no ideas for hr

Previously I shared about the flow of events for one of my job applications. There wasn't much personal input from me in that blog post. Now I am going to give a piece of my mind since something new unfolded.

I wasn't much interested to pursue actually, but somehow I also think the company owes me an explanation for (verbally) offering me the job and bringing up about contract-signing, and well, leaving me hanging there. I decided to give a call to HR and hear what they have to say. I had been calling whole week-long but I couldn't get to the HR executive who handled my case. That guy did go to work, according to his colleagues who picked up my call. So I sent him an email as well. No response after one week. An acquaintance who is working in the same department that I was applying to revealed the truth: they are interviewing more people for that position.

See, I have applied for enough jobs to understand that it is perfectly fine to quietly reject candidates after the interview. "Only successful candidates will be notified", no? It is natural that companies want to pick the best to join their payroll. But to tell the candidate that they are hiring you and fix a date for contract-signing then call back and give some reason to indefinitely postpone the contract-signing, is far from being professional. Especially for a Japanese MNC. It's like you telling a kid that you are giving him a lollipop, then just as his hand reaches out, you pull back the lollipop, turn around and ask other children who wants THAT lollipop.

I am not going to boycott your products, neither am I going to ask others to boycott your products. But I just think that the way your company does HR, really has something wrong.

you have duck tour, i have crab tour

A family friend couple is in Singapore on a free and easy trip with their relatives. So while half of the group went to take on the Central Catchment Area this morning, we met up with the other half (including the family friend couple) and did a little trip around Singapore town.

I always take pleasure in showing friends around Singapore, showing them the lifestyles of the locals, stuffs that normal packaged tours may overlook. C'mon which packaged tour will bring you to see PAP kindergarten?

So we met up with the visitors at their hotel at Bencoolen Street. We walked to Tekka Market, where I showed them the Singapore style hawker centre and wet market. Walking through the pasar with 5 tourists can be interesting, as you show them gigantic crabs and sharks and stingrays and all kinds of sights that they don't see back home. They just went WAH. From Tekka Market we walked up Serangoon Road under five-foot ways, talked about early urban planning in Singapore, and well, Little India. Then we walked to Kampong Glam and Arab Street area, looked at Sultan Mosque, talked about Bugis people, ya da ya da.

They said they heard about the toy museum and would want to visit it. So after Kampong Glam we went to the Mint Museum of Toys. Surprisingly it was the adults and not the little girl in the group who ended up feeling excited over the toys. I bet those old metallic toys brought back many childhood memories for them.

All in half a day. Anyone wanna join Crab Tour?
EDIT: we actually went to Museum of Shanghai Toys but we reached half an hour before its opening hour. Didn't go in in the end and that's why went to Mint.

road space invader

This image kind of reminds me of my old blog post on the road space taken up by bus versus that of by car.


It can be clearly (more clear if u enlarge the image) seen that for transporting the same number of people, obviously cars take up the most space. For bike, well in the context of Singapore our roads aren't very bike friendly, we still see bicycles blocking buses entering the bus stop. That leaves bus to be the most road space-saving mode of transport in Singapore. Duh. You can only understand the frustration if you have to commute by bus everyday and get stuck in the traffic jam, looking out of the window and seeing cars with only one person inside.

With less cars on the road, buses can reach destination faster. Turnaround time is shortened, rate of dispersal increases, some people will switch from MRT to buses, MRT becomes less packed, everybody happy. Except car sellers.

I haven't talked about the green house gas emission and the fuel consumption per head. You can have one engine serving one person, or one engine serving a bus load.

(image from spacing toronto)

china is more hygienic than singapore

I was having lunch with a colleague from China, and we chatted a little as we ate. He said that one thing about Singapore he isn't used to, is the hygiene at eating places.

I was quite surprised, since most people's impression is that Singapore is known for our cleanliness ("Singapore OK"). So the colleague went on to explain that in China, most eating places use disposable cutleries and chopsticks, while restaurants subcontract out to special companies to sterilize the utensils. He feels that the metal fork and spoons in Singapore's hawker centre and coffee shops feel unclean.

Come to think of it, the few times I went to China, I recall roadside hawkers or even noodle houses use disposable chopsticks wrapped in plastic. While you can argue that it is less environmental friendly to use disposables, but weren't many eateries in Singapore (including school canteens) using disposables during SARS period?

Coincidentally, after I've gotten my economical rice, I realized that thanks to the lunch time crowd, the stall ran out of metal spoons, except one stained with chilli sauce left in the tray. Then I saw the stall assistance hurriedly wiping dry the washed spoons with a less-than-clean cloth. Oh and did I mention about seeing cockroach running about in the cutlery tray in my former school's canteen?

Hygiene is like economy. If we don't keep up, others will catch up, or even overtake.

is this what they are offering?

Time is so bad their engineers have to moonlight at their rival.
(in case you are not aware, Renault and Toyota are 2 different F1 teams)

-------
I made it past the first interview.
At the second interview, the assistant manager walked me through the facilities. Then met up with the managing director and the manager. They dug out the arithmetic test I did during the first interview, and said that my result wasn't up to standard of engineers there. Then the manager walked me through the facilities again, giving me brief introduction at every lab. Then he handed me back to HR department. I overheard him saying to the HR staff "why this time round so few resumes? 5 or 6 only? Last time cao cao 20, 30 resumes". Next the HR staff was pleased to offer me the position, talked to me about the salary and the benefits and stuff, and asked me to get back to him when I have decided. Then he told me not to be alarmed if I see their recruitment advertisement appearing again for the same position.
I reached home. Called them back to say I am taking up the offer.
Then HR called back, saying the managing director was out-station and they need his approval. The MD would be back one week later and they would call me up again.
More than one week has passed. The company didn't call back.

If you have read carefully the flow of events, you would have spotted enough fishiness.

electromagnetic interference

Recently my cordless phone was having very bad voice quality, and my ADSL seemed to disconnect quite frequently. So I thought, it must be the micro filter. I changed to a new micro filter, but the problem still persisted. So I thought, it must be the cordless phone. So, I changed to a cord phone (WTF, cord phone?). The quality wasn't much better, then I looked at the wall socket.... can't be the phone line in the wall right?

It was actually an adapter (aka transformer, not the robot in disguise). My micro filter was sitting right on the power adapter, and when I tried moving the micro filter away from the adapter while testing on the phone, the static sound was gone. I wonder if anyone uses electromagnetic shields at home.

If you know how a transformer works, it makes use of electromagnetic flux to change the voltage suitable for the appliances. Without us knowing (some of us do know) we are constantly being bombarded by electromagnetic waves, else how do our mobile phones get the reception, or the WLAN for our laptops. I used to work in a lab where the magnets are strong enough to "fry" your wrist watch.

Never underestimate the invisible force.

folding plug

Saw this video of the Folding Plug H 264 while reading Tiger4's blog.


I would say it is a very innovative design, not only does it save space, it also is designed around and adaptable to the current BS 1363 socket common in Commonwealth states. Guessing from the video, the manufacturing process won't be too complicated, just a bit concerned whether its construction will be rugged enough for the frequent plugging in and out.

If they had included the sketches and conceptual design stage, that would make a nice product design video.

singapore toy, games & comic convention 2009

Went for Singapore Toy, Game & Comic Convention last Sunday. Compared to last year's STCC, STGCC had an extra G, and a different feel. At least the graffiti wall had more empty space this year.

Tokidoki's wall had always been pretty. Blythe was here. Be@rbrick was here. Didn't really see evirob. But LEGO had a big booth this year, so was Hasbro, with GI Joe and Transformer toys. But you could only find those antique (and nostalgic) GI Joe action figures at individual stalls, not the Hasbro one.



Dunno why, somehow just feel that last year's one was more fun. Maybe the novelty is wearing off and new exhibits are not catching up?

10th library book sale

Went for National Library Board's Library Book Sale at Expo today.

You really think the hall is so empty?
Turn your head and look again.
Cos the gf and I went early, so there weren't many people at the checkout lines, as seen in the first photo. On the contrary, many people were still hunting for books. By the time we left the place, they had implemented crowd control at the entrance.

If you have the mentality of "oh I didn't finish the book I borrowed the other time, maybe I can buy it at the book sale", forget about it. Count yourself lucky if you can find the book's cousins. There are way too many books and it's near impossible for them to arrange the books like you see in libraries. Yeah, call number huh? Go with an open mind and you may find some surprise catch. On some occasions I saw some uncles picking some nice title. Very tempted to "stun" from their basket :P After about 1 hour, I got 3 books that I don't mind paying $2 each for.


The book sale is still on tomorrow (Sunday 23 Aug). If you are going, consider wearing cover-toe shoes. If you've been to crazy sales, you get what I mean. Also, don't be afraid of missing out if you go later in the day, cos the staffs regularly replenish the supplies with new carts of books.

job-seeking Y junction

After some 9 months of job hunting (ok I played cheat, started looking since last year, but now I've only graduated for slightly more than a month), 2 companies are offering me a job.

A:
Engineering job. Big well established MNC, even your neighbourhood grocery store ah pek will know its name. Salary wise, is on the high side in the private sector (they offering more than I wrote in the form). But I have insiders' info and not really encouraging. One works there and say the boss has high demand, always have to stay back do work. Another's wife used to work there, everyday work 12 hours, even if you OT until midnight the next morning also has to report to work on time. Sounds very no work-life balance. And then, earlier this year the company actually axed hundred over employees. Also, the job scope involves a lot of foundation on thermo and fluid, both are my weaknesses.

B:
Non-engineering job. Biggest employer in the country. If nothing screws up, they won't fire you. If you like to deal with young people, and have the passion (make sure it doesn't burn out), then this job isn't bad. Also, quite highly regarded by a lot of people, but also some say if you don't study well then you will end up in this job. Well... you can still say it's like engineering, cos it's like a production line, but you really need to put your heart to it. The down side, you can't switch back to engineering if you decide to switch track.

To be honest I don't mind taking some hardship for the first job, but I also need to look at the prospect and future, such as where our economy is heading. So, what do you think? (hur hur, will anyone make a fuss if I don't take up an engineering job?)

job seeker = lab rat

When you are hunting for jobs, you may unknowingly become subject of some market test. To put it crudely, you are just somebody's lab rat running around, without even the most basic of a piece of cheese as reward, but even have to spend money on transport traveling to attend job interviews.

Take for example. There is this manufacturing company, MNC. They themselves put up advertisement on online jobs portals some months ago. Not only that, they engage almost all of the bigger job agencies to put up the same job advertisement on the job portals. While those postings didnot have the company name, but it doesn't take a degree holder to tell that all the descriptions are the same, word for word. I have been seeing the same postings for weeks. And recently they even posted on the newspaper.

While you may say that they are trying to look for the best of the best, creme de la creme, so they cast their net big and take their time to pick. But I've chatted with someone who works in the HR line and he said, they do publish job postings to test market response and collect resumes.

It sure sounds cruel (and sadistic) when you thought you have bagged your most wished-for job and then end up they are just playing with you.

crash test science

Just came back from the X-periment at Marina Square, and well, pretty much still in one piece :P

When I reached the venue it was just nice the Crash Test Science show by Dr Bunhead just started. There were already lotsa kids crowding around the stage where Dr Bunhead was playing around with liquid nitrogen, freezing banana and inflating balloons. I've seen similar show with liquid nitrogen before at the Hong Kong Science Museum, but seriously the atmosphere was incomparable. Dr Bunhead really knows how to bring science to kids. I enjoyed seeing the show as much as seeing the kids (not mine) enjoying the show.


As part of science.09, X-periment also features projects from the local polytechnics and universities, and also the research institutions. You can take part in hands-on activities such as playing with dyes or fixing circuit boards. The carnival is on until tomorrow (Sunday 16 Aug). Dr Bunhead shows are at (according to the brochure) 12pm, 2:30pm, 4:30pm and 7:30pm.


Tweet the mascot @ProfWhy

quote of the day

wah lao eh, mai ang neh kuan leh!
(hokkien, "my father, don't be like that". Ok, lousy translation again)

-- SMRT service ambassador, aka "The Pusher"

At Bukit Batok Station, towards Jurong East direction. An auntie was blocking the train door with a shopping trolley.

science.09

The National Science Month is here again! What is going to happen for science.09 is that from 14-16 August (this coming Friday to Sunday), there will be a 3-day carnival "X-periment" held at Marina Square Central Atrium. If you want to see some scientific action, catch Dr Bunhead at the carnival. No labcoats needed. And don't need to wash test tubes. And don't miss visiting the booths by the research and tertiary institutions.

The theme for science.09 is Ask Why?, and with this they are having an "Ask Why?" contest. All you have to do is to simply ask why and you stand a chance to win a 16GB iPod Touch. Details are on their website. Ok, now I really don't mind asking stupid questions.

Trust me, it feels different to do experiments outside of laboratories.

*EDIT: I just saw their calender of events and it's really thick! They have workshops like cake making, pasta making, soap making, talks, visits, etc. Do check them out~

top loading mop bucket

"Whiz clean 360", "Spin & Go", "Hurricane Spin mop", (I think) they are all talking about the same mop.

I first saw it near the market. A promoter was demonstrating to old people how useful this mop is, how it saves the trouble of twist-drying the mop, how to change the mop head, blah blah blah. Then I saw it at the supermarket, under a different name and different box. Then I saw it again at a department store, under yet another name.

I wonder if they purposely sell it under different name.

From what I understand, what is special about this mop is that you don't have to twist dry the mop head. All you have to do is to shove it into this special bucket, step on a pedal and it will spin dry it like a top-loading washing machine. I guess there's a flywheel underneath or some spring mechanism, but I didn't really poke under the bucket. You can watch a promotional video here.

Anyone has used this mop?

eating the princess

I received the 2010 IKEA catalogue last week. When I reached the last page and saw the green Princess cake, I told myself one day I must try it.

And so I did, on Sunday.

The Princess cake, prinsessatårta, Swedish pastry made of sponge cake, raspberry jam, whipped cream and green marzipan. If you have a sweet tooth like me, you will like it.


Another excellent Swedish design :P

automated ramen

Ok, automation engineers have something to watch. Robotic arms making ramen in the Japanese city of Nagoya.


Reminds me of the breakfast machine in Wallace & Gromit.

Want some sesame oil or machine oil?

red-shirts

Happy 44th National Day Singapore!

Mr Thaksin must be happy if he sees so many Singaporeans wearing red today.

mapping singapore

I generally like maps (except mind maps), so I went to the National Library Building for the exhibition Vignettes in Time: Singapore Maps and History through the Centuries.

At first I was a little confused, cos the first map that greeted me was a recent map of Singapore by the Singapore Armed Forces Mapping Unit. Then as I walked along the exhibition I realized the exhibits were going backwards in time, until I reached Zheng He's map I thought, gosh, I have entered from the exit and ended at the start of the exhibition! When I looked at the brochure, then I realized they purposely arranged the exhibitions in such a manner. Not a bad idea though.

As I walked along the exhibition, it kind of reminded me of a remote sensing project I did last year, which was quite related to old maps of Singapore. With my finger tracing on almost every map, I think the cleaner will be cursing when cleaning away my fingerprints on the glass.

I was looking at a map when suddenly another visitor (either tourist or expat) came to me and asked to borrow me for a few seconds. He led me to a 19th Century Singapore map and told me he could locate Bugis Village but couldn't locate Kampong Glam. Ah, he was near, but the "Bugis Village" on the map is like where Lavender is in present day. So I traced along the coastline and there I found the words Kampong Glam. Tour-guiding on a map huh?

Looking at old maps and appreciating how the nation has progressed, isn't a bad way to celebrate National Day.

indonesian hotspots

Deeply impressed by the Wireless@SG concept, Indonesia has beefed up their wireless capability by increasing their number of hotspots in Sumatra.


With coverage stretching as far as Singapore and Malaysia, and even Thailand, their ISP (International Smog Provider) must be very proud.

Oopz, wrong type of hotspot. This one doesn't support IEEE standard.

da uchida-kraepelin code

Yesterday I went for a job interview and it was the most stressful interview I have gone through so far. I couldn't believe it lasted from 1:30pm to 5pm. It wasn't the interviewer who stressed me. It was a test that I took that nearly drove me nuts.

Seriously, almost drove me nuts. (or I'm already more nuts than say before the interview)It's called the Uchida-Kraepelin Psychodiagnostic Test. How to carry out the test? "In this test, successive pairs of digits arranged in long rows are added and the integer in the unit column of each sum is noted. The examinee works continuously for one minute until he is stopped and directed to the next row of digits." -- The History of Applied Psychology in Japan, SATO Tatsuya (Ritsumeikan University)

Ok, I play sudoku quite often and thought it's just another number game. The test instruction itself was simpler than sudoku's, but once you get onto the test, really can break you down. It only takes a bit of distraction, hesitation, and drop in will-power to screw your mind up.

I almost stabbed the examiner with my uni pen.

sporty technology

I thought it's only high end sports like motor racing will have problem of technology (and money) disparity. Now even the swimming arena (not talking about the brand, but I like the brand though) has this problem. I always thought swimming is straight forward, you just jump into the pool and swim laps, but now they are saying high-tech swimsuit gives the wearer an extra edge.

So in the good spirit of sports, can sportsmanship and technology coexist? The 24 June issue of Professional Engineering magazine had an article "Unfair advantage" on the topic as well, coincidentally.

Take motorsports for example. Those teams with lots of dough can invest on better engines, better body work, simulations, etc etc. Swimming, ok, swimsuit. Tennis, badminton, lighter rackets. Of course, technology comes with a price tag.

Have sports become just a money game?
(ok, this can be an engineering ethics and professionalism question)

time to eliminate multiple remotes

Now that electronic appliances and home entertainment systems have overrun most homes, it is getting more common to find remote controls swarming the coffee table in the living room. While most remote controls look different from one another, you still get occurrences of having to search for the correct remote control for the correct appliances, beneath your piles of newspaper or under your cushion. It seriously is troublesome when you are talking on the phone and have to search for the TV remote to lower the volume at the same time.

So Yamaha has a new product called the neoHD. What it does is it connects to all your home entertainment systems and with one remote control, you can operate all your appliances with ease. Your cable set-top box, disc players, tv… It has a graphical user interface (GUI) and from the screen user can select the desired media source and function. Saves the trouble of having to learn all the buttons.

They are having a Yamaha neoHD Sweepstakes and you can stand a chance to win a set of Yamaha neoHD for yourself by simply tweeting or following the instructions in the webpage. I won’t mind getting a set of it myself.

reversed bargain

Was checking out the pasar malam with xy (it was late afternoon, should be pasar petang?) Then she decided to get a fresh coconut from the juice stall.

The uncle picked a coconut from the cold styrofoam box, chop chop a few times with the knife to make a small opening, and handed the coconut to her. Although the sign said $1.50 per piece, he charged her $1.20, claiming the coconut was a bit small.

Great Singapore Sale?

Although it is not like that discount would make the stall owner bankrupt, but it's small gesture like this that makes you feel, there are still good people on earth.

new arrival - reserved seating t-shirt

New design at the Department's Store, tell everyone courtesy starts with you!

Don't think dirty.

(can't find job so I sell t-shirt :P)

not everyone can notice

I received this "NOTICE" slotted onto my front gate just now.

To be more exact, it's an advertisement. (click image to enlarge)
I don't know about you, but I find the "notice" misleading, especially the usage of the word "notice". If I am not wrong, most of the time the word is used by the authority. Fine, you may say the piece lacks a logo (like town council's or housing board's), but at least one old man in my household thought it's from the government.

At least they hadn't pasted it at the lift lobby.