Pre-loved Laptop

Recently my laptop broke down. It was a Macbook Pro I’ve been using for close to seven and a half years. But for some reason, it just stopped working and got into some crazy restarting loop which didn’t even allow me to start MacOS Recovery. I might get it fixed some time but I didn’t have sufficient bandwidth to wait at a Genius Bar or the ability to wait for the laptop to come back before I work again (on my own stuff, not my job at Enea).

So I quickly made up my mind that I’ll get a new laptop but something second-hand. Probably lightly used so that I can stretch more life out of the laptop. And I did, through Carousell; the options and choices were more limited than having to choose at an Apple Store but most of these options like ‘Space Grey’ or ‘Rose Gold’ doesn’t matter to me at all. The specs that matters such as harddisk space and RAM were all clear and I could just find something that would suffice.

The effort then is focused on finding a reasonable price, and that the laptop is lightly used (as somewhat defined by the charge cycles that the battery has been through). I managed to find the laptop quickly and agree on a quick deal with the seller. I thought it was a win-win since the seller didn’t actually need the computer anymore and I needed one that I can work with, without being necessarily the newest, latest product.

On a separate note, I always wonder what ‘pre-loved’ was implying. That the product had been loved before? Or it has yet been loved? These new marketing gimmicky terms are confusing.

Perception management

It started with intra company media, stuff you post on the intranet, send in company-wide emails, the front you put up in front of bosses. There is the self that we bring to work daily, it is part of professionalism but as we make our identities increasingly an external rather than internal thing, we begin to lose ourselves more.

Then comes social media and you even have to manage the perceptions around private life. Not that private isn’t private anymore but it has become ways to humbly or not-so-humbly brag. And so there is pressure to present a self you want everyone to see. Genuine private life became even more private and perhaps darker in nature. Again, ourselves are somewhat lost.

Authenticity as a movement came out against this. All these perception management. Yet it can get abused and people acting unprofessional and giving in to their lack of discipline try to make themselves feel better by peddling around authenticity. I think the key compass here is your internal sense of identity. Where does it come from? Where and what is your anchor?

Taking time

I am sometimes guilty of trying to be efficient all the time. Yet things will always take time to be better. In fact, sometimes the goal of efficiency undermines being able to do something effectively because we are stingy about the time or resources that we have to spend – in service of efficiency.

Yet when I put on my artist hat, I cease to consider efficiency. Sure, there may be deadlines for my painting or Chinese calligraphy works but there is no need to rush through the creative process. Putting some time constraints can improve the works but more often than not, the hurried mood is counterproductive.

Same with cultivating and building relationships. Or growing, gardening, bearing fruits. These things all take time. Question is, are you taking the time? Or just trying to move on to the next thing.

Negative feedback

For Asians, it’s potentially more difficult to give than to receive direct negative feedback. And as I mentioned before, giving feedback should be a course. I have also suggested tips and ideas.

The problem is we don’t remember them because culturally, it’s just such a taboo; we don’t want to “hurt” others. It just reflects how feedback have been weaponised before in our culture so often and far too much. Whether in the form of “advice” from elders, or just unsolicited statements from distant family members.

The thing is, negative feedback can only hurt us to the extent we allow them to. If we don’t take advice from someone, why should we be taking their criticism?

Admiring the boss II

What do you ask of your boss? And are you where you would like to be as a boss? Or have you fully embraced your identity as the boss and realised you can’t understand why the staff reporting to you simpy cannot understand the constraints you are under?

Every choice you take boils down to 2 different directions: you are either reinforcing the status quo or trying to change it.

Which choice are you tending towards?

Who are we to college admissions?

What is your positioning? What is your strategy in this application? I asked my intern who was applying to certain colleges. I’ve been called upon to put up a reference for this young colleague and I really wanted to help, as best as I can.

So me being the strategy consultant I am, asked those questions. It drew a blank. And of course, it was a little confusing for someone fresh out of A Levels to think of “strategies” around college applications. Or maybe not if you’ve so much help and advice from those who have gone before you. That, I feel, is exactly what those families with resources are able to equip their younger ones with.

Maybe I was wrong, that we need a strategy or positioning because the only positioning should be to be ourselves. It will take more excavation of ourselves and asking who exactly are we rather than artificially creating a persona we must fit into. In being able to “position” our application as much as possible as being true to ourselves, might be the most precious thing you can give to the college admissions office.

Decarbonising the economy

Lifeforms on earth are mostly about carbon; mostly made up of it. The problem with our economy is not that we need carbon to get things going but that carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as “value” in the economy is created. That is only natural to the extent that we as humans burn similar fuels and produce the similar byproduct. It almost seem like we cannot really escape from that.

We have been moving energy around from one form to another in order to get work done since prehistoric times. In some sense, the fact that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at higher concentrations really cause so much potential catastrophic harm to life on earth is a demonstration that perhaps the “work done” by humans is too much.

Perhaps it is time for us all to just pause, and recognise how much we truly really need in this world. Have we recognised that our attempts at relentlessness in the wrong direction can turn really disastrous?

Learning vs certificates

So you attended a course or workshop, finished all the work and participated in all the discussions. Did you learn anything new? Did you make the best of it? Supposing you did. Now they forgot about your participation, your attendance wasn’t on the record and you did not receive your certificate for attending/participating.

Did you actually took part? Was there a point in you attending it when all records says you didn’t? Does it make a difference if it was a requirement by someone else that you attended it? What if it wasn’t? If you attended by your own volition, would you care more or care less about the certificate?

What is the most important thing you would take away? The learning, or the certificate and the evidence of you being there? Were you showing up for yourself? Or was it something else?

Feeling the tension

You need to say something but you couldn’t. The body begins to feel the tension of those words and thoughts stuck in you mouth. At first they were words unexpressed, then they become thoughts suppressed. And finally when they are pushed out of your consciousness, they just stay in your body as the tension. This tension stresses your system and if sufficiently severe, causes pain.

So that is how your body spoke on your behalf. Are you ignoring any pain? What was the body speaking, perhaps on your behalf?

Human resources 2.0

I’ve been writing random thoughts about HR for a long time now. The traditional HR was about stewardship of company policy, complying with labour laws; and we all know it is broken, in need of change. Recently, I considered a few building blocks; on the labour side, desire to work is changing quite a bit. And then there’s an alternative way of thinking about our work identities in the form of projects rather than employers and roles.

On the supply side, I think it is important to note that the traditional HR is actually absolutely unnecessary. Long ago, I’ve noticed how Octopus Energy did away with their HR function and the truth is that people can organise themselves pretty well without too much fuss. Do we really need to standardise some of these things? Like working hours, like dress code, etc.? Aren’t these relics of the factory age? If you’re able to hire for a combination of capabilities and fit, why would you still need to constrain your people?

From my experience, the capabilities and progressiveness of the HR can really make a difference in terms of how strong your staff can be in terms of delivering on the objectives of your organisation. For most part, the policies of a company can undermine the work of staff severely; and often during these times, we lose sight of what those policies were for to begin with. HR 2.0 should be combating that urge to introduce more constraints whenever there are abuses. In fact, the hiring decisions are really what needs to be improved when these things happen.