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In this piece from The Star, we can read about what goes on in the minds of immigrant workers in Malaysia.

We can see the wages that these workers receive in the industries they’re in. Heck, some of them earn quite an attractive sum! I’ve always had much respect for the average foreign worker. They tend to save religiously and be very prudent in spending their money. I wish I had such discipline.

It has been said, by the Executive Director of the Malaysian Employers Federation, Tn Hj Shamsuddin Bardan (as an aside, strangely enough, the official MEF council page says that he is the Secretary);

“Basically, a degree is not a passport to a comfortable job”, he says. He points out that employment trends in Malaysia have changed tremendously in the past decade.

This is a timely comment by someone who is really in the industry beyond the political hoopla. Somehow I feel that it somehow relates to my previous post. Most Malaysian politicians know nothing about the industrial situation other than what was grapevined to them from not so reliable sources.

In the article, Tn Haji Shamsudin touches on issues such as training fresh grads, as well as how the syllabus of our public universities are not really synchronised with the real needs of the industry. Previously, whenever I think of this issue, I primarily put the fault on to the students. Many of them don’t really put much thought into what courses they want to take and for what reasons. Most just blindly accept the first offer that they get, eventhough it’s not something they’re interested in.

However, instead of being proactive with the suggestions made by Tn Haji Shamsudin, certain segments of the academia (in this case, the VC of UKM) went on the defensive;

“For example, we have one day a week dedicated to activities in English. The students even perform dikir barat in English”, he says.

The professor vehemently disagrees with the idea that private education institutions offer a more well-rounded education than public institutions and therefore guarantee better employment opportunities.

A similar response was given by the deputy VC of UTM when I attended their Career Fair dinner in February. It all started when a GM of Panasonic Malaysia (which was the main sponsor for the fair), suggested that universities (especially public universities) should focus more on the real needs of the industry. He also stated that most graduates are ignorant of industry news and happenings. They also never put in enough effort to find out more about the companies where they are applying work. This is all too true, in my experience.

The deputy VC didn’t take the message that well. Instead of listening to a sponsor (ie. a company which has provide funding for your project), he lamented instead on public universities cannot force student to participate in more industry related activities, especially if it doesn’t have an affect on the students’ GPA. He also says that public universities have much better academic personnel compared to private universities, the problem is just that students do not appreciate this fact because the fees of public universities are much lower than private ones. My initial thought when he said this was “WTF? So you want to keep manufacturing losers from your university?”.

Afterwards, I found out that this guy has said other dumb things as well… Heck, I’ve even had the honour to listen to one of his idiotic ramblings with my date for the night. Suffice to say it involves climbing a wall to reach your car when stairs are just 10 metres away.

That night, I lost all faith of Malaysian public universities. Hopefully, things will improve. Drastically.

I know that most employers know this already; you must be very, very careful when employing people in Malaysia. There are lots of issues to note when employment is discussed. Some are pretty obvious, whereas some require careful, well-planned action plans.

Before you proceed, I’d just like to state that this post is not intended for workers, or those planning to join the workforce. It is merely a reflection of my experience as someone facilitating the employment process on behalf of a company. I will be very objective in my posting, and workers may find this post intimidating. You have been warned, proceed at your own risk.

Read the rest of Be Careful When Employing People »

Now why the hell didn’t I see this petition earlier! But better late than never… thanks to Chan Siau Liang for pointing it out in his blog.

Basically, all IT-aware Malaysians know that the reason why we got shitty broadband coverage in Malaysia is primarily because of TMNet’s virtual monopoly of the market. Yeah, yeah… there are other pseudo-ISPs such as Jaring, TIMENet and Maxis… but none of them really offers nationwide broadband coverage.

So basically, they’re screwed… because in more than 90% of cases, only TMNet’s Streamyx ADSL service is the only choice that Malaysians can pick when choosing a broadband plan.

Why is this so bad? Well, some people have service related issues with them. As for me, I rarely have service issues with Streamyx… probably one slow night every 4-6 months or so. But I do have a huge problem with their service coverage in “new” commercial/residential areas in Johor Bahru.

God damn it TMNet, fibre optics are not a god damn excuse to deprive residents of decent ADSL service. For shit’s sake, DSLAM units are not really expensive… especially for GLCs like you!

Another issue that I have with regards to Streamyx is that, TMNet seems to employ thieving, lying bastards as sales-reps for the service in Johor Bahru. I had one of these bastards coming in my office offering Streamyx when I know for a god damn fact that it’s not available in my unit. The bastard even convinced me that the reason my self tests failed is because of the Centrex service I subscribed from Telekom (TMNet’s parent company, the monopoly telephone fixed line provider in Malaysia) cocking up the test.

I can’t believe with the number of years of experience I had in IT and technology in general, I fell for that bloody con! Till this day, I curse the day I met that bastard. Anyway, for those who didn’t get the gist of the story: Streamyx availability does not depend on your usage of Centrex or other PABX-like services.

I cancelled the Centrex service for the lines (not one but TWO, one in the HQ and another in our Pulai Utama branch) which I wanted to use for Streamyx. The bastard told me that their techie will come to our premises within a week to deliver the modem (technically it really is a router, but I guess none of you gives a flying shit) and do the installation. After a week, nobody came, so I called the bastard and he assured me the application is “being processed” (another tell-tale sign when you’re about to be conned by a sales drone).

Because I have lots of other important things requiring my attention, I just let this thing sit… probably because it already dawned on me by then that I got conned by the bastard. And sure enough, the typical “sorry, no Streamyx for you… but you’re now on our fsckin’ waiting list” letter arrived.

Bloody bastard… but anyway, the moral of the story is: TMNet will work harder if it wasn’t a god damn fscking monopoly with no taxpayer money tit to suck on. So, help your fellow Malaysians: sign the damn petition! The future of Malaysian broadband penetration depends on you!

I was reading this article (it’s in Malay, and this is Utusan we’re talking about… they’re like the mouthpiece of ultra-nationalistic Malayism in my damn opinion) while having dinner and I almost choked on my food. Basically the whole stupid article slams companies in Malaysia which specifically mentions proficiency in Mandarin to be a prerequisite for any vacancies advertisements.

Before I proceed, let me describe myself first before cries of “You racist bastard!” come up in the thick heads of some people. I’m a Malay guy living in a Malay household (why the hell would a copy of Utusan be in my house anyway… do you really think I like reading that shit? I’d rather read fine prints on pieces of toilet tissue), however, there are also Chinese and Indians in my extended family… in other words, I’m a true blue Malaysian. I see myself as a Malaysian rather than a Malay, much to the chagrin of the more right wing faction of society.

Read the rest of Like It Or Not, Mandarin Is Important »