Until recently, I’ve always had the ambition to ‘make it big’ in business one day - I couldn’t wait till the day when I finally graduate and can start my forage into the business world to begin building my own business empire.

My idea of success in life was, I suppose, rather typical - several million dollars in assets by age 40, being able to afford all the luxuries in life, earning enough for me to not worry about health and survival issues (i.e. with plenty of money I can afford to eat well and spend on preventive health care, etc).

I even thought that I had business acumen (in fact I still think I have some traits of an entreprenuer left in me, but I think I’ve lost the appetite for risk since a couple of years back).

In the earlier half of the year that I spent in Vancouver, I had more time and space to think about things like what I want out of life, and what I should do with it, now that I’ve only got just about 1 more year of college to go.

It was quite funny, actually. I was going back and forth in my thinking… for a while deciding that I would like to start a business right after graduation, then changing my mind and thinking instead, that I should go out and work for a couple of years to gain relevant industry experience first… then changing my mind again and again until I got sick and tired of my indecisiveness myself. Afterall, there are just so many uncertainties.

I think so much because I don’t want to be like the majority of the population, who leave their careers to chance rather than plan meticulously - those people who start thinking about their careers only after graduation and would jump at the first job opportunity that pays a good starting salary. This mindset can be seen in today’s Straits Times’ Youthlink, where several undergraduates interviewed said that they think they deserve a high starting salary based on their qualifications.

My idea is that as a polytechnic graduate, as well as a male Singaporean who wasted 2.5 years of my life serving a nation that cares about embracing foreign talent more than its own people, I’ve already wasted enough time. I do not want to waste any more time going in and out of jobs when I can plan sufficiently enough to avoid choosing a job that pays a good starting salary, but would not be a sustainable career for reasons such as lack of interest on my part, or having a job that is simply incompatible with me.

I realized that the thinking that earning plenty of money to sustain a luxurious lifestyle equates to happiness is actually just a very convenient ‘default’ sort of thinking, conditioned into a significant proportion of the population due to our exposure to all the ’success stories’ about famous, rich people and their glamorous, high-class lifestyles.

I’m not saying that having this particular mindset is wrong, but it may not be compatible for every individual. I think happiness is really a function of how compatible one’s circumstances (i.e. career, relationships, environment, etc) are with his personal values.  Having the thinking that “once I earn enough money I’ll start thinking about retirement and doing the things I like” just shows that a person haven’t thought enough about what he wants out of life.

Through a process of research, critical thinking and weighing pros and cons of each possible career trajectory that I identified against my values and principles, I finally shortlisted a couple, and eventually zoomed in on a single choice.

The two finalists were consulting and academic life. Both offered relatively high remuneration, challenges, ability to work independently, and opportunities to travel. I eventually decided to work towards an academic career after much struggle between the prospects of potentially earning more in consulting but having a more stressful life, or the inverse of that for an academic career.

I find that after putting that much time and effort into seriously thinking about what I want out of life, I’m able to make a decision about what direction to move towards, and stick to it. At least, I’ve been sticking strongly to this decision for at least the past two months or so already (I seldom stick to a career idea for so long), and I do feel quite determined to work towards it too… and most importantly, I feel comfortable with the decision - comfortable enough to stay focused on it.

Now, the challenge will be for me to do it - get into a good graduate school. There’s always the possibility that I might not succeed, but I always subscribe to the belief that if I really want to do something, I would strive to do it well.

I tend to be skeptical most of the time and underestimate what I can achieve, but that always helps in propelling myself to work harder and I mostly get surprises whenever I look at the results I get, whether in studies or other endeavours. I find that being mildly skeptical is better than being overconfident. At least if and when I fail, I don’t get too much of a shock.

Too much musing for today. Time to sleep!

I used the term ‘less-than-stellar’ instead of ‘poor’ only because there is no definitive benchmark for ‘poor’ - in the unlikely circumstance that SP decides to take issue and nitpick on my comments…

Channel NewsAsia reported that some consumers complained of a 50% spike in their electricity bills for the month of June. When contacted, Singapore Power attributed it to higher consumption due to the hot weather, when air-conditioners ‘work harder’ to maintain the same cooling level.

I am utterly not convinced. My household electricity bill for June went up by about 50% as well. However, I use the air-conditioner very infrequently - say, several nights a month. I am not convinced that the few nights of use can result in that much of a diifference in the bill even if the air-conditioner used more electricity on hot days.

Here is the official response from Singapore Power:

“There is no glitch in the billing system, which has been in operation since the year 2000,” said an SP Services spokesperson. Consumption is usually higher from April to September due to the hotter months, she noted. “When the weather is hot, consumers tend to use more water and air-conditioning, which lead to higher energy use. Moreover, during the hotter months, air-conditioning consumes more power to maintain the same temperature as compared to cooler months.”

I attempt to prove that this statement is flawed:

1. Having a billing system that has been in operation since 8 years ago does not suggest that there can be no glitch in it. A system glitch can be caused by human error, and in fact, I suspect there are not many information systems with totally zero error rates in this world.
2. SP’s billing system is not particularly known for its reliability. From time to time there are letters in the ST Forum from consumers who discovered billing discrepancies… If I remember correctly there had also been incidents in the past when bills were sent to the wrong households?
3. In November 2003, SP Services also sued its ex-vendor for a faulty billing system that affected tens of thousands of home users in 2000. A household was even billed more than $39,000 due to the glitch. How can SP insinuate that there are no glitches in their system “in use since 2000″, when it is the same system that was the center of a major billing glitch in 2000? Granted, steps should have been taken to rectify the faults since the errors were discovered, but this does not mean that there will not be any more issues with the system.
4. It should also be noted that SP eventually reached an out-of-court settlement with its ex-vendor, which counter-sued SP, charging that it was “SP Services’ own failings” that resulted in the problems. To be fair, since it was an out-of-court settlement there is no way to know whose failing it was. However, consumers should never bear the brunt for any service provider’s own management problems.
5. In the same CNA article, the SP spokesperson also mentioned that “… spikes in some bills could be due to adjustments made to make up for “under-billing” the month before.” On 6 May 2008, a reply to the ST Forum by SP (in response to a complaint) also suggested that “(the manual intervention of billing) approach is costly and error-prone”. This implies that errors can likely happen as a result of manual (I suppose, human) intervention in the billing system. This contradicts SP’s own statement that its billing system is glitch-less.
6. Additionally, I also know of somebody who had an electricity bill of just $1 once - for some unknown reason. If it was not a glitch, then what happened?

The question is, who can verify whether SP Services’ billing system is indeed flawless? I suppose audit checks can reveal any problems, but based on what I understand about information systems auditing, problems can go undiscovered - especially when problems arise from manual intervention in automated system processes, and auditing only tests the integrity of systems.

Next question - whose responsibility is it to ensure that consumers are not disadvantaged when it comes to billing matters? Besides internal audit and the customary annual external audit, what does the Government do to regulate service providers such as SP?

Lastly, based on a search of past newspaper reports, it seems that meter faults are the most common reasons cited for billing disrepancies - given the incidence of reported (and possibly many non-reported) cases of meter faults, why is SP still billing customers based on bi-monthly meter checks? Furthermore, are there any processes in place to ensure that all electricity meters are checked at regular intervals to ensure they are functioning normally?

Masterpiece of sarcasm

From The Straits Times: Get China girl instead (ST Life, 14 June)

Miss Shenise Wong’s dress is bad enough but her hairdo is even worse.

Although she is 26, she looks old for her age. She stands no chance against the other younger contestants.

I would suggest that, next time, the organizer should get a young, pretty girl from China, give her Singapore citizenship and let her represent the Republic.

After all, getting help from “foreign talent” is part of Singapore’s culture.

Masterpiece of understatement

From Wikipedia: British Airways Flight 9

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.

This is so funny

I’ve been reading up a fair bit on the Tibetan situation these few days, and it seems that foreign media as well as the general public sympathetic to Tibet tend to generalize the situation as China’s fault.

I’m not saying it’s not - it could be, or not - nobody really knows the real situation besides those on the ground - and these people tend to be either rooting for one side or the other… naturally their reportings are very likely to be biased. There are people saying that the death toll is 10, and limited to Han Chinese business owners and residents, and some saying 100 ethnic Tibetans were killed.

We need to take an objective, rational view of the situation.

First of all, it is clear by now that the chaos was started by radical Tibetans who wanted to take advantage of the fact that China will be holding the Olympics soon and thus will be likely to be softer in its approach towards any unrest for fear of international backlash.

Next, bearing in mind that Beijing is well aware of the international attention on this matter, it is unlikely that they will order lethal force unless absolutely necessary to control the situation. And even in the case where lethal force is required, they would probably target just the trouble makers and not the general public (what’s the point of attacking the general public?). There were reports from those sympathetic to Tibet’s protesters that the dead included a Tibetan mother and her baby… now, I find that quite unbelievable.

I am a Buddhist, and my teacher is Tibetan… I do sympathize with Tibetans to a certain extent about how their culture is being diluted with the influx of Han Chinese into their homeland… but we should really sit back and think about everything that’s going on and decide for ourselves rationally what to believe in and not just trust seemingly reliable news sources that can be biased in their reporting too.

“Here’s to champagne, the drink divine

That makes us forget all our troubles

It’s made of a dollar’s worth of wine

And thirty dollars worth of bubbles”

I committed a faux pas today. I was craving for wonton noodles and since I wasn’t able to get my fix yesterday due to the stupid fire alarm at the SUB, I decided to go to Chinatown today to walk around a bit and have my noodles at a well known chain of Chinese food here – Hon’s Won Ton House.

It was the first time I was having a meal at a proper sit down restaurant and upon finishing my food, I went over to the cashier to make my payment. At that point I was looking around for a tip box, but couldn’t find one… so I assumed tipping wasn’t a custom there. My meal was $6.77, and I paid $7. The cashier returned me $0.23 and I took it and left. While walking away, I heard the cashier say something in Cantonese… I think she was scoffing at me taking the $0.23 change.

Well… I seriously didn’t know. If they expected tips and people to pay at the cashier too, then they should put a tip box there. I was quite embarrassed and quickly walked away. The food was good, but the experience not so.

I guess in future I will leave tips when in doubt. It’s definitely better to leave tips when not expected to rather than not leave any when tips are expected. I felt quite bad really.

Actually I’ve always thought that mandatory/expected tipping is not a good idea. It creates space for misunderstandings (i.e. when people are not sure whether to tip at a seemingly casual establishment, or for tourists from other countries where there is no tipping culture). It also gives the wrong kind of signal to workers – that they expect tipping whether or not their service was perceived as good. It’s also gives a bad experience when people who genuinely forget or are not aware of the norm get scoffed at or embarrassed in public when they don’t leave any tips.

It’s much better when tipping is considered ‘appropriate but not compulsory’, like in Thailand. When I leave tips, the servers and waiting staff are genuinely happy… when I don’t they don’t exude any negative behavior. Such a system allows diners to tip when they feel they’ve received good service, and whatever amount that they feel is appropriate, rather than a ‘rule of thumb’ (such as here in N. America) of 15 – 20% (that’s a lot, considering food prices are not exactly low here).

The rationale given for the tipping culture is that many waiting staff at restaurants earn less than minimum wage and the tips supplement their income. That is skewed logic, and just implies that restaurant owners are not paying their staff enough. I think Thailand has an even bigger problem of low wage earners but they don’t go about their work expecting to receive tips all the time.

Anyway, I went shopping for groceries today, and I bought a lot because I’ve got friends coming over tomorrow and I’ll be cooking for them. I’ll have to use both packs of tom yum ingredients I brought over (so sad!)… But PY will help me buy more when she comes in a couple of weeks’ time, so I guess it’s alright. My friends were quite shocked when they found out I do my own cooking. Hmm. I think they’re a lucky lot if they never needed to cook for themselves.

I actually enjoy cooking, just that it takes a lot of time to cook a nice meal, and I’ve got quite limited knowledge in cooking so it gets frustrating often when I want to cook something I’ll like to eat (i.e. chicken curry) but it fails.

This caught my attention today. Quite laughable. I’ve never heard of earthquakes in this part of BC… not sure about elsewhere, but heck… Australia’s quite crazy - I remember they had a history of issuing travel warnings for the slightest matters.

 http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gFY7RoDOJgR8VycbDmKBsHpdvXtg

Extract:

As Canadian tourism officials prepare to launch a new campaign next week to promote Canada as a place for Australian tourists to “keep exploring,” travellers from Down Under may have second thoughts if they take the advice of their own government’s “Smart Traveller” website.

It has a warning posted about travel to The Great White North.

The website, which is run by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has Canada listed as a country where travellers should “exercise caution,” which is the second-lowest rating out of five - the highest being “do not travel.”

Australians are advised to be cautious because of “the risk of a terrorist attack” in Canada, heavy snow, windchill and ice in the winter, and forest fires that can erupt “at any time.”

British Columbia, in particular, was singled out as being in an active earthquake zone and “subject to avalanches,” along with Alberta.

Umm… the best part is, BC is such a huge province, and they’ve singled out the entire province without specific mention of what areas.