Things don’t always go the way we want them to. In fact, if you’re having a bad day, things always don’t go the way you want them to. It can be quite demotivating and it will certainly make your mood go bad.

I believe everyone has such an experience, myself included. But over the years, I’ve learnt that no matter how screwed up things are, it is not the end of the world. And no matter how bad things look to be, there are actually not THAT bad if you look at them from another perspective.

For example, the other day, I woke up late as I was feeling very tired. I was late by 40 minutes actually. So I rushed to my workplace, just few minutes before the training started. Of course, rushing will not make one’s mood good. I entered the office with a not-so-good mood. Guess what? The office building was having a power outage since 6am. If I were to go in earlier, I would have to suffer for longer period of time!

Another example, my business trip to Sydney was canceled. I was pretty sad but when I think about it, it’s actually a blessing in disguise. The H1n1 case in Australia is actually worse than Malaysia so canceling my trip to Australia is not really a bad thing.

There are countless examples that I can give you but I’m sure you get the meaning, so I’ll just spare you with those boring stories. And I’m pretty sure you can find those similar stories in your life as well.

All I want to say is, things do happen for a reason. If it’s a setback, don’t dwell on it for too long. Look at it from a different perspective. Maybe it IS better for things to be in this state. Hope it helps.

p/s…. mmm maybe the spread of the flu virus in my office is also a blessing in disguise? hmmm

What happens when a workaholic employee works with a slacker in the same team, for the same project?

Chaos. Dissatisfaction. Misunderstanding…

… and maybe project failure if all these ill feelings are not under control.

This kind of scenario does happen from time to time and exists in most companies. The workaholic will be working day and night to complete the tasks while the slacker will still complete his tasks, but at a much slower pace. By the way, I’m not talking about those slackers who just don’t work – those people should never be in the company in the first place.

So what happens next? At time goes by, the workaholic will feel unhappy because he feels he is the only one doing all the work while the slacker will relax and do things slowly. On the other hand, the slacker will feel the workaholic is trying to show off and starts to push people around in order to follow his style. Thus, the gap between the 2 will become wider and in a small project team, this can have a very negative impact.

But is there anything wrong in this scenario? Should we blame the slacker? or perhaps it is the workaholic who is being too demanding?

In my opinion, nobody is wrong in this case provided both of them managed to accomplish the tasks on time. It’s just a matter of different mindset/mentality/attitude. The keyword here is to compromise and understand that everyone is different.

For the workaholic – he can continue to work hard and be a top performer but he should not care what the slacker is doing. If the slacker screws up, the leader/manager should be the one punishing him. And if you ever feel under-appreciated, then talk to your boss on how much appreciation/reward you think you should get and NOT on how unhappy you are that the slacker is so slow. Remember that he does finish his job, just maybe not as fast as you.

For the slacker – maybe you are the type who loves to do things at the very last minute, but do remember that there are times when things just start to go wrong. That is why some people like the workaholic prefers to do things faster. True, you might have your LIFE to go back to but you should never blame the workaholic for being…a workaholic. It’s just his style. And as long as your boss is comfortable with your style, then there’s no problem.

The reason I’m writing this post is that some friends do complain to me once in a while that they are working like shit but their teammates are not. I can only say that, leave it to the team lead or project manager. There’s really nothing much they can do. Different people have different working styles and as long as the task is completed, there’s no issue. And if the tasks are not completed……then the person to get the scolding should be the team lead/manager.

Conclusion? Respect each others in the team. Everyone is different and has his/her own working style.

p/s….. have a team of slacker, and your team will die. Similarly, have a team of workaholic is not a very healthy choice too.

I used to read this book which talks about emotional banks. I don’t remember the name of the book but surely it has something to do with motivational topics (duh).

Emotional bank is something which exists in everyone. I have an emotional bank and all the people I know have a saving account in it. And how much I (the bank) trust the person, depends on how much saving (money) he or she has in the bank. If he or she owes me money, it does not make sense for me to trust the person.

Hmm, if you’ve ever played the game Sims, you would’ve noticed that if 1 SIM talks in a way which angers the other SIM, there will be this red ” – ” sign.

That is actually similar to how emotional banks work.

For example, each time your boss praises you, he is depositing something into your account. So you are happy to work with him, and respect him. But if one day, he decides that you are influencing all the colleagues to go against him and wants to get rid of you by giving you a huge pay cut, he is withdraw a large sum of money from your emotional bank. That will cause you to lose trust in him.

1st Praise = +20

2nd Praise = +10

Salary increment = +50

and then suddenly Pay cut 50% = -100

Based on this simple example, it is obvious that whatever we do, we should think of the impact that our actions could bring to the emotional bank. Before we say something, are we actually depositing or withdrawing? And how much saving do we have in that someone’s emotional bank? You don’t expect you can get away alive if you just go and hug a girl that you barely know (not in Malaysia anyway, unless both of you are drunk)? Or do you think a long lost friend will be happy if you comment about his pitiful job or his arrogant girlfriend on your first meeting with him after 10 years (again, should be fine if both of you are very drunk)?

So always be aware of emotional banks and how much saving you have left. Don’t do things which will make the emotional banks go negative.

Oh, if you want to try it while you’re drunk, maybe sure the other person is more drunk than you!

Are you feeling tired and don’t feel like doing anything at all (during weekends and not weekdays)? If yes, then it’s time to cut down on the number of things in your to do list especially if you’ve been spending a lot of time over the past few weekends on nothing but works/errands.

Erm, this doesn’t apply to those who have been doing nothing all this while. If you are one of them… time to wake up and go do the things which matter to you!

Okay, back to topic. Actually, nowadays I do feel like just sit down, watch some movies, drink some beer, play some games, read some books and just sleep my weekends away. I think I’m feeling a little burn out. This is a result of putting too much things in my to do list. The list is getting longer and longer as I try to push things ahead of schedule.

• I try to complete more comics.
• I try to stabilize my webcomic layout.
• I try to put on my storywriter’s hat.
• I try to write more blog posts for this blog and my Novice blog.
• I try to learn Ruby on Rails and develop a new web application for my personal use.
• I try to write some product reviews to earn a bit of side income.
• I try to finish a book.

As you can see, all these things are pretty time consuming and 2 days are not enough. Maybe it is enough but I’ll be dead tired on Monday. This is a perfect example of trying to force myself to do something…perhaps too many things at one time. When you’ve reached this stage, it’s easy to just give up and sit there doing nothing. It’s just too frustrating because the list of to do will keep getting longer. It seems like it’s never ending.

Have you experienced something like this before? If yes, maybe the following can help a bit.

• Prioritize the list.
• Assign the long term tasks as lower priorities. For example, finishing a book can be a lower priority for me since finishing it faster doesn’t bring me any extra benefit.
• Assign the tasks which you feel can contribute to the society or tasks which you will enjoy the most as high priorities.
• Starting from the top, pick at most 2 things that you think you can finish over the weekend and try your best to complete them. If possible, just pick the first one and finish it before starting the second.
• If the task requires creative juice and you just don’t have the mood for it, then postpone it. Move on to the next task in the list. Creative works like writing (blogs, stories) and drawing can’t and should not be forced. Do them when you feel like doing.
• Most importantly, don’t push yourselves too much. If you can’t finish, don’t fret. Put it to next week and move slowly. As long as there’s progress, then it’s fine. If there’s 0 progress, take some time to reflect whether the priorities are in the right order.

Remember, never force yourselves into doing something. You’ll burn yourselves out. Prioritize and RELAX. It’s weekend, remember?

p/s…. if you don’t feel like doing anything, spending time with your family can be a very good and relaxing past time.

I always wonder, nowadays we can easily get the info we want anywhere, anytime and EASILY. Just go to Google and you can easily find anything! This is very useful for us because it helps us to gain more knowledge, learn more stuff, do more things, connect with more people.

But also it makes us listen too much to others.

• When we want to know about local news, we go to CNN, BBC or The Star (for Malaysia).
• When we want to find nice food to eat, we go search for food reviews.
• When we want to go for vacation, we Google for the interesting places in the world (within our budget).
• When we want to solve a problem, we Google for it and get the top 5 articles in the search result.
• And for some people, when there’s a problem they don’t know how to do, they go to YouTube (I actually have a friend who went to YouTube to learn how to fold clothes! Oh, and he ended up making a big mess).

..and others, just to name a few.

As a matter of fact, the amount of information that we get everyday is just enormous and I believe it has reached a stage that filtering the information becomes more tedious than receiving the information. Thus, we turn to the so-called professionals aka the media and the ‘expert reviewers’. We believe that they will do the proper filtering for us. After all, we do pay some of them for that!

Actually there’s nothing wrong with this but I do notice that as time goes by, these individuals might end up having a louder voice within us than our own voice. We become indecisive. We believe most of the things THEY say, right or wrong. Or when there’s only one solution in Google for the question we asked, we believe that should be the right one (especially if there are some idiots who claimed the solution is genuine without trying it). But is it really the right one?

Perhaps it’s time to really think about such things (I know some of you already do. So this is aimed at people who rather go with the ‘flow’). Forget about all the press, news, articles, reviews or even commercials. They are there to HELP you in making decision, not making the decision for you. Ask yourselves, what is it that you really want? You want to buy a car? Do you really think you need it? Do you have the money? Will you die without buying it? What about that game with superb review (sorry ya, I’m a video gamer), do you think you will really enjoy it? Can you imagine yourselves enjoying the game after reading the review? How long do you think it’s going to last you? Can’t you wait for 6 months and get from the secondary market?

Ask more questions! Fill up some blanks with those reviews, articles, etc but the final decision should come from you. Stop listening too much to others and start listening to yourselves.

p/s……. few years ago, all my friends told me to give up on a girl. But my heart told me to go on. The end result was not what I wanted but I have no regret at all. Because if I’ve listened to others, the issue might still be unresolved until now.

p/s…….. also, remember that listening is not a bad thing but listening without filtering is.