Those babes and their…

As I have briefly mentioned, I spent a short stint working in China a few years ago. That short stint was filled with many eye opening and experiences. One of which was when I asked to play in the inter-department football tournament.

The guy who got me into the team was this man by the name of Feng (mandarin for “wind”). Feng is the person who handled my work permit and other immigration related matters.

The entire team can’t really pronounce my English name. I am fine with people addressing me in my Cantonese name but to be called in Mandarin was rather weird. Hence, I am known as “shi-chi-hao” (number 17), the number of my jersey.

And so, we were in our final group match. And because it was a match that we had to win, my fellow teammates managed to gather some reinforcements. They came in the form of female colleagues who were kind enough to act as our cheerleading team.

Well, some of them were pretty hot looking. So I told my then colleague who is also a Malaysian and also happened to be in the team with me that it was the first time I ever had such a competitive match with proper pitch, referee, pre-match procedure and now… hot looking china dolls as pom-pom girls.

Quite a good feeling I must say…

And so we took our position on the pitch and got ready for the kick-off. The girls cheered and just then… just right then… a few of them did this…
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“krrraaaaakk…… ptui!”

They freaking spit around like machine guns. No matter how hot looking they were, the “ptui!” action just turned you off immediately.


1 year ago… If your boss wants to axe you

2 years ago… 10 Nov: A day to remember

Short & Sweet - Pilot

Starting a new category called "Short & Sweet"... and for a maiden entry...

"People who keep asking politician to wake up should they themselves... wake up" ... Zewt

1 year ago... To capture the rapture

The curse of a true slave

There was a vacancy in another department a few months ago and I recommended that position to a former junior (“J”) of mine who is currently slaving in a professional firm. Upon my recommendation, J decided to put in an application for that position.

The interview went well and J was offered the job. However, the department could not match J’s expected salary. I then had a lengthy discussion with J and after deliberating the offer, I advised J to decline the offer both as a friend and a fellow professional.

A few days thereafter, I got a call from my colleague from the recruiting department asking me to convince J to join as they were really interested in having J on board. Since I made the recommendation and was J’s former senior, I should be able to exercise my influence.

I told my colleague (“C”) that I have indeed exercised my influence and my advice to J was to decline the offer and I thought the offer did not match J’s value. I told C that I will not sell my friend’s soul to the devil even if it’s the same devil who is feeding me. C was astonished to hear that.

C then went on a crusade to get me to influence J. C went on and on about how J’s competence has not been proven and if J joins and performs well, J will surely be able to climb up the ladder. That was such a bad point simply because I work in the same company and I know exactly how this company, and in particular, how C’s department works.

C was relentless. C said that in the years C has been with the company, it was proven those who work hard and slog late into the night will be duly rewarded and rewarded well. Given that I know C has been working really hard and been slogging late nights non-stop, I asked how well has C been rewarded. C confidently answered that rewards will come.

Those familiar with AZAIG’s sentiments on modern slavery a.k.a. corporate world will know that slaving your life away is not the way to go. And certainly, I will never recommend my friend to sell his/her soul, unless the price is absolutely right.

It is very sad that there are so many people with the “true slave” mentality that one should slave out one’s life and will go all out to get others to join this disillusioned bandwagon. Will a true slave get rewarded in the end?

In the latest promotion list issued last month. C’s name was not there.


1 year ago… How will the end begin?

Maiden encounter of the city

“How was Beijing?” has been the most frequent question posed to me in the course of last week. Well, I must say I enjoyed my trip a lot. You may not like the people for their rude and often unhygienic antics, but I would consider Beijing as a city that one should not miss.

Upon landing, I was greeted with a first glance on Chinese efficiency. Initially, there were only 2 counters opened at the immigration checkpoint for foreign passport holders. Within minutes, there were officers appearing from nowhere and suddenly, all counters were operational.

I kept track of the time. We landed at 6.30am (thank God for MAS and on-time flights)… me and Jules got out from the plane, settled immigration, collected our baggage and got into the taxi… all before 6.50am. I find that quite amazing.

The hotel we stayed in was fantastic. If there’s anyone heading to Beijing, drop me a mail and I will tell which hotel it is. They allowed us to checked in at 7.30am and we had a nap till 11am before beginning out adventure.

Our first destination… Qianmen, which means “Front Gate”. It’s located to the south of Tian’anmen Square. By the way, Chinese are obsessed with the 4 winds. If you are heading there soon, bring a compass.

And to the north of Qianmen… Tian’anmen Square.

Nothing overly spectacular except the fact that they have security checkpoint for every entry. They x-ray all your bags. X-ray machines are also located at the entry of all subway station. I was stopped a few times because I had my tri-pot in my bag. They thought it was some kind of weapon.

To the north of Tian’anmen, it’s the great Forbidden City.

I think the Forbidden City has gone through quite substantial restoration work, which made it more magnificent. It is truly a structure of ultimate Chinese grandeur. It is always a great feeling to see ancient monuments such as these. It really makes you wonder, how in the world do they manage such feat without modern technology. The amount of thinking involved is just too mind-boggling.

We didn’t manage to cover the whole city. It was just too big, and just too much walking to do.

We went to the National Centre for Performing Arts a.k.a. The Egg. You have to pay to go in and I think that was a mistake. Nothing to see inside structure and so, if you do go, there is no need to go inside.

We went to a nice Sichuan restaurant for dinner. Let’s save that for food post, shall we?


1 year ago… More keywords splendour

2 years ago… What would you do?

What China doesn’t have and why you are not…

Most people answered “public toilet” to the riddle (more like a question) that I asked the other day. Well, there are quite a number of public toilets everywhere; just that you wouldn’t want to use them unless it’s an ultimate emergency. Know what I mean?

In order to answer the question, let me share some part of my short working stint in China with you…

I was briefly attached to a telecommunication company which was based in this huge complex. It’s like a township by itself. It’s not feasible to go out of the complex for lunch so most days, I will have lunch at the canteen.

Food was subsidised so it’s cheap. Hence, everyone will grab a few dishes and a bowl of rice. Now, this is no ordinary bowl of rice. Trust me when I say it’s a BIG bowl of rice. I am a big eater but on some days, I am not able to finish a bowl myself. But ya’ know what? Those China girls will eat the bowl clean. Some even had 2 bowls!!!!!

Similarly, when I was in Beijing last week, everyone eats tonnes of rice, porridge (it’s called congee in Beijing) and “lai-mien” (noodles).

What I am trying to say is that, mainland Chinese eats a lot of what Malaysians deem as weight contributor… carbohydrates.

How many times have you heard of people saying… “less rice please” and when you give them the look, their response will be … “eat so much rice will make you fat”. The funny thing is, most of such people aren’t exactly… thin.

Back to my question…

I noticed this and so did my ex-colleague who was there with me in China. Another friend who visited China concurred this. It is very rare… and close to impossible… to see such in China… fat people (no offence to anyone).

Yes, there are no fat people in China. Or at least, I couldn’t see any of them. And I don’t mean obese type of fat. I am referring to reasonable fat type people. In fact, most mainland Chinese are rather slim.

But then again… they eat so much… so much… rice… carbo!!!

My fellow Malaysians, the reason why we are fat is not because we eat a full plate of rice instead of half.

The reason why most Malaysians are fat is because the distance between your home and your office is 5 steps from your door to your car and maybe another 20 steps from your car to the lift… the distance between Sungei Wang and Times Square is 2 minutes on the monorail… you prefer call pizza instead of walking out to the shop down the road for lunch because it’s too sunny, or no parking… you have no time to exercise because you are such a hardworking employee… etc. etc.

And of course, many ask for less rice and then stuff your face with Baskin Robins or Haagan Dazs…

Don’t blame the rice…

P/S: So now you know what China doesn’t have…

Budget 2010

A quick browse around the domestic blogosphere and I noticed that many have already voiced their displeasure regarding the RM50 service tax imposed on each credit/charge card announced during the National Budget.

And being selfish people where we are only concern about ourselves, that’s perfectly understandable. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we should pay RM50 for having a piece of plastic. What I am saying is that we should look at the budget from a different perspective.

Do you know that the country will again be in budget deficit position? “Budget deficit”, sounds too economic for you to understand? Let me zewtlified it for you…

If Malaysia is a company, it means it is making loss. Malaysia has been in budget deficit for (I think) more than a dozen of years with deficit expected to be 5.6% for 2010. That means, “Malaysia Sdn Bhd” has been making loss for the last 12 years or more. What do you think will happen to a company that keep making losses?

By the way, our neighbour down south was in budget surplus position (i.e. making profit) a few years running till 2007. And this is part of the reason why SGD1 = RM2.5.

But then again, we Malaysians don’t really care about the big things. It’s too intellectually challenging for us. We are only concern about whether we can get good food at night and the RM50 we need to pay for a piece of plastic which allows us to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.

So let’s just keep the simple stuff…

Yes, the reduction of top individual tax rate from 27% to 26% will only benefit those having chargeable income above RM100,000. “Chargeable income” above RM100,000 means your annual salary must be around RM130,000 before you benefit from this. And yes, it’s only 1%.

The govt categorised those benefiting from this reduction as “mid income group”. If you are not earning above RM130,000 a year, i.e. not “mid” income group, tough luck. But can you imagine those earning millions! They will be laughing by now. I wonder who they are…

On the basis that the average tax rate of a Malaysian is about 15%, the increase of personal allowance of RM1,000 means you will have an additional RM150 to spend. That’s circa 30 additional plates of char-kuey-teow for you in 2010. Yay! Go knock yourself out. But if you have 3 credit cards, tough luck mate.

RM500 broadband deduction, average 15% tax means additional RM75 or circa 15 plates of additional char-kuey-teow a year. But if you have more credit cards, then………

This is important… the additional RM1,000 allowance for EPF/life insurance deduction is only applicable for deferred annuity paid for contract concluded after 1 Jan 2010. Sounds alien? Zewtily speaking, you have to buy additional insurance in 2010 in order to get this deduction.

It means you have to spend additional RM1,000 in order to save about RM150 of tax. So all the extra char-kuey-teow that you can get from the additional individual allowance and broadband deduction will be gone if you take this up. Worse, you may even need to pay more money! Which means… less char-kuey-teow next year! That’s big deal mate!

As for the RM50 for each credit card, I personally think it will share the same fate as toll. I.e. we will just complain and complain and at the end of the day, just pay. Just like how most Malaysians cannot survive without cars thus needing to pay toll, most Malaysians cannot survive without credit cards (emphasis on plural).

Last but not least, GST, which I have blogged about a few years ago is indeed coming. The wind in the tax industry is strongly blowing the fact that it will be announced before the end of this year. When that comes, that will be really hell…

That’s basically the budget for a regular I-don’t-care-about-politics-and-other-complicated-things man on the street.

Back from China with a China riddle

Yo! I am back!

It was a fantastic trip, blessed with the perfect timing and weather, except perhaps for the last day. But I am not complaining, because…
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It delayed my flight for a couple of hours but it’s certainly a nice feeling to see snow again.

Anyone care to use your brain juice?

When I spent a few months working in ShenZhen and now about a week holiday-ing in Beijing, I noticed that China doesn’t have one particular thing… can you guess what it is?


1 year ago… Tuesday reflection on a recession… I have not made it

2 years ago… Are you part of the mess?… The mess continues… Wednesday blues… Appreciating life

A sip before trip

Will be flying off tonight to the city I consider the Rome of the east. Understand the weather is getting rather cold, so I hope it’s cooling to walk around the Forbidden City and not so sweaty when scaling the Great Wall.

A word for fellow devils… the word was written all over the wall since last week. Whenever the media play up a team’s profile against a team in crisis, the latter will surely prevail. Happiest people yesterday were neither devils nor scousers, but the bookies.

In case you don’t know, the national budget was announced last Friday. Plenty of goodies (so it seems) for individuals. If you go into detailed calculations, it amounts to nothing really. And the general feel in the tax circle is that it is a boring budget. Should I dissect it still?

Alright, have a good week ahead and catch you guys next week…

1 year ago… Have you ever tried this before?

2 years ago… Living: Malaysia vs. Hong Kong

Sex and the office

Since corporate slavery and life in the professional world have been the notion of AZAIG of late, I reckon it would be interesting to look at the sexciting side of it for instalment of Friday Frolics. The title is enough to entice you, isn’t it?

Indeed, there are many sexciting stories that float around when I was in one of the big-4 firm. The most famous was about this particular partner (boss of a professional firm) in this particular firm who would always ask sweet young juniors to clear issues with him in the middle of the night.

It will be done behind closed door and there are stories about how these sweet young juniors will come out with bra missing, panty missing, bra unclip, etc. etc. I did try to verify this with my friend who was working in that firm and he told me that it was true as he has witnessed it before.

I have also heard stories from this particular department where the shorter your skirt is, the faster your promotion will be. And this was relayed to me by a girl. Sexciting, isn’t it?

There was also one particular incident in my department when I was still there…

It involved this couple who just started going out. As the firm practises casual Friday, the girl was one who would “fong pun lap” (release half her boobs) and wear black G-string beneath a thin tight white pants on Fridays. So when this good looking hunk started going out with her, we were all speculating that they will “tiu do luin sai loong” (fuck till kingdom come).

Hey! It’s not a sexist remark as this sentiment was shared by both male and female colleague alike. And ya’ know what? They lived up to that expectation.

On a cosy afternoon during one particular peak period, someone found the lovebirds in the pantry; with the guy’s pants down. The girl was, well… hmmm……

To cut the long story short, the girl resigned and the guy followed suit after a few months, being victims to the don’t-eat-and-shit-at-the-same-place curse.

There are plenty of lonely souls, particularly auditors, in the professional accounting firms. Stuck in the office in the middle of the night while your bf/gf are sound asleep at home, and with your equally stressed and lonely colleague sitting next to you, that empty pantry or meeting room or quiet stairwell sure looks like a comfortable quickie getaway.

Have you heard of any?

I am sure some of you are wondering… has Zewt done anything sexciting in office? Well… I … now, why would I want to share with you… hehe…


2 years ago… For richer or poorer… Is smoking an addiction?

Between saying nice things and facts

About 5 years ago, I attended a wedding ceremony of an ex-colleague. It was a Christian wedding ceremony held at the garden of hotel before the wedding reception. I must say, it was rather romantic ala Hollywood style.

Just like any other Christian ceremony, there was the bridal march-in followed by a brief worship session and of course, a short sermon by the officiating pastor. As usual, the pastor spoke about the usual wedding stuff and then he mentioned something which caught my attention. He said something to the effect…

“… what a truly beautiful couple, truly match-made in heaven. I am sure God put them together in a wonderful way. It’s truly God’s plan for them to be together…”

Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with those words. In fact, one would expect these words to be typically uttered during a wedding ceremony. But to me, it’s odd. It’s very odd. I am sure you are wondering why…

It’s odd because I was aware of how the married couple first got together. It wasn’t exactly heavenly. When they first started seeing each other, both were still attached to their respective bf/gf. It went on for almost a year before they broke the news to their respective bf/gf, which led to a very ugly confrontation.

Speculatively speaking, I wonder if this so called match-made-in-heaven-which-God-put-together-in-a-wonderful-way were sleeping with each other and with their respective bf/gf at the same time. Scandalous isn’t it, do you think?

Don’t get me wrong. Whatever they did doesn’t concern me at all. They can have all the affairs they want and screw around for all I care.

Just that when the pastor started going on a verbal diarrhoea about all the nice things that you can ever imagine about the married couple and particularly, saying that God put them together in a wonderful way, it was just so odd for me and a few others who know the history.

No disrespect to pastors. But I just think they should know more of the history of the married couple when preparing the sermon of their ceremony and not just go all flowery and say all the nice things. And that is why I like my pastor. His sermon during my wedding covered mostly about all the “challenges” we will be facing as married couple. Now, that’s reality.

On a related note, an emcee at this particular wedding dinner made the biggest boo-boo ever. She proudly announced that the married couple are finally tying the knot after so many years of courtship. What the emcee didn’t know was that the wedding happened because the bride was 3 months pregnant. And, she only met (focus on the word “met”) the groom 3 months earlier.


1 year ago… Why you should want the inflation to be up

Life in a Professional Firm vs. Life in a Commercial Firm – Episode I

Companies in the business of providing professional advice, typically known as “consultants”; they are the so called “professional firms” (“PF”). Common within this category are legal and accounting (audit, tax, etc.) firms. They are often considered as companies that will squeeze every drop of life from you. I was from one of them.

Other companies not in the business of providing professional services are known as “commercial firms” (“CF”). They can be doing any type of business but due to governance requirement, they most probably have legal and finance functions within the operation. I am currently in one them.

A lot of my ex-colleagues who are still working in the professional world used to ask me how life is like in the commercial world. There are indeed plenty of differences. Let’s start with the 2 very light differences…

Composition of colleagues

Ask anyone who is currently slaving in PF why he/she still going through the shite and most probably they will tell that they like their colleagues. As I’ve said, most slaves in PF are first job slaves. And since most are fresh meat from universities, they are of the same age group.

This means that you can share the same conversational topic during lunch time. You can hang out together and do stuff that your age group does during their free time, if they have free time. You can share problems amongst your colleagues and you understand each other because your problems are most probably generic.

The hottest babes or hunks around are also within your age group. And you can always look forward to new babes and hunks because recruitment is done in big batches. And they are mostly available. At most, they are attached to their colleague sweetheart but people breaking up with college sweet heart only to go steady with colleagues is a norm in PF.

In CF though………

You truly get people from all walks of life. If you leave PF after 5 – 7 years to join CF, you will be wondering how to join a lunch conversation that revolves around people talking about their babies; the type that they give birth to, not those who spend the weekend with you doing bedroom exercise.

The hottest babes or hunks around are… wait, what hottest babes? If you are lucky, there may be 1 or 2 babes or hunks around. Chances are, they are married. And don’t bet against having children already.

What I am trying to say is that the colleague composition between PF and CF is very different. It may take a while for you to adapt. Some just fail to adapt and leave. I am blessed though. My colleagues are still within my age group, plus minus 5 years.

Promotion vs. progression

In PF, juniors are “promoted” every year, or should I say; made to think that they are “promoted” every year. Juniors as young as 7 months are “promoted” from say, associate-2 to associate-1 (numbering varies depending on PF).

As most juniors are fresh meat from universities, being “promoted” is an orgasmic experience. Telling parents or friends about their promotion and getting remarks such as “Wow! So fast, you must be good!” is akin to getting multiple orgasms. The feelings beat getting straight distinctions in exams anytime. They feel so good, till they are willing to slave even more for the PF. It’s a very good strategy.

These so called “promotions” usually come with a standard increment and interestingly, absolutely no change in job scope. There is a change in title though, from associate-2 to associate-1 or senior-2 to senior-1. Worse, I once heard a partner (the real big boss) of a PF said that a “director” is just another “senior manager”.

And ya’ know what? For the juniors, every Tom, Dick, Harry, Mary, Jean and Jane got promoted too! Yay!!! Promotions list comes up to pages long! It’s easier to ask who didn’t rather than who did got “promoted”. Sounds familiar, isn’t it?

In my personal zewtpinion, the initial phase in PF is more of a progression rather than a promotion. Certainly, there are people who will not “progress”. But as long as you do what is required of you and don’t screw up, you will progress. To me, the real promotion in PF is when you are promoted a managerial position, when you are required to sign-off documents.

In CF though, getting a promotion is like finding a virgin nowadays (guys or girls)… it’s very tough and rare. During promotion season, there may only be 1 or 2 chosen souls, not a list of names. Sometimes, none. It’s a big thing. In most cases, a promotion in CF will result in a significant change in job scope and responsibilities.

Working in a PF, you would expect to “progress” on a regular basis. But when you are in a CF, don’t expect the same kind of treatment. It is a whole new battleground as far as promotion is concerned.


These are 2 minor differences. We shall explore more hardcore differences in coming episodes.


1 year ago… The pouring that’s been keeping us alive

How were times before e?

136… that’s the amount of e-mails I have when I opened my inbox at work this morning, after taking last Friday off. Taking away personal mails, the number came to about 131. It took me almost half a day to clear all of them.

I am sure most of you will agree that working life nowadays evolve around answering e-mails. As I was clearing my inbox and answering some of the so called “urgent” e-mails, I wondered… how was working life like before the days of e-mails?

On any given day, there will be a few mails coming in at the same time inquiring about different situations which require my advice. And in a typical corporate scenario, these inquiries demand immediate reply. And it’s not any ordinary reply. It requires thinking and sometimes, some level of research.

How are these done before the time of e-mails? Through telephone? If it’s through phone, at least you will be engaged on one line if there are 2 inquiries coming in. But with e-mails, you can have up to 10 inquiries in an hour.

And inquiries are the light stuff. It can be agreements, contracts or any form of documents being sent over which require my review and comments. And as usual, everything is urgent. If you take more than a week to reply, it means that you are slow.

Without a doubt, the existence of e-mails has accelerated the pace at which we work. We are now required to provide answers, provide comments, review documents and meet all other unreasonable demands at light speed. It’s really crazy.

One can say that we have become more efficient. But I just think we have been made to work like robots. I really do wonder, how was it like during the times before e-mails came into the picture.


2 years ago… Turning your eyes from oil to ferry… From shitty good news to gym and a penis song