Human Resources

When I was in college, I took many business related courses. There was not one really about HR - Human Resources. Yes, there were Management, Psychology, that sort of HR-related somehow courses. Therefore, when I left college, it was very relevant for me to pursue career other business areas, like accounting, IT, etc. However, after all these years, I began to find that HR is such an 'unique' area that, I wish I would pay more attention and try to understand more about this area.

Every sizable company has a HR department. However, most people who are in management position has to perform certain HR functions. So, HR skills are essential in business. When the business is good, HR needs to do hiring and training. When the business is bad, HR needs to be involved in counselling and firing. When the business is so-so, HR needs to do all those. Whether you get hire or not, HR is always there, rather than helping you, they are trying not to hire you, unless you know your future manager directly. Otherwise, you may be very qualified, but you will not have a chance to step into the door to have an interview by someone that really matter. If you are a manager, you want to hire someone, HR always seems to be forwarding you someone that you don't want. It wasted your time to meet the wrong folks, but you still have to politely meet them, spend an hour with them though you know that he/she is not someone that you will hire after 10 minutes speaking to that person. That's my experience in my previous company.

When you have management issue with your staff, especially at the bad time. HR just wouldn't be helpful. You as a manager will need to do all the 'dirty' works, or making 'tough' decisions, and take all the bad consequences about staff issue, and the HR will probably just doing paper works and a time-wasting exit interview. That's why sometimes, I do think that HR has easy life. Their job security is not that bad, their market demand is also not that bad. They know all the interview tricks, cos they are supposed to be an expert of that. Though I'm sure HR may not be as easy as I thought they are, there must be a whole of specialties and skills that you need to be equipped with in order to be a good HR person, I just have never really met one so far.

Would I be a good HR person? I don't really know. Maybe, I'm just a bit tired of HR issues these days.

Time to think

When I'm busy with something, I can't think. Or I should say, I would not distract myself to put my mind on something else that make me loses focus on the task on hand. Certainly, that's wishful thinking in many cases, especially when I was doing something that I was not very interested in at the time. e.g. when I was preparing for exams when I was in school.

These days, when I'm working, certainly I've to concentrate on my tasks, particularly those involve communication with others. So, during the whole routine boring daily life, the time slots that I would say I can really think without any hesitation are....in shower, in traffic between home and office, and after saying good night to my wife but before I fall into sleep.

I do cherish those times that I can think, not that I've come up with any 'great' idea or things like that. Just really enjoy the free time to think, cos thinking randomly or on topics that I like is an enjoyment to me.

My most anticipated movies 2009

10. Knowing - I always like movies about predict future, trying to change it and all that. Just trying to play with certain paradoxical scenarios. Though I think this Nicolas Cage movie is gonna be another typical Hollywood flick of this genre, I would still check it out if I can.

9. Watchmen - Not a follower of the comic, but just viewing the trailer make it quite interesting to me. Not sure if it is like X-Men, the idea of using less known actors/actresses are good move to save budget and put more costs on effects. Hopefully, the story would be good too.
8. Public Enemy - This pic is not even the poster which has yet come out. What make it attactive to me? Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Leelee Sobieski in Michael Mann's crima drama movie. Nough said!
7. Monsters and Aliens - Not that I've doubt in Pixar's Up (below), the trailer of Monsters and Aliens is really funny. I think Dreamworks has improved their characters creation. This film's characters look more like 'The Incredibles' + 'Monster Inc.', than the old Dreamwork animations. Surely will check this out, if not on screen, definitely on DVD.
6. Up - I've never missed a Pixar film. Though 'Cars' is the worse so far, but it was still better than most others. Up seems to be unique in using an old man as the main character, but Pixar is the best when it goes unconventional, I surely will check this out as M&A above.
5. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - I love the 'X-Men' series. I think Wolverine is definitely one of the best developed character in the movie series. The trailer looks good, though there are not as many X-men as in that series, it should be good enough to pull me in, if the story is as good as the first two in the series. If this one becomes successful, I'm sure more will be coming.
4. 2012 - I always love diaster movies for their special effects. This one should be good, just wanna see how far they can push it after 'Days after tomorrow'.
3. Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen - Love the first one. Yes, the story is stupid, but the visuals...man...just candies to the eyes. Really wanna see how far they can push it.
2. Terminator Salvation - Being a fan of the past 3 movies, I even like the cheezy TV series, I just can't get enough of Terminators. I hope this one will be good. This time, the focus this time is on the human resistance side rather than the terminators, though there are many of them. Let's see how this one against those transformers! 1. Avator - This movie has been 'cooked' for so long. Only very few tipbits have been released so far. Why it is my #1? James Cameroon making sci-fi movie. That's enough to beat anyone, even Spieberg from my point of view. Really looking forward to see those claimed to be newly invented visual effects that merge CGI and human seemlessly. Last time when James Cameroon gave us new 'liquid' FX in 'Abyss'. That was already eye-popping. Just wanna see how he put all the rest to the shame with this massive massive cash-burning masterpiece. Also, one more thing about James Cameroon's movie that differ from most other sci-fi, his movie's script are usually very solid and the characters, particularly female one, are usually very good. Just can't wait till end of the year for this one!

Imagine...his Second Coming....

When I was a kid, I love to imagine stuff. Namely, thinking about those ‘what if’ scenarios, like having superpowers, etc. Being a grown up, just likes most folks, I’m just more ‘grounded’, especially considering that I’m working in a position that requires day-to-day creativity. Though, my job is not routine or boring at all, just not like an artist, designer or script writer that needs to come up with something new in order to do my job.

I’m not particularly religious or spiritual, just a bit more so that most regular folks. Among Christians, there is a brief that Jesus Christ will come to earth again, I guess he will reborn or something. However, in this day and age, I just don’t think that if a person with Jesus’s abilities nowadays would be able to live and preach like what Jesus did two thousand years ago.

Birth - I don’t know where he will be born, in most ‘civilized’, ‘developed’ or some ‘developing’ countries, there will be registered birth. So, can Jesus born again without a dad? I think the answer is yes. The case is that would believers able to accept Jesus to born in place other than Israel? What is he is born in Beijing? Or Rio? Or in Tahran? Or in Downtown Manhattan? Or in Moscow? Just his nationality will be controversial. On top of that, will he be still White? Or Black? Or Yellow?

Growing Up - he will have to enroll in educational system of some sorts, and will have his life being tracked by modern technology, in database everywhere. Certainly, Jesus can stay in animosity until he is an adult, like he came before. In the current version of bible, Jesus’ growing up history is ‘blank’. Will he be able to keep that way this time? I doubt it. Then, what friends that he has, his hobbies, love interests, grades in schools, etc will undoubtedly be dug up. For a guy who wants to be elected for president of a country, he has to go through so much scrutiny of background check. Imagine for someone who claims to be the second coming Jesus, not only the church, but the whole world will be very much addicted to find out everything about him since his birth, and his mom, etc. Any mishap that he did during his time on earth will be dissected, analyzed and debated. Forget about some serious crimes or moral mishaps, just as simple as dumping a girlfriend for another, getting drunk, or went into a fight with playmates during childhood will be a big deal.

Coming out of the ‘closet’ – for sure, this case is about Jesus coming out to the public to let the world know that he has arrived again. It is a catch-22 situation. If he simply says ‘I’m Jesus!’ Nobody is gonna buy that. As there have been so many buffoon coming before him, either in the form of Jesus or anti-Christ, so he has to do something to prove himself. So, the answer must be miracles. Then, he need to make sure his miracle is so believable in these days and age. He has to do something that much more dramatic and shocking, but stay in the holy good way. Otherwise, people will think that he is new magicians that wanna follow the footstep of David Blaine, Criss Angel, etc. So, if he can perform miracle once, then most likely he needs to do that again and again for different folks, like for the Vatican, for certain government leaders, for the regular Joes and Janes. Then, there will be TV crews to film it, putting his miracle on TV, on youtube, etc. There will be skeptics trying to dispute and discredit him, while he will gain ‘fans’ or believers to support and defend him, etc. Just imagine the whole media circus!

Being Jesus – as a holy figure, all the things that we need to worry about ourselves won’t be applied to him. His clothes, foods, accommodations, traveling would be taken care of. Certainly, it will be best by the Church; otherwise, there will be corporate sponsors fighting to be holy! However, what will and can he do all through the days? Once he is known to be Jesus, all the sick, disables, unfortunate, poor and desperate folks from all over the world will want to see him, get his blessing and want miracles from him. If he says yes to them, then, he will be busy healing and helping the needier 24 x 7 until God knows when. Can he say ‘No’ to anyone? I really doubt it, he will discredit and fall from grace by the around the clock coverage by paparazzi, and media crews. What if Vatican locks him up to shield him from the public? If that is the case, why does Jesus wanna come again? If he can’t escape from Vatican, then he is not that powerful to be regarded as Jesus. If he can, where can/will he go? Whether he will be sitting under a tree in India, or leading a gang of new disciples in Morocco, he will still need to perform miracles all day long. Even if he know teleporting, just the hints or impression that he gave to the world that he doesn’t want to help as much as he can/should, he will be regarded as an anti-Christ, rather than Christ.

I’m not going to imagine what will happen that would lead to his death again this time. Certainly, things are not gonna be pleasant. Just imagine the situations above…. Jesus…how difficult his life will be?

God & Religions & Religious Organizations & Us

I've seen quite a few stories in media and blogs about the recently hot debate on the standpoint of 'right-winged' religious groups' view on including/excluding homosexuals in domestic violence protection legislation. I don't have a strong view on this particular issue. However, I would like to express my view of the relationships among God, religions, religious organizations, and us. Certainly, I'm no expert in this topic. So, bear with me if you don't agree with what I'm gonna say.

Human beings in most cultures tend to believe in the existence of the supreme being, i.e. God, or whatever name you want to use it. Like Judaism, Catholicism, Christianity, Islam, etc. They all have the concept of God. They all talk about heaven and hell. Buddhism doesn't really talk about God, it talks about achieving the stage of 'Nirvana'. Nonetheless, I would assume Nirvana would be a nice stage of existence somewhat comparable to living in heaven. Anyway, the bottom line is that wherever we go, it won't happen till we are dead.

Religion to me is a set of beliefs for human to understand where we are from, why we are here, what we can/can't do now that will lead to where we will be in afterlife. Usually, the religious beliefs aim to make us better person. So, as a set of references to provide certain guidelines when we have problem figure out what to do in our daily living, particular those moral related issue. They could be quite useful. Most 'authentic' religions, I'm not talking about the cults, or newly created alternative religions, do have over thousands of year of history, so their existence, survival or belief do stand with time.

For these 2 items - God and religions, I do have quite high respect to them.

Throughout the thousands year of history in various religions, as people were supposed to be less informed and relatively naive. So, the spread of religions must gone through many people, and they do group together to form certain organizations. They form hierarchy to manage their existences, they set rules 'based largely' on their religious beliefs within the organizations. They also have frequent gatherings in designated places. There is no doubt that religious organizations, such as church groups, synagogues, temples, etc, are all 'man-made', though some of them do emphasize their existence is designated from God or whatever. If people pay more attention about religious history, you can see that those organizations do 'evolved', some of them were linked to political regime, led by political leaders, anyway, has close relationships with people in power in general. Also, those people in those religious organizations do have the indisputable role to 'screen' or interpret religious beliefs on behalf of God, as they said. They hold their power in 'judging' what's right or wrong. Cos, many religious beliefs, the reason why they can stand against time, are because there have certain degree of ambiguity, so interpretation does seem necessary and the power of which was up for grab. In addition, some beliefs are coming from 'life stories' of some spiritual leaders. So, interpretation can be done by 'editing' the story contents. With thousand years of history, change of personnel in those organizations, and further through 'language' translations, you are welcome to take a wild guess what religious texts messages have left and how accurate the current interpretation of religious beliefs by religious organization.

Do I against people who want to seek religions to go to church, temple or joining those organizations? No, I absolutely respect individual's rights to do whatever suit them as long as they don't affect the others who don't want to be affected. However, I just think that in these day and age, with the convenience of technology, typical folks like us, can easily access to 'all' sorts of religious information, including the 'official' ones and the 'alternative' interpretations. We have the freedom and up to our ability to seek out what is right for us. Also, I think with such technology, I believe that human being's relationship with God should be closer rather than the farther. Internet as a tool can help sellers directly contact with ultimate buyers, bypassing all the middle mans like it have ever been before. So, it should be the similar case in religions or spiritual life. I'm not saying religious organizations have no role or value. But, the way we access religious beliefs, via which we contact God should be more direct than before. At least we have more choices. So, I believe that in order to reach God, going through religious organizations should no longer be a 'must', and should be more an 'option' these days. On the other hand, for those religious organizations who claim that we must go through them or to hell, I think their messages are facing diminishing returns.....

Multi-dimension Illustration

Karma

Since I became a parent, I started to pay more attention to news stories that related to kids. The latest shocking tragedy is the 4 years American old girl somehow trapped in a washing machine for 2 minutes and died of crushing bones in the head of something. It was supposed to be caused by a hide-and-seek game that she played with her younger brother of 15 months. She hided in the washing machine and her brother punched the start button in his reach that caused such accident. Certainly, that get me thinking what kids can do these days and I think I've to really check out my apartment to spot any 'traps' that can cause harm to my son.

As a second thought, I'm not trying to implying anything here. As a believer of Karma, I think most people, once they have kids, they would less likely to do harmful things intentionally to others in order to avoid any kind of retribution. Cos, there is a belief that if you do something bad to other people, bad deeds will come back to haunt you or your kids. Nonetheless, even if we don't do bad things to others, bad things can still happen to our kids. Cos, for believer of karma, most of us believe in reincarnation as well. So, we may did bad things in our past life that could cause payback this life. That's something we can't avoid. Also, even if we didn't do any bad things in our past life, our kid might have done bad deeds in his/her past life that could come back to hurt him/her this life! Certainly, we wouldn't know what happened in our past lives and even if we do, we can't change that. So, the only thing that we can do is to make good deed and don't do bad things in our lifetime.

With such attitude and belief, as least that can help us to make some senses of why certain unfortunate things happen to superficially Innocent people and would help to make it relatively easy to accept their happenings. That didn't take away the pain and sorrow for tragedies. However, once the emotional part is fading away, the logical sense will kick in in higher gear. For folks like me, logic does help, though we may never know the truth.

A 'Catch 22' no-win question

During lunch discussion today with colleagues, someone mentioned a 'Catch 22' question that illustrate a situation that if such question is asked, no matter how you respond, there is something wrong with you.

The question is "Have you stopped beaten your wife?"

Certainly, you can make it into different variations, such as:

Have you stopped committing crime?
Have you quitted drugs?

Basically, the format of the question is 'Have you' + 'stop/quit/discontinue' + 'some bad things' ?

If you say 'Yes', it means that you did do such thing before, usually that's something never being disclosed to anyone. In spite of the fact that you claim that you are NOT doing that anymore.

If you say 'No', it means that you have been doing that bad things and is going to continue.

Of course, you can always say 'No comment!', 'None of your business!', 'Why you ask?', 'How about you?', and 'Back off!'

The Ugly Truth: America's Economy is Not Coming Back

Just came across an interesting article, wanna share with folks around.

Wed, 01/28/2009 - 18:31 — dlindorff
President Barack Obama and his economic team are being careful to couch all their talk about economic stimulus programs and bank bailout programs in warnings that the economic downturn is serious and that it will take considerable time to bounce back.

I’m reminded of an experience I had with Chinese medicine when I was living in Shanghai back in 1992. I had come down with a nasty case of the flu while teaching journalism at Fudan University on a Fulbright Scholar program. A Chinese colleague suggested I go to the university clinic. When I told him there wasn’t much point since doctors couldn’t do much for the flu besides recommend fluids and bed rest, he said, “That’s Western doctors. You could go to the Chinese medicine doctors at the clinic. They can help you.” I figured, what the hell, and we went. The doctor inquired into the lurid details of my illness—how my bowel movements looked, the color of the mucus in my nose, etc. He didn’t really examine me physically. Then he prescribed an incredible number of pills and teas and sent me home with a huge bag of stuff, and instructions on the regimen for taking them through the course of each day. I followed the directions dutifully, and my colleague came by each day to check on my progress. By the fifth day, when I was still running a fever and feeling terrible, I told him I didn’t think the Chinese medicine was working. He replied confidently, “Chinese medicine takes a long time to work.”

I laughed at this. “Sure,” I said. “But the flu only lasts a week or so, and now, when I get better, you’ll say it was the Chinese medicine, right?”

He smiled and agreed. “Yes. You are right.”

Obviously the Obama administration recognizes that it needs to keep the finger of blame for the current economic collapse squarely pointed at the Bush administration, which is certainly fair in large part (though the Clinton deregulation of the banking industry played a major part in the financial crisis and its enthusiastic promotion of globalization began the massive shift of jobs overseas that has left the nation’s productive capacity hollowed out). But it also seems to recognize that it cannot tell the bitter truth, which is that our national economy will never “bounce back” to where it was in 2007.

America, and individual Americans, have been living profligately for years in an unreal economy, propped up by easy credit which inflated the value of real estate to incredible levels, and which led people to spend way beyond their means. Ordinary middle-class working people have been encouraged to buy obscenely oversized homes at 5% down, or even no down payment. They have been lured into buying cars the size of trucks, one for each driving-aged member of the family (in our town, so many high school kids drive to school that the school ran out of parking spaces and the yellow school buses, largely empty on their runs, are referred to by the students as the “shame train,” an embarrassment to be seen riding). They’ve installed individual back-yard swimming pools, unwilling to share the water with their neighbors in community pools. Boring faux ethnic restaurant franchises of all kinds have befouled the landscape, filling up with families too stressed out to cook, and willing to endure over-salted, over-priced and tasteless cuisine and tacky plastic décor night after night.

Now this is all crashing down. Property values are in free-fall. Car sales have fallen off a cliff. Joblessness is soaring (At present, it’s approaching an official rate of 8%, but if the methodology used in 1980, before the Reagan administration changed it to hide the depth of that era’s deep recession, were applied, it would be 17% today, or one in six workers).

Eventually, the economic slide will hit bottom and begin its slow climb back, as all recessions do, but there will be no return to the days of $500,000 McMansion developments, three-car garages and a new car every two or three years for both parents plus a car for each highschooler. Not only will banks no longer be able to offer such credit to clients. People, having been burned, will not be willing to borrow so much. Company health care benefits, pension programs or 401(k) matching programs that were slashed during this downturn will not be restored when the economy picks up again.

Over the last 20 years, America has degenerated into a nation of consumers, with 72 percent of Gross Domestic Product (sic) now being accounted for by consumer spending—most of it going for things that are produced overseas and shipped here.

That is not an economic model that is sustainable, and it is a model that has just suffered what is certainly a mortal blow.

What we are now seeing is the beginning of an inevitable downward adjustment in American living standards to conform with our actual place in the world. As a nation of consumers, and not producers, with little to offer to the rest of the world except raw materials, food crops, military hardware and bad films (none of which industries employ many people), we are headed to a recovery that will not feel like a recovery at all. Eventually, productive capacity will be restored, as lowered US wages make it again profitable for some things to be made here at home again, but like people in the 1930s looking back at the Roaring 20s of yore, we are going to look back at the last two decades as some kind of dream.

It would be better if the new administration would be honest about this, because with honesty, we could have a recovery program that would actually address the real critical issues facing the country—the decline of our educational system, the irrationality of official promotion of home ownership that has led to the proliferation not just of suburbs but of exurbs, the over-reliance on the automobile for transportation, the unprecedented waste of resources, the pillaging of the environment, not to mention the decimation of the retirement system and the creation of a vast medical-industrial complex that is sucking the life-blood out of families and businesses alike.
With honesty, we could also confront the other big obstacle to national recovery—the nation’s obsession with militarism and foreign wars. The honest truth is that the US is technically bankrupt and in a state of chronic decline, and yet the nation persists in spending a trillion dollars a year on war and preparations for war, as though America were in mortal danger from foreign enemies.

The truth is that we are not threatened by Communism, by drug lords, or by Muslim Jihadists in any serious way. Rather, we have become our own worst enemy.

The administration could start by telling us all this straight up, but the problem is, most of us probably don’t want to hear it, which explains why we’re not hearing it. It also explains why we’re about to blow another trillion or so dollars on propping up failing banks, funding pointless highway and bridge construction, and blowing up illiterate peasants in remote places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Compromise

This morning, my boss asked me how's my weekend. I said 'fine! nothing special!...just spending time with my boy and family stuff.....'. 'Why people these days are so easily satisfied?...with low expectation on things?' He said. I said...'Well, I can't speak for the others, I can only say that I didn't expect much...."....

Come to think of what my bosses said. I think I've my points and so did he. People just don't have same expectation when their lives are so different. When I was single, I 'live' my life. I could wake up anytime I wanted, went to bed anytime I wanted. I just did my own things. I was only responsible to myself. Now, I'm living with my wife, my son and my housemaid. I've responsibilities. My life don't just evolve myself only anymore. I'm NOT complaining or anything. Just that everyone has his/her needs and interests, as a head of a household, in order to make things work, I just have to compromise!

There are times that my interests are not being prioritized, or simply in conflict with others. Just a simple things like getting up in the morning in the weekend. Of course, I like to sleep late, but I got things to do. Before I became parent, I still woke up earlier because I want to check news and surf the net before my wife got up. Cos, when she was up, I would be occupies with some activities that she needed me to be involved, etc. Since I had a son, I still had to get up early, cos my boy wakes up as early as I'm or even earlier, and he needs attention. Also, I need to go to market to buy groceries and food for his lunch, etc. So, that's part of compromise that I'm running into. Am I upset about that? No, but would I be happier to do other things? I would say I'm happy to take care of those extra responsibilities, but also be happy to have chance to do other things that I like to do.

I found that life is just full of compromises. At works, yes. At home, yes too. Would I trade that for being just doing things for myself? No, cos, life just has different stages, and as an adult with a family, you just have to suck it up. Do what're right, though sometimes those are not in line with my selfish guilty interests.

I think make compromise is not something that thought in school, even if it did, kids were too young to understand and to feel the importance of it. Compromise is a art as well as a skill. It can make you as well as break you. I think the most difficult part of making compromise is making it with someone who doesn't like to compromise. It is really hard, a tough pill to swallow. But, hey, that's part of life! Sometimes, I do wonder if I have to, but what is the alternative? Just think of it would make the 'pill' less bitter. The most successful way to 'master' compromise is to achieve the stage of being 'selfless'. It is quite 'Zen', but it is. Only if you can just 'forget' about yourself, then you can master the 'art' of compromise. Just like WATER! It is 'squarer' in a squarer pot, it is spherical, if it the pot is a sphere, etc. Just fit in, then you are fine....Well a theory, but it takes a lifetime to master. By the time we are able to master it...perhaps, we don't need to compromise anymore!.....