Announcement

There will be no blogging activities in AZAIG until end of the month due to personal reasons.

Have a good day...

Songs re-engineered

You will probably need to be aware of the music industry in the early 90s to figure this out.

That was easy isn't it? As for this one, you will need to back a lilttle further to the 80s to figure this out. Can you make up what it is? Please mind the spelling of the singer though.

How about this one?

I think this is one of the best... C'mon... let's sing it together... I'm your...xxx...xxx..xxx...

But seriously, I have no idea which one is this... anyone?

Have a lovely weekend.

What happen if you put your foot down?

Elizabeth used to work in an education based company where one of her responsibility was to help develop the syllabus. Having reviewed the English module which the company intended to introduce in Malaysia, she found many flaws in it and raised it to the local management. She was shot down and was blatantly told that if the syllabus works in other countries, it will work in Malaysia.

At that time, she was already quite pissed with the management due to some other issues. This just made it worse. Just so happen, the headquarter of the company sent internal auditors over to the local office here for a review and one of them did an interview with Elizabeth.

During the interview, she contemplated on whether she should just let out her steam on all the things she was pissed about. Of course, the review report will be sent to the HQ and it will probably implicate the management here. It’s the familiar situation of… do you dare to do something which may get your boss into trouble?

She did just that. She complained about all the work issues which she was not happy with and also raised the screwed up English syllabus which she thought would never work in Malaysia. The review was completed and the report was sent to HQ.

The result? Elizabeth was called into the office of her boss and was immediately asked to leave…. Just joking...... the General Manager of the company was replaced with a new one and Elizabeth was offered a new position and she was asked to be in charge of revamping the English syllabus for the company.
About 6 months ago, Zewt was not happy with his pay and he was very adamant that he was not remunerated in accordance to the amount of work he had to do. He did an industry comparison was depressed that his peers were getting more pay than him.

After getting all the remuneration package information of his peers, Zewt put it in a simple summary and sent it to his boss and said this is what they industry is paying his peers and he should be remunerated in the same level.

Did Zewt get a backlash for doing that? You’re not going to fall for the he-was-sacked trick again right? Well, he got a pay-rise the next month.

I am sure you guys still remember who Matt is. Ya’ know, that guy who goes home earlier than his colleagues because he will say ‘no’ to work outside his job scope? Yes, that Matt. Today, someone saw a mail stating that he will get an early confirmation.

Even they have the guts to say it

So we all agree that Matt is doing the right thing and we should not hate him. From the comments, I can see that many are pretty adamant that we should put our foot down and stand up for our rights. I must say that is very encouraging. Of course, the question ringing in your head right now is probably… “Zewt, have you ever said no to your boss?”

As a matter of fact, I said something to that effect last week and I must say, the reaction was… absolutely priceless. I know it’s not easy. It is like putting your increment and promotion and bonus at stake but trust me, the feeling is very liberating.

And you know what? Even the group of people whom some of us brand them as ‘cheap labour’ are beginning to say no. I am referring to (no offence) the Indians. I have mentioned before that there are a lot of MNCs who set up hubs in India to do back-end work. They are mainly employed to do IT related work but there is also a growing demand for finance related job.

Yes, they are cheap (again, no offence). You can get Indians with double Masters degree to do just data entry job and they will happily do it. And we Malaysians will conveniently call them ‘cheap labour’ not knowing that we are also cheap labour; just that we are cheap labour at a different level. Anyway, that’s not the notion today.

The company I work in has a hub in India and we out-source a lot of data-entry based and low-level analysis work to this hub. Traditionally, they will be happy to take on more work. But things took a wicked twist lately…

We wanted to out-source a particular piece of work to the hub and they said that they are not able to cope with the additional work load. As such, they informed that they will take on a new head-count and of course, this new head-count means they will bill us more… more cost. Cost is a sensitive word and naturally, the notion about getting an additional head-count was rejected.

Yes, I work in a MNC and you will probably ask why can't a MNC afford a new head-count in ‘India’. Well, let’s just say I don’t want to answer that question… sigh…

Anyway… we said no and secretly, we probably expect them to just bite the bullet and do the job without the additional manpower needed. But you know what? The Indians… people whom we brand as ‘cheap labour’… actually said ‘NO!’.

And it was a very loud ‘no’. You know why? Not only do they have the guts to say no to more workload… something transpired in between and they have decided not to do some of the existing work currently being out-sourced to them. How… about… that!?

Indeed, the working population is slowly evolving. They have become more educated and more self-aware of their value. However, we Malaysians are still very far behind. We are still heavily infected with the thou-shall-not-offend-my-boss virus. I am still trying to kill the virus. I have made some bold moves in the last 6 months… regular readers of AZAIG will know.

Yes, it is not easy but if we don’t start, we will just go deeper and deeper into slave-hood. And like I said, even the ‘cheap labour’ are beginning to say no… when will you say your first ‘no’?

Whom should we hate

There is a guy who joined our department not too long ago. Having been in the department for a few months now, he hasn’t really made a good impression of himself, at least not amongst the colleagues.

Words are going around that this new guy, let’s call him Matt; is only willing to do ‘high level work’. I don’t work with him but judging from the words of Matt’s team-mate, seems like Matt is only willing to do high level analysis and prepare high level report; those that go to the top management.

Of course, you might see nothing wrong in that, Matt is merely being ambitious. But then again, you and I know that working in the corporate slavery world means there are a lot of low-level donkey jobs that need to be done. I am not referring to photocopying or filing, I am referring to stuff like monthly reconciliation statements, monthly closing reports, monthly control checks… stuff like that.

Apparently, when Matt is given such work, he will actually say ‘NO’ to them. He will reiterate that he is there to do high level analysis report because that’s what he was employed to do; he is a former analyst. Therefore, if you ask him to do monthly calculation based reports and control checks, he will rejects them.

That’s where the problem began. Work rejected by him is then conveniently handed to other people in his team. Now, they have to do these donkey jobs. They initially thought that having an initial head count will lighten their work load but seems like they are wrong. Naturally, comments such as “he thinks he’s damn great”, “he thinks so highly of himself” and “that smart ass” began to spread.

Like I said, I don’t work with him. On top of that, I am quite close to people in Matt’s team. Naturally, biasness creeps in and I began to have a very negative impression on Matt. And because he rejects work, he gets to leave office earlier compared to the rest. That is like the nail in the coffin! How many of you would despise such individual?

After doing some reflection, my impression on Matt changed…

In Matt’s first week, he was telling people about his experience and that he was employed to do analysis. Now, I don’t know what transpired during the interview but I will not be surprise if the management promised him the sun, moon and stars during the interview. Therefore, when Matt rejects work that he thinks is not in his job-scope, is he doing something wrong?

So Matt says no to donkey jobs, and he only gets to do high level review and analysis report. As there are not many such reports, he gets to leave early which made us all upset because we need to stay late. Wait a minute; is Matt taking advantage on us? Or is he just doing what his employment letter allows him to do?

Because Matt says no to all these donkey jobs, they landed on the desk of my colleagues and they have to do it, adding load to an already over-loaded schedule. I know a lot of these donkey jobs are outside my colleagues’ job scope. They have to do it because we are all infected with the I-cannot-say-no-to-my-boss virus. But hey… in all fairness, should they be mad at Matt simply because they have no guts to say ‘no’ to the management?

I know some of you will say that Matt should have a sense of team-work and share workload with his team. Make no mistake, this ‘sense of teamwork’ or ‘do not let your colleague suffers alone’ is a silent curse. That is the thing that enslaved us… and that is what employers feed on, manipulate… and make us do their biddings. My friends… refusing to employ more people and then make us exercise excessive ‘team-work’ is how we are all enslaved…

And you know what is the irony of it all? From what I observed, Matt’s chances of promotion, increment and bonus is just the same as my other colleagues.

So, should we hate Matt? Should we hate our bosses? Or should we hate ourselves?

Chronicles of vol-ass-no eruption

I am sure we all had our days, the time when our body decides to empty itself via the backdoor… again and again… and again. The rush of those semi-fluid or sometimes fluid substance though our rear canal and finally leaving our body at such a ferocious speed can be a very draining experience.

Perhaps it was due to food poisoning, or perhaps it was just a time the body went on a self-detox mode but whatever it is, the experience is usually not a very pleasant one. However, there are a few backdoor-explosions which are too memorable not to be shared…

Chronicle 1: Race against time

This incident took place more than 7 years ago and I was attending a friend’s wedding dinne in one of the hotel in KL. No, it was not a shot-gun marriage; my friend is 12 years my senior.

Anyway, it was the end of the dinner and a bunch of us, feeling a bit tipsy decided to head to the loo for a piss. Yeah, for some strange reason, guys do this go-toilet-together act too. As we entered into the gents, one of us shouted “look-out!” and pointed to the floor.

Resting on the floor were drops of a certain brownish substance which I do not need to elaborate. As we head further into the gents, traces of this substance got more and more, you can tell that the substance was oozing from one’s back-hole and keeping it in was getting increasingly difficult.

The trace led us to the first cubicle; it’s obvious that this person is in a rush. The door of the cubicle was half opened. I do not know why but one of us pushed open the door and there we saw it, the aftermath of the disaster.

I have to admit, the signs of the aftermath shown on the wall of the cubicle was so exquisite that one can actually consider it a work of art. I brief forensic investigation by us suggest that the person probably removed his pants in a flash and as soon as his pants were down, the brain instantly told the relevant muscles that it’s time to let loose and as such……the firing began, albeit a controlled one.

This controlled firing left a trail on the side of the cubicle all the way to the back. We concluded that the brain of that poor soul can no longer take the stress and as soon as the back-side was facing the back of the cubicle, the final shot was made… and it was made before that person managed to sit down on the toilet bowl.

From the sight of the wall, without a doubt… this one ended in a “bang”.

Chronicle 2: Don’t guess unless you’re sure it’s gas

There was this girl (yes, it’s a she this time), and she was quite the hated soul in the company she worked in. One beautiful day, after having a meal, her bowel began to act up quite a bit. You know the feeling as though something is inside your bowel and it is running up and down causing intense pain and before you know it, you have to head to the toilet already.

As she was having this pain in her tummy, she felt a certain amount of gas coming out from her tummy… through her back-passage… about to leave the back-cave. Ya’ know, sometimes you need to fart but you happened to be in public so you have to be discreet. As such, you try to control the speed of your fart by slowly releasing it.

She must have been trying to do that but just as she was about to let loose her air-pollutant; the activities in her stomach suddenly send a powerful rush of ‘liquid’ through the same passage-way and thus… when she released her air-pollutant… so released her ‘other stuff’ as well.

I was told she sat there and refused to get up. Her colleagues had to push her chair together with her to the toilet while other colleagues went and bought her new panty and pants. Since she is quite a hated soul… she must have been the laughing point of the office for the longest time.

So next time, if you are not sure if it’s entirely gas… do not guess…

Chronicle 3: Know your priority

Diarrhoea in your dictionary is probably extreme release of fluid or semi-fluid substance from your asshole. Very often, it is caused by food poisoning. When the food poisoning is a severe one, you will not only keep shitting, you will also be puking your guts out.

A story was told about a girl who had the food poisoning experience of her life. In the middle of the night, she felt the activities in her stomach and she knew the vol-ass-no eruption is going to happen anytime. She rushed to the toilet and she was quick enough to sit down before the eruption took place. However, while things were rushing out from the backside, she also started to puke… and it was a very bad puke too!

So there she was, feeling weak after a vol-ass-no eruption, she still had to clean the toilet. Must have been a very horrible feeling… the smell of her puke… and probably still feeling the sore from the eruption in the ‘hole’…

Half-way while cleaning, she suddenly felt the second wave coming… both the front and the back. Now, here is the predicament… should one sit and let the frontal eruption let loose on the toilet floor or should one choose to puke in the toilet bowl and try to hold the back-door till you finish puking?

My friend… let’s just say, you must prioritise your ass!

Have a wonderful weekend… don simply eat stuff ya…

A different level in 'going dutch'

“Mei Kok Sik”

That’s how my parents call it, or used to call it. It simply means ‘going dutch’ which translates to… you pay for your own meal. It is a culture of the west, or that’s what I was made to believe. I am sure it is something very common amongst us nowadays. I mean, you don’t expect others to pay for your own meals right?

When I spent 2 months in London not too long ago, there were a few friends who took me out for dinner and were generous enough to pay for my meals. “You’re a guest”… that’s what they told me. Of course, I met up with them more than once in the course of 2 months and certainly, I don’t expect them to pay for me all the time.

Here in Malaysia, when it is time to pay, one of us will usually have to fork out the money first, either by cash or credit card and he/she will claim the relevant amount from the rest… right? It was in a restaurant called “4 Seasons”, one dubbed to have the best duck in the world where I discovered a very unique way of ‘going dutch’.
In London, people don’t usually carry huge amount of cash around. If you carry £50, that is considered a lot of cash and you risk getting mugged. Therefore, most of the Londoners use debit cards and every transaction has to be verified by a PIN. Same goes with credit cards.

After having a nice dinner in “4 seasons”, we asked for the bill and guess what… everyone started throwing their cards to the bill. I was like… errr… who is going to pay first? Well, ya’ know what? In London, you can actually ask the waiter to swipe each individual card for a specific amount so when the bill comes, everyone just dumped their cards on the paying plate and the captain will come to the table with a wireless credit card machine (which is very common) and he will swipe every single card to the amount requested by the card owner.

Yup… apparently, this is a very common practice and there were instances where more than 10 cards were used to pay a bill and the captain will gladly swipe every card with a smile on his face. Coming back to the meal we had, I paid cash and 2 person paid with cards and some decided to pay for someone and so, it was all different amount… and the captain was patiently swiping the cards and smiling at us…

Just imagine doing that here in Malaysia… anyone want to try? Do share with me your experience thereafter.

When you think you’re thinking the right thing

Sometimes, we think too much. Actually, let me rephrase that… most of the times, we think too much. We tend to over-think things and apply our understanding on things that may seem otherwise.

Disagree? Care to take a test? Try this simple mathematics test... and yes, this is a mathematics test…no calculators allowed…

There was a bus with 17 passengers on board. As it reached the first bus-stop, 5 passengers got down from the bus and 12 passengers boarded the bus.
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At the next bus-stop, 10 passengers got down from the bus and 3 passengers boarded the bus.
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At the next bus-stop, 2 passengers got down from the bus and 18 passengers boarded the bus.
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At the next bus-stop, 15 passengers got down from the bus and 9 passengers boarded the bus.
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At the next bus-stop, 8 passengers got down from the bus and 5 passengers boarded the bus.
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At the next bus-stop, 10 passengers got down from the bus and 1 passenger boarded the bus.
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At the final bus-stop, 5 passengers got down from the bus and 22 passengers boarded the bus.

Now, very quickly, without the aid of a calculator, can you tell me…
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How many bus-stops have the bus been to?

Don’t you think sometimes, we may be thinking about the wrong things all along?

Have you tried this mathematical question I asked earlier?

Of alone and lonely

Are you one who is afraid to be lonely? If you are, I am very sure you are not alone.

Loneliness is a state of mind which can sometimes, cripples oneself. I have met many people who are afraid to be lonely. The thought of being by oneself with no one around seems so frightening till some are willing to just do about almost anything to cure this. But what some people do not understand is that loneliness cannot be cured by just being around people.

There is also a distinct difference between being lonely and being alone. You can be in the midst of a huge crowd which means you are not alone, but yet, you can feel lonely. Oh yes, that is very possible. And it is also very possible for you to be just by yourself; which means you are alone, and yet, you don’t feel lonely.
Have you ever attended a big function and be in the company of many and while there are many buzzing activities around you, you felt as though there is no one with you? This usually happens when you don’t have someone to talk to and though there are many people surrounding you, they act as though you are invisible… this can make you feel… lonely. Of course, you are certainly not… alone.

A few years ago, I like to do things by all myself. There were people who told me that they cannot have dinner alone, they just can't do it. I find that very strange because I did that quite often and I found it to be absolutely normal. In fact, there were times where I actually preferred to have my dinner alone.

I am sure some of you are calling me a loner which I probably was. But then again, despite doing things alone, I don’t think there were times where I actually felt lonely. Surely, I was alone, but I was definitely not lonely.

So are you one who has been alone and felt lonely? Or are you a social butterfly and yet still feel lonely? If you have never felt lonely before, that is fantastic. But psychology experts have said that there will be a time where we will need to be alone.

Of course… feeling lonesome is a totally different story altogether…

Screwing for desire

This is for real…

A colleague of mine went and did something to herself and now, she has to get herself screwed once in a while just to have her desire fulfilled. Yes, it’s all about having one of her desires fulfilled.

But hey, ya’ know what? While some ‘things’ usually get looser as you keep screwing them… my colleague gets tighter each time she is screwed. And because it is so tight, she screams in pain everything she is screwed… but yet, it’s all in the name of desire.

What do you think my colleague is doing… or having…?

The toilet encounter

You know if you head towards Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka from formerly Pudu Jail, you will pass the MAA building on your right. From there, you can take a right to PJ or follow the road and head towards Sungei Besi. Do you know that if you head towards Sungei Besi, just before you hit the main road, the vast land on your left is a huge cemetery?

For some strange reason, this made the MAA building a rather haunted structure.

It was said there is a Chinese talisman (‘fu’) stuck that underneath each and every chairs in this building. Also, nobody in this building work beyond a certain hour. How true is this? I guess only employees there can confirm. Anyone?

While those stories can't be confirmed as it was told from someone friend’s sister’s brother’s one-night-stand partner’s dog’s owner’s friend, there is one which came from someone who worked there before and thus, carries credibility.

This someone is a current colleague of mine who is a former auditor and yes, you guessed it right, she was part of the team who audited MAA. As you know, auditors are the top modern slave species and their hours stretched beyond human-hours. And when you work beyond human-hours in a not so human place, you are bound to encounter some not so human experience.

On one of the night where the audit team had to rush some work, one female team member needed to answer nature call and naturally, she headed to the toilet. As soon as she entered the toilet, she saw… herself in the mirror as there was a mirror as soon as you entered the toilet. Next, she went into one of the cubicle and ya’ know, do the necessary and sat down…

Half way relieving herself, she heard someone came into the toilet, entered the cubicle next to hers and also started relieving herself. I understand this is a girl thing where girls like to talk to each other across the cubicle while pee-ing. Yes, the other person who last came into the toilet started talking to the auditor.

“Hello, kerja lewat ke?” (Hello, working late?)
“Ya lah… banyak kerja ni. Tak tahu bila nak siap ni” (Yes, a lot of work. Dunno when it’ll finish)

I was told the conversation went on for quite a while. Gee… she must have held it for a long time for the pee to last this long.

Anyway, just as she was about to stand up and pull up her pants, she dropped something on the floor. When she bent down to pick it up, she looked to the next cubicle underneath the partition and guess what she saw… she saw… nothing. The next cubicle was empty……

Sensing that something is not quite right, she quickly pulled up her pants, zipped up, flushed and left the cubicle. After washing her hands, she bid farewell to her ‘newly made friend’ out of courtesy…

The reply from ‘that person’ was…

“Kenapa begitu cepat? Sudah tahu ke?”
(What’s with the hurry? You’ve realised already?)

The prank that went wrong… too wrong…

It is a case of April fools prank gone wrong today; you may want to reconsider playing prank again…

A colleague of mine was totally oblivious about today’s date. He is one who is always early at work and today, just as usual, while he was reading his regular stuff over the net early in morning, he received a sms from his girlfriend (who is working in the same building) that reads:

“Help! I am at the car-park and one of the guards is trying to molest me”

My hero colleague who had no idea that today is April Fools’ day rushed down to the car-park in an instant looking to rescue his damsel in distress only to find out that his girlfriend was laughing her ass off at him. He has been made an April Fool by his girlfriend, probably the very first in the office today.

But the story doesn’t end there because my colleague wasn’t satisfied that he was made an April Fool. Thinking that he will be the joke of the day during lunch, he thought of a wonderful prank to release upon his colleagues, which include yours truly.

At about 9.15am, when everyone was already in the office, he called another colleague of mine and said something like this…

“Shit man, I am in deep shit. My girlfriend sent a prank sms to me telling me she was getting molested by the guard in the car park. When I came down, I saw one of the guards and immediately punched him in the face. Now they are holding me up for assault!”

When this second colleague of mine heard this, he told me he was laughing at first because the first colleague was such a moron and landed himself in such situation. The first colleague obviously scolded him over the phone and asked the second colleague to come down. He also asked the second colleague to bring a lot of money down as he wanted to settle the ruckus with money.

When the second colleague put down the phone and while he was still laughing at what he just heard, our in-house building management manager walked past and knowing that the building management manager has good relationship with the building management, the second colleague told the building management manager about the incident. Of course, neither of them knew the whole thing was a hoax!!!

Now that the in-house building management manager heard of this, he then called the building management and asked about the fight which happened in the car park. Yes, from a prank to a misunderstanding and now… it’s a fight. Since this is a fight, guards (the real ones) were mobilised by the building maintenance to the car park and a few of us (yes, by this time, I have already been informed) together with the building management manager went to the car park to meet our good ‘ol colleague… who thought he has made a fool of the second colleague whom he called…

So there we were, the whole legion of people all heading down to the car park together with all the guards and building management and building management manager. Imagine the look on our first colleague’s face when he saw all of us come down and the building management were all there.

What began with a small prank turned out to be… well… quite a prank! But all of us together with the building management and guards didn’t beat the shit out of him because the biggest fool of the day is not him. How can he be the biggest fool when this first colleague of mine who got a prank from his girlfriend didn’t even exist?