Destiny Steps

Nowadays, almost every company has a customer service dept. But does it really function as it suppose to be ?

I went to have a 6 monthly regular medical checkup today. Arrived at 9.15am. There’s already 7 people ahead of me. WAITED for 25 min, summoned by the registration assistant. She adviced me to go run my errand as it will take another 1hr 15 min before it’s my turn.

Oh well….

Since I subscribe to the fundamental of  debt free living, I thought I might as well take this time to go terminate my credit cards which I have not been using for a long time. 1st stop, .

It seems to me, nowadays, if you want to cease membership, you are required to fill up some sort of forms. Why ? They want to know why you decided to leave them. Isn’t it too late ? Ok, nevermind. I filled up the form and asked if it is immediate effect. What’s your guess ? NO !!. I have to WAIT 2-3 weeks, then call up their HQ card center to check. Doohhh…..!!!!

Next stop. . The well known aloof bank. I had some not so good experience with them when I had my fair share of financial disaster about 5 years back. It was an experience that truly confirmed what Robert Kiyosaki said : when you need money, you go to the bank. When you don’t need the money, they will come to you. That’s why I call them the legal Ah Longs. I later discovered that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way about them. A candidate of mine gone through tremendous hassle & stress with them when her father suddenly passed on and left some accounts. After that bad experience, she & her family vowed to never used Standard chartered again or to endorse it to any friends. That’s not all. An ex-colleague of mine, she was in the finance team with an O & G company. She confirmed of the same attitude. Of course the list goes on. So, ever since I recovered from the disaster, I never used their credit card and accounts again. All were left dormant. Then I received a statement last Fri, slapping me with RM175  annual fee for a card which I never used for 4 years! Yes, more compelling reason to terminate all the accounts with them. I was directed to its upstairs credit card dept. But it really is a narrow square, a one man counter. Ahead of me was another 5 people. Out of which, 3 are disgruntled customers. One of them was also terminating the credit card because not enough credit limit. The customer service girl said he can always call & request for it. Too bad. He said he has done many times, but nothing was done & he had enough. When I presented my case, the girl asked if I will stay with them if they were to waive the annual fee. Of course not. What do you think happen next ? She made a call to a “mysterous” dept and passed the call to me. Mind you, I was present in person infront of their customer services, yet the girl on the line have to do the verification steps…doohh…. The more ridiculous is yet to come. She explained that she will proceed to request for waiver of the annual fee. But it is the rule of Standard Chartered that once the fees is waived, I have to WAIT for another 10 months before I can cancel my card despite whether I use it or not. What ??????????????? So, they just want me to be part of their statistics ?  Of course, I put a block order on the card & registered in my pda calender to call for card cancellation next June. So, like I said, customer service : really is in conveniencing the customers and making them WAIT !!! 

That reminded me to follow-up with another membership termination. I was member since 2005. I subsequently become part of its freelance instructor team. As such, my membership account was automatically went into suspense as I meet the minimum quota of 3 classes a week. However, with my move into new firm lately in my headhunting job. I have to have my 3rd class temporarily covered by others from 2nd week of July till end Aug. I didn’t give up the class! But guess what ? They charged RM351 for that 7 weeks without being informed ahead of time. When I present the case to their front desk, justifying that I shouldn’t be charged for something I never use. The manager has the cheek to say, ”Ma’am, we have a lot of members who signed up and do not use the facilities, but they are paying.” WHAT ???  No, I don’t subcribe to such ill personal financial management philosophy. So, I brought it up to the top management. The answer I got was nothing can be done becuase it is the RULE !!!!! Right. Should have believe in all the complaints that was flyling around in the internet and did something earlier. I learn my lesson so I proceed to cancel my membership. OMG…I was told I need to fill up a form. Then the club manager will call to make an appointment with me. That’s the procedure. Procedure ? How stupid ? You want inconvenient your already disgruntled customer and yet thinking a meeting with your club manager will change her mind ? Anyway, I did as told and WAITED. 5 days past, no call. I certainly won’t let it slip another month & being charged again. So, I decided to be proactive. Gosh, I made another discovery !!! The form I filled is a cancellation request form for the club manager to make appointment & meet me to fill the cancellation form. Are they screw loose somewhere ? Finally, with me pressing hard, I do not have to meet the club manager but I still have to go & sign the cancellation form !!! Yes, another inconvenient !! Wanted to be sure, I asked when the cancellation will be effective. Well, I will have to WAIT for them to UTILIZE my deposit before it can be effective. So, all in all I make them RM509 richer with that stupid rule which is out to rob the members. RM509 will take about 10 classes to earn back !!! How RIDICULOUS !!! Day light robbery.

The moral of the story is :

1. never be a member of any sort with any institution unnecessarily.  Terminate un-use membership the very moment you don’t need it.
2. large corporates with the Customer Service depart is but just to make it nice. But really, they are to take more money from you which I call it day light robbery, to INCONVENIENT you making your life difficult and to make you WAIT. Nothing about restitution with customers and ensuring satisfactory services & making customers happy.

A Silicon Valley company developing WiFi Mesh is looking for a System Engineer savvy with Linux systems, Wireless Survey, Node, VOIP, etc

Requirements:

• Candidate must possess at least a Bachelor’s Degree, Post Graduate Diploma or Professional Degree in Engineering (Computer/Telecommunication), Computer Science/Information Technology, Science & Technology or equivalent.
• 3 Years of working experience in the related area
  • Wireless : Wireless survey; WiFi Networks (802.11abg); etc 
  • Network : Node, TCP/IP, network device configuration 
  • Systems : Windows/Linux systems, Linux Script 
  • VOIP

• Required skill(s):
• Required language(s): English.
• Work location : CYBERJAYA.
• Must be able to travel.

Young & aspiring network engineers are welcome.

Company : 

Strong Opensource trend driver & mover, an MNC.  

Position :

• Provide telephone or web technical support to Regional customers.

• Perform problem isolation and resolution, using system software and diagnostics tools.

• Act as a technical resource to any support personnel including field support team.

• Act as an interface with Support, Sales and Professional Services organizations to ensure proper support delivery is available for customer needs.

• Manage technical issues escalation.

• Manage service call from beginning until the problem is resolved and use Call Management tools to update all involved activities accurately.

• Ensure Support Services Level meets Customer Satisfaction goals.

• Mentor and guide new/junior support engineers.

• Capture experiences/knowledge and contribute to the company’s knowledge database.

Requirements: 

• Proficient with general Linux/Solaris system administration, including networking and file systems knowledge of standard Linux development tools, including cvs, diff, patch and quilt.

• Understand and replicate complex customer environments Strong analytical and problem solving skills.

• Strong telephone communication and customer management skills, ability to effectively communicate technical solutions and remedial action plans through oral and written communications.

• Effective time management and work prioritization capabilities.

• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to work as an effective team member.

• Contribute to a positive work environment by being an active and productive team member.

• Certification : Sun Certified System Administrator and Sun Certified Network Administrator will be an advantage.

•  

  Minimum 4 years UNIX experience.

• Willing to do shift work and 7×24 on-call rotation duty.

Preferred Skills:

Experience with parallel, clustered computing environments Experience with Linux kernel and VFS Technical experience with the Lustre file system Programming experience with shell, Perl, and Python Experience with high performance networks like Elan and InfiniBand

Level of Education:

BS degree in Computer Science/Electronic Engineering or equivalent

No matter how much you gained, how many business or political match you won over your rivals, how much power you obtained,……….you will be 6 feet under…

 No matter how high you go..what goes up will come down…

hmm what a painting to have in the bath room where u r on your throne then ponder

Clients of mine are flooding me with J2EE positions :

• Java Architect - No less  than 6 years of J2EE expereince, read here   (FYI, you’ll need to subscribe in order to read posting beyond 1st page. Apology for the inconvenient but it is a necessary step for me to fight spam)
• Senior Java Developer (see below)
• J2EE Developer (see below)

Company :

• US based telco solutions
• UK base Banking solution
• S’pore based, pan Asia leader, with regional offices in Australia, Bahrian, China, HK, etc
• MSC status developement house

Generally, the roles encompasses :

• Work closely with Team Lead / Architect to deliver assigned components of which involves research on new technologies, module technical design, POC, coding, testing, training, and documentation.
• Ensure tasks assigned delivered in highest qualities, and on time.
• Actively participate in technical discussion, and knowledge sharing activities organize by the company
• For Senior Developer, you are expected to act as mentor for a small team of Java developers, ensure code delivered by thedevelopers conform with the development process and framework by thesoftware architect
• Help build and maintain systems and processes required for softwareengineering

Generally, the key skills required :

• Java Engineering & Design
• Understanding of Design Patterns
• Use of refactoring
• Automated unit testing (JUnit)

General requirements:

• withappropriate Bachelor’s or Graduate Degree
• Understand Java 5, JavaEE
• Familiar with three or more Open Source tools / Frameworks such as Ajax, Spring, JSF, Ant, Subversion, Maven, CruiseControl, Hibernate/JPA,Junit, FIT / Fitnesse, SEAN, SOAP, Axis, OpenESB, and etc
• Follow & understand emerging Java Technologies  
• Strong programming, understand OO, troubleshooting, analytical 
• Energetic, resulted-oriented, ambitious, enthusiastic researchers withappropriate troubleshooting, analytical &
  problem solving skills 
• Years of experience :
  • Fresh : fresh grad - 2 yrs (nust have done project in J2EE in Uni, else demonstrate solid ability in OOAD)
  • Junior Developer : 2-4 yrs
  • Developer : 3-5 yrs
  • Senior Developers : 4-6 years
• Added advantage if demonstrate good understand SQL, and familiar with at least one Database platforms, such
  as Oracle, MySQL, MSSQL, DB2, and etc.
• Love to work in a dynamic, fast moving and challenging environment

 Leave me a message quickly, I will get back to you in a jiff.
 

My client, a European based MNCs is looking at doubling the R & D team here in KL to almost 200 px. An open source company, is currently looking to recruit highly experience QA manager. This person will be responsible for leading a high-performance feature driven QA team with a focus on decision software. Thus, the person must have a proven track record of success building, leading and managing a functional and technical QA team with a strong sense of quality ownership.

It is a hands-on job that requires strategic thinking and planning to provide leadership and expertise throughout the entire QA lifecycle, ensuring the success of the person and the team’s manual and automation efforts.

The role will work with a team of demanding, highly motivated QA engineers and developers and will be expected to both challenge and be challenged. In order to effectively manage this team, these qualities are required :

• superior leadership skills,
• a solid background using object oriented methodologies,
• expertise in black box and white box testing methodologies,
• extensive experience and knowledge of standard QA and development tools and the ability to operate within short release cycles
• strong experience driving tactical and strategic objectives in an assertive, agile, fast-growing, mission-critical Quality Engineering organization.

 Position Responsibilities :

• Manage the day-to-day activities of the Quality Engineering team by defining, implementing and maintaining a coherent, progressive testing strategy.
• Continue to build an effective test organization by driving the recruiting and hiring of Quality Engineering engineers, developing and managing the group, and conducting performance reviews of team members
• Create and execute appropriate project plans, test strategies and quality plans for Quality Engineering testing activities in concert with development, SQA Managers and program management efforts across product teams that includes other product integrations.
• Develop and execute automation testing strategy and processes.
• Drive and manage the bug triage process, represent Quality Engineering in project meetings to ensure efficient testing and bug fixing process, and be an effective advocate for the Quality Engineering group
• Report on status of product quality to development, customer support and product teams via rigorous execution of detailed test plans/cases and accurate reporting of test cases executed, bugs discovered, bugs fixed, etc.
• This position requires healthy doses of initiative and the ability to remain flexible and responsive in a very dynamic environment.

Requirements to fit the position :

• 8+years experience in Software Quality Engineering
• 3-5 years as Quality Engineering Manager managing teams of at least 10-15 SQA engineers.
• Hands-on experience with both white box and black box testing, automation testing, and programming languages Java/J2EE, C/C++, Perl, JavaScript, and overall thorough understanding of SQA methodologies.
• Strong management, organizational and process skills.
• Assertive individual who knows how to help drive software development process maturity and is able to clearly communicate goals, decisions and recommendations to appropriate parties
• Excellent team building skills, including cross-functional team building within multiple sites.
• Experience with Windows OS, UNIX, LINUX multi-platform based development
• BS in Computer Science or equivalent.
• Experience budgeting and purchasing hardware and software.
• Experience with planning, coordinating test across sites.
• Experience with implementing successful automated testing strategies and tools.
  Experience in SQA of Java, distributed/scalable systems, web-based technologies and high-volume transaction applications.
• Experience with planning, coordinating and conducting performance/benchmarking exercises for product certification on various platforms.

Our client is one of the  leading provider of subscriber-centric networks for the telecommunications industry, supplying high performance and high-availability software products in the Telco space. A UK based MNC with offices worldwide.

Overall objective: 

Responsible for the leadership and management of all activities within the country engineering group. The group’s focus is on the product test and sustaining functions for product relating to NDS, HLR, HSS, etc. The intention of of the KL group is to become the Product Testing and Sustaining Centre of Excellence within the next two years. 

Key results areas: 

• Managed delivery of product sustaining patches/service packs and tested product releases.
• Evolving the engineering group to become the Product Testing and Sustaining Centre of Excellence.
• Improving engineering productivity by adopting “best of breed” processes and tools.
• Staff management/motivation/retention.

Key responsibilities: 

• Managing all personnel within the Engineering department, including working with HRM to ensure appropriate localised HR policies are in place and constantly reviewed.
• Ensuring the scheduling and delivery of the necessary sustaining packages to meet the SLA’s with its customers and partners.
• Ensuring the delivery of the necessary test functions to support the quality assurance requirements across product suite including roadmap releases, scheduled sustaining packages and emergency fixes.
• Ensuring sustaining and test teams are adequately resourced and trained to meet product delivery commitments.
• Approving departmental resource estimates and project proposals/plans.
• Maintaining and improving development procedures and relevant company quality processes
• Ensuring adherence of product deliveries to required quality standards.
• Monitoring development progress and providing status reports for discussion within the engineering management team.
• Managing the provision of an engineering “on-call” support capability from within the product sustaining team in order to provide emergency support as required.

Key skill sets required:

• 8+ year’s experience of managing an engineering department involved in the testing and sustaining of multiple concurrent software products and releases.
• Wide-ranging knowledge and practical experience of modern software testing and sustaining processes and tools.
• Experience in leadership and management of 20+ staff across multiple disciplines.
• Demonstrated record of successfully delivering on time, on budget, & on quality software.
• Demonstrated success in aligning product delivery with business objectives
• Strong leadership, motivational and man management skills
• Comfortable in a leadership position with the ability to successfully plan, co-ordinate, communicate and manage change.
• Graduate in Software Engineering or related discipline

Key personality traits : 

• A ‘can do’ hands on attitude within a proven ability to prioritise wide-ranging challenges.
• Excellent communications skills with the proven ability to act as a management interface between a Malaysian-based team within a North-American/European-led engineering group.
• Tenacious, innovative, practical problem solver, methodical and well-organised.

A European base Telco vendor, an MNC, with strong financial backing from Key prominent Telco player in Europe, is looking for a Senior Systems Database Engineer. The position will be located in KL assisting teams from around the world, mainly the European continents.The company focus in providing solutions such as over the air configuration, billing, rating & etc.

I rarely read hardcopy newspapers nowadays. Since it it available online, might as well save some trees. But  a colleague was browsing The Star during lunch yesterday. I “tumpang” and found this interesting write up under the youth section - Living on credit. It says An increasing number of young people under 30 are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy due to poor financial planning. Hmm….is there anything new ? :p

The article affirmed what I know all these while - generation who are not after substance & character but a generation for instant gratification. They desire to look luxury, be seen at certain places, the want to be seen with such and such person or group people, be at this & that “happening clubbing event” is so strong that it overide any rational thinking & calculation.  

We have a bankrupt next generation. The lad mentioned in the article is also very similar to the situation of a young ex-colleague I had. I wrote about her some time back. Read here.  In the article, the author said : “She earns about RM2,300 monthly, which is not a bad amount for a fresh graduate.” Let me correct that, a fresh graduate earning RM2,300  is tremendously good during this time of the economy situation. 

Now this lad, 8 mths into employment is owing RM8,000 to credit card, all were expensed into clothing, shoes, clubbing and meals in expensive restaurants. And the amazing thing is the author of the article is putting lame losser excuses for the subject - “Perhaps it can be seen as misfortune that Linda happens to work with people who come from well-to-do families. Call it peer pressure, but you can’t really blame a young girl for wanting to keep up.”  Another statement the author made - “It may be easy to judge Linda and call her superficial and materialistic, but the fact of the matter is that her predicament is not at all uncommon”. For the author to make such statement, the likelihood is, she herself is another statistics in the brankrupt generation too. I won’t be surprise if she is, looking her mentality & perception.

The lad’s statement : “I’m still in denial, I guess, I really don’t want to give up my lifestyle, but every time I reach for my credit card I feel sick to my stomach. I have no idea how I’m going to repay everything”. This is the statement from a straight As student in school. Not so straight As in EQ & life management isn’t it ? Isn’t that ironic ?

CREDIT Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) chief executive officer Mohamed Akwal Sultan says that many Malaysians are not good with saving up for a rainy day. Why is that so ? Well, of all our impressive higher education to prepare us for the career we want to go into, there are two big aspects of life that we never have the education before we enter that “career”, ie. personal financial manage & marriage. Ever thought of that ? And the failure of it is showing glaringly in the statistics of citizen deep in debts, living an enslave life to the biggest legal ah long called - “the banks” and the divorce rate. 

So, where did we get our education for this subjects come from ?  Channel “E!”, Holywood movies !! As for personal financial management, who do you think took charge ? The BANKs !!!! Leveraging on the widespread lifestyle education from Holywood, they present marketing campaigns which appeal to your need for instant gratification & the need to feel good. How ? They hired loads of tele-marketers to call you & say you have been selected for pre-approved cash advance to spend. They put radio ads that tells you to lower your monthly home loan repayment so that you have more cash to spend. I find all these super SCARY.  It is very deep dark bottomless pit.    

You may comment that I am so harsh on my comments on these people. Well, lets not take on the American culture that we cannot offend people. Let’s face it, reality is harsh. If you are deep in debts, the banks will come after you, your life will be an enslave life for sure. It is choking, it is depressing, it is sick in the stomach just like the lad said. 

Well, a person who will only get into such trouble & yet still be in denial if he/she is a person who lack of self respect, life vision & passion. Especially, if the debts were accumulated for things so shallow. But is it all lost & hopeless ? Of course not. I hope those who are now in financial trouble will wake up to their senses & determine to make changes for a great life ahead. In fact, the lad who got in to RM8,000 should be glad that she got hit hard this early and decide to head the other direction, different from her instant gratification seeking acquaintances. If she were to manage it properly, that RM8,000 can easily be paid off. Not only that, in 3 years, she can start to live a life of “cash rich” & debt free. (RM500 excess cash is cash rich as compared to RM8,000 debt, don’t you think so ?) All she has to do is to realise there is more to life beside clubbing & keeping up with the jones. Why not keep up with people such as this, debt free & cash sufficient by 30? Food for thoughts.

P/S :  to read the links of older post, registrate as subscribe is required.  

Over the last 1.5 years, I have a handful or more of this kind of phone call . Today is another one. Generally, it goes this way :

Phone rang,

Me             : Hello

Stranger  : Hi, I am xxxx. I am a consultant of a new patented technology. Our company is in the hunt for a few key people to help us expand our business over this part of the region and you have been highly recommended. Are you interested in business venture or opportunity ?

Me             :   hmmm, your script sounds really familiar. Tell me in all honesty, is this an MLM/direct selling ?

Stranger : We are not looking for people to sell or anything.  When would you be free to come down to our office at xxx to have a look at the new technology so that we can show you the business plan ?

Me              : It sounded to me that you are not able to answer my question directly or may be you don’t understand my question. My criteria for a business/investment venture is, it must not be MLM/direct selling, not mutual funds/ insurance agent. So, tell me is this MLM/direct selling ?

Stranger   : It is a pity that you have such a stigma for Direct Selling. We are the owner of a patented new advance technology and we are here to open this market. And you have been highly recommended for your professionalism, dynamic & ability and it is difficult to explain the whole technology over the phone, is this tues evening a good timing for you ?

Me                  : xxx, let me clarify, I do not have any stigma with MLM/Direct Selling. I have my criteria in investment/business venture selection. So, tell me in simple yes or no that this is an MLM/directly selling.

Stranger      : You know what, I don’t think you are the right kind of people for us. Thank you.

And this person hung up before i can even say anything. But the last line of this person left me laughing really hard, so hard that i almost fall of my chair. After all the I was recommended because I was professional.. and bla bla bla crap, because I pressed for a simple straight forward answer if it is an MLM/direct selling, then I quickly became not the right kind of person they are looking for. You need that line to keep your ego intact ? to sooth your injured pride ?    Owh, come on, of course I know it is MLM/Direct Selling. Those are the standard script coined by the peopel at the top for the use of all the new recruits. But please, MLMers out there, integrity is the key important ingredient in business partnerships/ventures. It is a  shame that you guys have to resort to “con-ning” people into it. The thing is, whoever this is, the likelihood is, he/she will probably be another statistic in MLM casualities that contribute to someone’s monthly minimum point to qualify for bonus. I am sorry for you.