Ian On The Red Dot

My first job after graduation was at a MNC based in India with an office in Singapore. The Indian programmers I worked with were incredibly intelligent people. They were also very cheap compared to their abilities and the value they were contributing to the company (*).

(*) This isn’t a subjective statement. There is a methodology to determine the costs of projects, both for the company and the clients.

Because they were cheap, whenever there were projects, the solution was to throw X number of programmers to build the cathedral. From scratch. Again. The only way a project benefited from previous projects was through the experience and knowledge of the programmers who had worked on other projects.

There was rarely, actually never, a common pool of source code (i.e. libraries) that was created by one project, subsequently refined, and used in future projects. There wasn’t even a process to ensure that this was done.

If source code was ever shared between projects, it was because a programmer on the current project had done something similar in a previous project, and copied the code over. Ctrl C, Ctrl V.

Now, from a company’s perspective, if the programmers weren’t paid cheaply, the company wouldn’t want the programmers to keep rewriting similar code. The companies would institute a policy to ensure that after each project, a review was done to see what code could be reused for future projects, extract that code, refine it, and create libraries that can be shared. These libraries of code would subsequently be refined as they were used by other projects.

Like my boss would say – more bang for the buck.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

When an employee first joins a company, I would like to believe he or she would make the best effort to do his or her best. I’ve seen that in my current company. People really give their all with the best attitude.

Then they wait and see. What will management do. What sort of bonuses are given. What sort of pay increment is given. What sort of promotions are awarded. Are promises kept?

After the first year, people start asking the questions:
1. Does the company value me?
2. Do I really want to stay in this company?
3. Where can I get a pay that is equal to my value?

If promises are not kept, expectations not met, then these questions start getting asked by more people in increasing intensity. Sometimes people give the company a grace period. One year is too short a time to judge. Maybe this year was an aberration due to the economic crisis. Let’s wait one more year.

Once they get fooled or disappointed for the second year, you can bet a lot of people will start planning to jump ship. So here is the impact of constantly leading your employees on that you will take care of them.

1. Lots of time is wasted on them planning to jump ship instead of working for the company.
2. Negative energy is generated. People become less productive.
3. People also become less creative. Meaning – they aren’t going to be generating long term intellectual capital for the company if they know they are going to jump ship soon. They just do their job and go home. Nothing more. Nothing less.
4. New recruits look at the old birds leaving and go, fine, it seems the company doesn’t take care of its own. Maybe they weren’t good enough. I am. I’ll give the company a grace period. But on the safe side, I won’t invest 110% into this company. Just do my work. Do it well. And try to stand out with my excellent work. But I won’t build intellectual capital. I won’t give the company something they can use when I’m not around.

The truth is this. Treat people like monkeys. Or give them the impression they are going to be treated like monkeys, and you’re never get your company to grow well sustainably. There is only that much you can scale by adding disposable manpower.

Giving employees reason(s) to build that intellectual capital for you and the confidence that you will share the profits of a well-performing company are the best ways to increase your company’s staff’s productivity.

Some other notes
1. Talk about cognitive dissonance. There was a friend whose boss announced to the staff during a company meeting that there was no pay increment because business was bad. At the end of the meeting, he invited all the staff for a party on his new yacht.

2. I hate it when companies try to extract maximum value from employees NOW promising to reward them in the future.

The AWS (i.e. Annual Wage Supplement) was a way to add a variable component to the employee’s wage. It is actually quite brilliant. The company reduces monthly fixed cost. The company gets the benefits NOW. without really being forced to pay LATER. They only promise to pay later. The bad companies find a thousand reasons not to give AWS. Wait. My opinion is most non-government related and non-MNCs do find at least 1 reason not to give AWS (or if they do give, a miserable amount).

Heineken İtaly Activation from Kreatif360 on Vimeo.

As someone who spent almost all my weekends and CL match nights at a friend’s house with a group of close friends to DOTA and watch football matches in my final year of university, and as someone who has lost that male bonding time to girlfriends and wives, this video brought a tear.

via:patlaw

Richard Feynman learns how to get a girl to sleep with him:

“under no circumstances be a gentleman! You must disrespect the girls. Furthermore, the very first rule is, don’t buy a girl anything — not even a package of cigarettes — until you’ve asked her if she’ll sleep with you, and you’re convinced that she will, and that she’s not lying.”

It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that I somehow reached a similar conclusion that such a brilliant man arrived at:

So it worked even with an ordinary girl! But no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.

I noticed that whenever I tried to take photos of my female friends, they would cover their face with their arm and hand.

I realized that this could make a good concept for a series of advertisements for a watch company.

The tag-line would be:

Got The Face We Want

Some photos:

And finally:

Timeless beauty

Saw this tweet:

Unemployment is always caused by global factors, but employment gains are always due to the Resilience Package. Huat ah!

My government’s view on their contribution (and sometimes lack of) to Singapore mirrors that of my father (admittedly this is unfair to him):

When I did well in school:

Father (to friends): My son did well in school. Scored all distinctions.

When I did something wrong:

Father (to mother): Your son is late again. He doesn’t know how to be punctual.

Two posts on Jack Neo’s possible sexual harassing of potential stars.

It might be real news now:

We should educate both men and women that such behaviour is wrong and unacceptable, and ensure victims do not suffer in silence. It is especially pertinent when positions of authority and power are abused, and no one can deny that Jack Neo is influential in the entertainment circle.

Corinna Lim, AWARE’s Executive Director:

Some of the women involved reported that Mr. Neo used the carrot of career promotions to get to know them. This is a classic form of sexual harassment known as “Quid Pro Quo” harassment, characterised by an authority figure offering a subordinate career benefits (for instance “a bigger role”) in exchange for sexual favours.

It is not uncommon for a pattern of sexual harassment to go undetected for a long time. Many cases go unreported because victims feel isolated, blame themselves or simply because they are unsure that they have been victimised.

One thought.

If I wanted to buy a camera, and my budget was $1000, and the salesman was trying to sell me a camera that I valued only at $800, he or she might provide me with free accessories (e.g. flash, camera bag, tripod) of total value $200, to get me to part with my $1000.

If you were an actress with mediocre acting abilities and average looks, and I knew that by all fair assessment, you would never make it big in the entertainment industry and the best role you could possibly get was a hawker lady in my next movie. The value of you as an extra is positive $200. The value of you as a lead is negative $1000 because of the opportunity cost incurred in NOT casting a better known actress. However, if i value the chance to have sexual intercourse with you at $1200, then if you agree to sleep with me and I cast you as a lead, I’m back at positive $200 in terms of total value to me.

Is this sexual harassment if I try to establish this arrangement with you?

Is there a difference between:

1. Giving you a better job beyond your abilities if you are willing to sleep with me.

&

2. As long as you are not willing to sleep with me, you get jobs that are beneath your abilities.

&

3. If you aren’t willing to sleep with me, I will give you a job that matches your abilities.

I’m trying to think of some set of equations to express the above statements that might constrain the boundaries of sexual harassment.

What is Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment:

It occurs when (1) job benefits, including employment, promotion, salary increases, shift or work assignments, performance expectations and other conditions of employment, are made contingent on the provision of sexual favors, usually to an employer, supervisor or agent of the employer who has the authority to make decisions about employment actions, or (2) the rejection of a sexual advance or request for sexual favors results in a tangible employment detriment, a loss of a job benefit of the kind described above.

I work to create systems for people who look down on the very people (my colleagues and me) who create the systems that allow them to make more money faster just by moving money here and there because they have more money than us.

WTF.

It is like making boots for people to stamp on our faces.

Lessons From “In Bed With The Right Investor”

The biggest disappointment was that I couldn’t use a line I had been working on.

“Ladies and Gentlement, do remember the cardinal rule of meeting an investor for the first time. It is impolite to ask the size of their assets on the first date.”

An event to meet top international investors:

“In Bed With The Right Investor” gets individuals up close and personal with the illustrious international investor panel of iMATCH who will be seated on the famous beds of supperclub Singapore. If you are an entrepreneur present at the event, pick the investors you want to speak to, throw your business card into their respective lucky draw bowls, and get lucky when they pick out yours. Then get to cozy up to the investor on the comfortable beds of supperclub, ask a question, stay, or move on to another investor.

Who cares about productivity?

Bosses aren’t saying – raise your productivity and we will pay you more. They are saying, raise your productivity, if not, we will hire someone cheaper or someone who can do more for the same pay.

Minister Lim Swee Say:

“Job is the best welfare, full employment is the best protection for workers and productivity gain is the best driver for wage increase in the future…”

The statistics show that Singapore’s GDP has grown.
The statistics also show that Singapore’s income inequality has also grown.

So, what makes the minister think that if a worker increases his or her productivity, the company will pay the worker more? What makes the minister think that those with wealth will be more willing to share the wealth in the future?

There seems to be too conflicting messages here:

1. Raise productivity or lose your job because we can replace you with a foreigner.
2. Raise productivity so your value increases and the company will pay you more.

We know companies are doing 1. We also know they are NOT doing 2.

So telling workers to increase productivity is of no consequence in helping them if companies aren’t willing to share more of the pie. It is also of no consequence if foreign workers who are willing to increase ‘productivity’ (do more for less, do more for same by putting in more hours or taking less pay) are also allowed to be employed.

Bosses’ idea of productivity = Amount Of Work / Pay
Worker’s idea of productivity = Amount Of Work / Time

Different formulas. Think about this for a moment.

The problem is that the ministers are asking workers to bite the bullet first. Prove your worth and trust us (companies, government) to take care of you.

The correct way would be to get companies to pay more. Once you have to pay more for a worker, you as the owner of a company have many more incentives to put more systems and processes in place to get more from the worker. Or you could just overwork him in terms of hours. So the government would need to manage that abuse of overworking.

And it is not just about the company being forced to get their workers to be more productivity, for SME’s, for the want of a better word, it buys a lot more loyalty.

And what does loyalty get you?

More on that tomorrow.