related entries:
“what have i learned? - 01″

*****

Lesson 03: Your boss did not hire you to ask him/her to solve your own problems
A lot bosses may seem very nice to offer an open door policy and such. You know, stuff like “If you have any problems, do not hesitate to come look for me”. I can assure you one thing about that - it’s a gyp. A trickery. A stratagem. A bait in the form of assurance and promises… to lure out and identify suckers like you (face it, everyone’s a sucker).

The first step is always ‘to identify’. Once identified, they’ll have reason to deny you your cheese, be it a business-trip-of-a-lifetime to Europe, an increment or even a promotion. It’s never a good thing to go to your boss and hope that you’ll get your problem(s) solved. Going to your boss for solutions is akin to admitting that you suck, weak, incapable and useless. Never ever do that. If you have problems, solve it yourself. That’s what they’re paying you for - to work for the company… which pretty fucking much includes solving problems. Get someone, anyone except your boss, to help you get through the hurdle. If you can’t solve it still and you’re in deep shit, good. That means you’ll never get into the same trouble again (presuming that you’re smart enough to learn from it) - and it’s still very much better than telling your boss that you suck.

Lesson 04: You’re making yourself look bad when you gripe, whine or backstab
Everyone judges. Your boss, your colleagues, your friends, the fatass security guard. All of them. And that makes it dangerous when you have a negative opinion about something. This is especially critical when you’re doing it in front of your boss. “Boss I think Benny sucks because he didn’t do his work properly bla bla bla”

If you think your boss is going to think that Benny really sucks and you’re better than him just by listening to your acrid testimony, then you must be delusional. Your boss sees it differently, no shit. He’ll see it that instead of helping your colleague Benny to improve his work quality, you’re trying to mar his reputation further by badmouthing him. That makes you even more of an asshole, less of a good worker cum team player and a least potential candidate to be a leader. See my point?

If you really want to make Benny look bad, the art is to be very much better than him (work performance wise) and at the same time, be able to indirectly show your boss that despite giving all the required help to Benny, he’s still as useless and painful like a hemorrhoid. That way, you’ll project yourself as a benevolent and dedicated team player, and at the same time, make Benny look bad ‘unintentionally’. (Don’t ask me how I learned this…)

Lesson 05: If you can’t beat the devil, join him
If there’s ever the most valuable lesson I’ve learned in these years working in a corporate world, this has got to be it - to learn things from everyone indiscriminately. You see, sometimes we tend to hate someone because he/she’s a zillion times smarter than us. This is natural. It’s our ego that’s fucking with us. We tend to feel threatened when we get outsmarted at stuff we think we rule best. I had the same thing when I started (still do, sometimes). I hated that cheebye senior engineer who coached me and treated me like shit. I hated that arrogant manager who kept rejecting my process application. I hated that pukimak HR cunt that almost took me for a ride by discreetly reducing my agreed starting wage (errmm, I still hate her today, despite her being retired and shit)

But the fact is, most of these people are the ones that can really impart shitloads of valuable knowledge and experiences that you can use. The person may not be someone you like in principle or whatever, but it’s your call. Fuck with them, you lose, because they’re so much better than you… or you can choose to join them and learn something from them. The dearest lessons in life don’t often come sugar coated for your convenience. They’re most of the time, hidden in guises and odd shapes (Now who the hell doesn’t want to learn all the good things from an ultra friendly scorching hot bimbo with embossed nipples? You wish)

I learned this in my second year. I started socializing with people whom before I considered despicable pieces of shit - but later, much to my own embarrassment, went on to discover that they’re very much knowledgeable than I ever was. These people kinda became my best mentors and I had less treacherous paths to worry about. I mingled and I learned indiscriminately. Still doing it.

I’ve just learned something about dogs over the weekend. Something probably a lot of people already know except me. It was told by a friend of mine, Tony - that male dogs, unlike us human, do not have the ability to differentiate genders in its own ring of society… at least not until somebody in their group starts to emit that redolent scent of love, which only then, they’d get all crazy and started to pork whoever that smells.

I do not know if my friend Tony is fucking with me but, that sounds kinda dubious, don’t you think? I mean, aren’t dogs suppose to intelligent or something? Like, if they can sniff porn dvds out of thousands of stacks of baggages, or even guide some blind person around town - why can’t they at least have that wee bit of consciousness to realize that some of their buddies have dark wrinkled sacks hanging under their assholes and some do not? You’ve got to be shitting me if they’re that ignorant, man.

In my own ways of interpreting this fact, that would mean, dogs always think of themselves as androgynous, and probably if they do not get to smell any of those bitch-scent their lifetime, they’d probably go ahead with the delusion to split themselves into 2 dawgs through asexual reproduction process (yeah man, like amoebas).

Maybe some of you who knows a little bit about dogs can confirm this - if my friend Tony has been fucking with me.

Tonight, I’ll be made to haul my ass up a glittering stage to shake the hand of our Vice President, take a shitty photo with him (which both of us aren’t gonna be too fond of) and get from him my 10th year service award gift.

That’s right, you didn’t read me wrong. 10 frigging years. That is how long I have been with Company X. I was only a callow 20 year old when I joined. But now, I’m a fucking cunning old man in the company (and proud of it).

For that decade long of service, I bet you guys must be thinking that I will be getting a pretty nifty reward for staying so loyal for so long. Like maybe, a holiday to Europe or a nice notebook to complement my cunning old man image, you know. But no. Sad to say, I’ll just be getting a cert (with my name on it, how cool) and an mp3 player of insignificant value (not even an iPod). Fuckety fuck fuck.

But I ain’t complaining. You know why? Because I am grateful - for I have already gotten something even more valuable than that. Life lessons. The plethora of experiences. Fuck ups and mistakes that I made, and what I have learned from them. Those stuff. You don’t get those off the shelves. Those smart management books, seminars and courses? They’re all mostly bullshit - because in my arrogant opinion, nothing beats experiencing everything yourself.

And I got those, and still getting it.

So, what have I learned so far, after surviving for so long in the corporate world? I’m gonna share them in probably a few posts as I think and list them… and in no particular order…
(Count your blessings, folks - for when I was 20, nobody hinted me anything about staying afloat in the corporate world. I learned them all the hard way)

Lesson 01: Never bite the hand that feeds you.
That’s another word of saying, never fuck with your boss. When I first joined Company X, I never deigned to give anyone respect, and that includes my then boss. I got into a yelling competition with my boss on my first review, and was made to pay a dear lesson when words spread far about my attitude. And believe me, I am still paying for that mistake till this day - despite being a totally changed person, I am still being tagged as a mean fuck wherever I go. That attribute got stuck, and that’s just unfortunate.

Always think of it this way, your boss is like your locomotive, and you’re just a rail car being pulled in tandem. Fuck with him small, and you’re fucking yourself big. Many successful people know this secret. Probably some of you extra smart ones does as well. This is also the reason why people sell their soul and self esteem to the devil to suck on their superior’s balls (that’s taking it to the extreme). - they’re insuring their own welfare through good relationship with their boss.

Lesson 2: The only direction left for you to go when you’re at the top, is down.
That’s right. This has got to be one of the most important thing I’ve learned during my tenure in Company X. I understand that the youngs nowadays like to go with the motto of ’showing what you can’ and can’t wait to impress other people with how much you can do for them. (trying to be smart, etc)

Trust me people, that’s not a wise thing to do. It only took me a couple years to learn this, and it has gotten me very far in my working life. If you still cannot grasp what this is all about, imagine your work as your weekly food ration. Now, think about this, would it be wise for you to eat them out of gluttony in one day, and suffer hunger for the rest of the week? Or would it be wiser for you to consume them moderately over the course of the whole week so that you’d get an even filling? See my point?

The key idea is to leave yourself enough work to do everyday. Impressing your boss is important, yes. But it is even more important for you to sustain that good impression on a constant manner, rather than setting your bar too high the first few times and see yourself fail on the subsequent. Spread your achievements thin, you’ll last longer.

*****
I’ll leave this for now… lunch time’s over. Will post more when free.

Imagine you’re in this situation…

Say, you’re driving a runt car. (A Myvi, to be exact). For some inexplicable weird reasons, you think you and your car can set the land speed record on our Malaysian highway and you’re confident that no shit you’re gonna be the first person to be able to do it with a Myvi. With a boosted willpower, toufu shop sticker and plastic spoilers that artificially makes your washing machine shaped car more aerodynamic, you floor the accelerator with a heavy right foot… tearing the highway up like a true race car driver.

90kph… 100kph… 110kph… you break the highway speed limit like a dead twig… how awesome… 120kph… 125kph… you feel like you’re an invincible flying arrow… 130kph… 135kph…

Your brows are sweating. Your heart is palpitating. Your balls are levitating. It is a feeling that no words can describe. For the record of your private self basking later, you whip out your camera cellphone and aim it at the speedometer with the intention to capture the historical moment. But just as you’re doing that, your car suddenly fishtails and the next thing you know, you’re seeing a fast projection of images before you.

lights, sparks, smoke and debris. (crash). The airbag did not fucking deploy.

Miraculously, you survive the accident unscathed. You open the semi-wrecked door (which still works) and walk out. You take a quick survey of the damage, and saw that your car had its hood planted right into the highway divider and is now resembling something like a pig’s snout.

Ok, fact check:
- your car’s totally fucked and immobile.
- it’s now static on the express lane, in the middle of the dark but busy highway

Which of the following do you reckon you should do next? (this is a test of your survival skill - based on a real story, which you wouldn’t know if it’s gonna happen to you)

a) Reflect that you’ve been stupid, thank god and get the fuck out of there before another vehicle plows into your ass.
b) Reflect that your car is a jinx, curse god and get the fuck out of there before another vehicle plows into your ass.
c) Get the fuck out of there to find the nearest toilet bowl, put your head into it, and flush.
d) Coolly walk around to inspect the damage, especially your plastic skirting + spoiler + paintjob, whip out your cellphone and call somebody while you’re doing that.

Or if you have anything else other than these to suggest, be my guest. (who knows? if it’s going to save somebody’s life someday)

*****
I actually almost crashed into a scrawny guy with Jay Chou hairstyle loitering around his wrecked Myvi last week. That guy just had a crash, and he was inspecting his wrecked car while talking on his cellphone on the express lane of a dark but busy highway (it actually happened on the PLUS highway en route to KL from Penang).
I do not know what the fuck was he thinking. He could have got himself fucking killed right on that spot. I myself barely braked in time from my 110kph descent (because his runt car was too small to be noticed at that speed and lighting condition, you see).

When you have an accident on a high speed highway like this, the most important thing is to get your ass safe. Never fucking mind about the car. The sanest thing that stupid ah beng should have done, is to move his car to the emergency lane. If the car’s stalled, he can just switch on the hazard indicator, get the fuck out of there pronto and pray for the best. He then can proceed to do what he wants at the emergency lane. It’s a common sense thing.

No wonder we call such people ’stupid ah bengs’.

(I do not mind mowing down shitbags like him but, it’s the repair bill and repercussion in the form of legal procedures that I have to endure later on that’s bugging me.)

In a vile effort to cloud its employees’ minds that they’re not in anyway being taken advantage of by having less pay and more work, Company X management sent out a campaign memo a few days ago to promote a Japanese production control ideology…

But little did they know, that in Malaysia (and Singapore), the word ‘lean’ can open up to a whole new level of meaning… like this one…

lean
[lee-an]

“That cinema has been flocked with shitloads of stinking ah leans since the premiere of that Para-para Sakura flick yesterday… fucking hell man…”

So, what is Lean actually? It depends on who you’re asking, people. If you ask me, I’d say pay me more and shut the fucking hell up.