Et Tu, TM?

I was really pissed yesterday. My fellow colleagues and I who are in the same appointment were implicated in an email sent out to all the sub-dept managers and deputy managers. Irritation has made me incoherent. Perhaps I ought to start at the beginning.

Due to a high turnover rate, especially a couple of months back when five of my ex-colleagues, all executive level, resigned en masse (for various reasons I suppose; I do not want to attribute their resignations to any one particular reason. Amongst other things, I don't want to appear to tie events of the past to what I am writing about now). In addition, two other colleagues had to go on long medical leave. Because of that, executives and senior executives doing shift work in my particular department were in short supply. My dept head then made an unprecedented decision: our deputy managers were to take their turn doing shift work with us. In effect, while their position was higher than us, their appointments for part of the month of July would be the same as us.

That was perfectly fine with the bunch of us execs. We were, for the most part, chums with our deputy managers, and worked well with them. They had all used to hold our current appointments, and being Duty Officers and Duty Managers would have been old hat to them. We were grateful to have the experienced people with us on shift. It made life easier.

Well, just a couple of days ago, there was a mail sent by my department head to virtually all of the senior officers in my department. In it, my department head said that she was impressed at the measures one of those deputy managers on duty had done in order to ensure productivity and reach a high level of throughput for the department. The mail ended off saying that she wanted to see the other duty managers doing the same things as he did.

What got me pissed is not the fact that she seems to be favouring one person over the others. That in itself is already pretty dangerous considering that everybody knows everybody in my department. What really got me hopping mad was the implication that the rest of us were not doing our work. The measures and techniques which that particular deputy manager had used were standard measures and part of the framework of our duties anyway. A further check into the statistics of that particular shift shows that while the throughput achieved was one of the highest, the resource productivity was in effect, below average!

I am not begrudging my deputy manager his hour of fame. In fact, I am glad of it. He is a self-effacing gent who can achieve more with a little more exposure. I am, once again, highlight, big-caps, bold, italics, and underline in 128 font-size, PISSED at the implication that the rest of us are not doing our work! If it were just me, I would put it down to discrimination; THAT I can handle. But to imply that ALL the duty managers are NOT discharging their duties effectively really takes the cake! Within a couple of short sentences she has told us what she really thinks about our appointment, and sadly, she has also shown very effectively, that she has no idea what the real work scope of a duty manager or duty officer is supposed to be.

The rest of my colleagues who are in the same appointment as I are without doubt, the young executives who are the most loyal, hardworking people I've had the privilege to rub shoulders with. To say that they aren't doing their job is indubitably an insult towards their moral character. And to say that a person's single shift's performance is outstanding when simple statistics show it to be patently untrue is an imperfect nod towards favouritism. Both of which I abhor.

Managers all around the world beware. Subordinates may be subordinates, but to believe that they are also stupid is a total fallacy!

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones but Words Will Never Hurt Me???

I'm not sure if many people actually know the power of words. Words in and of themselves are simply sounds strung together to sound vaguely purposeful. But when put together, they have the power to change lives, affect global events and start wars. When Moses parted the Red Sea, what did he use? The words of prayer. So obviously, my title is patently untrue.

Once again I'm writing in response to what I read in The New Paper a couple of days ago (or was it just yesterday's issue? Must be getting old). A judge (I can actually remember her name... Hui Min, sweet name) slammed a father for using verbal poison to attempt to turn his daughter away from his estranged wife. In front of his daughter, who was at the time only 9, he called his ex-wife all sorts of names, with money-grubbing bitch being about the kindest thing he said. Poisonous to the extreme.

I've seen it so many times... From my school-going days until now, when a couple of derogatory comments by well-respected opinion leaders can sway mass opinions in one way or another. How people, newbies who have inadvertently stepped on the toes of a particular personage popular in an organisation, were sidelined and even ostracised as a result of others talking behind their backs. It can take forever or even longer for them to get away from such a bad reputation, even if at the end of it all, it just isn't justified. Most of the time, such people end up drifting aside, or trying to make a brand new start in a new organisation.

But words can also be a force for good. Look at the speeches of Pope John Paul II, which provided the impetus for sweeping reforms both within and without the Catholic Church. Or the words of MM Lee Kwan Yew, who, although the former premier of a miniscule dot on the atlas, nevertheless commands respect throughout the region.

Words as an institution is due for a whole lot more credit for consequences in our lives than we usually give them credit for. As an infant builds up it's vocabulary, even simple words that have direct meanings, nouns for instance, can come to possess certain significance to it. A Japanese child living at the foot of Mount Fuji for instance, may be more comfortable with the idea of an apple being oversized, rosé-coloured and distinctively fragrant. An American child living in Washington D.C. however may have a markedly different opinion of what constitutes an apple.

As we grow older, the power of the written word intrudes into our consciousness. From the time we are able to recognise those wormlike squiggles on paper as letters (which form words, which form sentences, which form paragraphs), a large part of our knowledge base is throughabsorptionn from written literature, be they magazines, novels, textbooks or reference tomes. Such anabsorptionn of knowledge has furthermore been institutionalised into codified education. Our textbooks follow a curriculum and as students, we are required to know what knowledge is contained within those mass-produced books. Ergo, from young, we are conditioned to believe what is printed and mass produced.

The problem is, with all that wealth of information, both in print and on the internet, we are encountering more and more instances where different publications or documents offer different opinions, using different supporting evidence, gleaned from different sources, and all going head to head with each other. What to believe? And becoming more importantly, how to believe?

It doesn't matter if you are listening to your best friend, or an esteemed opinion leader, or reading the words from a book. Listen with not just your head but also your heart. Listen both logically and intuitively. And never ever jump to conclusions. Things may not always be what they seem to be. Is the person your colleague is bitching about really so bad? Do we need to go to war simply because a political or religious leader says we should? Is chocolate really fattening?

Go figure. And remember, words do hurt.

The Inhumanity of Humanity

The Huang Na incident, where an alleged murderer by the name of Took smiled and nodded proudly as gristly details of the murder was read out to a shocked courtroom. The London bombings, where 4 bombs simultaneously exploded killing dozens and injuring hundreds. The American who used his only toddler daughter as a human hostage and shield whilst returning gunfire to law enforcers. A kitten, found still alive, with its hind legs entangled in its entrails and its ears stapled onto its skull.

Everyday, more than ever it seems, we read horrific and gut-wrenching accounts of casual cruelty inflicted upon each other and upon other living creatures with which we share our Earth with. But why? What motive can possibly influence an individual or a group to the extent that they are willing to sacrifice another's right to live? Who are they to decide on an organism's right to life, or lack of that right thereof?

I am an omnivore. I eat both vegetables and meat. And I do condone the killing of an animal to put meat on my dinner table. In that you could say that I have borrowed from the Sioux way of thinking: I honour the animals who died to put meat onto my table. I hope that besides their meat, their bones have been used to make broth, and their skin used to make leather. I hope that their deaths have not been in vain.

I am also a protector. I will not hesitate to raise my hand against those who trespass against me and mine (yes I will forgive them later, but first I must protect my own). I will not hesitate to bear arms against those who would invade my country, or to defend my loved ones from harm, or to protect my friends should the need arise. And of course, pity those mosquitoes and ants that try to take a bite out of me. For they will feel the heavy hand of mine descending on their backs with such force that they will in all likelihood, never rise again.

But to murder a stranger in cold blood? Or to put a loved one at risk just to protect myself? Or to inflict cruelty for the joy of the blood lust? That is too much for me to comprehend. I do understand blood lust. There is a satisfying sense of power when I am able to slap my palm on a mosquito who irritates me. But to extend that sense of power to humans? Or to animals that have not wronged a person in any way? Or even to be so selfish that not only does one not help a loved one, but used that loved one as a shield from bodily harm? That sort of thinking escapes me.

I view personal liberty with the highest of importance, thus the title of my blog. And to deprive a fellow human being, or to use that human being against his will, is the highest level of the deprivation of liberty. If anyone can bother to think it through, the deprivation of life and liberty of another, will eventually in turn lead to the deprivation of one's own liberty. For if that person has a conscience, then the guilt of having done what he did will imprison him in a state of self-disgust and self-loathing forever. And if he does not have a conscience, then he will eventually be chained in an equally invisible prison: the chains of bloodlust and power. And that will compel him once again to hurt, to main, to kill and to deprive another of life and liberty.

It is small wonder that in many eras, across many echelons of society, liberty and life has been thus equated. For what is the meaning of life without liberty? The freedom of independent thought, choice and motivations? That is why we abolished slavery eons ago. (well maybe not eons, but at least our forefathers were astute enough to know that abolishment of slavery was definitely a step in the right direction).

Goodness, I do sound a little pompous throughout this little piece of ranting don't I? But two facts remains to me are incontrovertible: 1) Do not do unto others what you would not want done to yourself, and 2) Even if you are willing to do it to yourself, others may not want to suffer the same fate as you. So, whether you are debating with yourself whether to give up your seat to a pregnant lady, or to kill your best friend because he has been making out with your girl, just think of this... you would not want to be in their shoes would you?

The Threads of Fate

When I was pretty young, just a wee lad, one of my favourite authors was a guy called Piers Anthony. His writing is of the fantasy genre, but what truly appealed to me was that while he wrote fantasy as his choice of genre, he wrote books and series for all ages. For the children he had the World of Xanth series, for the teens he had the Adept series, and for the adults, he had the Incarnations series. And they were all huge series; all were standalone novels in their own right, but when put together, the tapestry of intertwined fates and the interdependence of the characters he wove became obvious. In fact, this beautifully understated intertwining of the destinies of his characters were giving overt life in one of his books of his Incarnations series where he wrote about the three ladies of fate: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. The first forms the threads of Fate, the second weaves the threads of Fate and the third cuts them.

Why am I writing all this? While I would love to wax lyrical about Piers Anthony all day and all night, it really would not be the purpose I am writing this little piece. Rather, I just want to ruminate a little more about fate.

I'm not really a firm believer in fate as in destiny. To me, destiny is what you make of your life in the long term. Whether you are going to be a happy small fry in a big pond, or the most unhappily powerful man on earth, it will be largely your own doing. How you can rise up above (or sink below) the mediocrity of average life is completely up to the choices you make in life. That, however, is in the context of a human's lifespan, which of course is usually measured in decades.

What has recently caught my interest though is the intertwining of the fates of various individuals. I was travelling home after day shift yesterday evening when I was caught in a massive traffic jam. The cause for the jam was only apparent after half an hour of gridlock where my car seldom if ever went above second gear. A car had collided with another in the middle of the road. As I passed the scene of the accident, I found myself thanking my lucky stars that I was not rushing for an appointment. I probably would not have been so patient nor so forgiving. But just for that half an hour, in the greater scheme of things, the lives of the two drivers involved in the accident were intertwined with mine. What they had experienced had an impact on my life. And I did not really have control over what happened. But was there an impact on my life, no matter how momentary? Definitely.

Imagine your life as a thread stretching through time. A thread that will only end when your time on this earth has ended. If you can stand aside and see your own thread, you would also notice billions upon billions of other threads stretching into the horizon. Those are the threads of others around you. As we go through life, some of those other threads may touch your thread but briefly. Others may intertwine with yours for a time before going off on their own. Yet others will be intertwined with yours, to leave briefly and yet twine back with you at long regular intervals. Are any of those threads more important than the rest? Yes and no.

Yes, because for those threads which twine regularly with yours over time, they are the ones that can enrich your own thread without limit. Through those threads you learn life, love and living. For those threads that touch you but briefly, their impact on your life may be so small as to be insignificant in the greater scheme of things. But no, because lest you think that this gives you the excuse to ignore or to be brusque towards those fleeting encounters, just think of this: I have never met the Pope, nor any President of the United States, nor even the President of Singapore for that matter. But their threads are threads that throw off little wisps that can touch my life immeasurably.

In your own way too, your threads may throw off wisps that may come into contact with threads you may never have the blessing to meet. Nonetheless just remember this: every thread matters, no matter how fleeting the contact, no matter how ephemeral the wisp. Who knows? One day that thread may be one that intertwined with yours in ways you cannot even imagine...

PS. This article is dedicated to a brand new friend, Brenda, who is now studying in Sydney University. She wrote to me after stumbling onto this blog. Just another little example of how a thread can be touched by a wisp...