猫扒

"这是牛扒。那这是？"妈妈问恺忆。
"羊扒，鸡扒，猫扒。"恺忆得意地说。
恺忆把猪当猫，妈妈笑弯腰。

Investing in property

A friend asked, 'When is it a good time to go into property investment? Is it too late and risky now?'

I told him about what Kwek Leng Beng said, 'Buy property only if you can service the loan installments. If you can't, you are just speculating. And the right time to buy is when the interest rate is at its lowest.'

My friend then asked, 'So is the interest rate at its lowest now?'.

I replied, 'How would I know!'.

---

My friend later bought an freehold apartment at Race Course Road at $1100 psf.

I asked him, 'Why you buy property at Little India? You sure people want to stay there?!'.

My friend replied, 'For investment and rent out lah. MRT right at the doorstep. Why not? Agent said renting out sure no problem. Some more good rental yield.'

I said, 'Is it? So good meh'.

---

My friend called me, 'Oi. Agent called me. Ask whether want to sell or not.'.

I exclaimed, 'Huh, you pay option money for less than 2 weeks, already got people want to buy from you. How much? Can make how much?'

My friend tried to act humble, 'Not much lah. Can sell at $1200 psf. May be make $50k only.'

I exclaimed again, 'What! 2 weeks can make $50k! So how, you want to sell?'.

My friend tried to act cool, 'No lah. Wait and see. Agent say will go up some more. Can rent out first.'

I asked, 'But the economy quite gloomy leh. You not scared meh.'

My friend reminded my words, 'Kwek Leng Beng said can buy if can pay installment what.'

I keep quite and wish him luck.

Talk Less Do More

Yes, I agreed. The smallest of actions is so much better, braver, smarter than the biggest of intentions. Is time to walk the talk, gentlemen!

Fixing the System

I decided that I might as well take the opportunity this 2 weeks (while MT is away)to better understand the support scope and process, and see how we can improve it. At least, now it appear to be more fruitful rather than dreadful. Impressive?! :)

I recall a cliche that goes like this, "When there is a problem, don't fix the problem, but fix the system". All too often, we deal with urgent problems and fight fires. It is not difficult to conclude that, in order to be the best, we should think better than just fixing the problem.

That's exactly what needs to be done, to establish a system that allows us to carry out the support efficiently and effectively. For a start, the simple ones first, how do we better organise and track support emails. Let's see how we can apply GTDF techniques here. I will share on this experience later.

It may be timely to introduce a new person to a team. I believe this will help test the system and in turn drive it further.

Recipe for effective proposal

I came across this interesting idea at AYE. It is designed to help focus on articulating the benefit when proposing an idea.

The recipe for effective proposal

If you do X, you will get Y.
Otherwise (if you do nothing) it will cost you Z.
Do I have your approval to do X?

where X is the idea, Y is the benefit, and Z is the cost for doing nothing.

I guess this is nothing new or fantastic to experienced worker. In one way or another, we learnt through the hard way. But it should be simple and concise enough for newbies that I work with.

Courtesy of Steven Smith at AYE http://www.stevenmsmith.com/my-blogs/

Horrible week that is not ending yet

This week has been horrible so far, and it is not ending yet. Can't believe they actually suggest restarting the system 6 times daily. The problem is, the system may not come up at each restart due to the curse of "java.lang.ClassCircularityError". I am keeping my finger crossed, hoping that I don't have to return to restart the system manually over the weekend.

The only consolation is to know that I have the privilege to work with committed co-workers that are always showing up. Leo, as usual is always there. And this time round, we have MT lugging the notebook with him to Greece, and responding to emails at the wee hours and whenever possible. Great help, which I didn't ask for.