of us were very tired at the end of the day. However, my mood took a turn when we saw this old man with trembling body going from car to car (at the Johor Bahru checkpoint) begging for money. John told us that these people are very poor thing. Sometimes they can stand there and beg for the whole day and not even get enough to buy food for that day. So John gave him some money.

This made me reflect how these people live from day to day. Often, these people do not come to mind, when we go about the hustle and bustle in the busy life in Singapore, be it studying or working. I really wonder how these people live each day. My heart just broke to see them in such a state. And John told me that such sights can just break our hearts and spoil our mood, if we are going overseas for a holiday. And the worst part - people living in developed countries actually start to feel uncomfortable or sad for them, because we are not used to seeing such plights in our own country.

An Unconvincing Sales Pitch

Last Thursday (12th Oct), I met up with Rebecca and Evelyn at Aunty Muifong’s house for a Russian dinner and to listen to a long-time ex-church member share about keeping our good health. We were early, so we settled down to a quiet dinner before the others arrived.

It turned out that the Russian dinner was actually chicken cooked with Russian spices, with potatoes and salad. I was wondering and a little afraid of what I would be eating for dinner, as I have never tasted Russian food before. But the chicken cooked with Russian spices was delicious! How I wish I could ask for another piece, but I decided to leave it for those who had not yet arrived.

After dinner, we settled down and waited… and waited. Apparently, this lady by the name of Aliz was late. By the time she arrived, it was already 45 minutes past the start of the sharing time. I didn’t know about the rest, but Rebecca and I were pretty annoyed coz all of us had to work tomorrow.

Aliz began with an introduction about herself, followed by a presentation of the health products which she was marketing and selling. As the talk went on, I was surprised that this sharing had turned into a health products marketing session! What was all these about? Just selling health supplements? I am not in the position to judge how good are these supplement pills (and all the more not in comparison with other health products), but this surely isn’t what I had come here for! Perhaps I had mistaken, but I came here to learn some tips on how to take care of our good health and what are the natural remedies to common ailments!

At the end where we had a Q&A, I found that it wasn’t a fruitful session at all, as Aliz was not able to answer our questions adequately well. We were all aware that she is not a trained medical professional, but her knowledge of medicine was just too low to convince all of us who were listening!

In my job, I have to promote funding schemes to companies, and most often, I have to relate with managers, senior managers and even those at director-level. I may not be the best sales person, but I do have a reasonable amount of work experience in selling, to realize that Aliz was actually reiterating what she knows of the health supplements; possibly from whoever that she learnt it from.

To me, it was clear that she didn’t have sufficient medical knowledge, and much less adequate to successful convince us to purchase her health products. In fact, she was so quick to jump into explaining why this brand of health supplements is better than other brands; rather than understanding the concerns of those who were asking the questions!

In any case, even she wants to prove that her product is better, she should at least find out what other brands are doing, before even claiming that her product is better! And when I asked her about the comparison between this brand versus other brands, she could not even answer properly.

Furthermore, she was also very keen to share with us about this network marketing scheme and how well we can earn, if we sell enough of the products per week. In my mind, I was thinking – why is she so money-minded? Just keep on talking about the money? You are not even answering our questions enough to convince us, and you are talking about recruiting us to sell it for you?

In any selling concept that attracts people with good commission, there is a catch to it and I could see it clearly. Reasons being that (1) each agent is required to purchase $X of products each month, (2) use of a points system that calculates the lower amount of sales achieved between the agent’s two lower ‘legs’ and (3) setting aside a portion of the agent’s commission to purchase that $X of products every month.

In (1), this mandate is actually a strategy that ensures that the company secures and earns ($X multiply by Y number of agents) every month, irregardless of how much each agent earns. This is a smart strategy coz not every agent who buys this product will choose to engage themselves in aggressive selling every month. There are some who are not good at selling and others who are just promote to friends as and when they are interested. Furthermore, there are people who become agents because they can then purchase the products at a slight discount. So technically, the company earns money from BOTH their agents and their agents’ customers!

In (2), the use of a points system ensures that sales commission is monitored based on the company’s calculation system, i.e. their database. It is not a fixed x% of every sale of $Y. This ensures that the company earns more through variable commission, rather than fixed standard commission.

In (3), by brainwashing agents with the concept that each agent can get free health supplements from their commission earned through their sales, it seems like a good deal for the agent. In a sense, it is… however, the company is also smart to implement this strategy because it also makes sure that PART of EACH agent’s commission goes back into their company profits! So technically, what the company sells, their profit rolls back into their bank account again! And each agent actually gets less commission that actually entitled to.

In any case, network marketing is for people who have the drive to sell and are profit-driven. I am not such a person and I dislike having my monthly salary hinged on variable uncertainty and my level of aggressiveness. I am just uncomfortable about that.

Yourself = Your Cells

Rebecca and I took some time to chat with Aunty Muifong after church service this morning... and we discovered and listened first-hand about the importance of looking to nutrition, instead of just drugs and medication.

I found it heartening to hear that it is even more important to nourish our cells, and not just load our bodies with pills and medicinal drugs. After all, these are not natural and side effects or after-effects are not always experienced straightaway.

The concept which I learnt was simple – our body is made up of cells, so the first step should always be to nourish and rejuvenate our cells. If our body cells are nourished, our body will also be healthy and well. It’s that simple!

Losing Intensity

I used to be a high strung and intensive person when I was in my younger school days till my early 20s. In other words, when I was still in school and in the Army. However, once I started work, I realized that my intensity dropped by a fair bit.

Perhaps it could be that the amount of stress and pressure can differ from each individual in school, as each learnt at his/her own pace… and how intensive one decides and commits to study and do projects for his/her own subject grade. This is very true as there are always very studious and hardworking students and others who are more slacked and rush to study only at the last minute.

This, however, does not apply to working life. Each individual is pushed to deliver results and there is little lee-way to procrastinate, as doing so will only impede work to be completed on time. Perhaps this is why my intensity level has dropped since I started work coz the level of pressure is determined by the nature and extent of ambition of the superior, as well as the consistent amount of stress and pressure that is draining on my heart and mind.

And with that, at times it is natural that the human body subconsciously pulls back, for a breather and in more severe cases, an attempt to escape reality by numbing the speed of transfer of information in one’s mind or slowing down one’s movements on the job.

I have noticed two general types of individuals. For Type A, this individual will fight to be in the thick of the action; raring to go and with added pressure, be able to push oneself to perform better than when the amount of pressure remains the same. For Type B, this individual takes a more progressive inclination, whereby improvements take place when the amount of pressure is carefully monitored and allowed ample time to adjust to it. Too little pressure would pose as a lack of challenge and opportunity to develop; yet too much pressure would become a hindrance to sustained motivation and self-learning.

I find that I am more of a Type B individual. Like a racing car, there are times when the car needs to make a pit-stop to refuel and change tyres for better traction and control. I am such a person; it is very clear to me. At times, I may subconsciously find myself pulling away from the pressures of my work… yet to me, this isn’t an indication of a lack of commitment, but perhaps indicating a need to re-assess my perspective and motivation in what I am doing. The job may not be a wrong job, but I guess regular checks of reflection to re-align my thoughts is necessary to stay in focus and do my best without going off the tracks.

Mr. Eskimo-Ra

My colleague and I had a good laugh last week, when I heard him pronounce, “Mr. S. Kimura” as “Mr. Eskimo-Ra.” *Laugh*… and we ended up laughing at each other… Hahahaha… =)

Modeling around the Food Court

I recalled a comical incident that happened about two weeks ago, when I met up with Rebecca for dinner at Suntec City food court. After she had ordered her food and sat down to eat, I got up to look around for food to order from the stalls.

It so happened that I couldn’t find any food that I liked to eat at this food court, so I ended up parading or modeling up, down and AROUND the food court several times… each time to the smiles and laughter of Rebecca!

I think this is the first time that I was parading this much around a food court! I wonder what others think if they saw me pacing up and down the rows and rows of food stalls… Hmm… =)

Partnering Like Tom & Jerry

It brought a laugh to the hearts of Steven and I, when our Dept Head commented about the two of us working together like ‘Tom & Jerry’. In this cartoon, one party seems to do one thing and the other doing something else… never in synch. But this also poses as a reminder to both of us to work closely together, so as not to repeat too many ‘Tom & Jerry’ working incidences… =)

Published News Article!

My heart beamed with pride when I read The Straits Times article about the minister’s visit to S-Team Switchgear Pte Ltd, the company which I worked with on the ENABLE Fund. This is my first minister’s visit and press release… and it really did make an impression in my mind. In addition, this company was also highlighted in the Channel 5 and Channel-News Asia news broadcast!

Although at times what is showcased can be perceived as ‘wayang’ or merely to be shown to be doing something, there are also times of good examples like this, that I am glad that my efforts are recognized for good reason. It really opened up my mind to a whole new perception of the interaction with the media.

Martial ANTS!

I watched this martial arts documentary over National Geographic channel this evening with my parents. And when I messaged Rebecca about it, she misread the words ‘martial arts’ as ‘martial ANTS’! Hahahaha… we both had a good laugh!

Hold… Hold… Hold…

Rebecca and I were standing on the bus 67 back from church this evening, when I said to her, “Hold… Hold… Hold…” coz the bus was jerking and I was afraid that she would fall. But instead, she turned around and laughed, saying “Eh, you Santa Claus ah you?” Hahahaha!!!! =)

Squeaky Clean!

I gave my hamster a bath using the shampoo which Rebecca passed to me… and Melvin came out looking soft, clean and furry! My heart just melted when I saw him looking so clean! His fur was rather black lately, don’t know why. But I’m glad that he’s squeaky clean now! Yay! =)

Sensitivity of the 3 Senses

Rebecca has 3 forms of sensitivity in her 3 senses!

Nose – Easily itchy and odd scents make her sneeze. Get running nose often.
Eyes – Easily blinded by light or sunlight, even though most are okay about it.
Skin – Don’t like people to tap her with their fingers.

=) =) =)

Returned to China?

I had a quiet morning breakfast with Rebecca at Singapore Post McDonalds this Saturday. After that, she accompanied me to the nearby Chinese ‘sinsei’ as I was having neck and shoulder ache for quite a number of days already.

This is a good clinic, as the Chinese sinsei is very good at re-aligning bones and treating aches and pains. However, we were shocked to arrive to see the glass door pane totally dusty and a whole lot of envelopes stuck at the bottom of the glass door! It must have taken quite a long time for that much dust to accumulate on this huge glass door!

When I turned around, I saw this grandmother and a young man accompanying her to the clinic. So I spoke to him and we agreed that maybe the Chinese sinsei had returned back to China! Oh dear… my hopes were dashed… but oh well, this also happened to Thaipan at Mandarin Gardens… just that the restaurant re-opened again, though there were no more crowds already.

Would I ever see that Chinese sinsei again? I don’t know…

Communicating with Tactful Consideration

I was corrected by my Dept Head last week and I am thankful for his correction. I learnt that e-mail correspondences should be positive, and that negative news or comments should never be communicated over e-mail. Some issues are better to be addressed over the phone. E-mail could always be routed to other parties unknown to me.

In addition, I had also learnt that I need to learn how to reject or turn down people in an appropriate manner. Relationship building is important in project work. But of course, I would add on the part about being sincere in words and deeds too.

Unsuccessful Ballot

It was a sad moment last week when I saw the computer ballot results for the Build-To-Order (BTO) HDB flats at Sengkang. My application was unsuccessful, despite Rebecca and I being on the first-timer priority scheme. It was indeed a sobering and discouraging experience for both of us, but we had to cling onto hope that God will provide us with the right housing when His time comes.

This afternoon, Rebecca and I took the opportunity in between the time slots of our church service and premarital counseling course, to visit Compass Point that was at Sengkang MRT station and bus interchange. We liked the place and the shops there… and hoped deep in our hearts that this would be the place where both of us would stay in the coming year or so, after we got married. If this is God’s choice for us, may He provide us with the right HDB flat soon. Amen!

Preparation for Minister’s Visit

Two weeks ago, SNEF and MCYS were preparing for Dr Vivian Balakrishnan’s visit to S-Team Switchgear Pte Ltd. This was one of the successful companies that I had worked with on the ENABLE Fund for hiring of persons with disabilities.

It was indeed an eye-opener to find out for me (during the preparation phase) as it’s my first time catching a glimpse of what it is involved in organizing a minister’s on-site visit.

I was amazed at the amount of detail taken into account for just a short few hours of a minister’s visit. The Corporate Communications Dept was largely involved together with the directors and spokesperson from the company, as well as an outsourced Public Relations company who were around to advice.

The discussions really opened up my mind to several issues such as (i) where to put up the tent in the case of rain, (ii) would there be any mini-bus shuttle service provided for the minister, (iii) which entrance and lift would the minister be using and which would the rest and the media use, (iv) where is the most suitable place for the media to interview to minister, (v) whether it would be a sitting down or standing press interview, (vi) travel route and rehearsal of the minister and the press within the building, (vii) where would the first and last stop be, (viii) who will be escorting the minister, (ix) preparation and formal vetting of the introduction speech by the company spokesperson, (x) what information should / can be released to the press and what information shouldn’t, (xi) preparation of the interview candidates from the company, (xii) what are the alternative plans if the lift should break down? Should there be a standby technician? (xiii) Catering of food, etc.

Believe me, it was REALLY an eye-opener. It REALLY made me reflect on how much goes on behind the scenes when we are watching a ‘live’ telecast on TV…

Perplexed Obstinacy

Everyone is brought up differently, faces different life experiences and develops his / her own styles and preferences. Bringing humans together in the workplace is never an easy task. We are all complex individuals and this influences our thought patterns and choices in everyday life.

The last 2 weeks has been a stressful time for the Projects Department, as my colleague has been frustrated about the tasks that we are tasked to do from one of the ministries. This has resulted in a lot of pent-up stress and unhappiness in him, which has begun to gradually pour out on the other colleagues, especially with those from the Membership Relations (MR) Dept.

Conflict management is an important skill that is good to learn. This is especially so since I am tasked with the responsibility of supervising him. But sometimes it can be difficult to give instructions and expect compliance when the person tends to have a mind of his own. He is more creative than me, but his level of haste and intensity at work is very much higher than mine. That could be a good thing, yet it may sometimes get him into trouble.

In my past encounters with him, there were several unhappy incidents. For example, he said that he had never used a digital camera before, yet was closed-up, judgmental and criticized that digital cameras are worse of than film cameras. What nonsense is that? Of course both has its advantages and disadvantages, but how could he just judge things without even testing it out for himself? Such rash remarks can offend people!

There was also another time when he was tasked to tabulate some information in an Excel spreadsheet. I checked and was shocked to realize that the ‘total’ was incorrect by over 400, so I told him… only to hear his voice boom at me, saying “You saying that I cannot count, is it?!”

When I told him that I calculated based on the Excel formula, he immediately retorted that I am wrong and the PC formula cannot be trusted! That made my blood boil as I have been using the formula for years, be it for my school projects or in my previous jobs… and it has never failed me once, unless the data was keyed in wrongly!

So he took out his calculator to manually count and indeed it was wrong! Out of kindness, I asked if he learnt how to use Excel formula at NUS and he remarked that he did not learn that in NUS. Then he manually counted again and the total sum that he got was different from both previous figures! He was obviously pressing the calculator incorrectly!

When I told him not to waste time and just use the Excel formula, he got angry and refused. When he finally realized that his manual calculation was indeed wrong, he still raised his voice and said, “You don’t have to say so loud. You want everyone to hear and embarrass me, is it?!” I got so mad by his words that I nearly wanted to give him a tight slap across his face! But I didn’t, though my blood was boiling above 100 degree Celsius.

He just doesn’t want or know how to take correction positively. Instead, he would rather raise his voice back at me, or throw tantrums at his desk when the other dept colleagues ‘seem’ to treat him unfairly in work related matters. In addition, there were instances where he also fought with me for good potential companies. Even when I was nice to offer him a choice of his companies, he would choose those with most potential and leave those not so good ones to me. I have never seen such selfishness in my life! Competitive as this world is, this is indeed ugly behavior to me! Really speaks of the character and security of the individual.

There was once when a colleague from another dept came over to point out one of his mistakes that annoyed another company, he jumped right into the fray and defended himself, giving all sorts of possible reasons for his mistake. I could see that that colleague was trying to be diplomatic and patient with him, but after I came back from the toilet, he was still arguing about this with that colleague. Sigh!

At his moments of stress and frustration, he also used the ‘F’ word a few times. It didn’t bother me much, coming from the Army before, but I was not impressed by his lack of control over himself and ignorant attitude towards others. And there has been several occasions of his conflict with fellow colleagues already.

Seriously, over the past 2 weeks, I have had 2 bad dreams about Steven kicking up a fuss with my dept colleagues and going against my instructions at work. Never before had I had 2 bad dreams of any colleague before in my 2 years of work! But Steven ‘succeeded’ in making it happen. Sigh…

How do I supervise and work as a team with someone who is easily agitated, provoked, highly strung and stubborn at the same time? My personality generally takes a relatively calm and soft approach relating with individuals. This can be good and bad, depending on the situation and people involved. I am not trained in psychology, counseling or conflict management skills, but I am keen to learn.

For me, I find myself more easy-going, sensitive and friendly towards those around me, be it colleagues or external corresponding parties. I am not so much of an ambitious person who lived for the thrill and challenge every day of my life. Rather, I find that it is more important to be happy and find fulfillment in what I do, than to constantly chase after achievements and beating others down.

To me, the attributes and character of an individual is more important than his ability to achieve goals. Having a group of elite thieves may bring in lots of money, but you never know when their craftiness may backfire on you. Besides, dependence on character would have a much higher chance of standing the test of time, as compared to achievements.

Thinking about it, I find that I am not a very intensive person (I used to be), but as I grew older, I found that it is more important to be calm and steady in a situation, giving careful thought than just rush around doing so many things and making a mess out of carelessness. There’s more to life than just rushing around and overworking ourselves, only to get illness emerging in our bodies when we are older (sometimes when we are young too).

Nevertheless, I am thankful to be given the opportunity to learn so much in this job. I definitely feel happier than I was in my previous job! Of coz, every job still has it toils, but I really hope all these will be well learnt and worth it in the end.

Surprised By Their Enthusiasm!

When I had lunch with my guy colleagues some weeks ago, we stumbled upon the topic of relationships, and somehow it soon led to me sharing about making plans to get married within a year or two. And what surprised me was that I realized that my guy colleagues are actually happy and even enthusiastic about me getting married!

This really came as a strange but pleasant surprise to me coz I was half-assuming that they would say that I am still young, even though I personally feel that being 27 years old next year is not exactly too young to get married. Besides, Rebecca and I intend to have children at the early stage of our marriage, so we need to plan for that too. The last thing we want is for the age gap between us and our children to be too far apart from each other.

One guy colleague was also particularly helping in suggesting alternative places to hold my wedding dinner, instead of the usual hotel dinner. I was astonished to hear his story when he got married 10 years ago (with 2 children now) and I was excited to share this with Rebecca! And she agreed!

I really thank God for colleagues who are helpful in advising me on tips to look out for when planning my wedding. I really hope that God would allow it to be a pleasant, fantastic and memorable one. =)

The Whole Issue about ‘Wayang’

‘Wayang’ is a word often used to describe the act of pretending or putting on a show / false front, which is not reflective of true reality. In my 2 years of work, especially now that I am in this area of work, my eyes have been opened to notice all sorts of ‘wayang’ going on around. Be it by a corporate organization or a ministry or statutory body, there will always be some bit of ‘wayang’. Broadly speaking, whenever there are humans involved, there will always be some sort of pretense due to arrogance or an attempt to cover up a mistake or shortcoming.

Sometimes I would really marvel at the extent which some parties would go for the sake of a temporary state of ‘wayang’. The amount of effort, time and cost involved just to pull off a stunt. And in the midst of it, there would emerge some grumbling because someone has to do the ‘dirty’ work, just so that someone else can be recognized for that achievement / accomplishment.

If viewed in the biblical context, ‘wayang’ is not a biblical principle to follow. But then again, as part of work or acknowledgment of our bosses, there may some element of ‘public display’, so as to make the other person look good. For me, as long as it doesn’t cross over the border towards dishonesty, its fine and I will just regard it as part and parcel of work. After all, in order to ‘wayang’ (can’t be avoided sometimes), one must also know how to ‘wayang’. Hmm…

Public Service Trimming

It was breaking news to me when I heard that the Civil Service has begun on a 3-year exercise (starting from this year) to trim down up to 9% of their workforce over a 3-year period! I was informed of this when I visited to one of the ministries some weeks ago to discuss work-related issues with them.

When I heard those words come out from the ‘horse’s mouth’, I was shocked coz this the first time (in my knowledge) that the ministries are carrying out such a large-scale trimming down of staff head-count due to the staffing ratio that has exceeded (above 100%) that of overall productivity! The rationale was because of further implementation of advanced technology, as well as striving towards greater organizational cost effectiveness.

This reminds me of an analogy where some of the branches of a tree are being chopping down because too many branches are causing the top part of the tree to become too heavy and start to topple sideways. Unless the tree trunk grows bigger, it would not be able to support all the crowded and entangling branches.

As much as I support this emphasis on cost effectiveness and minimizing an unnecessary staff ratio, it still took some time to register in my mind that the Civil Service is actually retrenching staff. Furthermore, new hires are often hired on 1-2 years contract basis, with the possibility of contract renewal upon successful performance appraisal at the end of the first contract. This has really changed my impression of the Civil Service being famed as ‘iron rice bowl’ in the early years of Singapore’s independence.

The economy is changing and now the Civil Service has begun to evolve too. Good and bad, it depends on whose perspective one chooses to view it. Yet one occupation is still being pumped in with lots of money… which is the education sector. Teachers seem to be the last to be out of job (unless they can’t perform) coz the country needs teachers to progress and train its younger generation. As for whether money helps make good teachers, it’s very difficult to say.