Reflection

What do you want!? What do we want? What do I want?

It's a very familiar question that sometimes (or often?) lost its full meaning to our lives. Feeling emptiness in our lives (my life!), we start looking for something to fill that emptiness. We do things, anything, to fill the void (or should I say unhappiness?). Problem is, we don't even know what we're looking for!

Really?!

I attended a course very skeptical if it can do anything good to me. I had lots of questions to myself that were unanswered. Or should I say afraid to give concrete answers? It took a while for my friend to convince me to attend to the said seminar. Months had gone by before I finally decided to give it a try (chance?). I may find answers once I attended the seminar/course, I said to myself.

What do you want?!

It's a very powerful question that we all know we have the answers. The problem is we're afraid to commit the definite answers. We know what we want, however, we tend to sabotage things so that we don't reach our intended goal. We always consider other things first than what we want.

Honesty, commitment and risk-taking to self are essentials to know exactly what I want. But most importantly, I need to come to terms with myself before I can attain the necessary essentials.

Without attending the seminar, I may not be able to see clearly what I want. "Why can't you just help me?", I asked my friend. "Because I'm not good enough" was her reply. I realized that the friend may sympathize with me and would be my good reason not to pursue with what I want. That's where the seminar was mostly effective and helpful.

What do you want?! It's the core question that creates awareness of myself. It gives another perspective on what's going to happen in my life.

The strangers that I shared about my life eventually become my friends. We cried, dance, laugh, dine together, and even did things (crazy?) that I thought I won't do with strangers. And of course, bringing up a four in my hand!

I'm very grateful to my good friend (bff?) for not giving up on me. "I'm not going to attend" was always my reply to her. She's able to see things in me that others don't.

I acknowledged the support of my small group leader whom without her maybe I won't be able continue with the basic course (seminar). The first time she called me, I was hesitant to say anything to her, but somehow I did say something. Maybe the way she asked and delivery (voice?) of the question that I had to say something. I can (sort of) decipher her reaction and things that going on her mind when I told to her about myself. She's very supportive, and I can't express enough gratitude to her.

Our small group was very supportive, and that I really appreciate that very much. I received some good advise and support when talking to some individuals.

Of course, I'm thankful to our coach, Jim. He sounded more like Tatay (father).

Well, I'm now clear of what I want! I just don't want to be too specific here (avoidance :P) Fulfillment and happiness are the ultimate goals.

Awareness is not enough, and I've got a lot of things to do.


I don't wait for tomorrow what I can do for today!

Different Actors, Same Result

It's been three months now when the company changed its owner. I was looking forward for lots of changes and activities as promised. Yet I'm still waiting for such things to happen.

After so much time waiting, it's clearer to me that company's direction will have the same result as the previous one except that the current actors are different. Any window dressing won't help. As time goes by, people's true color will always come out.

Bottom line is to manage people properly to get results. If everyone just talk without action, then everybody is just dreaming. If even a very simple task just to get the Yes or No from a client can't be done, then bigger task or complex task will surely fail.

Like most great things, usually everything starts small. I guess people has to learn this lesson...

Be Evil???

I just went to one of our clients to fix some network connectivity issue. Earlier on, I instructed them to check the cables to make sure everything is intact and connected. Surely, they told me everything was connected.

It's disappointing to learn that these people just say anyhow, yet they never really properly checked. True to my suspicion, the cable was really disconnected.

Then they asked another question which every application in the workstation can print except for a particular one. I informed them that they have to call the application's vendor to fix the issue coz it's nothing to do with the printer.

My principle is to help people whenever I can. If these people can't even help me to get the information to help them out, why should I do it for them? It's against my principle though I think I better learn to be evil! Can I call this act evil?!

If people don't appreciate your effort and even make your life more difficult, then might as well let them resolve their own problem. I would only bother to do things within the job scope!

Lesson: Learn to be evil.

What's in history?

History is a record of past events. In modern times, different formats like writing, pictures, sounds and videos, but the olden days often it was passed orally or written by historians.

History helps us understand and learn things. It helps us develop ways to improve things based on the historical data, or avoid the pitfalls.

It's discouraging to know some people who don't want to review the history. Discussing such detail doesn't mean you want to criticize people. It's meant to understand the whole situation, and use it as reference.

If people will just forget the history and start all over again, then they're repeating history. Meaning these people are trying to do same things as the previous people did. Trial and error!!!

History serves as a guideline to build a blueprint for things to be done.

Lesson: Learn from the past.

On Detective Works

Hearing the word detective, we usually associate it with the police. What we don't realize that often we do our own detective works everyday. It's not as complex as the police investigation, but still we do it.

Detective work is synonymous to investigation. It entails gathering of data, proof and come up with the conclusion. Scientists, engineers and/or any other individual usually have to do some investigation.

Once a person hits a problem to achieve his goal, he will start investigating on ways to overcome the obstacle. He would start gathering data, come up with the necessary materials and eventually achieve his goal.

Common factors to achieve or wrap up an investigation: patience, persistence and perspiration.

Unexpected handshake!!!

Unexpected things really do happen!!

We have new bosses in the company, and one is very active and hands-on approach. He asked a lot of questions, and seems like getting into the nerves of the employees. First, he called for general meeting and discuss his policies/principles in running the company. Then he called each employee to talk one-on-one.

So I had my turn to talk to him, and we're discussing a lot of things. He had a lot of questions obviously he got some on-hand information from other people. When a person starts to ask specific questions, then you might as well be frank as you can be, and foremost be yourself. State the facts accurately, and give some ideas that you think may help.

"Can I shake your hand?" he asked after our long discussion. We shook hands, of course!!! But I really didn't expect a handshake from him.

Hmm... I'm still wondering what that action means...

Lesson: Expect the unexpected!!!

There's always a first!

Is it left unlocked?! Not exactly.

I locked the door through the door knob, however, the padlock is nowhere to be found.

I called my colleague asking about the padlock, and she said it's inside her office and already on the way back home on board a bus. So, I had to leave the door without the padlock.

I was just surprised that it happened after so many years working here. Is it because the person is so stressed, and she forgot to put back the padlock after opening the door this morning? Or is it due to forgetfulness? Or is it something else?

Whatever the reason, there's always a first!!!

Unsolicited information

It's heart-warming to know that you may have unwittingly helped others in some ways, or let other people see a different perspective in life. Or you may have comforted them without trying not knowing that they may have troubles.

It's a bit surprising when people give you some information unsolicited. Some will tell you that they may want to do major things in life, yet you are the first person to be told of such information. You haven't even seen their faces, and yet they would tell you such information with ease and comfort.

Some can even tell you details on why they feel comfortable telling information that are only afforded to a close friend. Usually we refer a close friend for someone we know for quite sometime and can confide with, and can be a company to find comfort.

You would feel oblige to keep the information confidential coz you were privileged to know. Though there are times you will feel pressure when other people ask for contact numbers or msn address or some other stuff, and you were told to keep information to yourself... hmm...

And you may wonder why people ask if something has gone wrong with you when you don't even ask or tell. Somehow, others can sense that you were bothered or troubled. Such gesture is highly appreciated and can give some comfort.

Telling unsolicited information (confidential/personal???) to someone breaks down the barrier to make people comfortable to each other.

Lesson: Reap what you sow.

Is there a Ghost???

(Please keep it to yourself if you know the location that I'm referring to... Hope you understand what I mean.. :D)

Do ghosts really exists? Last year, we experienced an eerie feeling when entering one of the rooms in the building. It's quite difficult to describe that feeling, but for sure it's sort of your hair will really stand... :P

Recently they told me that they heard a crying baby in the office area. I took a picture in the questionable area after an office hour out of curiosity and see if something comes up.

I showed the photo in my cellphone to a friend, and he told me that it seems the shape formed to a thing that we're looking for.

I decided to load the photo to my computer to analyze further coz it could be that we were seeing things in the picture that we would like to see.


My conclusion??? It's not a ghost!!!! hahaha

See the enlarged picture... :P

Lesson: See the facts, and not things that you want to see.

Avoiding Meetings???

I was wondering why some people are very eager to arrange for a meeting to discuss on outstanding issues, postpone it twice then chicken out when the actual meeting date comes.

I tried to explain all the pros and cons of postponing the meeting again, yet all I can get is another person sent for the meeting unprepared! Asking for reasons yielded nothing, but unacceptable reason as unavailable.

There are only few valid reasons that I can think of why the person did so: the person is irresponsible, don't know anything on the subject matter or avoid losing face.

Whatever the real reason, bottom line is that the other party expecting in the meeting will be disappointed and will lose faith of the party in question.

Lesson: Do your homework.

Very busy and No Accomplishment???

I find myself very busy for the past few days and really exhausted, but seems there was no accomplishment at all! What was wrong?!!!

I just realized that I was trying to look for a 100K figure in the report which the users told me that they can't find it out. It's baffling coz all the figures were coming from the same system for consolidation, but users produced two reports with different formats.

I wasted more than five bloody days to figure it out. The reason I had deviated from the original design was due to overwhelming information given to me. It seems I absorbed all the information, but forgotten to relate those information from the report that was to do the reconciliation.

After reviewing all the information, I found out that the reconciliation report was correct but interpreted by users as they saw it fit!!!

It took only about an hour to convince them that the report was correct, unfortunately I already wasted my time. Sigh...

Lesson: Don't lose your target/goal.

The Transporter Lesson

It was a movie about a contract courier to pick up a particular package and deliver to a specified location. He had certain specified rules to do the job. For the first time, he opened the package which he's arranged to deliver, and found out that it's a lady inside the bag. After doing so, his life's situation turned upside down.

By opening the package, he eventually broke one of his own rules.

Accordingly, each one of us has rules of our own. Breaking our own rules may bring some upheavals and changes the course of our lives. It may be good or bad.

But do we always follow our own rules? Or, do we break it?

(Un)Preparedness

It's a privilege to be able to observe a meeting of different vendors selling their products, and to see first-hand how sales people really work. It's a lot better than those in exhibition for the unwanted crowd won't be around. With a "controlled" crowd, the observer can then easily spot who is prepared and who's not.

It's frustrating to note though that supposedly a very easy thing to do can become complex and seem impossible. What happened can be summarized in one word, (un)preparedness.

People think that since they are doing things routinely, they can perform anytime with ease. Wrong! So what went wrong? People didn't do their homework!!!

If only they did their homework, they could have performed the task in breeze.

Lesson: Do your homework as detailed as possible.

Convenience

Being always nice is not really good. People tend to exploit/abuse such trait for their own convenience.

Example: Most companies need to report their monthly figures to assess their business whether it's profitable or unprofitable. Usually a person is assigned to do the reporting task. But there are people who will wait for the boss to ask for the report before doing their job. When this happens, the person will conveniently call technical support and give all the reasons just to help them produce the report out. Very convenient!!!!

The best way to deal with this type of people is to let them dig out the data themselves by just telling them where the hard copies can be found.

An easier solution is readily available though, but these people must learn their lessons.

"Give a man a fish, and he'll live for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll live for a lifetime."

Lesson: Don't be always nice!!!