The non-IT folks sometimes get the thinking that IT projects are easy. After all, you often hear how easy it is to “develop websites”, or how some primary school kid has written iPhone and iPad apps. There are all sorts of development tools that let you throw together apps in no time. So, surely, it can’t be all that difficult to roll out an “IT system”? It’s really not all that simple. Yes, maybe some apps are simple enough. In…
Last week’s strike by SMRT bus drivers from China has been a hot topic. I was quite shocked that it took our official media that long to recognise and label their actions as a strike. The “did not turn up for work” label was just so awkward to read. Fortunately, our government did not try to spin the strike as some other more benign activity, otherwise I think many Singaporeans are going to be so unhappy. Interestingly, I thought the…
I’m not new to Google Drive. I’ve used Google Docs previously. It’s the predecessor to Google Drive. One of the greatest features touted of Google Docs then, and the thing that most attracted me to the platform then, was their collaborative editing feature. Imagine when you have to work with a team to write a document. Not only can everyone access the document at the same time, but everyone can also instantly and simultaneously make changes. One single copy of…
Just like I’ve been a long time Linux user, I’ve also used Solaris for a long time. Not the whole time throughout, no doubt. But I did have SunOS on what I could call my personal workstation back in the mid 1990s. That was SunOS 4. It was also known as Solaris 1.x back then, thanks to Sun Microsystems’ rebranding exercise. Yeah, that’s so long ago. We’re at Solaris 11 now. In the last year, my portfolio expanded to include…
While on the other side of the world Amazon’s AWS was battling electrical storms, our humble Disaster Recovery (DR) Drill was battling small electrical fires this morning. Every DR Drill we run has always had some form of excitement or other. We conduct one drill for each facility once a year (or, at least, that’s what we’re supposed to). Every time, something quite unexpected will happen. A longer time ago, most problems were IT related. Switches, routers, or storage systems…
This matter about professionalism at work was raised recently, and I thought I have some 2 cents to share about, particularly to people who are just starting out their work life. This is not about professionalism in the context of your job specification, but about the work itself that you do for your company. They are not the same thing. For example, a real estate agent could be very professional in his conduct with his customers, but could be lesser…
I’m attending a course again this week. I looked at my calendar and realized that in this period of approximately six weeks, I seem to be involved in far too many courses. Nine days for a Lean Sigma course spread across two weeks, also eight days for two CCNA courses spread across two weeks, and another accumulated total of four days on other in-house courses. That’s 21 days in all.
I hate appraisal time. Not just about me getting appraised. But also about me appraising or giving input to appraise others. The “system” sometimes (or often times) fail to capture pertinent performance markers. The system wants to work on indices, scales, bell curves. But reality is a lot more complex. Appraisal is complex, I suppose, so someone had to design a system in an attempt to simplify things. In the system, imperfection is okay, just so long as it makes…
Some folks at work have become somewhat paranoid over the EMF levels in their workspace. Apparently, they have found levels to be “unsafe” for prolonged continuous exposure, according to some literature that they’ve dug out. It has spun off many activities, including professional EMF testing by an independent company, call for action by relevant departments within the organization, etc. Yet, unsurprisingly, the official interim standing on the matter is that, according to in-house EMF experts, there is no cause for…
Sometimes, I think “work-life balance” is just an excuse for some people who want to work less. Push away their work. Shirk responsibility. I’m not against the idea of needing some balance, in principle. But one must also realize that every person is a valuable resource in an organization, and they need to do their fair part. It’s not a question of working “over time”. I recently spoke to some people who talked about how they come on the dot,…
