Push your subordinate to the limit

I was talking to one of my colleagues that I can trust on. He was giving me tons of advise in the work. I admired his experiences being in the different project in different countries. Our conversation was about how I felt that I had a subordinate that some of his works are done by me and I was complaining a little about it.

My friend told me that it was my fault. I created a work environment that making my subordinate comfortable with his current tasks. Any additional tasks that are given to him would result into complaints. And all of these were my fault. My friend added that it is a human nature that are reluctant to a change. He gave an example that during weekend without plan, he will fell tired and just want to stay at home. If all of the sudden, your son or spouse ask you to do something, you will be reluctant to do it. This applies as in work environment.

In summary, my fried told me to impose additional tasks to my subordinates with proper planning. Adding the task step by step with proper planning will result into less resistance. And the additional tasks will become his daily routine that he will be comfortable with. My friend added "If your sub-ordinate complains, just disregard it and push him to the limit. Tell who the boss is!".

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Spaghetti Wiring

I was visiting my friend's office who are in charge of checking PocketPC (Hand Held Unit) before distributing them to respective reading center to be used by readers. When I saw the PocketPC chargers in his office is very un-organized, he defensively said "Sorry for the spaghetti wiring, It is just temporary. I will organize them later".

Well, I was thinking in my head. Why he did not organize it in the first place before using them to charge PocketPCs. I am sure that the time he will spend now to organize the spaghetti wiring will be longer. Hmmmm... anyway, it is his work space. I dont have a right to tell a person how to work. If he is comfortable with the way he works and as long as it is not affecting my work, why should I care?

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Bring down the cost of your international call

You must have heard about prepaid phone cards for international call with much cheaper prices as compared to making an international call from cellphone or land line. Why can those providers selling those services at very cheap price? Well, with the advanced technologies, they are able to forward your call through internet connection . Depending on the speed of internet connection that the providers have, it will determine the quality of your international calls.

With many prepaid card players nowadays joining the business, they tend to have cost cutting in the speed of their internet connection. Thinking that they have just started and would not need big bandwidth of internet connection. To their surprise, many customers use the services at the same time. This will congest the bandwidth the the quality of calls are terrible. Customer could easily move on to other prepaid phone cards if they have found unsatisfying results from 1 provider.

As new customer, you might confuse on which prepaid card are most suitable for you. Providers are targeting the customers based on countries to call. One card can be very cheap to call to Europe but quite expensive to call to Asia. It goes vice versa with another providers. Try to googling or look at prepaid phone cards to compare which card that are suitable for your need.

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Surviving Toilet

I am sorry to put this picture online my friends. I just can not help it when I see this toilet in one of the offices I visited for my work. To my surprise that people on that building is still using this toilet. Amazing.... I hope this is just temporary but the from the way it looks, it seems that the toilet has been in that condition for a long time and the building management seems does not care about it.

I know that there are other toilet that are in good condition, but not to replace this??? I just do not get it.

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Just put 3 things in your ppt slide

When you are doing a presentation, try to make only 3 ideas per slide. And just put the main points. I have seen in the presentation that presenters put tons of information in the slides. I know that he/she wants to put it there so that when the slides are printed and given as a hand out, it will contain all the information in the slides. BUT it is not a good way to do presentation.

Remember that the presentation is all about showing some slides to help you maintain the flow of discussion and give better pictures of your explanations. All the details should be kept away from the slides. It could be in your notes and you can give away your notes after the presentation finish. It is important not to give your detailed notes before the presentation otherwise your audience will be busy reading your notes (well... maybe only some of them read it).

The slides should contain limited ideas and could be helpful if chart or images are shown regarding the main points. If you are presenting about the sales, you could just put in your slides regarding the progress of your sales in terms of charts. Use bold colors to emphasize the progress or decline. It will catch your audience attention and trigger them to want to know better your content of your presentation.

I hope this simple tips could help you doing better presentation.

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I hate this worry feeling

The past few days, I have been worrying about my work. I worry about what is going to happen in the next meetings, in the next reports, in the next activities. Why do I worry? I am not sure. Maybe because I know that there is something that I could not handle in my work. And I am afraid that someday there will be a problem and I will be blamed because of it.

I just hate this feeling. I could not do my activities normal. I get no enthusiasm to do an activity. I hate this feeling because it lead me to a depression and stress. I know I need to get rid of this feeling. But forgetting about the problem will not help me. It will just help me for a while until I realize that the problem is still there. I need to cope up with my work and to handle them fully. I think that is the time that my worry is done.

What do you do if you worry too much?

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Got this Lenovo T61

Last week I got a new laptop from my company. It is IBM Lenovo T61. Finally, I need to let go my old laptop Toshiba satellite which I do not know what satellite model it was.

Black color with slim rigid body makes Lenovo T61 looks professional. Overall it is a good laptop powered with Intel Centrino Pro. I have heard a lot about Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino Duo, Intel Centrino Core Duo, but I do not know what is Intel Centrino Pro. I did my homework by googling it and I found out that Intel Centrino Pro is similar with Intel Centrino Duo.

My laptop comes with 2GB RAM and installed with Windows XP. With this combination, the laptop runs faster. I am not planning to move to Windows Vista anytime soon because I do not want to waste my 2GB RAM to be slowed down because of windows Vista.

I satisfied with this laptop, however, after a week using it, I found something that in my personal opinion really annoying:

1. Batterry is a little extruded at the back of laptop. I do not know why IBM has to design it this way. I dont mind with the look, but every time I lift my laptop (from the front), the back part of the laptop get pressured with the table. I am afraid that in time, this will make the battery loose from the body (laptop).

2. Keyboard sounds is annoying when I type. When i try to type fast, I apply more pressure to the keyboard pads. The sounds it loud from my opinion as compared to other laptop that I have used. I notice that space bar is the one making a lot of noise when pressed.

3. USB port is vertical. The USB port is designed vertically on the right and left of laptop. Since the body is slim, I find it difficult to put my USB to the USB port. Especially with my USB flash disc that a little bulky, I need to lift and put something under the laptop so that it can be fitted. But I thing this is normal problems that we encounter with USB port for the laptop.

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Thinking of Getting New Internet Connection

I might be moving to a new apartment next month. I loved my current apartment because it comes to an internet connection through ADSL line that was installed by the owner. But since they have raised the rent unreasonably, I need to find one that I can afford.

In the new apartment, there is not internet connection yet. This is my homework to choose the best internet connection that I should avail. Currently, I am thinking either to have dial-up, DSL, cable ISP or Wireless. Dial up is the cheapest one when I tried to ask around internet provider in my area. However, the bandwith they provide for upload and download is very small. Well, what can I expect from the budgeted internet fee.

DSL and cable ISP seem to be more expensive but you can use DSL or cable ISP for making VOIP phone calls on your laptop or PC. I use voip calling a lot and I seldom have problems with the quality when using DSL in my current apartment. Cable ISP seems to be very interesting and some of the company offer a package with very low prices. Bad thing is that the provider is still not serving my area. Well, just need to wait until they do. In the meantime, I will look for another type of connection.

Wireless connection on the other hand is quite unique. It requires me to pay some deposit of the equipment that will be installed in my place. Basically, they will install an external antenna and some cables. And for this, they asked for a deposit. The deposit amounts is usually 3-4 times the monthly fee for the internet connection. In the long run, wireless connection seems to be a cheaper alternative withou sacrificing the quality of your internet connection. However, the internet provider should do a survey on my apartment if I can get a direct signal. High building could block the wireless internet signal.

I might spend 1-2 days more to test the best connection. I have some friends that are using connection other than DSL. I will bring my laptop and test the upload and download speed in their place. This could be a gauge for me to decide later on.

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Creating an effective report

I have been creating many reports for my work. Either daily, weekly or monthly reports. I realize that because of the repetitions, the reports are often being ignored by my boss. For example in this weekly report, I stated that we have problem in the progress because of lacking of 1 human resources. By the time this problem appears in every weekly report, the problem becomes unnoticable.

Recent conversatio with my friend, he was giving me some inputes on how to make effective reports that gets attention on upper management to do action. I can summarize what my friend said to me into several points below:
1. Start with the problem. He said that it is more effective to start the report showing all the negative sides. After that, we can show all the positives sides. In the end, what takes attention of bosses are the beginning of the report.
2. Rephrase all the problem in every report (if not yet solved). Repetition is a good technique to remind upper management or other parties about the points that we want to convey. In addition, rephasing it in every report can greatly catch the attention when somebody reads the report.
3. Show problems in organized ways. Try to group by maximum of 3 points. Reader of the report could easily grasp the information if the information is groupped into smaller piece.

I hope this little conversation with my friend could help you in creating reports that catch the attention of the reader to do action.

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Crispy food - Fact or BS

After long hours of working and tired, I tried to check my emails while enjoying a cold glass of juice. I saw this forwarded email from my friend. I do not know if it is true or somebody just tries to "attack" poor vendors in developing countries. If you know the fact, please let us know by leaving in comments.

Subject: Please READ this....this is insane!

Dear All, please read this.....

This is a TRUE STORY ...and also someone told me it happened to her in Kedah ..Tunjang..I think…. It happened to us too, in PERLIS (titi chai kangar..the pasar malam area where they always sell GORENG PISANG at noon .)

My uncle saw them frying GORENG PISANG & they added the STRAWS ( which we use to drink water) and melted them into HOT OIL before frying anything...That’s why, the GORENG PISANG, GORENG UBI..etc all stay very crispy for hours....

And, my uncle could not explain why, and he asked them, they just keep quiet and then when my uncle told my mom, then we realized this is how to make the foods crispy…..
My mom said, be careful of Thailand stuffs too e.g.: Crispy Ikan Bilis, Crispy fried onions …..which if u leave in the open air for hours, it’s still crispy..

Like in CANADA, we only have rain 5-times or less a YEAR. So, if we leave our bread in open air overnight, the next day it will be really crispy or dry because the environment here is very dry. But in Malaysia, it should not happen because there is too much moisture.

The world is changing! I read some news….oh my my... not only the Chinese are wicked but everywhere... here the news comes... I have been to Cameroon highlands with my family, it was 3 pm ++ We are hanging around the market area, we saw many hawker stall doing their business, suddenly something attracted me...
One of the stalls, there was a big wok of oil, there was a half-5-litre empty plastic oil bottle on it. It's melting slowly in the hot frying oil... I freaked out, I thought it was an unintentional act by a 7-yr-old girl .... But when I looked closely, I saw a pair of chopsticks stirring the bottle. Immediately, I asked my family to come and check it out... At that moment, the parents of the girl who were present, were looking at us ferociously.

Oh my god... They are using melted plastic to fry food...
The reason is the fried foods will not soften after sitting out for sometime due to plastic.

We experimented and did as below:
One without plastic, the food is kind of soft after a while and then add plastic, and fry the same thing once again... It crispier than KFC !!
Please stop eating this hawker's fried food...This is their secret recipe...

Pls forward to all your friend..
DO NOT EAT CRISPY FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD
esp from the hawker !.. Try leave it in the open air for hours and see..

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