Newsflash

SATU
I feel compelled to comment on Najib’s statement that came out in the news yesterday that 'it is virtuous to work longer hours'. "Imagine what would Malaysia’s productivity be like if we can work nine or ten hours a day for the next 10, 20 or 50 years,” he said.

That’s so old-school thinking! Even in the company that I’m working for, which used to see an environment where ‘kiasu’ employees compete with each other on who goes back the last, is beginning to educate its staffs that longer hours does not necessarily equate to increased productivity! As one manager told me before, if you constantly have to put in long hours, you’re either inefficient or you’re truly overloaded, in which case you have to do something to balance your workload.

Admittedly, the correlation between longer hours and productivity is a positive linear for certain tasks, especially those related to ‘production line’, but sometimes even those can further challenged. For example, longer hours implies more forms get processed. But shouldn’t we also look at the processes first? How can they be improved? What can be automated? What are the unnecessary steps that could be eliminated? The mindset should be (IMHO): I get paid to get this work done, rather than I get paid to work this number of hours (although in certain jobs this is logically prevalent).

Back in school, we were told to ‘study smart, rather than study hard’. Let’s ‘work smart, rather than work hard’ then! Working nine to ten hours per day? Sheesh! Does he realize what the impact to family units and society could be? And I thought this is the era where ‘work-life balance’ is the buzz word!

DUA
Ah, penat pula membebel alkisah waktu bekerja. Kisah yang lebih seronok didengar: ada acara menarik tidak lama lagi, Seminar Kecemerlangan Wanita Islam bertemakan Survival Wanita di Kota Metropolitan pada 15 April 2007 bertempat di Masjid Salehuddin Al-Ayyubi, Taman Melati Kuala Lumpur, anjuran Wanita JIM KL dengan kerjasama JAWI. Saya berharap dapat pergi! (tapi perlu rancang ‘strategi’ dulu) Klik sini untuk mencapai maklumat penuh.

TIGA
Another event to look forward to: 26th KL International Book Fair at PWTC from 26 April to 6 May 2006. Click here for more info.

Hmm… I feel like jotting down my wishlist (To MDH, hint hint :>):

Ayat-ayat Cinta (Habiburrahman El-Shirazy)
Kekasih Sam Bo Po (Faisal Tehrani)
La Tahzan - Don’t Be Sad (Dr. Aa’idh Abdullah al-Qarnee)
The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
Imam (Abdullah Hussein)

A full list would have been longer, but I purposely limit myself to five, to be realistic. Only one non-fiction, surprise surprise. The last one would seem like a rather odd choice, I know, but there’s a personal reason why I’d like to read it. I know I can buy at least one of them from Kak Raiyan, but I’ll see first if I can get my hands on them here.