As good as WE get!?

Human beings will not further evolve genetically, and this is due to our current world that is as close to utopia as it will get to - for the time being.

"This gloomy message is from" geneticist, Professor Steve Jones.

Even if the future proves Prof Jones to be wrong, let's hope we have a great deal of room for a cultural-intellectual development. Sure enough, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that we should do so; that we MUST do so...!

Fu...nny Money

Last Thursday, with SGD1 buying you AUD0.97, and not the usual AUD0.7-0.8, Jamie and I ran to the bank to transfer our 'hard earned' gratuities (contract) to Australia. Our (what currently seems as) good fortunes found in the unusually weak AUD are due to the current world economic crisis.

The following presentation and video, as spotted on PresentationZen, help with the explanation of what the crisis is all about:

Subprime Primer

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: subprime mortgages)

The Time article, written by Stiglitz - author of one of the books, that I read for my Globalization class - is a good, easy read further explaining the crisis, how and why other countries - manly European's are linked - and what needs to be done in order to fix the mess. Also, Pat shared this post to help with the explanation.

Passion of my Profession

Another baby step... (?)

Dear K,

Thank you for the very pleasant and interesting conversation, and the time taken.

I am happy to find out that you recognize my potential and different ways it can add business value for HC. I look forward to an opportunity to prove this in the practice.

Best regards,

Z

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I've just send out this 'thank you' mail. So it turns out that my scepticism was right after all, even though Huge got me to believe otherwise. K is the founder of the company. The interview went OK, though I would not grade my performance as highly as the 1st one.

fingersCrossed...!

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UPDATED: later in the afternoon, I received the (positive) reply to above email:

Dear Z,

Thank you for your email. I will be discussing with the team and I am sure you will be contacted soon.

Thank you very much and have a nice day!

Warm regards,

K

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UPDATED, 20th Oct: Another full week has passed by with no word from Mr K nor anyone in the company. My initial 'OK' assessment of the interview now seems like a large overestimation. The questions running between my ears:

• Should I email them?
• Should I try to elaborate on the interview points that I know I should have, could have done better?
  
• Should I just forget about it, and call it next?

If you have an opinion on what to do in this situation, please leave a comment - thanks...!

Baby Step closer to MrProfessional

Since this morning, it looks even more promising that Huge was right to say that the next interview should be just about negotiation of the terms and conditions for the contract. I received the reply to my 'thank you' latter from the CEO. I am happy with the way I wrote that BS latter last night (apart from the few typos that my tired, running on adrenaline brain did not direct). In particular, I like how I manged to summarise some of the things discussed during the interview, so I'll share it here:

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8 October, 2008. 08:35

Hi Z,

I am happy to have met you too.  MrP [the 1st guy who interviewed me] will be in touch with you shortly.  There may be an opportunity for further discussion.  Hopefully we can arrive at a win-win situation.

Best regards,

CEO

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7 October, 2008. 20:18

Dear MrCEO,

I would like to express my appreciation for taking the time out of your busy schedule to meet me earlier today. It was a pleasure having a conversation with you about the SA position at HC, the potential career paths, and the vision that you have for the future of the company. 

In addition, I would like to take this opportunity to say that after our conversation, I feel even more confident that the job represents a win-win situation. I believe that with my international exposure, teamwork and communication skills, along with analytical and creative abilities, as well as eagerness to learn and work hard, I can provide tangible business value to HC's customers, and in turn to HC itself. At the same time, the SA position represents a junction where I can further hone my skills, and develop myself both professionally and personally, while learning by working on diverse type of challenges.

Again, thank you, and I hope that HC and myself can move into the next phase of our respective maturation process together.

Sincerely,

Z        

Not so professional question

• Who is higher on a corporate ladder than a CEO of a company to interview an applicant for a common job?  
  
• After you have been interviewed by the CEO, what would be the reason to come back for another interview...? 

Just now talking to Huge, he brought out this very good point. A point that once brought up seems like a common sense; a point that escaped my mind... 

As Voltaire would say: "Common sense is not so common!" 

...! 

Me, The Professional F...ellow - The beginning

I had the interview, the one mentioned few days ago, earlier today. I felt it went quite good overall. On my way back home, thinking about it, I was pleased with my performance, happily leaving 'the ball on their side of the court'. Once I got home, I learned that the feeling, regarding how well the interview went, was mutual. The interview went for two hours and 15min, and it can be broken down into two distinct stages:

WRITTEN  

First, I had to fill in the form with my personal info (why, it's already all on my CV!?), and  how much I have been earning, how much do I expect to earn once I start, and when would I like to start. Following this, a surprise came along: I was given a written test. It included exercises on Java and SQL, and a general question on the understanding of the Web 2.0. I grade my self - once a teacher... - on that part as B+. I messed up on some Java and SQL. I haven't been 'getting my hands dirty' with those sort of things all that much - pardon the teaching - for a long time now; well, to be exact, since I finished my CS degree from The Uni of Auckland back in 2000.

ORAL

Second part of the interview was conversational. Initially, after the test, I had quite a nice chat, the usual interview things, with one guy. One of the questions that I didn't get to ask him, before the CEO joined the chat, was what exactly is it that he does... I'll find that out next time. Lastly, as mentioned, the CEO joined the interview. And inevitably, the focus of the conversatio

n shifted towards him - to his credit, he did apologise to his subordinate. Again, this was a continuation of the good chat that I started off with the initial interviewee. Looking back at it, I feel I interviewed the CEO as much as he interview me - apparently a good thing (ref). On this note, Thanks YoonHin for giving me the advise during the brunch before the interview. The list of questions to ask came in very handy. As part of his answers, the CEO shared his view on the company's maturation process and the vision for the future. As I side note, he also said that my expected salary fits in nicely within the range of what they give to System Analysts, as well as that just last week he was at The Poly to meet up with his uni buddy, my ex Director. Apparently she told him 'to make sure to check me out'. Regardless of what happens at the end, I will definitely thank Director in person with some nice prezo (e.g. a basket full of juicy Apples).  

Once I got home, I called the HR to get the email address of the two people

 whose email addresses I didn't have: the guy who greeted me and got me comfortable to do the test, and the guy that started off the interview. By the time I opened up the mail to send out the four 'thank you for the interview' mails,  I already had a response from the HR Executive in my inbox, with the request to come for the 2nd interview this coming Friday the 10th. She sent out the invitation for the next interview just 40min after I left their office.  

That favorite line that echoes through the school's corridors comes to mind...

soFarSoGd...!   

Ps: events of the day leading to the interview worth mentioning:

• slept for 4 hours.
  
• talked to the Spanish neighbour, on my way home after the lunch with YoonHin, for far more than I did during all the conversations put together we had in the last two years since I've been here. I felt like I would have preferred to snooze for half an hour or so before getting ready for the interview, but chatting with him got me even more into a conversational stage, which turned out to be quite good. 
  
• this left me with little time to iron my shirt - a 1st time ever for me - shave, shower and dress up. 
  
• was tucking in the shirt, buckling the belt (not of the safety kind), and tying the shoes, all while the taxi driver was tying up my tie around his neck. Once he tied it up, he passed it to me - of course lah.
• There was a heavy rain at the time, and the Mercedes taxi came to pick me up. I love the tropical rain (as some of you would know). And the Mercedes taxi gave me the confidence that the driver will know how to tie the tie. Also, the fancy taxi can be seen as kind of symbolic to professionalism and all (yes, I think so :). 
• we left the apartment building at 2:35pm; 20min later then I planned for. Interview was scheduled for 3pm, we arrived in front of the office building 5min ahead; about 10min later then what I planed. Just-in-time; just the usual.
• the taxi driver actually drives only part time, he is also a real estate agent. MrDon, you can expect my call, as discussed, in the early November, to show me what kind of apartments you have available for me.
  
• what a great day. Guess the stars must have been nicely aligned... thanks Universe...!    
  

Silent Communication - water shortage

I learned about Slideshare, the website for sharing slideshow presentations, from Pat, as he was contemplating entering this year's presentation competition. The overall winner is "an educational presentation exploring humanity's water use and the emerging worldwide water shortage" - something all Melbournias should pay the special attention to. It's impressive how loudly the ideas can be heard while communicating silently:

THIRST

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design crisis)

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I also like the winner of the technolgoy category, expalning the User Centered Desing.

ass ... @

The caricature is by Jimmy, a colleague at work who was bored during one of the early staff meetings that I attended back in September 2006, when I first joined the school.  

Jimmy's work reminds me of the smirk on this photo that my Mum snapped during her visit to Spora last year. 

...! 

Roza's visit

It's been exactly three months since we caught up in Dubai, so it was very nice - to say the least - to catch up again for a week here in Spora. She arrived on the 23rd Sep, and was on the way back on the 30th, just before I went to clean up my office.

As an early birthday present, I got the new camera - sweet. Thanks Roza! Perfect gift, since I lost the camera (she gave me!) at the end of our Iran travels (yep, together with all the photos).

dec...!

Ambivalence

As of today, I am officially unemployed. Though luckily, I am a student again, doing 3 subjects this semester at NUS, to differentiate me from the average bum.

I had two wonderful farewell lunches. One last Friday with my basketball buddies at the lovely Japanese restaurant - thanks Prince; and the other on Monday, with coworkers I've developed friendly relationship at a fancy Hokkien place (pic) - thanks YoonHin. Following the Monday lunch, I caught up with my Reporting Officer (RO) for a little farewell chat. Yesterday, after Roza left to the airport, I was back in the office cleaning out the last few things. Also, I had to return the school's laptop I had been using, though my good colleagues and friends - thanks Steven and Willy - organised a way for me to keep the laptop for a little longer.

The last thing left for me to do was to send a nice 'Thanks ICT' email to all colleagues at the school. Though, Director surprised me during one of the recent staff meetings by getting me to stand up and give a farewell speech, I felt like I left it too general, without thanking anyone in particular, so this time I took the opportunity to do that via the email.

As a response to the farewell email, RO send me a contact at SIM should I wish - err - need to go back to teaching - thanks Pam. And Director forwarded my resume to the company where she has a contact. I'll have the interview with the local IT consulting company next Tuesday - thanks Director. I am especially grateful to Director showing me her helping side - this was the 2nd company that she referred me to - as her and I had few misunderstandings during my time here; as the saying goes: water under the bridge.

Though, my last official day was only yesterday, practically my last semester at the school finished back on the 3rd September when we had the end of the semester staff meeting. So even though I had no work to do for a whole month, the official deadline invoked this funny feeling in me. On one hand I am very happy to be moving on as I know this is the right thing to do. Yet on the other hand, after two years here, the place has wormed up to me, and I have developed good relationships with many people. Thus, the part of me was said to clean up the office and walk out for the last time.

lookingFwd...!