Everybody Poops

In Malaysia there are two types of toilets; the NORMAL one (yes, the porcelain seat is for normal people) and the-hole-in-the-ground-surrounded-by-a-porcelain-frame. The latter one is supposedly more common in India and China than in Malaysia, but it sucks nevertheless. If your knees aren't made of steel, that is.

Regardless of the toilet format however, Malaysians have a tendency to wet the WHOLE BLOODY TOILET when they take a poop. This is very annoying. When I have to go for the big second one, I don't like to do it in a fucking swimming pool. The thing why the toilet is wet, is because some people wash their assess instead of/in addition to wiping them. Maybe this sounds very nice to someone who likes to be a goddamn hippie, but on the other hand, excessive amounts of clean water is wasted in the process. I'm not an expert enough to tell which solution is more tolling for the environment, but both of them are that for sure. The fact is that there are too many poopers in the world, rather than people are pooping in a wrong way.

Imagine yourself having a stressful day, stressful meetings, tons of coffee, some quick lunching etc. This all means that a grand grand snake is building up during the day. Then after your work, when the mental pressure is relieved, the physical one in your intestines begin - and it usually comes fast as hell, so you gotta find the closest toilet 'cause normally you haven't reached home yet. You can probably imagine how FUCKING NICE it is to go to take a poop in a tiny all wet cabinet with the pissy shopping mall piano tunes mixed with farts , everyone else doing the same pooping thing next to you inside other cabinets, and the whole place stinking like there's no tomorrow.

This post is a direct traveler and expat tip; don't use public toilets, observe your snake build up, and time the sinking operation. Starhill Gallery in Bukit Bintang has excellent and clean toilets by the way. They're dark, silent and peaceful , and although a little bit costly, its definately worth to pay RM 1 for a good ol' stress relieving peaceful shit.

Mining

There hasn't been news of a major mining accident from China in a week. Maybe it's a good week for Chinese miners, as the last accident was an explosion on the 1st of August killing 14 and injuring 11. Last month saw about a hundred miners dead, mostly from collapses and some from broken elevators.

However, China is no longer among the poorest countries in the world, and is doing well in comparison. Sure, news trickle in, but it's a big industry and is manned mostly by willing adults. Other places are worse.

I've got a long article from AP through Yahoo! news for you:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080810/ap_on_re_af/toiling_for_gold

It's about children aged 5 to 10 in African gold mines digging up ore and extracting the valuables by rinsing it with mercury. It's a long read, and written a little dramatically at points, but I don't think it's an outright lie. Grim nonetheless.

OP out.

Welcome to the Games!

The opening ceremony at the full stadium was magnificent. And now the games have begun.

With 48kg Women's weightlifting. Now there's a sport. The girls do their best to lift less weight than the bigger girls who come after them. And those girls do their best to lift less than the men who come after. It's the Olympic ideal of achieving the best weight lifted per gender per body mass. It doesn't sound too grand, and seeing a girl fail at 90kg lift on TV, it doesn't look too grand either.

But the conditions look nice, the equipment is solid and the arenas are all sold out. Still, when you fail at lifting 13kg less than the Chinese athlete coming after you, the arena is still dead quiet. So far the Chinese audience has only cheered for their own.

I wonder how they react if their athletes fail.
OP out.

Super Duper Management

I don't even know what a good management means nowadays, but I'm pretty damn sure what super duper management means. Super duper management = make your sub-ordinates bust their assess off from every penny you pay them, and then.. Don't pay them! The plan is perfect until you realize that all of the subordinates have resigned and there is no-one to actually do the work anymore.

Two statements;
-Paying minimal or no salary is a great way to save money and use it on something less useful instead.
-Finding employees with good spirit is easy, but after 2 months the spirits can be brought down irreversibly.

I don't know yet how costly it is to a company to lose an employee, but I'm sure the idea of "lets make him work his ass off until he quits" may become cheaper than the normal way of paying decent wage to an efficient employee. However, this requires a steady supply of blue-eyed employee's to be taken in and tossed out of the company.

Human Resource Management has billions of aspects, and I believe that normal levels, principals and customs of salary is just a small thing needed to be done right. Doing the salary dance in a proper way results in less de-motivation, as stated by Frederick Herzberg in his theory of job motivation. Everywhere. People care about the money, and its a bit sad to all the noble employers in the world who just would like things to be free and everyone be happy for free.

I'm not saying this is the style of management in some particular area of the world, but you can draw your own conclusions from this Blog's area of focus.

Security Through Superior Firepower

So I flew from Guangzhou to Taizhou on Monday and the airport had much more security than before. Specifically, it had more armed security. In a country where civilians are not allowed to carry arms, the decision makers believe more guns will help the Olympic games.

Walking through the doors, a squad of three, all in different uniforms was standing at the gate. Obviously on display. The security and their armament. No, you don't need submachine guns at the door to the airport, but the Olympics bring out this side in their Chinese. They want to show off. There were patrolling guards as well, equipped with pistols. And bear in mind, this was in a country where even the regular Police do not carry arms, on the other side from the Olympics.

Now imagine how many more security guards there are in Beijing. Imagine how the situation turns out if something happens. I won't paint a bleak picture here, but remember China's track record in dealing with disturbances. At least they are trying, very hard, as even the protests at the torch relay were met with non-lethal force. The Chinese do not wish to crack down on foreigners, but if someone was to try causing damage at the Olympics there exists a very real chance of the security escalating the situation.

OP Out.