Friday, September 06, 2013

i miss u

its hard to start this again after leaving it for so long... but i miss u so much dear blog! i wanna blame it on life but to be honest, these past one year and a half have been some of the best years ever, work wise :) i think ive found my calling in life haha anyway, it felt good to be back! i will not promise to write more etc..who knows, after this small post, i might not write for another year haha but i will never close this blog, so as long as it stays open, somedays you will still see my writings :) happy to be back, yup.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

no, you are not "running late", you are rude and selfish

if there's one thing that i am deeply ashamed about myself is the fact i am not a punctual person..which can be pretty annoying to one of my best friend is super duper punctual..

so this year, im making a supreme effort to be punctual...

reading this article below made me realise how badly i behaved and frankly i am surprised that my best friend forgives me still despite being late all the time! she must love me lots hehehe

anyway, if you are only making one resolution this new year, lets do this one, ok?

taken from HERE

This post may offend some readers. But only because it’s going to cut close to the bone for many.

And I don’t care if I sound old-fashioned, because actually it’s nothing to do with ‘fashion’ or ‘generation’. It’s got everything to do with basic good manners and respect for other people.

So here goes… How did it get to be “OK” for people to be late for everything?

Because as far as I am concerned, it’s not OK.

In recent years it seems that a meeting set to start at 9 am, for some people means in the general vicinity of any time which starts with the numeral ‘9’. Like 9.30 for example.

People drift in at 9.10 or 9.20, or even later. And they smile warmly at the waiting group, as they unwrap their bacon sandwich, apparently totally unconcerned that others have been there since five to nine, prepared and ready to start.

10 people kept waiting in a meeting for 20 minutes, while some selfish pratt who idles his way via the coffee shop, is actually 20 minutes times 10, which is 200 minutes wasted – while you keep us waiting because you did not catch the earlier bus. That is over 3 hours wasted. By you! How much has that cost the business? Shall I send you an invoice?

And an arrangement to meet someone for a business meeting at a coffee shop at 3 pm, more often than not means at 3.10 you get a text saying ‘I am five minutes away’ which inevitably means 10 minutes, and so you wait for 15 or 20 minutes, kicking your heels in frustration.

And often these ‘latecomers’ are people who have requested the meeting in the first place, are asking for your help, or are selling something. Fat chance mate!

And it’s not only business.

Why do people, invited for a dinner party at 7.30, think its cool to arrive at 8.30? It’s rude. It’s inconsiderate. And it’s selfish, as I witnessed in a coffee shop near my home one weekend. Three “ladies who lunch” (a species not confined to, but heavily represented on, the lower North Shore of Sydney) were chatting loudly at the table next to me. One inquired what time the ‘drinks do’ was that night. The reply for all the world to hear was ‘Oh 7.30, but we won’t get there till 9 because by then it will have warmed up and all the interesting people will have arrived’. Nice. Imagine if everyone took that view. Cocktail parties would start at 3 am eventually.

Or a dinner at a restaurant where I was meeting two other couples. My wife was away, so I was flying solo. I arrived at two minutes to eight for an eight o’clock booking. At 8.20, I was into my second glass of Pinot and at half-past I got a text saying ‘on the way’. We finally were all seated at 8.45. There were not even attempted excuses from either of the two couples, who seemed oblivious to the fact I might actually have got there at the agreed time. Meanwhile I had put a huge dent in the bottle of Pinot, and was ready to go home.

And it is not that we lead ‘busy lives’. That’s a given, we all do, and it’s a cop out to use that as an excuse. It’s simply that some people no longer even pretend that they think your time is as important as theirs. And technology makes it worse. It seems texting or emailing that you are late somehow means you are no longer late.

Rubbish.

You are rude. And inconsiderate.

And I act on it to. My dentist kept me waiting 50 minutes not long ago. I walked out, past a literally open-mouthed receptionist who had never seen a patient act on their frustration, only to get a frantic call from the dentist herself as I got into my car.

Sure she was “busy”, another patient took longer than she expected, blah blah.

But hold on, I am busy too! I would not keep her waiting 45 minutes if she came to see me as a candidate. And yet I am HER customer. I told her I have been coming to you for 15 years but don’t take me for granted. See fewer patients in a day if you have to, but see me on time or close to it. She has never kept me waiting again.

Me? Am I ever late? Sure, sometimes. That’s inevitable even with the best intentions. But I never plan to be late. I never ‘let time slide’ because my stuff is more important than yours.

I am not talking about the odd occasion of lateness. I am talking about people who are routinely late. In fact, never on time. You know who I am talking about!

And certainly I consider serial lateness a character flaw which I take into account when working out who to promote, who to hire and who to count amongst my real friends.

It’s that important.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

3 Reasons to Travel While You’re Young

Taken from/Credits to : http://goinswriter.com/travel-young/

The other night, I had a conversation with a young woman who had a number of decisions ahead of her, one of which is whether she would go to grad school or travel the world.

I told her to travel. Hands down. No excuse. Just go.

She sighed.

“Yeah, but…”

Never were more fatal words spoken.

Yeah, but… what about debt?

Yeah, but… what about my job?

Yeah, but… what about my boyfriend (or dog or car or whatever)?

“Yeah, but…” is pernicious. Because it makes it sound like we have the best of intentions when really we are just too scared to do what we should.

It allows us to be cowards, while sounding noble.

Most people I know who waited to travel the world never did. Conversely, plenty of people who waited for grad school or a steady job and traveled still did those things — eventually.

Be careful of the yeah-but. The yeah-but will kill your dreams.

I was so stirred by this conversation that I shared it with a group of about thirty young adults last night, many of which are asking these very questions.

The life you’ve always wanted.

When you get older, life seems to just sort of happen to you. Your youth is a time of total empowerment.

You get to do what you want. As you mature and gain new responsibilities, you have to be very intentional about making sure you don’t lose sight of what’s important.

So if you still have a reasonable amount of control over your circumstances, you should do what really matters.

Because life won’t always be just about you.

(the rest of the article is available on the link above)


You won’t always be young. And life won’t always be just about you. So travel. Experience the world for all it’s worth. Become a person of culture, adventure, and compassion.
“What if I’m not young?”
Travel, anyway. It may not be easy to do, but find a way to get out of your comfort zone. It’s really never too late.
But if you haven’t gotten sucked into the routine of life yet, I implore you — travel. It will never be easier than it is right now for you to do that which really matters.

i was reading the article above and it strikes me to be so true!

but to add my own two cents, it is certainly as easy to travel when yr single and young and when yr with a family - if you set your mind to it :)

my family has always been big on traveling, we try to made it a point to go somewhere together at least once a year...my parents have been almost everywhere and done everything, i think that's the travel gene from my late grand-grandfather who was sea captain :)

but being a HUGE family, with 9 adults and 6 kids, its certainly not easy!

i remember when i was getting information on my trip to new york last year and at this age and era on internet and google where everything is available on line and yet we three single girls still struggled to get info on where to stay what to do etc, and i marveled how my dad did it, almost 17 years ago, and he planned and took the entire family of 2 adults and 5 kids to los angeles and did it so flawlessly?? i mean that trip was still one the best trips we've ever had! 17 years ago! and there were no handphones and hardly any internet then!! amazing huh?

anyway, point of the post is..

ok, actually, the point of the above article is you must travel when you're young...

my point is, is you must travel. full stop.

young or old, go for it!

like one my best friend always said, when it comes to traveling;

money - you can always find and get more,
experiences and memories - once in a lifetime!

(^_^)


Monday, November 21, 2011

its been 3 years!

happy anniversary to us!

cant believe we survived the long distance relationship!

come to think of it, i dont think we've ever had any major problems about being long distance, kan kan kan?? :) :)

here's to many more years to come! Amin :)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

kenapa nak menipu dalam berbusiness??

translating the title - why the need to lie/cheat in doing business????

ive had my share of being cheated when it comes to doing business with non corporation people, like for example, on line business (ordered a 5 hijabs but came only two and claimed will return the money but i never got it), friends who just started making cakes (like ordered an ice cream cake that supposedly uses haagen daaz but taste like nestle ice cream and smells funny) and all sorts of stories but nothing, nothing comes close to what happened this week...

i have a friend, lets call her Anne, who will be engaged this saturday, and we decided to sponsor one of her hantarans (dowries) and we decided to order macaroons tower from another friend, lets call her Fashi, whom we know makes macaroons and sells them. she just started this business, and we are pretty good friends too and so as to help a friend who just started a business, hence we order from her.

ok, so dats the background story.

yesterday we found out..

Fashi DID not make the macaroons, but ORDERED it instead from someone else, but CLAIMS that she makes it and MARKS UP the price to sell to us!!! so here we are thinking to help a friend's business and admire the effort for her to learn to make the macaroons and had the courage so open a business selling it, instead all these while she's been passing off other people's work as her own! and the original person is selling it at RM240 where as this Fashi, markes it up to RM280 to us!!

!!!!!!!!!

another friend of ours accidentally discovered it as its so happens she is ordering some macaroons for her daughter's party from the same person! when she told us, of course we were royally pissed and more importantly we felt CHEATED and have been LIED to by someone who we thought is our good friend but are willing to do this in the name of BUSINESS!!!

but of course, considering we have been friends for quite a while, the nice people that we are, we decided to not to confront her, to just let it go and just note it for future events, since to cancel its kinda late anyway, so despite being super angry, we kept quiet and continued on as if nothing is wrong, but we did one thing tho, we delayed the payment a bit to this Fashi, and little did we know, there's a silver lining or hikmah in doing what we did.

Fashi's fiance posted this on her FB today..



wah2 sedap nye mulut nak memaki orang mcm tu kan??


yes my dear readers, her fiance decided to BUTT IN and started cursing us on her fb!! obviously pissed about the fact that we have yet to pay her but doing it in such a lame cavemen type of method, simple in malay, mcm orang kampung tak pergi sekolah setakat tau those few words and thought habis hebat la tu!


on top of that, this Fashi actually called Anne (the girl getting engaged who has no idea what is going on as obviously we didnt tell her) and cried while whining that we did a background check on her, she's so oh-so-sad cos why people dont trust her and she is making the macaroons BUT she's making with that person together2!!


hello?? come on la;


first of all, that person clearly said Fashi "ordered" from her, not make together2


second of all, if you think we are wrong or watever, why do u call Anne instead of us? we are the ones who ordered, u shud explain to us, why should u go and get sympathy from Anne?


and lastly, if you are not wrong and guilty,why do you suddenly remove us from yr fb and block us? u didnt think that we have other friends who are also yr fb frends and able to tell us about your fiance's post??

so anyway, so now we know she knows we know..


to cut this long story short, ended up she cancelled the order with just a simple msg


"i ada hal esok.xdpt buat.sory.thx"


haihhh ni dah melampau la kannnnnnnnnnn


this message was sent today, thursday, at 4pm and the engagement ceremony is this saturday morning!! so last minute right??? we sent her a nasty message in return BUT luckily, we were able to find another baker to do the macaroons for us, so that is ok.


but on this thing, seriously what do you guys think??


is it really necessary to lie to people when u do business like this? of course i know not everyone does this but it seems like if u dont, yr business mcm slow and lambat nak maju and worse still, will kena tipu with orang pun ade jugak, like for example one of my best friends does baking business too and she's ever so honest and accomodating but her story pulak dia yang kena tipu sebab org curi recipe dia and pass it of their own, but dats another story all together huhu but that kinda like goes to show right, that person is willing to steal another person's recipe or use other people's creation and pass it of as their own and claim, hey, its not personal, its business!!


business my a**!!!