Rant 915 / It Was Never There!

Since I'm not bound by normal office hours, I find that there is no need for me to complete my tasks during weekdays and between late morning and early evening.

In fact, I can work at any time I want, including during holidays.

I'm not bound by the concept of "office hours" directly, although for tasks that involve other people I have no choice but to do them within the proper hours.

For example, since I have nothing going on on Monday, which is a public holiday due to the New Year's Day falling on the preceding Sunday, I'll be working then.

Why not?

Basically, there is nothing separating working hours and rest time for me. As long as I can complete my tasks on time, when I do them does not matter.

Hence I'm working tomorrow and Monday.















Maybe someday, employees will be paid based on the entire company's performance.

I'm not talking about bonuses.

I'm thinking perhaps they will peg their salary to the net revenue of the company.

Maybe 0.007% in a large company, for example.

It would be kinda like shareholders. In fact, employees and shareholders should be regarded as the same, except they contribute differently to the company.

It's like the difference between volunteers and donators - it really isn't that big.

This way, it will be much fairer and it strongly instils into everyone's minds the fact that they're all working together in the same organization.

This will obviously accompany huge changes in the economy, either followed by them or following them.

For example, a company that pays its employees this way can easily create its own currency for reasons like meals and such services provided by the company. Subsequently, it can pay its employees with it.

For example, a meal in the company's canteen can cost 0.00000015%. Obviously they're going to find some way to shorten that. Maybe remove all the zeroes the way we use the term "calories" (they're never in calories, but kilocalories, yet nobody cares because it's shorter).

This way, it won't have to issue actual money, which definitely is a good thing because it can then keep a smaller pool of liquid assets.

This currency will basically be denoted by a percentage of the expected annual performance, that of the previous year or that of each quarter. The exchange rate can then be adjusted on a quarterly or annual basis.

This may encourage employees to hold on to their company's currency longer hoping that it will give them a better rate in the future, especially if a new product launch is planned in the near future.

If these happen, then it will be inevitable that there will be exchange rates between each company's currencies unless it becomes explicitly banned by law, perhaps because it threatens the existence of each country's own currency.

Because to be honest, would you prefer the Indian Rupee to the Apple Inc Dollar?

Rant 914 / Candles. Lots Of Them.

I totally didn't expect that.



























Been buying quite a number of games I've been waiting for.

Solar 2 and Nuclear Dawn were probably my best decisions.

The former was very interesting, although I'm not sure if it's going to last long.

I've already got the achievement award and gone through the Big Crunch. Technically I've completed the game but I don't think the game's merely about growing.

As for Nuclear Dawn, it's just like Empires (HL2 mod) but focused entirely on infantry combat.

Too bad. Tanks would have been totally epic.

Still, it's one of the few lesser-known games out there that's really professionally made and pretty much crash-free for me.

And today, I shall buy New Vegas with all the DLCs that contain campaigns and Sandbox Universe.

I'll most likely open the latter soon to get the achievement.

Speaking of achievements, I've gotten them for the ones I can play on Steam except for Rise of the Immortals and Crimecraft Gangwars. 19 in total at this point.

Other than coals, all I've received are 2 useless 50% off coupons.

My bro got something better, but it was just the Tropico trilogy.

Never got around to giving away any games. That was a bad idea to begin with.

Rant 913 / Art Is Money

And I thought Malaysian movie trailers were bad.

Then movie trailers from Ghana surfaced on Youtube.














Perhaps things aren't as bad they look. Perhaps it's just my mentality.

Perhaps I just need to find ways to make things more enjoyable for myself.











It doesn't matter what I do anymore regarding my mother, I think.

I wonder if the doctors can raise the dosage and bring her back again.

All she does is stare at me when I visit. She recognizes me but her short term memory doesn't seem to work very well anymore.

She responds once in a while but mostly, she just stares at me as I describe my work to her in my daily monologues.

I wonder if she remembers her short stay at home on Christmas.

She thinks I joke when I ask her whether she recognizes me.

How can I tell if she does when she doesn't react to most of the things I say?

For all I know I could be a total stranger to her.

There would have been too many things that I regret if not for the fact that I wouldn't have known nor learnt if this isn't happening.

Things that one can regret are the mistakes made after the lesson was already learnt.

They aren't these.

Her memory isn't completely gone - she still remembers her phone. She asked me for it today after I forgot to hand it back to her when I accompanied her back to the hospice after the home visit.

But she is confused. Contrary to what she recalled to me, my bro never visited her yesterday.

I wonder what my bro is thinking.

He seems to be thinking that as long as I visit her, it's ok that he doesn't.

Does he treat this as some kind of chore?

Or is he such an escapist?

If the doctor can't revert her condition by raising the dosage again, I don't think she will be conscious by Feb.

There aren't many opportunities for us to talk to her anymore.

Why does he visit her only weekly at most?

He fears too much.

I fear too, but I've long come to the conclusion that not thinking about something will not make it go away. In most situations, ignoring an issue will only make it worse.

One of the volunteers asked me why he rarely comes.

I couldn't answer her.

Neither do I want to talk to him about it.

It is a bad idea to strain my relationship with him because we live in the same flat.

I remind him to visit her once in a while, but I do not want to push.

I'm hoping his girlfriend would do it for me, although I have a feeling that his girlfriend is as much of an escapist as he is.

I wonder if he understands the magnitude of the sorrow he will feel when it finally hits him that he will never be able to talk to her again, and that he never did even when she was around.

For me, I have the rest of my life to feel sad about how I barely know anything about my father's life.














His mother is lonely. We spoke to her at length about some things after the Christmas dinner, but one topic stood out in our conversation - her marriage.

The overall feel I get by the end of the discussion is that she is lonely and unable to let go of him.

It may not be his fault that his heart changed and he got bored of this steady marriage, but it is his fault to act on it despite their mutual trust not to break the matrimony.

On one hand, it is the rest of his life that we're talking about after all.

On the other hand, it also concerns the rest of her life.

In such a situation, the fault lies in the person who acts first for his/her own benefit.

If one had acted in favour of the other's interest, then can one say that nobody is at fault.

The reason is that the root of the problem is the ability of both parties to let go.

If either side is unable to do so, neither should do it.

That she is so eager to talk about such private matters with people she sees only once or twice a year shows how much she needs someone to talk to and how much she needs to release her frustrations.

I wonder if she will become depressed like my mother did.

She probably shouldn't be left alone. If she's anything like my mother, she's going to arrive at strange conclusions after thinking too much on her own.

In the years following my father's death, my mother came up with all kinds of reasons to explain it, including the feng shui of his usual dining chair.

That, IMO, definitely wasn't normal, but I didn't know what to do then.

By the time I realized she was passively suicidal, it was already too late.













What one wants and what one gets are not always the same.

It's like a river - one can try and shift it but one cannot just stop it wherever one wants it to.

Hence, compromise.

I don't want to work but I have to. So I compromise by spending more to make it more comfortable for myself.

Everyone makes compromises in life.

It's like Rule 34 - no exceptions.

People just can't live without compromising. It's as simple as that!

Rant 912 / Why Aren't They Telling Business Owners At Orchard That They Should Just Set Up Their Shops Elsewhere If They Can't Handle The Floods?

You know something has to be wrong when you think that this teacher had sex with a 14-year-old married father.












I have difficulty deciding how large a bonus I should give my workers.

I know how much my mum used to pay them, yet I cannot give the same.

It's not just about the lower profits this year but also about how much they work.

For once, my mum is not answering my question about work when I asked her this.

Even in her current confused state, she is willing to give me advice, albeit unreliable ones.

This is the only part of the job where she is not telling me what to do at all.

I don't want to give them as much as they are used to but neither do I want to offend them.

What if they complain to me about the smaller bonus?

What if they compare it with what my mum used to pay them?

They have to have less respect for me already by now. I don't want them to dislike me enough to think they can take advantage of my lack of experience.

Why do people seem to envy my job?

In a couple years' time, I'll probably have to sack the older one too.

How do I fire someone who's worked with my predecessor for over a decade and with me for half that?

Yet I won't be able to let her stay. There is simply no work here for someone with a bad back and failing memory, things which are typical of people past their retirement age.

As the owner of this business, I must keep in mind its primary purpose - to profit.

Of course I'll keep her as long as she remains a productive employee, but after that, I wonder if she will understand.

It would be for the best if she would voluntarily retire before that happens to take care of her grandchildren like her predecessor did.

Funny. I used to think that that would really suck because I'd lose an experienced helper.

Now, I see that it is really the best case scenario.














Yet again, I'm learning a new lesson.

I must always book my business trips early. Always.

The nightly rates of the hotel I'm planning to book has just been raised. Now I have to fork out a few hundred dollars more for the trip to Korea.

I will still ask my friends because it feels wasteful to have a twin bed room to myself, which is sometimes the cheapest room available. Even the double bed felt a little excessive.

Despite the prices of the rooms of this hotel, breakfast is not included.

It's not exactly an issue because it's located among plenty of malls, but it just means it's more expensive than I expected for a 3-star hotel.

Coincidentally this hotel also appeared in a "best value hotels in Seoul" list in Yahoo that appeared today.

I wonder if that made the hotel jack up the prices.

I also wonder if I'm looking at the right places.

As of now, I have yet to discover whether there is a place where the Korean wholesalers congregate the way the Shanghainese ones do at Qipu Road.

All attempts at googling for an answer led me to online wholesalers instead.

Since I can't find their physical locations, I'm settling for a shopping trip instead.


I also have the same idea for Milan. If I were to go to Europe, Paris and Milan are the two places that come to my mind first.

I have read and heard a lot about the former, but really little about the latter.

Going to Milan is not a necessity for my job but I'm willing to organize a shopping trip for my friends during winter.

Rant 911 / Luggage Stores

It used to be normal that I would feel sleepy throughout the day, but not quite to the degree that I'd be able to fall asleep. Just lethargic, and don't want to do anything but sit and play.

I haven't felt that since some time ago.

I still want to sit and play all day but I don't feel lethargic even though I've been sleeping only 6 hours every night since I returned from Shanghai, except for the first night I returned.

Yet I'm not losing weight. I must be eating too much unhealthy stuff, like BK and the durians.

Or I've been gaining muscle mass.

There goes my prediction that I could lose that 2kg by Christmas and get out of IPT.













As much as I'd like to say that things are awesome and I'm going to make my first million by 30, I cannot.

I'm making plenty of mistakes that my mother had warned me about before, one of which was the mistake of forgetting about the other costs of selling something. I've been reminding myself about them for almost everything except that one time when I was deciding the prices for the rejected samples.

Small mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless.

I have a feeling that I'm failing, but I must keep going. It's not about confidence and optimism, nor is it about what I can or want to do; it's about doing what must be done.

This is what I learnt from observing the Chinese mainlanders. They don't just look at opportunities within their limits. Like 50 Cent's album, they "get rich or die tryin'." Plenty of them have died trying but people just don't talk about those.

It's also partly what I learnt from my own parents, because that's exactly what they did. Selling clothing was never the expertise of my father. He was into silk printing for most of his working life before he set up this business in Singapore.

I came to this conclusion only when I found ancient certificates of registration of a partnership firm that does silk printing in the dusty drawers at home, and combined this with the things my mother told me about his life when he first started working in Hong Kong.

For my mother, she was only a seamstress before she took over the business. In other words, she had even less experience in running a business than I did before I took over. My father never taught her anything, unlike how she did for me.

Believe it or not, my bro and I had to lend her sizable amounts of money from our (sacred, almost untouchable) inheritance every year until about 3-4 years ago.

Now it's my turn. In exchange for a ready-made system that's already working fine, I have other prices to pay.

And issues to watch out for.

For example, I just realized a buyer, despite her friendliness, is trying to manipulate me to do part of her job for her.

Unfortunately, doing that benefits me too. It's basically a win-win situation but still, I don't like how she made it sound like it's all about helping me.










Water transport on the Singapore River?

Inb4 they charge river taxes similar to road taxes: ERP - Electronic River Pricing.




Is it just me or does ERP also read like "ear rape"?
















Next destination in my list is South Korea. I must go during winter, but due to work commitments and festivals, there is only a short period of time in January in which I can go there.

Currently planning to go on the 9th and returning on the 13th, but the only flights remaining by now leave at midnight of Friday, meaning I need to get out of the hotel on Thursday.

The alternative is Saturday, but Expedia.com.sg is not showing any available flights for pre-dawn on Saturday. Instead on that day, I get that really convenient timing of 8.55am.

So it's either book the hotel for 3 nights from Monday to Wed (check out on Thu), or 5 nights from Mon to Fri (check out on Sat).

I can't get the 5D4N that I wanted unless I pay hundreds more for a more expensive flight that leaves at the time I want.

I guess everyone wants to get home by Saturday afternoon.

As for hotel, obviously it will be in Seoul. I'm only going for one or two parts of the city, because I only want to see the best area(s) for now.

If I go for the 3-night stay, it will be cheaper. The 5-night option is more expensive per night on average, probably because of the Friday night.

Fine, I'll take the Mon-Sat option. Both flights would depart at in the morning and arrive in the evening.

That should give me 4 days.

Rant 910 / Survivalists Are OP In Die2Nite

That feel when I pay for a S$245 bottle of Martell XO cognac with a S$1000 bill.

That feel, man.

That fricking awesome feel.

There's also another awesome feeling when I realized I had made the cashier clear her store of S$100 and S$50 bills, but that's a lot less significant.

It happened at the duty-free shop at the airport and I forgot about it until now.

It's not going to repeat a lot in the rest of my life, so I've got to note this down in case I forget this forever.


(Note: I'm not filthy rich. That bottle's an offering for my late father.)










It's so ironic when the church near my mum's hospice says "All are welcome," in bold outside, yet the gate and door are always closed.

It gets more ironic when the Hindu temple next door is really always open even though they don't say it with a big sign.











Busy busy busy. Not as busy as my buyers. Those are really busy. It's amazing how long and hard they work.

Personally I don't think it's worth the money, but that's just my opinion.

In the medium term, there are lots of things to do.

In fact I think I'll only stop being busy... oh wait, I'll never stop being busy as long as I want to maintain my current level of income.

Things will cool down a little after the lunar new year though. I'll still not be able to stay home and play as much as I used to, but it will get closer.

I think.









Managers are not merely the central gear of a machine that drives other smaller gears.

No, managers are also the lubricant of the machine.

One person, two jobs (at least).










This year, I will not make as much as I could have.

Too late to do much.

The best I can do is pressure my workers.

Meanwhile I have people to talk to and questions to ask.

Very annoying people.

Buggers received my orders months ago and I'm not seeing a frickin thread being delivered here yet.

It's already frickin CHRISTMAS ON SUNDAY!

I'm going to have to settle for Chinese New Year next month.

This month's Christmas is confirmed FUBAR.

Obviously I'm not happy but on a brighter note, I'm still making more than what I'd ever imagined I'll make.

Hence I'm buying plenty of discounted games on Steam. Stockpiling them before I decide what to send to who just before Christmas.

For example, I've got Recettear and Chantelise and I think I know who to send them to.

Doesn't matter if they give anything back to me - it's stupid to call something a "gift" if you expect something in return.

It would be a trade instead, and there are no freebies in a trade.

Every time someone gives you a freebie for buying something, it's actually covered by the price of the item you bought.

I can sell a motorboat, or I can sell a boat with a free motor for the same price.

Rant 909 / Why Did I Wake Up At 8.30AM?

My workers are slacking.

I've finally come to this very disappointing conclusion yesterday.

Before, I've never checked the orders that we receive from the buyers. I trust them to process and send everything that is being asked for.

I've received multiple complaints of orders not being fully delivered in recent months, but I'd always thought it was because they were out of stock.

Yesterday, when one buyer gave me two designs to check, both of which were listed in her previous two orders, I discovered we had plenty of those in stock.

Blame, firstly, falls on myself for being too lax.

Being a complete newbie in management, I'd expected the workers to do their jobs just because my mum, their ex-boss, is dying.

If not for me, do it for her, right?

But no, they had to slack despite knowing that the more they work now during this peak period, the larger the bonus I pay them.

I'm too trusting but they, as middle-aged women with children, should have understood the meaning of "obligations" better than I do.

No wonder they're still stuck with a part-time job at this stage of their lives.

I don't want to micromanage.

I don't have a choice now.












I've finally got a reply from Mindef.

It wasn't from Mindef directly, and they didn't give me an answer in black and white.

Whatever.

My interpretation of the answer I've received, which may or may not be accurate, is that they don't even want to clarify what is and isn't allowed to be discussed.

I understand.

Therefore I'll keep it off my blog.

After all, I'm in no position to argue - there isn't a single star on my rank epaulette.

Nobody wants these 909 rants to disappear all of a sudden, least of all myself.














Youtube has surprisingly many girls using their looks to make really bad reply videos that are basically... empty, kinda like that chick whose videos are just her staring into the camera.

Except there are words for these video replies.

Why bother?











Steam Xmas sale is up and I made several impulsive decisions to buy games that I don't really want.

Bunch of Heroes was a particularly bad choice, and it's only the first day of the sale which will end on New Years Day next year.

The game itself really isn't bad, but it just crashes too much.