The Journey

The purpose of the foundation (General Education Board) was to use the power of money, not to raise the level of education in America, as was widely believed at the time, but to influence the direction of that education… the object was to use the classroom to tech attitudes that encourage people to be educated enough for productive work under supervision but not enough to question authority or seek to rise above their class. True education was to be restricted to the son and daughters of the elite. For the rest, it would be better to produce skilled workers with no particular aspirations other than to enjoy life.

This is the 2^nd month I take over this portfolio at my work place. Managing 3 manager and 45+ staff. The job scope is wider (1 leg kick), but it is more flexible. As long as the work gets done, it doesn’t matter what time you reach or leave office. It also means that some of the work and meeting have to follow US time Zone.

Management and HR is not a big issue for me. But the finance and politic at the senior management is a uphill climb.

Take this opportunities to know the staff better, after talking to most of them. Notice that there are lot of smart people around, but not many with good attitude. Typical young people at this generation, searching for a job that can pay them a high salary and less work. But unfortunately the world doesn’t work that way. You get what you contributed.

After officially taken up the new role in the office, the perception on employment has change.

The company wills only willing to pay the base minimum so that you will stay in your job. The objective of the company is always makes more money and reduces cost.

While the employee will always demand the highest salary possible that they think they deserved. Employee will never satisfy with their salary, so do I.

The cycle goes round and round and it always create discontented among the employee.

This is the first time I need to manage the salary expectation among the staff. Fighting for a better salary package for them is not an easy task.

At the same time, also have the opportunity for a sneak preview on the political arena of senior management.

The journey is still miles away, this is just the beginning…

Time flies, didn’t update this blog for a while. As usual, there are thousands of excuse why I didn’t manage to update the blogs.

A quick recap, for Q1 2009.

Jan

Chinese New year, we didn’t go back to KB this year as my mom and my grandma coming down to KL to celebrate Chinese New Year. We have the reunion dinner at Nancy house, together with Ah Pek family. Can see the distinct different in this reunion dinner, the family have growth bigger, 1 cousin got married last year and another cousin is getting married this year. My sister married with 2 kids. It is defiantly a different reunion dinner compare to that we use to have 5 – 10 year back in KB grandma house where the adult table and the kid table are separated. And now all the kids has grown up and have family of their own.

Feb

The department that PN use to work suddenly cease operation. In other word, she got retrench. That department is a SSO from Switzerland, apparently the division is not doing very well and they decided to cease Malaysia operation.

March

PN manage to get a new job, which is slightly better package compare to the previous job. The ceasation benefit can be considered as bonus for this year. Consider quite a good bonus for the economy downturn like this.

Q2 2009

Apr

My company is going through the restructuring exercise. There are major transitions taking place at various levels as a number of key people leaving the company. Nothing to do with economy downturn, just different people going to different direction in life.

We went hiking in Frim, join PN Company hiking trips. This is the first time, real hiking trips for Zoe. Zoe makes it, but the parent suffers. Have to carry her for more than half of the hiking journey.

May

We went to Bukit Tinggi on Labor Day with Ah Kong. Uh.. it is a hot hot day in Bukit Tinggi, it Is no longer the nice cooling place that I use to remember. Zoe like the rabbit, that’s the only highlight for the trips.  

I’m taking over a new role in the office. Having a very steep learning curve on the new role. Kept moving forward, Still a long long way to go.

This few months has been very busy month for me due to few projects running concurrently. Year end holiday,Christmas and birthday has past by silently.

Chinese new year is around the Corner, start to receive lot of email greeting from friend and the major outlet. Due to the business, I thought it will past by silently as well, but come to think of it, busyness of life will always be there, and more and more challenge will come as life go on. Sometime it is good to take the festive season to smell the flower, appreciate thing around.

Happy Chinese New Year everybody… Xin nian lai loh..

Zoe go to school ? It is a transition period. As a parent, we fell happy and sad at the same time.

Initially we bring Zoe over to the school on Saturday, she seem to like the environment. After looking at their program, Montessori (monkey story) activity, storytelling, the swimming class, the cooking class, the big fish tank. She seem to like it after 2 Saturday, we sign her up for the class. We were very happy as finally Zoe go to school. It is definitely much better then at the baby sitter place there.

On the Monday morning itself, thing still go well, she follow the teacher to the canteen and have a snack, but the happy moment ended after that when it some to her time to take nap. The funs start to disappear for her, when reality sink in. No more Barney video on demand, no more food on demand. She start to cry out load. The 2^nd day and the 3^rd day not going to be easy. As a parent, our hearts start to sink. We feel really helpless at that moment. We have try different method to soften the crying and the “separation anxiety”, so far we have not gotten the correct formula yet.

When we share this with a number of friend, the usual commend that we get  “is like that one.. sure cry one.. after a while will be ok”. But for a parent, it not going to be easy. It is much more difficult than I thought. You don’t really feel it when other share their experience with you, but when you yourself walk through the journey the feeling is definitely different.

We sincerely hope and pray that Zoe will be able to get use to schooling by this week and start to enjoy those activities in school. Zoe, just want you to know that we didn’t abandon you there. We constantly thought about you. But for your own good, some changes are required. And we hope that via these changes you will be able to grow and understand life in different perspective. Encourage self- confident, self-discipline at a different level. Daddy and Mummy loves you !!

In less than 2 month time, 2008 come to the end. This year, decided to do an early recap so that I still got a little bit more time to catch up before the closing of the year 2008.

Jan - Arrival of a new car to the family

Feb - CNY in KB, Zoe first CNY in KB

March - Go to PD twice, stay sat Legend Water Chalet for super cheap price

Apr – Change Job portfolio, start to involved in Malaysia Radio Industry

May - Stay at Admiral Cove during SG retreat

Jun – Zoe 18 month milestone

July – Zoe going back to KB with Daddy alone

July - Go to NY, Ah Kong & Ah Mah come to stay with Zoe for 3 weeks

July – Mummy first coach wallets

Aug – Our 4^th anniversary

Sept – Go to HK Disneyland

Oct – Go to FRIM during Raya. Zoe first juggles tracking.

Nov – Zoe go to school

Dec – Christmas

Recently got this idea from one of the audio Tape.

It is normal to write progress report for your work. Also notice that by writing progress report weekly, more work will get done as the work progress is accountable, else the progress report is empty. It is also a good platform to reflex what has took place over the past 1 week.

Why we only write program report for our work, not our life? We only reflex our life once in a year when it near Christmas and call it a Resolution for the year. And most of the time more than half of it no progress and we postpone it to the next year again. This is what we being doing and we kept wondering why there is not much of progress in life. I think once of the main reason why we didn’t write progress report for our own life is because there are no bodies accountable for it. If we don’t write, nobody will chase us for it unlike our works. In another word, the drive is not there.

I hope that I will be able to break away from this yearly resolutions culture and start to note down the life progress little by little. This will make use appreciate life better and constantly remind ourselves to progress forward.

Many years ago. I read the book rich dad poor dad. This book has given me a different perspective and the important of financial education. I was very motivated by the book but I was too young at that point of time to understand lot of things in that book. Just know that I have the zeal to equip myself with financial knowledge. After working for a while, all the zeal disappears. The busyness of life and the other priority of life have over take lot of those thought and zeal. Soon all the lesson learneds from the book has been forgotten.  I have been away from investment for a while, till recently somebody ask me some advice on stock and property. It starts to stir up my interest on investment onces again. Furthermore the economy has started to be shaken by the US financial crisis. Lot of people start to worry about their money. I start to revisit some of the popular concept that I have long forgotten.

A small comparison charts that I taken from the web just as a reminder of the rich dad poor dad concept. Which I think it is the foundation on the financial education.

Poor Dad vs. Rich Dad