Friday, September 28, 2012

Don't take Normal for granted

Recently my boss got a bashing from his boss because of a chain of events in our department which cause the company some serious problems.

You see my department is doing the shitty and unglamorous job for the company. No doubt we are important but we are expected to be doing the right things every time and all the time so then things will look normal.

Not great but normal. But once you slipped up, it will cause a chain of events that could be catastrophic to the big boss eyes.

So it’s a important yet unappreciated role. My boss spent half an hour trying to drill that into our brains but we all know no one will give us the credit for doing a great job everyday so thing can be “NORMAL”.

Normal is always been taken fro granted.

When I look at our society, they equates to our rubbish collector, cleaners, bus drivers, cooks etc etc.

Do you think our country can go on normally just one days without them?

Yet these people are normally the lowly paid and are always been looked down on.

In the matter of facts, I think we can go one for months without the President, Emeritus or even the Prime Minister and we will not feel any impact but try going for months without a single rubbish collectors.

So it does matter if you are some top brass somewhere, you should be humble and thanks the person who cook for you, clean your toilets and clear your rubbish.

After all a job is a job, you may be at the top due to some connection so nothing to be so proud of.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Wrong priority in Singapore.

'Greater accountability needed from SAF'

Today online Sep 18, 2012

SINGAPORE - Her son, Lee Rui Feng Dominique Sarron had died in April in a military training exercise. Last week, Madam Felicia Seah wrote an open letter - which was posted on a Facebook page set up in memory of her 21-year-old son - urging "all parents of Singaporean sons to stand with me, to advocate for greater accountability" from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) "for the safety of our sons".

Recalling how her world "collapsed" when she learnt of her son's death, Mdm Seah claimed it would have been averted if his superiors had paid heed to his condition.

"It is clear to my family and me that my son's death was preventable. He was asthmatic. The incident that cost him his life was an urban training exercise involving smoke bombs in a confined area," said Mdm Seah.

As of yesterday, the impassioned letter was shared on the social networking site more than 280 times and was "liked" by more than 900 users.

Among other things, it called for "more thorough screening" of the medical history of enlistees and "more stringent monitoring of staff who oversee (full-time national servicemen), to weed out abuse of power at all levels".

Mdm Seah wrote: "We cannot allow for our sons to be at the mercy of the training officers ... who are very often little older and none the wiser than the boys they are tasked to oversee, boys whose lives often depend on the decisions that they make."

The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) is awaiting the findings of its investigations. In response to TODAY's queries, MINDEF Director Public Affairs, Colonel Kenneth Liow, said that the ministry and the SAF "would like to again express our deepest condolences to Mdm Seah and her family" on Mr Lee's death.

MINDEF's Family Liaison Officer "has been in regular contact" with Mdm Seah and her family, and the SAF "remains committed to assisting the family and providing them the necessary support during this difficult time", Col Liow said.

Stressing that safety is a top priority for MINDEF and the SAF, he added: "Every incident resulting in injury or death is painful to us and gets top management attention. We will learn from every incident to continually improve our safety system to ensure high standards of training safety."

Last month, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen announced that MINDEF is conducting a broad review of its medical support system, including its Medical Classification and Screening System.

Cardiologist Leslie Lam told TODAY that the screening should involve ultrasound scanning of the hearts of enlistees. This would identify underlying conditions which a normal electro-cardiogram (ECG) - currently a part of the screening system - would not pick up.

However, each ultrasound scanner costs about S$250,000 and Dr Clarence Yeo, a general practitioner, pointed out that cost could be an issue.

Still, he agreed that more needs to be done in screening certain parts of the body, such as the respiratory system and muscular-skeletal structure.




It is unfortunate for any NS boys to die during his service, more so if it is due the MINDEF trying to cut proper screening of Singaporean boys because of cost.

What is $250,000 is to MINDEF? For God’s sake a bloody missile cost more then this and I think lot of its senior officers earn more then this annually.

The least MINDEF could do for its soldiers is to provide a proper screening for its soldiers so to reduce the risk of death or serious injury to the minimum.

Saving life should be the top priority, not saving cost.

If Hsien Loong is to be enlisted today, do you think MINDEF will casually put him through the normal health screening?

A life is a life, don’t think one is worth more then the other.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Hsien Loong Screwed up again.


During the national day rally this year, Hsien Loong talk about inclusive society and he want Singaporean to give feedback to the government so together we can make a Singapore we want.

So dear Hsien Loong went on to have some tea session with bloggers before have a televised forum on Channel New Asia to have a “open” discussion on national’s issues.

However not only the PAP cannot take the hard truth, they are trying to pretend they can.

First the forum was for people who they want to be there. They disinvites some blogger and more skeletons in the closets had came out as netizen has indentified a fair number of people who took part in the televised forum are actually PAP members.

This gave an impression that the forum was staged and the PAP is insincere.

Hsien Loong still doesn’t get it. He did not learn from the last GE.

Singaporeans are not stupid. If you really want to win the next GE then I hope you better buck up and show some sincerity.

Listen to us with an open mind and not try to tell us you are but actually you only one to hear the good things.

PAP indeed is quite good at wayang but with social media, it has fell flat on its face yet again.

Bad publicity again!