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It’s been a long time since I came in late to the office

// November 28th, 2008 // 15 Comments » // lament

Yea, last time was at my former workplace – when we had to travel the previous day. By late, I mean really late like 12pm onwards. Ganee would allow use to come in late usually because the travels practically took the whole day. Another reason was because we only got to be back home for a weekend or so before flying back to Brunei. He was letting us spending time with family I guess.

There was one time when we had to stay back for CIMB up until 2am or something. It was nice to see “You can come in by 10 tomorrow” on my phone that night. Also there was a time when I didn’t sleep for 3 days for some major bugs fixing/feature requests but still had to go to work. Of course I didn’t look so well that day and he noticed it. After making asking around the office, he found out why and let me go off early at 3pm.

Come to think about it, if I were to stay awake for some work at my current workplace I don’t think I would do it though. There’s no kind of that flexibility here so why would I want torture myself. Besides, being appreciative is not what they are – on the contrary, they like to take the credits away from you. Sadly, this is how the government works. Why would I lament on this I don’t know. It’s not going to change soon anyway no matter how much I talk about it.

A little appreciation goes a long long way. For me, if I know my work is being recognized I would happily volunteer if there’s a need to stay back. I knew Ganee was observant enough to know the effort I put in that time so I didn’t mind to spend more time on it to get it done. I knew it would be reflected in the bonus. They bought me cakes on my birthday, they treated us to TGI after projects had been completed, they got us to Redang for 3D/2N holiday, the pantry always stocked up with food and we had PS2 to relax in between stresses. 3 days with no sleep? I didn’t mind at all.

Hey I love my job, it’s really easy to make me go the extra mile – be flexible, give laptops/dual screens and treat me like a human being.

OSCC people are really cool, seriously. But MAMPU really is killing us. Usually we would come on top which I believe came from the strength we all share – we know what we do and we respect each other. Yes we have our flaws but let’s not be negative now. We have just won AIPA for MyMeeting, the mood should be happy – other than that, really don’t know what to say on this. I should be happy but then again, for something to win an AIPA, it should be something more. Anyway, they were so happy today that they took pictures among themselves with the trophies they forgot the team who developed it in the first place. I wonder where that RM10k money prize will go. It is definitely interesting to watch and I suspect it would make a good bitching post next time.

Of government standards

// November 1st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // work

This week really made me cringe.

If you’re suppose to do a presentation, why would you ask someone else to prepare the slides for you? You’re the big boss and because of that you’re being kept busy all the time (which is fine), but since you’re up there I assume you’re good at managing your resources. You’re at managerial level for crying out loud.

I don’t understand, don’t you feel incompetent now that you have to rely on your staff to save your life? Don’t you care enough to get to know the subject you’re going to present to do the slides yourself?

I had to do notes for the slides you’re going to present. I was so dumbfounded at first as why would you need notes when the slides are full of text you can just read off them. I thought you need some guidance on technical aspects of it, and I had no problem with that, I can try to help out whenever I can. After all, you’re like my boss anyway and some notes should do it. But suddenly I found out from my actual boss that you need a speech text for your slides. WTF?

You’re going to read for a presentation??

For someone who’s from MAMPU, it’s a laughing matter. Some people would just roll their eyes in disbelief. Doing slides for them is no longer taboo actually, but speech-like notes? Knocked me off my feet, in a very bad way.

And since such a long time I want to blog about this: there are so many ranks in the public sector that I think they all are doing the same job, it’s just a matter who gets the respect, the red carpet and all the glory. This is where open source community stands out, the right people who actually do the work gets the credit. Not some people sitting comfortably in a big room waiting for their asses to be served.

Spam spam spam

// July 29th, 2008 // No Comments » // personal, work

Disaster has struck…. in the form of AIPA and LIS…

Adeiiiiii

*pengsan lagi*

Of punch cards

// June 2nd, 2008 // No Comments » // lament

You know what would definitely take off the burden having to come to work at certain time everyday? Take it away and let us the hardworking employees be happy. Truly, we’re less stressed out if we don’t have to be on time (to put it literally). I remember my time before in SYABAS where every damn morning I have to worry if I was going to be late that day. Then I moved on to a small IT setup and guess what, even though I abused the non-existent of punch card system sometimes, I still could complete my work on time. Hey abusing to me doesn’t mean being late 2 hours – that’s the CEO’s job.

Maybe this is different to anyone else but for me, having to constantly be reminded of work when I wake up every morning, and worrying about it is not going to start off my day well. And throughout your journey to work, if you know you’re going to be late, you’re going to feel your feet heavy on the gas pedal… and kutip saman along the way possibly.

You think if I wake up early, all this trouble will go away? That’s where you’re wrong my friend – I still have to make sure I make it to work on time. I think too much sometimes so blame my genes for that. Suffice to say, the mere existence of a punch card system is a nightmare and it would take me a serious amount of time to adapt. So far I think my record shows I was late 3 or 4 times, usually because I travel from Klang sometimes. Urrghhh… talking about this is depressing so I won’t talk about it no more. That’s it bebeh I’m not going to ruin my day further… :p

Boring tuesday

// March 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // open source, work

Turned down a job interview for a well known international company yesterday. The reason? Quoting Mdm. Tan: “What we’re doing here is we’re helping the country to save money!”

Yea well that’s just to make myself feel good about it when actually I’m crying about it now. Not really crying la since I don’t think I like working in KL but you when opportunity comes knocking like that, especially when you’re not looking in the first place, it’s a pity why the best places to work must be in KL. Leceh la traffic jam, not to mention high cost of living. Seriously if the hq is somewhere here or in PJ/Shah Alam I would consider going.

Oh well. Maybe in 1 year time opportunity will come knocking again. Better ones. Till then, look at how “we’re helping the country to save money!”.

Heads up, all government agencies will be implementing OpenOffice.org on this March 19th. No more Microsoft Office. It will be phased out little by little. Wonder what Microsoft Malaysia will say about this….

UPDATE:
My mistake – they’re going to implement OOo in MAMPU only for the time being – MAMPU migrates to OpenOffice.org and ODF to increase freedom of choice and interoperability
And the brand new OSCC Portal.