New School Term is here again

Sunday 28 Dec, my wife, my daughter and me went to SRI Al Amin Gombak to purchase my daughter's text book and uniform. Yes it is the school season again. We reached the school at 9 am and were ready to go by 9.30 am as we were early and had beaten the que. As always SRI Al Amin is well organised in handling this sort of events, kudos to the school. Keep up the good work.

2nd Badminton game at Setapak High School 27 Dec 2008

As I have mentioned last week in my posting "Badminton game at Setapak High School 20 Dec 2008 (26 years after I had left it)", my extended family were back this week to play badminton at Setapak High School. However I missed another nephew, Udin who said he was coming but did not turn up.

I played four double matches and won two of them. The victory was sweeter when I trounced Zaid, my eldest son, and his partner Ibrahim, my brother's son in straight set. Zaid had beaten me last week but I did not provide him any more leniencies this time around. A game is a game :-)

We then played half court basketball. My team of Ammar, Sufian and me won a tough game against Zaid, Safuan and Ibrahim. It was another sweet victory for me against Zaid and his team.

We will be back again next week Saturday 3rd Jan at 9 am for our next tough matches.

Aqeeqah for 'Imran @ PV5, Platinum Hill Condo, Taman Melati 21 Dec 2008

I did not mention earlier that I received a new nephew last November. 'Imran from my second eldest niece, Khadijah.

We had his aqeeqah today and was well attended by relatives and Khadijah's friends. I tasted only a morsel of the lamb, just to join in the celebration as lamb is pantang for me, he he he...

May all mighty Allah bestow the wisdom and guidance to 'Imran and his children and grandchildren until the day of reckoning, amen.

Badminton game at Setapak High School 20 Dec 2008 (26 years after I had left it)

My two sons; Zaid and Anwar, my daughter Hanaan, my two nephews; Safwan and Sufian joined my wife, my sister (the School Senior Assistant), her husband and me to Setapak High School this morning to play a few games of Badminton. We played in the famous Setapak High School gymnasium (one of the few non-boarding public schools in Malaysia that has a gymnasium). Setapak High School's had a very colourful and long history (you can wiki it here Setapak High School), however the condition of the gymnasium when all of us came in this morning was deplorable. It was nothing like I could remember when I was there 26 years ago. So before we could play, we had to sweep the floor for 30 minutes, but since the dust had settled on the parque flooring for so long, there was not much we could do. Seems to me the gym had not been used for years. Watch this video yourselves.

After plenty of sweeping the floor, we skipped the warm up as we had already warmed up :-) and played for about 3 hours. We will back next week God willing, same day, same time.

All of us then had our lunch at Restoran Haslam at Jalan Pahang.

p.s. calling Setapak High School Form 5 Sc 1-1981 (see photo below). Email me if you are reading this posting. We can plan a reunion and find ways to help our former school.

guess which one is me, the right guess wins you a voucher...

Year End Team Celebration at Chinoz, The Gardens Mall at Mid Valley on 16 Dec 2008

As to mark our 2008 successful operations, my team and I at the office had our Year End Team Celebration at Chinoz. Each one of us had our pre-ordered ala carte lunch set (the restaurant could not cater for my forty team members if we had ordered on the spot). The dishes were prepared nicely and of course served ala carte style. There were two speeches; one from my boss and the other from me. My boss gave her short speech at the beginning before our lunch. She thanked all the team members for a job well done. We then had our starters and main course (my main course shown here, chicken bla bla bla, I could not remember the full name :-).

After the main course, we had each team member exchanging their gifts with one another. Before the dessert was served, it was then my turn to give my short speech. In my speech, I thanked the team members for the sacrifice that they had put into their work and to the success it had brought to the team. We then adjourned back to the office just before 2 pm.

A very big thank you to the organising committee for a job well done. All of us had a wonderful time especially during the exchanges of gifts session (video snippets of the exchanges of gifts session is shown below).

My "extended family" weekend at my PV10 Condo - Dec 13 2008

My PV10 condo unit is still vacant due to the fact that I am a very selective landlord. Several property agents had approached me to rent the condo to students, some are ridiculously silly wanted to put in 15 students into the unit! My dream tenant would be a small local family starting up in KL or expatriates family on an assignment to KL. Click at the following to view my adverts

1. Setapak Lake City Danau Kota Condo PV10
   
2. Setapak Lake City Danau Kota

Yesterday my family organised an extended family dip in the condo swimming pool and had some refreshments at the condo Mamak restaurant. We then prayed Asr and Maghrib in my condo. They were about twenty of us altogether, a big extended family indeed.

Group photo of the children (below), parents were not included.

See below for a view out of my condo bedroom window at 8.15 pm on Saturday Dec 13, 2008

Below, my wife and I at the condo balcony at 7.45 pm on Saturday Dec 13, 2008

Family holiday at Padang and Bukit Tinggi 25-28 Nov 2008

It has been a while that my family and I had taken a holiday abroad together. This year we had the opportunity to plan it very early. In May, one of my wife's colleagues had offered to organise a four-days and three-nights trip to Padang and Bukit Tinggi, Sumatera, Indonesia. It was to be some sort of family day, but with own expenses of course. My wife and I took this opportunity to plan us early for a family holiday. It was a bargain indeed. It was also an opportunity for me to renew the international passports of my family members that were about to expire in November.

I let my wife handle all the bookings and I did not get to know the programme until the end. And for the first time I let my wife and two teenage sons to pack the bags. My only contribution was to tell them to bring one medium and one small size bags and two bag packs. Somehow they were reluctant to pack knowing how picky I can be on what to bring and what to leave behind, but I hold true until the end that I would not interfere with their packing.

We had a very early start, waking up at 3 am and driving to my wife's school by 4 am. We parked our car at the school and took a chartered bus to LCCT for an 8.30 am Air Asia flight to Padang. We reached LCCT at about 5.30 am and finished our check in at 6 am. We performed our Fajr prayer thereafter and had our breakfast. By 7 am, we went through the immigration checkpoint and into the departure hall. We were called in to board at about 8 am.

We touched down at the International Minangkabau Airport, Padang after an hour flight i.e. 8.30 am local time. It took us only thirty minutes to pass through immigration and custom. Two mini buses and an MPV were already waiting for us in front of the airport. Without further delay, we headed towards Bukit Tinggi. Along the way we stopped at one of the lavish looking Minang restaurant for breakfast. My family had two plates of roti canai, two plates of nasi goreng, one plate of cucur kodok and hot drinks. The food were not as what we would taste in KL but the price is a hefty Rupiah85,000 (RM26.50), my good guess is about 15% to 25% of it went for the tour guides commission.

After breakfast we continued our journey to Lembah Anai, this is where the famous waterfall along the road to Bukit Tinggi for our first stop in the programme. We then visited the Pusat Dokumentasi Kebudayaan Minangkabau (The Minangkabau Centre of Cultural Documentation, family photo on the right), Padang Panjang a traditional Minang house with spacious garden which include a fountain and several small houses as surau and paddy stores. The interior of the house is more like a museum with a lot of documents and photographs of famous Minang warriors and freedom fighters. Then we had delicious Nasi Padang lunch at one of the Padang Panjang restaurants.

After lunch we stopped at two shops selling embroidered shirts, scarves and telekungs (long prayer scarves normally worn by Muslim women in South East Asia). The ladies in the tour group had their field days shopping. I enjoyed the atmosphere within and around the shops.

We checked into Campago Hotel, a hotel at the outskirt of Bukit Tinggi at about 4 pm and was told that we will go out again at 5.30 pm for some more shopping and dinner. The shopping is for more of the same things i.e. embroidered shirts, scarves and telekungs but somehow the ladies were never tired of spending their money. We went to the Kampung Pandai Sikek, the famous village known for it handicrafts. It was almost 9 pm that we had our dinner as the shopping took longer than expected as there were more than one shops that the ladies had spent their time.

By the time we reached the Campago Hotel, there were already more than ten makeshifts stalls at the hotel compound (see photo on the right). The stalls were selling again more of the same things i.e. embroidered shirts, scarves and telekungs. And again the ladies will still go over, bargain and spend their money.

We went out early the next morning at 8 am after breakfast at the hotel. But before that, the ladies were again at the makeshift stalls shopping. Our first program of the day was to Embun Pagi to look from about 1,000 ft level the famous Maninjau Lake (family photo on the right). We then went to the Panorama and Sianok Canyon. My family and I went into Lubang Jepang (the famous underground hideouts of the Japanese army during their occupation of Sumatera in the Second World War, family photo on the left). We again went shopping at Pasar Atas, Bukit Tinggi. We had an early dinner and went back to the hotel to pack for our journey downhill to Padang the next day. There were more shopping at the hotel as the make shift stalls were still there.

The next morning, I took time with my sons taking panoramic pictures around the hotel before our journey to Padang. Somehow we had to stop again at Pasar Atas, Bukit Tinggi as someone in the group had to shop for a last minute item. The trip downhill was via the seashore and we could see paddy fields as far as the eye can see. We passed through Pagar Ruyuang and saw the spot where the Istana Besar Pagar Ruyuang used to stand (see photo on the right), it was burned down in 2007 due to a faulty anti-lightning wiring.

We had lunch at a beautiful restaurant that is built on a fishpond (see photo on the left). As we had lunch we could watch the fishes swimming, the paddy fields, the buffaloes and the leaves of the coconut tree swaying blown by the wind. It was a breath taking experience, something I had missed from the time I was five years old while I was visiting my grandmother's paddy fields at Simpang Tiga, Gombak, Selangor.

We reached Padang at about 5 pm and checked into our rooms. We went out for dinner at 7 pm and adjourned early at 9 pm as we had to be up and early the next morning for the 8.30 am flight to KL.

My family and I enjoyed this trip as we had the first time four years ago as we were able to visit new places and minimise our shopping only to the essentials. Of course we got to know some interesting characters from the tour group that also add colour to the trip. Insyaallah we will make another trip again to the beautiful Minangkabau with its two famous mountains of Gunung Merapi and Gunung Singgalang, its twin cities of Padang and Bukit Tinggi the birthplace of my wife and my ancestors.

Melbourne business and leisure trip 18-21 November

I was planning this trip while I was attending the expatriates compensation conference at Langkawi in October. The trip was intended for me to conduct a Contract Review Meeting with the relocation vendor of the company I work with. Out of a sudden, my boss who had accompanied me to Langkawi suggested to me to have a family holiday in Melbourne as well. However, since I had already planned a family holiday to Indonesia week of 24 November, I decided to only bring along my wife who was celebrating her birthday on Friday 21 November.

My Enrich points were enough for me to redeem return Business Class tickets for my wife. However getting the Business Class Enrich seats were a lot more difficult than I had imagined. I secured a seat for the flight from KLIA to Melbourne but I had to wait until the last day of the ticket purchase dateline to secure the return flight's seat. I realised that Malaysia Airlines were not providing me the seats until I booked a seat and told them that I would pay for it myself. When my wife and I took the flight from Melbourne to KLIA last Friday 21 November, the business class seats were not fully occupied.

I had a very long meeting on Wednesday 19 November going through the contract review assessing diligently the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the past one year. I had also lined up 3 meetings on Thursday 20 November meeting different stakeholders of the contract. At the same time KL was asking me to finalise the performance ranking of my team versus the whole operations team. As I had little time for the ranking session, I will be away on leave from 24 November; I only managed to squeeze an hour for a conference call to KL on Thursday 20 November. I expressed my reaction to the ranking done on Tuesday without my presence while I was on the plane. The ranking was ill planned; it had to be brought forward as the ranking facilitator had misread the ranking schedules. So little time with so many things to do.

My wife however enjoyed her visits as she was chaperoned for two days from Wednesday touring around Melbourne by a guide. She visited the Melbourne Central Business District, the famous Melbourne zoo and Queen Victoria Market.

We finally had our time together on Thursday evening at Phillip Island Penguin Parade. The trip from Melbourne CBD took us 90 minutes of driving. Both of us enjoyed the scenic journey of farm animals along the way. We saw cows, horses and sheep grazing on acres of farm fields.

Our planned to venture into Melbourne on Friday morning was cancelled, as I had to finalise my ranking notes to be sent to KL. We took the 3.40 pm flight and arrived in KL at 8.45 pm. We came back with a lot of memories, t-shirts, key chains, chocolates and several aboriginal trinkets. Oh by the way, the meals on the way back were really something that Malaysia Airlines need to improve; the fried rice was oily, the roast chicken and the chicken pie were salty. As always from my experience, the meals out of KL are a lot tastier.

Invitation as a trainer for a "Negotiating Skill Workshop"

_________________________________________________
Ruj Kami:
PAS/K098/26/01/08 (004) 30 Oktober 2008/30 Syawal 1429H

Tetuan amzzah naseehah
Up : En Abd Malek Md Nor

Assalamualaikum wrt wbt

Tuan,

JEMPUTAN SEBAGAI “TRAINER“ UNTUK BENGKEL TEKNIK KEMAHIRAN BERUNDING

Merujuk kepada perkara di atas, dengan segala hormatnya pihak kami ingin memohon jasa baik pihak tuan menjadi tenaga pengajar dalam program Bengkel Kemahiran Berunding seperti butiran dibawah

Program BENGKEL TEKNIK KEMAHIRAN BERUNDING

Tarikh 9 November 2008 (Ahad)

Masa 9.30 pagi – 2.00 petang

Tempat Pejabat BPPNS Pusat Perniagaan World Wide, Shah Alam

Besarlah harapan kami, AKP DPPNS agar pihak tuan dapat memenuhi jemputan ini dan pertimbangan daripada pihak tuan kami dahului dengan ucapan ribuan terima kasih.

“ Merakyat Perjuangan” – “Selamatkan Demokrasi, Tegakkan Keadilan”

Yang menjalankan amanah,


(DAMANHURI BIN DOL)
Setiausaha AKP DPPNS

s.k.: 1. Fail Setiausaha DPPNS
2. Pengerusi AKP DPPNS

Resignation and Attrition

I had a resignation recently when one of my three Team Leads tendered her resignation. This is the second resignation in my team of 40 this year (for more information on the structure of my team, I had written a posting on Thursday, 10 July 2008 with the title A difficult decision). The company I work with requires a three months notice period. However, she gave a month notice and bought out the remaining two months and with some remaining balance of her leave, she was only required to remain working for another two weeks. Her last day in office was on Tuesday last week.

I quickly recalled one of my senior Service Advisors who was on an extended maternity leave. She agreed to return and took over the job and there was a 5 days hand-over between her and my previous Team Lead. Although this is not deemed to be adequate hand-over period, however I am confident that my new Team Lead would be able to handle and face the challenge.

During a briefing that I had with my new Team Lead, I emphasised the necessity of teamwork, communication and respect from her team. These were the areas that were not adequately provided by the previous Team Lead. The previous Team Lead was strong operationally, however she lacks the depth of leadership, accountability and teamwork skills that are really basic necessity in guiding the team to meet its objective.

I had a one-on-one session with my previous Team Lead two days before she left. As part of the one-on-one session, she provided me with a couple of motivational and formative feedback on me (refer to my earlier posting on types of feedback dated 24 August 2008 Self awareness a key to self improvement and success) . I then provided her with my motivational and formative feedback that covered the areas that I had mentioned above i.e. her motivational was her operational strength and her formative was the requirement for her to build on her leadership, accountability and teamwork skills. This was a unique process that I had never done before and the risk was real, it can turn messy if the resignation was a negative experience on her. Fortunately, it was not as bad as some people would have thought and the session went well.

A meeting at Westin Langkawi 24-25 Oct 2008

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Asia ORC Roundtable meeting at Westin Langkawi, Kedah from the 24-25 Oct 2008. ORC Worldwide is a consulting organisation specialising in international mobility and expatriates compensation and benefits. It has its offices in several locations; Chicago, Dallas, Washington, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in the USA; London, Munich and Paris in Europe; Melbourne and Wellington in Oceania; Singapore, Tokyo and Dubai in Asia. It has more than 40 member companies in Asia and 18 member companies participated in this meeting.

This is the first time that I had the opportunity to attend this meeting. However, I found that the setting of the meeting is like any other consulting conferences, it has several presentation topics by ORC and invited speakers from the member companies. The topics on Middle East's Workforce Management Trends/Issues had my interest but the gist of the presentation was mainly on Dubai's industrialisation and modernisation, where the speaker is based. My scope of coverage exceeds Dubai i.e. from Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and include the Globally Embargoed Countries, these were however not given adequate focus. The discussions around the table at the end of the meeting were also a normal setting for this kind of meetings and an interest to me as well. The questions posted were mainly on international mobility policy and process where the member companies would openly share their companies' policy and practices.

From my overall observation, the networking that I see during the meeting was not obvious. I saw that the member companies from each country would flock together. As Singaporean member companies dominated the meeting, it was very obvious that they were the most prominent grouping, hence Malaysian and the Philippines member companies were not included in most of the off meeting activities such as dinner and tea break. ORC also had its own preferred member companies and this also did not contribute well to the overall networking opportunities.

Other than that, I enjoyed my short 3 days 2 nights stay in Langkawi (the four photographs at the top of this posting were taken within the Westin Langkawi area). The Westin Langkawi ambiance was splendid and I enjoyed my stay there, however they could do better with their food and beverages section. I did a little bit of shopping and discovered that the famous Langkawi shopping area along Kuah town was not as before. Along the Hj Ismail Group supermarkets, there were very few shops left. I am not sure where these shops were relocated but it was obvious that the shops were no longer located in Langkawi.


I had a chance to savour the seafood of Langkawi at Shrimpz Restaurant (refer to the above two photographs). My colleagues and I had buttered prawns, steamed shrimp Mantis, grilled lobsters, Garoupa steamed with Asam and vegetables for dinner. It was a splendid dinner, richly spread and delicious. The seafood were alive when I selected them and I could taste the freshness when I ate them. I would recommend all Langkawi visitors to give it a visit and taste the Langkawi splendid seafood.

On Friday while my colleagues and two of my new networks from a member companies had lunch at Wan Thai Restaurant on the way to the Langkawi International Airport to catch our flight back to Kuala Lumpur. The restaurant's concept is authentic Thai cuisine and I would agree that it has fulfilled it splendidly. The food was tasty and the price is affordable, we had ala carte lunch of 1 large and 1 medium Wan Thai shrimps, shrimps Tom Yam in coconut, steamed Siakap and steamed vegetables.

My best wishes to Langkawi and its people, may it continue to prosper and develop further in the future.

Employability Talk at Chemical Engineering Faculty of UiTM, 17 Oct 2008

On Monday 13 October, my colleague text me telling me that one of his friends would like to speak to me. I thought that it was only the usual Q&A on Human Resources questions that I normally received from mutual friends connection. The questions that were posed to me would be on Human Resources Policy or Compensation and Benefit or employment opportunity.

The caller was a lecturer at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and she would like to invite me to be a Panel member in a talk on employability to her students' faculty, and she told me that there would be another Panel member from CCM. The talk would be held at the Chemical Engineering Faculty of UiTM, Shah Alam attended by students from the faculty. As UiTM was where I completed my Diploma study, I agreed and quickly linked myself to the Recruitment department of my company to source for materials for my talk. The Recruitment department was very helpful in extending materials that I found useful for my reference and use.

During the talk, I touched on the importance of collecting information and data, linking the information and data to understand the situation, proposing resolution to solve the problem and finally solving the problem. I shared with the students that problems are opportunities for businesses and not merely things to be avoided. Just merely scoring high marks in education would not be sufficient, how they utilise the education would be the key to their success in employment. I also mentioned about working in a team. In order to work in a team to solve problems, they are expected to muster skills of effective communication, teamwork and critical thinking to be able to secure opportunities in the employment market. The students were very interactive during and after the talk asking questions and seeking clarifications.

I would like to thank the Dean of the Chemical Engineering Faculty, Assoc Prof Dr Sharifah Aishah, lecturers Mr Zaki and Mdm Haslina for the invitation as well as the faculty students who had shown interest in the talk.

For more information and photographs of the events please click here http://zakizainudin.blogspot.com/2008/10/employability-talk-photos.html.

An early dinner at Sa Sayang Cafe, Batu 5 1/2 Jalan Gombak

After visiting my wife's niece in Sungai Way for Hari Raya, we headed home. As it was raining heavily just before we went out, there was heavy traffic along the way back. Our earlier intention of visiting another of my wife's niece who had just delivered a baby at Ampang Puteri Hospital was aborted. It was close to 6.30 pm and to save time we decided to have an early dinner somewhere near our house.

During Ramadhan we noticed that there was a new restaurant, Sa Sayang Cafe, along Jalan Gombak at Batu 5 1/2, just after Balai Polis Gombak or Masjid Asy Syakirin, if you are coming from Setapak. By the look of it, the restaurant seem to be an upmarket joint as it was nestled among the bungalow lots of Gombak Setia.

Fortunate for us, Sa Sayang Cafe was open for business. However we noticed that we were the only customers at the Cafe when we went in. In the spirit of adventure in trying something new, we went ahead. The menu that it offered was simple, varieties of western grill and several kinds of fried noodles and rice. My wife, my daughter and I ordered Nasi Goreng Kampung while my eldest son had fish and chips and my second son ordered Nasi Goreng Pattaya. Our side menu was Samosa and French Fries. Their drinks menu was also impressive, they had several kinds of tea, juices and other normal drinks. I ordered watermelon neat with ice just to test whether their fruits were fresh, indeed it was and I had to order for second.

The ambience of the cafe was cosy. The interior design and fittings were splendid and well placed. The price was also reasonable. We promised ourselves to come again.