Wishing all Muslim friends - Selamat Berpuasa

It's time again for us to fast the whole month of Ramadhan. Fasting is a must to all muslims. It has many advantages including to rest the stomach which functions relentlessly, to train us to be patient in hunger, to carry out ibadah like prayers and zakat as well as to remember those who are poor and in hunger.

However, there are lots of misunderstanding about puasa. I'm not a Uztaz but as a Muslim i should know what puasa is all about. Parents nowadays buy their requirements for Eid Mubarak even 3 or 4 months before ramadahan begins. Not only food items but also new clothing and house decorations. Ramadhan actually is not a celebaration but an ibadah to Allah. Its worshiping Allah by performing the ibadah of fasting.

Whatever, I hope you all perform this ibadah of fasting in a moderate manner meaning to say don't spend too much on unnecessary things. Spend wisely.

Selamat berpuasa and Selamat Hari Raya Puasa

Don’t Believe Everything You Think.

This is a title of a book by Thomas Kida. Of course, I am not going to write about the content of this book but rather convey some of these ideas to Treasury officers, in particular BEA officers to trigger their mindset to be critical and creative.

We tend to believe whatever we hear rather than really analyzing statistics. As Treasury officers we must be wary of what we hear and should not come to conclusion based on hearsay. Most often, I come across officers who jump to conclusion on issues without thoroughly analyzing the issues. They usually prefer to listen to stories instead of statistical proof. They tend to believe stories told by friends or colleagues. This can easily deviate one from making the right conclusion. Most of us seek to confirm our own ideas and thinking rather than questioning them. In my case, I usually play the devil’s advocate by provoking and testing my ideas on others. This is merely to seek whether they agree or disagree with my opinion. In the process, I’m able to assess their capability in rationalizing issues and more importantly their mental thinking level.

People often tend to over simplify things. Most officers limit their thinking to whatever they believe in. They create boundaries and tend move around that restrictive circle. This is thinking within the box as opposed to thinking out of the box. This sometimes leads us to misperceive the world around us. Seeing is not tantamount to believing. According to an Indian proverb, “what you see with your eyes; what you hear with your ears and what you feel with your hands is not the truth”. Your eyes can deceive you. Your ears can trick you. Your hands can cheat you. So the ultimate truth can only be derived through careful scientific analysis. However, human by nature are impatient creatures and very quick to draw conclusion. This implies to most of us.

We have faulty memories. We are forgetful. We don’t even remember everything that happened day before. In that case, how could we retrace those things that occurred over the years to refresh our memories. That’s why people tend to make the same mistakes over and over again. In order to avoid this, organization must have proper minutes or documents of previous decisions and outcomes. The failure of past should no be repeated in the future. Having said that, history still does repeat itself or is it rather man who does not learn from his own mistakes.

The Quantum Leap

The country is trapped in the middle-income regime for so long. Other countries which were even below us before have now overtaken us. We need to do some thing urgently and make a giant leap to be a high-income nation. Its not impossible because we have done it before and we can do it again. I say we have done it before..during Mahathir regime we manage to transform from an agriculture based economy to manufacturing based economy. Now during the Najib regime we need to make a quantum leap from manufacturing to creative, innovative and high-value added economy. I think Najib is trying his best by annoucing many new things including the new economic model, the NKRAs, liberalization and most of all the 1Malaysia concept. He is trying to make ppl buy his ideas and concepts to break the country away from the middle income trap.

As always theories,concepts and plans are good only in paper unless translated into action and implementation. The only problem is slow implementation. We are always lacking in implementation. People talk a lot but not aggresive in carrying out the real work on the ground. The other hurdle is that there are lots of manipulation in implementation which deviates the original intention. At last, all quarters blame the government.. the government always become the `scape goat' for failures.


Come Malaysians. We need to move. We need to be one in heart to make this Quantum Leap a reality.

As i said ..we did it b4 and we can do it again.

Chicken chicken chicken

Please read the comments on my entry on `Are you on half day today?' This guy uses anonymous and comments my blog. A real chicken fellow. I know he is my officer works under me but pretend to be somebody else. The english he writes is exactly like when he speaks. HE THINKS I DONT KNOW HIM. But the point here is - how shallow the thinking of young officers. I'm not generalizing that all young officers falls under this category. I know preety well in my organization who works and who dont like to work and who spends time sleeping or sitting at the canteen with friends even during working hours. This kind of officers have the guts to write in my blog commenting about my way of thinking. You know there a few officers in my organization who spend almost half a day at the hospital without even taking leave. There are officers who are fond of taking urgent or medical leave, when they feel like not coming to work. How do you categorize this kind of officers. When I say sarcasm joke, I don't know wheteher this particular officer understands what sarcasm joke means.

He is telling in an efficient organization people only work for 8 hours. Is this true? That's why the government service is in a mess because we have many of this kind of officers. This kind of officers join public service with the aim to come and relax. They think public service today is like public service 20 or 30 years ago. That's why we have many who wants to join PTD even at the expense of leaving good jobs in the private sector with the intention to come and relax in the public sector. MIND YOU OFFICERS WITH THIS KIND OF THINKING AND ATTITUDE - YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. The more officers we have with this kind of thinking and perception, the civil service is going to further deteriorate. They often postpone urgent work at the expense of their own interest.

Another thing, he was telling that I follow my frens opinion and I dont have my own opinion. What's wrong in following others opinion. After all most theories are developed by others and we are following them. Does that means that all the economist and planners are stupid because they follow the opinions and theories of others. How childish the comments are and its shows the level of thinking of these officers. Can you call these officers execellent? These kind of officers will be getting promotions and awards? Mind you, if these ooficers were to become bosses in the future, I wonder how the organization is going to function? and what will happen to the nation?

THINK BEFORE YOU COMMENT - TERLAJAK PERAHU BOLEH DIUNDUR TERLAJAK KATA BURUK PADAHNYA.

Making Use of Others

Habit of making use of others has been going on in history till today. Although religion forbids this habit but individual knowingly or unknowingly keeps on practicing it. This occurs among friends, family members and office mates. It ranges from money matters to personal favors and even taking advantage of someone’s position. If it’s a genuine case one should help. However, most cases center on taking advantage of others. Some may think or don’t realize they are not taking advantage of others. They think it’s normal and it’s alright to go on using others.

I had a friend who always likes to borrow money and never returns back. There is a difference between borrowing and giving. Whenever and wherever you out in group, he never offer to pay or treat others. It’s always the other guys who pay. There are also people who claim other peoples work as their own. Sometimes, you do things in a group but one person claim that it belongs to him or the bulk of the work was his and he claims credit for it. Sometimes, there are also family members, like uncle or niece who can be this type of a person.

Have you ever encountered people like this in your life?

Are you on half-day today?

I called for a meeting the other day. It was about 5.30 pm. A number of my officers turned-up. One or two had to attend meetings outside. One of them went home early because times-up to go home at 4.30pm, as this person’s official working hours is from 7.30 am to 4.30pm. Well, in government office there is a flexi-system known as WP1, WP2 and WP3. Under WP1, you can clock in at 7.30am and go home at 4.30pm or WP2 you clock in at 8.00am and go home at 5.00pm or under WP3 you can come in at 8.30 am and go home at 5.30pm. So I told the officers who turned-up for the meeting a story that my friend from a private sector company told me. My friend said that one day he was about to go home at 6pm, a colleague of him passing by asked him “are you on half-day today”. It seems that in his company everybody normally leaves after 9pm. So anybody who goes home earlier than that they make sarcasm joke that he or she is on half-day leave. Similarly, I asked my officers whether the person who had gone home at 4.30 pm is on half-day leave. From then on, this becomes a sarcasm joke in my office too.

La isla Bonita……

Quite sometimes I didn’t write. Busy with office work. My policy, whatever I do, the priority goes to my office work. Kind of boring but what to do, the nation comes first. Last month went to Madrid, Spain. I really enjoyed the trip. I got a chance to visit the real Madrid stadium. It’s so huge and modern. Part of it is converted into museum like area, exhibiting the photos of players of Real Madrid club from the past to today. They also showcase the cups the team had won. I also visited the stadium where they have the bullfight (Spanish matador). The Spain they have long lunch breaks. At the conference I attended the lunch break is for three hours from 12.00 to 3pm. For dinner, restaurants start operation at 9.00 pm. We were so hungry and we make use of the Malaysian Embassy’s connection to ask the Turkish restaurant to open a bit early at 8.00 pm to serve us. Although the restaurant opened early and we took our seats, they still only started to serve us at 9.00 pm.