Jan’s blogs about life

Is it human nature to complaint and murmur? Perhaps that it is so. We can all be very pessimistic about life in general especially when life is giving us frustration sometimes caused by ourselves and sometime by our family members, friends, colleagues and people in authority over us. Taking the example of Exodus of God’s chosen people, they too complaint about their situation to God and Moses for taking them into the harsh condition of the desert, even though they have escaped from their cruel Egyptian masters. Read more »

Since I don’t see my current slow and sluggish office PC will be upgraded any time soon. I’ve decided to do a full trial of using Linux, specifically Ubuntu Linux and see how it will compare against the Windows XP. Naturally, there will be lots of incompatibility, but I do need to boost some of my productivity and keep some sanity from a slow and sluggish computer. Read more »

Working for somebody, you could only use what equipment was given to you. An old PC is not a good way to boost your productivity, but what to do? Bosses can be such a miser even if the money does not belong to them and the company is making so much money only to be given away to the taxman. A case of penny wise pound foolish. Read more »

After a long, tiring running around chasing for prospects, attending to suppliers and driving long tiring distance, the last thing I wanted to see in my phone text messaging are comments from boss saying you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that, etc. He is beginning to get on my nerves. It’s been only one year, and the true colours of my boss are starting to show. With nobody to keep him in check would he be the next emperor in my little branch office? Read more »

Was there something wrong this month or was it just my bad luck? The month of May feels like a month of people taking their sweet time to pay back their dues.

Company wise, there are a couple of customers delaying their payment. Personally wise, I have tenant that is now overdue in their rental arrear up to 2-1/2 months worth! And additionally, my AirKu water vending machine was not only broken in once, but twice. Must be the work of the same gang. Read more »

It was a quiet week at the office. Japan is having their Golden Week holidays and we have our Labour Day and wesak day holidays coinciding. That meant at my end only working on Monday, Thursday and Friday.

Having attended the Olivia Newton John concert at Genting Highlands Arena of Stars on Sunday. I took a half day leave from office on Monday. Still felt tired from that short simple trip to the highlands. It was really cold and foggy up there. But it seems the weather is really odd nowadays. Alternating with a hot sunshine and culminating into brief but thunderous showers. The end times must be near now that the whole world’s weather system has gone haywire. Read more »

Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that starting a business isn’t always a smooth ride. Doors close. People object. Stuff happens. So what can you do to keep yourself on track? Here are some actions you can take when you feel like throwing in the towel and walking away from your dream. Read more »

This heading seems rather odd. If it is true, then where would that leave the rest of us? Some people do start their entrepreneurship way early in their age. As young as pre-school they are already at it looking for opportunity to make some pocket money. According to Matt Heaton (mattheaton.com), CEO of bluehost.com, 5-10% of the people that he met would qualify as the ‘entrepreneur type’. He said, “These are the people that stand in the line at the bank or at McDonalds and look at inefficiencies and say to themselves, ‘I can do this better!’” Read more »

Finally, I get to work with a new office work PC. Well almost. My old PC was really messing up my eyes. For the past six months the screen has a way of turning purple as though it was having a asphyxiation fit. If seeing things in the color of purple wasn’t bad enough, the screen has the addition of going through a temporal phase blur effect. This definetely will cause my eyes to become really, really bonkers trying to focus on something that wasn’t even defined in the first place. Read more »

My boss has asked me to develop new chemical product for sales into the market. Now, what are the products that I can develop? Previous endeavors were not successful. I am having a hard time here.

The Talc Masterbatch which Japan HQ has developed does not seem to have much success over here or even in other south-east Asian countries. Maybe in Japan the PP is expensive and using the Talc Masterbatch can significantly lower their cost. But over here, the PP cost was about US$1.31/kg, and the talc m/b after bringing it from China or Japan stock, with the usual mark up to cover for cargo clearance and profit margin becomes approx slight less than the PP price which does not contribute much value for customer at an add in dosage of 20%. Read more »