More Without Meetings

The amount of work I accomplished in the last three days is a lot more than all the past months put together, simply because daily meetings have been canceled for this week!!

Voted Off

When the corporation I worked for failed to reach its targeted revenue for the year, it was announced the CEO would be leaving because of personal reasons, although everyone knew he was voted off the island.

As employees, many of us are also vulnerable to be voted off whenever a business or corporation restructures or fails to perform well. Sometimes we might be selected for layoff because of ‘personal reasons’ like our lack of exceptional performance, and at times because we outperformed our superiors or specially valued peers.

Are we upset or unhappy because we have been voted off the island? Are we feeling bitter or unjustified because of layoffs for the wrong reasons, such as outperforming or unwittingly crossing a person?

If we are, let’s not and let go. It’s not worth losing our head or heart over what’s gone. There’s no need for us to feel ashamed if we are asked to go for whatever the reason because with every closed door is another door waiting to be discovered. Stay upbeat for new challenges ahead.

Pushy Bosses

Just when I thought switching from helpdesk support to corporate writing would eliminate the endless certification required in my career, my supervisor is now telling me to get certified for the same tests the helpdesk people are expected to take.

I have been in the information technology (IT) industry for more than 15 years with the first eight years in helpdesk technical support. As I grew sick of taking certification again and again, knowing there is no end to it, I decided to quit the line completely.

Now, although I am working in an IT corporation, I am merely a writer, and for the first five years, all was fine. With the recent transfer to write for HQ corporate marketing, however, my American supervisor based in Taiwan, with the backing of the fierce Taiwanese lady boss, is forcing me to get certified, constantly querying me on when I will sit for the test.

My supervisor made it clear that unless I get certified for several papers required by him, my year end assessment will be in jeopardy. My answer to his latest query is as follows …

Dear {supervisor}

In answer to your question, all I can say for now is [I'll take the test] when I am ready and prepared, if I get a chance to finish reading the wireless text, digest its content, commit it to memory, and put myself through some tests.

As of now, every time I get down to reading a chapter or two, I would be interrupted and tasked to do something else, so I can only get back to reading the text and jotting down some notes whenever time is available at hand.

Hope you can understand the difficulty.


Regards
{my name}

P.S. Writing takes time and requires extensive research, rethinking, redrafting and more.

Hostile Work Environment

Ever since the department I worked in was dissolved after a hostile takeover by another, I have had a hard time adapting to the new top-down management style of my new boss.

Just yesterday, I had an intellectual argument with my new department head (stationed at another country) about the importance of the media when writing press releases and news feature story in an email copied to my new supervisor as well. After several to and fro email correspondences, I decided it should end, so I thanked her and signed off.

All I need now is calm in my heart, and I'm not asking for more. In a few days time, my current new supervisor will be leaving the organization and her position will be replaced by another. My prayer is that everything will turn out fine, but for now, it's wait and see.

Staying Employed

When you are too free at work
And you are bored
It is a sure tell tale sign
You may soon lose your job

When you are too busy at work
And you feel you are indispensable
It is a good sign
But where is life

Whether you're free or busy
There is no guarantee
Or permanent employability
So look out and pave
Your alternatives
Your destiny

Fallen ...

After two days of consecutive 'marathon' working on study assignment through early mornings up till 3am and 4am, I am now fallen ... taken ill with dizzy spells.

However, even when a person is sick, work don't get done by itself, so I'll still be needing to slog, even with a 'swimming' head. I really need a break badly, but with about six written assignments to go and an exam third week of next month, all pleasants dreams are forgotten and I just have to continue to hang on!

My Earnest Prayer

Over the last month
I've sought and prayed
That God will bless me
Day after day
To cope with my studies, work, and faith
To manage my life by God's grace
To rely on Him in my weaknesses
To draw from Him
Strength in all circumstances
To exercise miraculous power
To do what is humanly considered impossible
To make things happened
The way my employer wants
Even when my knowledge of it is next to none
In faith I seek God's help
To meet my earthly master's demands
To do what is right
To do it well

In dazzle I walk each day
Because of endless nights
And blurring days
My studies are overdue
Going down the drain
With untouched textbooks
Unattended classes
Things are not performing
According to the needed pace

Grant me O God ability to perform
The things I know not how
Bestow to me Your wisdom
Especially when I am unsure
Let me know and make me clear
Let my life be Yours to do
Wth me the way you want it to
Let me know Your presence and Your grace
In whatever I do and at wherever the place
Teach me O God to include You
in all my plans and in what I do
To live my life just for You

How Spiders Work

An orb-spinning spider puts its elegant traps together pretty quickly, proceeding easily from step to step according to the instruction manual preprogrammed into its brain. The diagram below shows the major steps.

Every web begins with a single thread, which forms the basis of the rest of the structure. To establish this bridge, the spider climbs to a suitable starting point (up a tree branch, for example) and releases a length of thread into the wind. With any luck, the free end of the thread will catch onto another branch. If the spider feels that the thread has caught onto something, it cinches up the silk and attaches the thread to the starting point.

It walks across the thread, releasing a looser thread below the first one. It attaches this thread on both ends and climbs to its center. The looser strand sags downward, forming a V shape. The spider lowers itself from this point, to form a Y-shape. This forms the core support structure of the web.

The spider easily grips the thin threads with special serrated claws, a smooth hook and a series of barbed hairs on the end of its legs. As it walks along the initial structural threads, it lays more frame threads between various anchor points. Then it starts laying out radius threads from the center of the web to the frames. The spider does not coat the frame and radius threads with sticky material, since it needs to walk across them to get around the web.

After building all the radius threads, the spider lays more non-stick silk to form an auxiliary spiral, extending from the center of the web to the outer edge of the web. The spider then spirals in on the web, laying out sticky thread and using the auxiliary spiral as a reference. The spider eats up the auxiliary spiral as it lays out the sticky spiral, resulting in a web with non-sticky radius threads, for getting around, and a sticky spiral for catching bugs.

The spider sits in the middle of its web, monitoring the radius threads for vibrations. If an insect gets caught in any part of the web, the spider will feel the motion through the radius threads and make its way to the vibration source. In this way, the web extends the spider's sensory system over a much wider area. The spider might also leave the web, to retreat to a separate nest, while monitoring the web via a connected signal line.

Web-spinning spiders have an innate ability to tell the difference between vibrations from insect prey and vibrations from other sources (a leaf falling into the web, for example). Many species can also distinguish the characteristic vibrations of dangerous insects, such as wasps, from their preferred prey.

When the orb web has deteriorated and is no longer useful, many spider species will destroy it, eating up all the threads so it can recycle the raw silk material. Spiders may leave the heavy bridge thread so that they can easily rebuild the web at a later point.

For an animated illustration of how spider works, and a more detailed write-up, please visit: How Stuff Works.

Work of Passion

There is a passion that man knows not
A passion only employers seem to understand
The passion they call passion for the job
That accepts all things beyond boundaries
Mediocre pay and many other duties

The dictionary defines passion
Of a very powerful feeling
That goes beyond love hate anger and emotion
The drive to reach and achieve
The unseen impossibilities
A suffering that endures inflicted pain
The state of being acted upon
In subjection to external influence
A disorder of the mind
A kind of madness
To which we choose
A state we express our passion
Of madness or of drive
Is up to employers to define

To a person who wish to join
Only the passionate will they employ
Of one who works the extra mile
With passion and love to die for
Of expressed willingness to take
Beyond ascribed duties for position engaged
The one who is unconcerned for wages paid

The passion only employers understand
Is not a passion any heart can comprehend
It is a passion underlining sufferings
That endures inflicted pain
From external influence imposed
To mean passion in subjection
In bringing disorder of the mind
To drive us crazy far beyond
The state of madness for simple minds

Time and Money

When you have the money, you seldom have the time, and when you have the time, you are likely to be short of money. That is the irony of life.
When a person has lots of time at hand, he or she is probably a student, a home maker, a freelancer, a contract worker temporary unengaged for duties, an unemployed, or very rich. For an average adult who are neither rich nor a beggar, he or she is probably without work, awaiting assignment, or in transit.
The best time for a person to relax or engage in doing things he or she really likes, is when he or she is without active work. Unfortunately, things that a person likes are usually hobbies, travelling, or other leisure pleasures, and all these activities cost money. Because the person is not actively engaged in income making work, all these pleasures of life are seldom realisable. Hence, the person labours and works hard to obtain the money so as to fulfill wants, but when the cash rolls in, there is simply no time to take leave to engage in leisure pleasures or hobbies. Even if leave is possible, it is often engaged with a non restful mind, stressed by work that are impending, hence, such leisure becomes non-pleasurable.
The reality of life on earth is such. People work hard to get money so that they can have enough for survival and to spend time on leisure, but time is what they don't have. Forgoing the job to find time to de-stress and engage in pleasure on the other hand may be unwise, because without active work, the mind finds no rest and is pressured to find new avenues for survival.
This is the irony between time and money.