William

Year end, Raining Season.. We kinda expecting raining every now and then. Back in Singapore, I really cannot recall if I ever did curse a raining day before. The reason is simple, We have everything well connected. From underpass to Train station, Buses, Bus Stop and Interchange.. We, despite the smallest country in the world, has one of the best drainage system.

We are SO covered.

However.. In Jakarta, things are not so smooth.. Had took a few pictures when I was in my friend’s car. It only rain for a night. Just maybe for about 5 hours. And it had caused the follow damages:

From the above picture, you can see the water level from the big drain almost reach the same level with the road…

Well, the water is about 20 – 30 cm high..

There you see, a poor driver fixing his bus… And all these, because of a day rain (which did not last for more than 6 hours). Welcome to Jakarta!

It would have been impossible with only 1 trainer to do this. Imagine the responsibilities of Products training.. And now, the company decided to add training like Motivation, Effective Communications and Service attitude etc. These are not easy at all.

I am blessed with two guys who has always been doing these sort of training. Like Lego, we built the system up bits by bits. The process is really tough, almost torn my mind. Nevertheless, we managed to come up with training modules that are really impressive.

To have another training company to do the same job, it will easily cost 15 millions RP (abt Sing dollars 2200) per day. Honestly, this is just all too much to pay for front liners who have not even started working for us. I am not implying that they are not worth the money. I am trying to state the simple fact that thr ROI don’t make any sense.

However, the training department did it again. Our in-house brand new training modules for out staff. I am proud.

Well, not surprise to me to see a old classmate in Indonesia. Back in the early 90s in Singapore, there was an steady incoming wave of Indonesia students studying in Singapore local government schools. Most of their result were good. In fact, for local town schools standard, their results were among the top.

In Chinese, we had a saying: “Rather to be the Head of a Rooster, then to be the Tail of a OX”.

Better to be top in XYZ Secondary School, then to be last in Raffles School.

I still rem my first crush with a schoolmate and she is from Indonesia too. I got all those horrible stories about Jakarta Airport from her. And to be fair, it is still as horrible as she had described to me. About 16 years ago..

Back to the topic, I saw an old friend today (nope, not my first crush). He is so surprised to see me. I mean he called me first, a few times. I stood there looking at him hard.

“Who the hell is this old man?” I was puzzled.

Until he carried on telling me the crazy stuff we did together, I believed him. But man, this dude aged. I was dumb folded when I saw him.

He was surprised by my look. “You never changed a bit! How did you maintained it so well?”

Dude, I did not maintain anything. I do admit that I don’t fit in with the usual crowd now. Especially the last wedding dinner (Steven and Betty). The same table, the same schoolmates, everyone married, except me.. I don’t know how to explain to you guys how my look don’t change at all. I cannot explain to you how you guys look so old now. Is it because we are in our mid 30s now we are supposed to look old. Supposed to have a wife or husband, supposed to have at least 2 or 3 kids running around you? Is there a universal policy on what we should be doing, how we should look like and etc?

I really don’t think so.

I admit that I never age a day since 1998. But that was 10 years ago. What happened to you guys?

I ordered “The Jakarta Post” since mid of June. I was told that this is one of the BETTER English newspaper here. Placed the order with my Lobby receptionist. Paid 150K RP every month.

The newspaper, is very very boring. Beside some interesting photo-shoot on the local “Poverty”, “Poor children begging”, “Rubbish and Waste”, there really nothing much.

4 months of reading, I am surprised by the continuous flow of bribery cases. Ministers & Ex-Governors been implicated almost EVERYDAY. Education is poorly structured and planned. Local Transportation is not working. And the elections and politics are really so no happening.

I had read so much to THE extent that, I can repeat their political manifesto and blend in my own..

Oh, you find it lame? Hey, there are about 20 over parties. About 6 parties fighting for a single Governor seat in somewhere somehow. And when they listed out their “Plan”. It is kinda same as what I had mentioned. Just a bit of changing the words, using Oxford Thesaurus.

It is plain, it is simple, it is the same. And it will not be carried out because 5 years later, Indonesia remains the same. No improvement with lots of empty promises. And it is so ironic, Indonesia bring down Suharto because they want democracy. However, records has shown that Indonesia economy is the strongest during his era. USD 1 for 2500 rp. Now? it just broke 10 000 rp last few days. So before you start telling me Singapore do not enjoy democracy, I have to remind you it is Sing dollars $1 to 6600 rp.

Singapore is not a 100% free market. I agreed. Government intervention is there. However, we are closest to Hong Kong in Asia market. Democracy come with a price. Is it worth it? And freedom of speech should be exercised with caution, mean saying things with responsibilities. It does not mean that Democracy and Freedom is the absolute must in every country, does your culture fit in well?

I don’t really recall any suicide bomber driving around Iraq when Saddam was in control. Now, suicide bombing in Iraq is hotter than PussyCatDolls performing live in New York.

Anyway, back to THE JAKARTA POST. I hated the payment collection officer of “The Jakarta Post”, to the very core. Every month (middle of the month actually), he will use naive, retarded ways to collect his newspaper payment.

This time round, he crossed the line. He actually called my cellphone on 8:35am, and said:

“Mr William. Me Jakarta Post. Please come out from your Apartment. Me outside now.”

What do you mean by Come Out From Your Apartment? And when I tried to explain to him it is bloody 8:30am and I am on my way to Office, he hung his phone up.

after 5 mins, my Lobby receptionist called me. Repeating what the Mr Jakarta Post said, my receptionist told me to “He want you to come out from your Apartment..”

OMG, I am darn darn pissed. What are you trying to say you dick brain? I am hiding in my apartment to avoid the payment of 150 k RP? It is less than 25 Sing dollars for Christ sake! I think I actually shouted..

I told the receptionist that I will stop ordering the Jakarta Post. No big deal that you lost a customer. But big deal to me because you spoilt my morning. Go fly kite with your 150 k RP.

The new MacBook and MacBook Pro. Redesigned, from both engineering and designing perspective. Many called it “breathe-taking”.

But I really dun like it!

It has nothing to do with my 1st PowerBook G4, MBP. I just don’t really like the new design. I miss my Matte Screen because I hated glossy screen more than anyone else. I past my free time doing coding (programming), doing web design (in which I always work on HTML coding).

It is so reflective! The color of the video or pictures will look nice only when you switch the light off! Sigh~

And I hate the keyboard & Trackpad! It is so hard to type on a keyboard that has a spacing in-between the keys. I have to “spread-open” my fingers a bit to type. And after a shortwhile, my poor fingers will be really so tired.

Beside, I love using a keyboard skin. It make it so much easier and quiet to type. This “new” MBP design came from MacBook. And the Air vent are all in-between the keys. So it will not make sense to use a keyboard skin / protector, your Laptop will be even hotter.

I hate the trackpad. All in my life, I hate to tap on the trackpad to perform primary function. Oh, you can ask my girlfriend. Everytime I used her laptop, I will switch the preferences to “no-tap-function”. She will be quite pissed at me whenever I did that w/o switching it back. In so, I even wrote a AppleScript to change the settings to mine and back to hers by just one click.

Traditional laptops have two buttons for left and right click. Apple always come in one and I can live with that. I am so used to using my index finger to navigate around the screen and my thumb to click on the button for selection.

Now… Apple removed the only button. I think Apple is forcing me to snap then to tap..