project management

picture above is a product of a public project. even though it's not big but still it need some project management.

I worked in a large organisation for more than 10 years. my department managing both the facility and project for the organisation. a year after joined the organisation I had the opportunity to get involved in a hundred million facility development. the next two years was like a crash course in project management for me. I was proud. then I grew up and learnt...

two years ago I switched to other large organisation specialising in project management. here I had my proud shredded into pieces when I really 'exposed' what was project management. I spent my life there more then a year and I felt like going to an open university. I started to thinking why my previous organisation was lacked in understanding the concept and implementation of project management. this was despite the department was headed by an all-know director and assisted by an all-know deputy. and we also had two of the engineers with Master degree in Project Management, one with MBA and a score of certified professionals.

may be I can enroll into project management post grad course and make a study on the issue.

GREENHOUSE GAS RELEASED: 0.117 kg

school, life

the picture above is the building where my dorm was more than two decades ago. it was a boarding school about 400 km from my home. I was in early teenage when I was sent there. the journey to the school was an epic one. we left home in the midnight at reached there early in the morning and didn't sleep. I was not only accompanied by my parent and siblings but also my grandparent. it was just an alien place for me: I've never been outside 200 km radius from my home.

I visited the school last two weeks with my kids. not much is changing. in fact the outside condition of the buildings were about the same when I left them: faded and not conducive. I suspect they lack of maintenance. I mean they do repaint the buildings but not as frequent. there are several new blocks but the I also noticed that the fence are very nice. I wonder why the fence, not the buildings.

I believe since it is a school, they government should make the school 'alive'. the kids who live there will spend five years living in such environment. during my last year at the school I was lucky to have a 'live' experience on what is democracy. the school was chosen as a polling station. I managed to see how people working day and night to put on their campaign banners. I also witnessed how the people taking turn to cast their vote. I slept less during the period.

so give the kids some 'life' to live in.

GREENHOUSE GAS RELEASED: 0.117 kg

Japanese

yesterday I saw in the news that the Japanese government has launched a massive deployment of personnel in finding victims of tsunami. suddenly I remember that more than 20 years ago I was taught Japanese language by two Japanese teachers. I couldn't remember their names but I really wonder their whereabout.

they were very dedicated teachers in teaching Japanese to us. but it were us that, at that time, never realised the importance of learning new language. I was once expelled from the class for making noise! I learnt the language for 4 and a half years but it was a missed opportunity. The teachers and the Japanese government are, as far as I concerned, were very keen to get us to learn Japanese. I remember that there was a language lab in the school which was, someone told me, donated by Japanese government. we were also shown animated movies in Japanese (at that time Japanese animated movie was not as popular as it is now) and then we got a crew of Japanese television visited us and taking picture while we were learning. some of my friends who were good in the language were even invited to the Japanese embassy.

I hope that my Japanese teachers are in good health. and I want to tell them that "arigato, sensei" for teaching me the knowledge. I never had the opportunity to say that during that time.

professional duty of care

four years ago, on the way to be a certified professional engineer, or PE, i was introduced to the word liability, negligence. then there was a concept of duty of care. now i'm in trouble. i've never heard any of those words during my study years nor before i decided to get a PE. i mean, i've never heard in the context that i'm now facing.

luckily, by that time i've developed interest in law (i've even finished several books on constitutional law, e.g. a book written by Michael Allen, Brian Thompson and Bernadette Walsh). but i'm not going to be some kind of lawyer or what but it really an eye opener. an engineer must be careful in discharging his role as, an engineer. it says when i offer my service, i owes duty of care to the man on the street. if i fails to discharge that duty (or they called it, breaches the duty) reasonably & that man suffers, so i may be in trouble. and all this can arise even if there's no formal contract between me and that man. and i may even liable if a third party suffers because my conduct. and this conduct may in in term of my action or inaction (or omission, they said). i'm not offering any advice here, and any law man out there please help me if i'm wrong.

in order to refresh my mind the following cases have great influence on what ever things that i've wrote.

• Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 - duty of care and who is your neighbour test
• Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582 - duty breached and the standard of care test
• Hedley Byrne and Co. Ltd. v Heller and Partners [1963] 2 All ER 575 - damages

all those cases were laid well before i was born and i believe they are now have stand the test of time.

i wonder is it good if all those concepts and what the history behind them be taught during the study years? i don't really know but i'm really glad if i had the opportunity to learn them during my study. those things should be able to prepare the undergraduate to be kind of 'prepared'.

so for those undergraduates, please dig deeper in what ever your field of studies. ask people around you. some say asking correct question is sometimes more important than answering correctly. i've already had my lesson for not thinking out of the box.

unemployed

this is my second day without job. it' hard. nevertheless i keep on searching for money so that i can keep on paying those bills, loans, meals... my kids. i love them very much that i must strive to give them a good life, good education. i pray that they should never ever follow my hard life path. i hope that they will be able to chose a career that suit them most, do what they like most. for me, i'm stuck here with 'my' past mistake of choice.

it's very common 20 years ago (1980s), in my country, that commoners don't have that knowledge of choosing. believe me, that by the age of 17 i still could not appreciate the meaning of 'diploma' or 'degree'. i was sort of love, at that time, to get involve in something that have to do with computer, physics or architecture, or even agriculture. but the remarks a got from my family was "physics? are you going to be a physics teacher?" and "architecture? it is a recession now, you won't get a job". for agriculture, it was a big no-no. there was not enough information where actually those fields that i like can bring me in my life.

i still remember that when it came to chose for university courses, i looked at ads showing 'computer science integration'. integration? what the meaning of that word (later i found that it means a diploma program that come with the opportunity to degree level)? then i went for the interview for 'bachelor in computer science with education' (most of my family are teachers, my father too). later i found that the course trained people to be a teacher. i'm not interested so i just told the interview that i'm not going to be a teacher.

i was later found my self doing electrical engineering! it was the topic that i did badly in my physics subject! during the study i was actually told to do 'x-ray course' sponsored by the government so that i can get a job easily. i resisted, got some advice from my lecturer (whom of course, had more knowledge; she was no commoner) and stayed. nevertheless i studied electricity, graduated and work as an electrical engineer. and know what, for the last 4 years i am a licensed, professional electrical engineer. is it an accomplishment? but being an engineer, i need to work as engineer (is it true?). so i have been in the maintenance, facility management, project management, design, contract management, safety & health, resources (machines, human, finance) management etc. some where in time i excelled and rewarded but satisfied? where is physics, architecture, agriculture?

is it important that people need to work (or live) in the field they interested most? i believe it is. one day i watched this episode in national geographic about marine life. there was a marine biologist doing the talk about the thing. i've forgotten all the things that she said except that she told she had been interested in marine study from her childhood. i couldn't imagine i'm working in a field which i interested most. i can't imagine because i've never been there yet.

today, i'm out of the job, i'm still a commoner.