End of an Era

I just heard that the program under which I came into my company has not opened for this year. It's an elite program, and I'm wondering why they canceled it. It could be that my group did so badly that they don't want any more people like us anymore...

JUST KIDDING

I'm sure it's because we are so great that the management realize that they could never find any more fresh graduates that could be mentioned in the same breath as us, thus they gave up this futile search, content to have us light the path of our company into eternity.

I feel like the Last Samurai now. Time for some sake.

Business Cards

Many people give me business cards. What I do with them is I put them into this little box which was formerly a chocolate container and now resides in my drawer.

So when do I look at these cards? Say I need a service. If your service is unique, say you sell prosthetic legs, I would call you in case my leg gets blown off by a landmine. If you specialize in shaving body hair, well, you get the picture.

The tough ones are the common ones. I have, at first estimation, over 10 cards from people selling insurance, and around the same number of people selling car parts. So in the case that I would require one of these services, I would be hard pressed to decide who to call. Most likely I would take out all the cards, put them facedown on the table and draw one.

I'm sure many other people behave as I do.

So, if you are passing out business cards, how are you gonna make me or someone like me think of your card when he needs something?

One way would be to put the picture of a sexy girl on the back of your card. Then I would keep it with me and stare at it quietly when meetings get too boring.

This would be a suitable example...

However, if you do this, how about if you give the card to a girl? You would need to put a macho guy on the back. If you put both pictures, I wouldn't be very keen on looking at the back of your card because the gayness of looking at a half-naked guy would cancel out the enjoyment of looking at a half-naked girl.

The more I look the more gay i feel...

Besides, nowadays you can't afford to make the assumption that a guy wants to look at sexy girls or a girl wants to stare at sexy guys. They might be gay or lesbian. Gotta be politically correct nowadays.

So you would need two stacks of cards, one stack with a photo of a hot girl on the back and another stack with a photo of a hot guy on the back.

The conversation would then go like this:

"Hi"

"Hi"

"What's your sexual orientation?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I want to give you a business card"

Clearly, this method is not all that efficient.

So maybe you could put something else on the back of your card. Something useful, like a map of all the train stations in KL. Or maybe something interesting like a haiku:

A piece of paper
Business card
Call me

Fortunately(?), my company has not printed any business cards for me yet, so I do not need to worry how to get people to look at them. When I get them though, I plan to put a picture of a lovely sunset on the back. I'm sure everyone would love to look at that.

Tradition and Fortune Telling

Tradition. The word makes one think of happy things: lion dances, stories told by grandma and little red packets of money.


Yet tradition has its darker side as well. Binding the feet of women to the point of deformity was once a hallowed Chinese tradition as well. Sacrificing human victims to make the sun rise was a sacred ritual of the Aztecs, while arranged marriages were the tradition in most parts of the world in the past, and even today in some places.

Are these traditions good? I doubt any one of us would nod.

Even today, traditions cause us trouble. One tradition I particularly dislike is that of fortune telling. If fortune tellers confine themselves to innocuous statements like "Pisces will find love this month" or "You will grow up to be a great person", I could overlook it. Yet some fortune tellers insist on invoking my ire. At least two of my friends have been told by fortune tellers "You may have problems with this partner of yours". Then they come to me worrying about their compatibility with their boyfriends and imagining problems from nowhere.

Now tell me, if they broke up because of this worry, because they magnify small faults due to this "prophecy", would that signify the prescience of the fortune teller? Or would it be his fault for inducing fear where none existed?

I tend to lean towards the latter interpretation.

Because of this, I highly dislike fortune tellers who make such statements. And there is no use in covering it up with the cloak of "tradition", as that cloak has shielded enough ugliness in the past.

Conning people with some mumbo-jumbo is easy. Just say things like "You are often a friendly and outgoing person, but you have times when you prefer solitude." Or "This month there will be opportunities for you, but also challenges. You will meet new people who may charm you." Vague, vague statements.

If a fortune teller could give me a lottery number that won I would be impressed. However so far I have never heard of that. Praying to your ancestors would be more effective I gather.

And if one more person makes an "end of the world" prediction, I will do my best to resist the temptation of looking for them and throwing them off a cliff.

Don't do good stuff all at once

My friend was telling me about certain relatives. One of them had bought a house for his parents; his brother gave the parents a sum of money every month. Though the money spent by the first was far more, my friend felt that the second was better, as he contributed to his parents constantly and steadily.

This reminds me of a famous quote:

"Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense; benefits ought to be handed out drop by drop, so that they may be relished the more."

- Niccolo Machiavelli

What he means is that if you want to do bad things, do them all in one go, but if you want to do good things, spread them out.

So remember, if you want to do people favors, ten small favors are better than one big one. Ten small presents are better than one big one, even if they cost less money.

And buying many small inexpensive presents for your bf/gf is better than buying one big one.

BERSIH

I suppose tomorrow a lot of people are going to be shouting in a stadium somewhere, and a few people are going to have a tea party with the Sultan. Doesn't sound way out of the ordinary right? Yea it shouldn't be. To be honest, the goal of "fair and honest elections" seem to be so natural that they hardly seem a goal at all. It's like saying "eat three meals a day" is a goal.

The fact that we have to state this as a goal doesn't reflect wonderfully on our society, does it?

Actually I think the government is not handling this as well as they could have. The way to stop a movement is not to suppress it forcefully, but to gently smother it to death.

By shouting up and down about the wrongness of this rally, the government is clearly saying that "yes we have done fishy stuff in the election". It's like you want to check my bag for your lost Ipod and I keep saying "this is improper!"

What the govt should do is to throw their arms open and say that they are in complete agreement with these aims and will do their best to support it and check on elections. They should also provide an area for the Bersih rally with free drinks, etc. Then a high-profile "anti-election fraud committee" should be named and give talks in the newspapers and television channels etc. The Bersih rally leaders should also be given a (televised) banquet by the Sultan and commended publicly. Of course all this will cost a bit of tax money, but you can't have an omelet without breaking a couple of eggs, right?

If anyone from BN is reading this and wants to hire me as a strategic consultant, please email me. Remuneration is negotiable.