Diversity Scares Me, NOT

Malaysia is one of the best places to live in because of our diversity. How can we be scared of diversity when it is all around us - especially since we have been seeing, eating and breathing it all our lives. Here are some examples:
Seeing- Walk down any Malaysian street.

See the different skin tones, see the clothes we wear.

Breathing- Smell the different flavours wafting from any food stall.

Eating- How many of you eat Nasi Lemak for breakfast, Noodles for lunch and have Nasi Kandar for dinner?

In the land that we call Malaysia, diversity is a plenty. This makes up Malaysia. I really cannot imagine eating the same type of food every day.

Unfortunately what saddens me as a Malaysian is all the talk about race politics in the news today. Why all this talk?

In my younger days, I’ve spent a lot of my years out of Malaysia. At one time, my best friends were a white English boy and a black New Guinean. We were the odd trio. We totally trusted each other and defended each other even against others of our own race. It was the comrade and friendship that matters. Not the colour of our skins.

As children we understood that colour does not matter. Somehow, as we aged, instead of being wiser and more accommodating, we get caught up and become narrower minded. At the playground near my house, I see so many kids of different races playing together. They just want to have fun and laugh. Yet if you look at the parents there, it will be great if they even smile or look at one another especially those of a different race. What happened?

People are people, be afraid of the person’s belief system not his/her colour. There are Chinese who are two-faced, Indians who are lazy and Malays who are money oriented. It is the person not the race that matters.

As the world becomes smaller, race diversity will become more prominent in any country. I have met Singaporeans who are of European descendent that are more Singaporeans then the locals born there. I have met many Englishmen from the Indian continent – many who are really Africans in heart and in soul. What makes them is their ability to adapt, their willingness to learn and their willingness to accept.

To me, a Malaysian is someone who loves to eat (this is who we are, we eat), contributes to the Malaysian society (I know many in Malaysia who do not contribute in any way even though they live here), loves this country, has adapted to the diversity here (surprising they are still many Malaysians who prefer not to have it) and is willing to defend and speak up for this way of life. That is the true Malaysian to me.

4.5 Years Down the Road

It is a Friday 22th August 2008, 7.00pm. I am in ATCEN Learning Centre attending an English Writing Class. Yes, an English Writing Class conducted by Aneesa. Do I need it …YES, because she writes for a living and I am learning. Learning how to get important written message across effectively. So Aneesa thank you.

Sitting at the back of the room, with my laptop, I am looking and listening to Aneesa conducting the session. Next thing I know I am compelled by a sense of accomplishment. All this learning about writing for effectiveness and seeing that every single ATCENian is still in the office learning; made me remember something.

To recollect my thoughts, I logged onto ATCEN website (www.atcen.com) and clicked onto “OUR STORY”. The page on The Journey popped up and I read it. Next I clicked onto the Chapter 1 button and what I was recollecting popped right up at the top of the page

“ATCEN was not built solely for the motive of profits. Why? We believe there's more to life than money. ATCEN aspires to revolutionize the Malaysian business approach; to be a model company, an innovative company. A company where the principles and values of the organization are not mere talismans on display but in every breath we exhale. We care for the development of our people, to build characters and the entrepreneurs of the future.”

I wrote the above paragraph, part of the ATCEN Story, on 29^th March 2004 when ATCEN was barely 4 months. It was written from the heart as ATCEN was still young and it was then a fantastic opportunity to start something new, something great, something to be proud of. And the founders at that time want it to happen.

Coming back to ATCEN Learning Center, I am just struck by what I wrote 4 ½ years ago and what we have achieved today.

In the room with me are 24 individuals consisting of 8 Malays, 10 Chinese, 3 Indians, 1 Iban and 2 of mixed parentage. We had ladies in tudung, mini skirt, jeans, office wear, fresh graduates, also the not so young, English educated, Malay educated and Chinese educated. They had only two things in common, we were all Malaysians and also ATCENians. Tell me of another company that is so rojak and diverse.

This is a company that is not relationship based, race based, chain based or any other based, even sexuality preference based. We are only PERFORMANCE BASED.

We are definitely revolutionizing the Malaysian Business Approach just by our background and the way we do things.

We are extremely Principled and Value driven, it does not matter who it involves. A wrong is a wrong and will be feedback upon. A Right is a Right and will also be feedback upon. Good behaviours are praised, the bad raised and learnt from. We do this regardless whether the individual is the CEO, the manager or the penyapu lantai, which is the CEO occasionally, rank is of little relevance here. All are equal. The CEO cleans the toilet so does everyone else. This in itself is another revolution in Malaysia if not the world.

Ask anyone in ATCEN and they will say we live here. That is just the practice in this organization. We are here not just to make a difference for our clients or ATCEN, the organization but for ourselves. We want to develop, build our character and be entrepreneurs. This is who we, ATCENians, moving towards our Aspiration and proud of it.

To the team it is now 8.15pm and the English Class has just ended and we are all happy with what we have learnt.

As for me I am just proud that words for a certain vision written 4 ½ years ago is now a reality. To ATCENians, you made this possible.

Tidak Apa Attitude Companies Deserve To Fail

Till today, there are still too many companies who just do not care about anything and I mean anything. We call this the “tidak apa attitude” in Malaysia. To be more precise it is not the company, as a company is as good as the people in there, so therefore it is the people in these organizations that just do not care about anything.

These people are the clerical, the officers, the management, the Board of Directors, the CEO and even the Chairman. There all form the company, they are the company. Yet they do not care. They are there to just ... turn up to work, do the minimal and get a salary they do not deserve.

These companies are literally “sucking” the life away from the Malaysian economy. Things do not happen there. They have slogans and branding campaigns that don’t work and are extremely poor in both planning and execution. They survive by getting highly paid external consultants to do the work and outsourcing everything else. The funny thing is that they get mega projects because of connections. When things fail, everyone is out for a meeting or a holiday.

Enough is enough, I want these companies to fail so that as a nation as a people, we can start excelling. We need to leave those irresponsible and uncooperative legacies behind. If these organizations need to be shaken to the core so be it. As in Nature, only the most adaptable survive and those “tidak apa attitude” companies deserve to fail.

On a separate note, I was in KWSP in PJ recently and I must give a big thank you to the team of people there. They were fast and efficient in processing my documents. I waited for less than 5 minutes to be served both times. Additionally the LHDN in Kelana Jaya was extremely efficient as well. Kudos to these two government agencies.

For those private companies with the “tidak apa attitude”, you deserve to fail.

The Unique Call Center

The call center agent world is full of horror stories and as often as I hear the bad experiences, I occasionally get into more optimistic and uplifting conversations where we get started on the uniqueness of our work place.

We came up with some things that makes working in a call center unique. Here they are:

1. Everyone is either very intelligent with high flying degrees or they are graduates with no glimmer of grey matter. Quite interesting that both types get along fantastically well especially when discussing that ONE horrible customer.

2. Everyone is a gamer, is married, seeing a gamer, or has recently broken up with a gamer for another gamer. 8 times out of 10, married employees have met their spouse on the internet, World of Warcraft online, or at work.

3. For some reason call center toilets are always… well, filthy. I don’t know if it is the way everyone eats, or if it’s just that they are filthy creatures. The toilets are horrible. I see little wads of toilet paper or towels stuffed in the corners of the stalls, and even in this age, they squat and pee on the seats. I hear this happens in the ladies’ toilet too… hmm.

4. There is often the smell of freshly smoked tobacco filling the air when my colleagues get back from their breaks and lunches. This becomes especially unbearable when they come back with the stinging smell of clove cigarettes. One wonders, do they blow smoke on themselves on purpose?

5. There seems to be a lot of individuals with a preference for alternate lifestyles. What do I mean? Well if you’ve ever come across someone wearing a skirt and standing at the urinal, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Often you can’t tell which sex they are currently. Mebbe this explains the dirty toilet seats huh?

6. People spit everywhere. Especially right where other people are walking or standing. An amazing phenomena that mostly happens in the smoking section. Told you about the clove cigarettes didn’t I?

7. Farting is commonplace. And never excused nor apologized.

I’d like to hear some of yours. Go ahead and add into the comments.

Generation Y: The Frontline Contact Center Agent

If you are under 29 years of age, feel that you can excel at almost any job thrown at you, don’t automatically give respect to older people or with big sounding titles, and can command world domination in a day (on the PC); you are Gen-Y.

What makes you unique in the contact center is that you are so computer literate, the IT team has to constantly play catch up on how you managed to bypass the firewall so you can get on Yahoo Messenger or update your photos in Friendster. You also feel the contact center job is not challenging and you could probably pack your stuff in 10 minutes and get another contact center job the next day. Isn’t it a wonderful life? But what is it that makes you tick and gets you excited?

From my experience working and interacting with 1,000’s of contact center agents, I have come to the conclusion this is what keeps you going:

1. Rewards must be plentiful. Money is good but the occasional recognition with dinner and drinks would be good. Oh, and don’t forget movie tickets to the latest blockbuster movie (with a soda and popcorn of course).

2. “I want to know how fast I can make big money.” Don’t bother gaining my loyalty, there’s no such thing. Show me the career path that leads to the pot of gold so I can get the car I’m eyeing.

3. “Give me facts man, not some theory and theoretical talk.” Cynical!? Who? Me!? You bet! I grew up being bombarded with information and it is in abundance, I don’t even bother go looking information or knowledge anymore. It comes to me. Library? Who goes to those anymore…

4. Give me a reason and I will challenge you. Hey! That’s what I’m here for, to challenge and question. Most times, I know the answer already. Other times, I just wanna see how you handle the pressure and handle the challenge.

5. Cut to the chase. Look, I don’t really have much time because my contact center buddies have already ordered my Café Latte and are waiting for me so don’t bother wasting my time with long coaching and briefing sessions. Just tell me what I need to know and I’ll have it down pat in no time.

So, to all of you who don’t have a Friendster or Facebook page (read above the age of 30), understand the above and you will be rewarded with excellent performance, done willingly and excitedly. The Gen-Y’s would like to thank you in advance for understanding us…

To Graduates and Their Parents

Two fresh graduates left us recently after working in ATCEN for three days. They said the reason for this was that their parents complained about the long working hours here. The parents said they should look for a jobs that work normal working hours like 9.00am -5.00pm.

This is my message to the parents and more so the graduates:

Times have changed, we no longer work the so called “normal” hours from 9.00am-5.00pm. We are now working in a globalised economy and the world does not stop just because we do. This 9am-5pm working hour thing is total nonsense. If every Malaysian works 9.00am-5.00pm, then let’s forget all the 24 hour conveniences we enjoy. Forget using the 7-Eleven, the Mamak, the petrol station, the shopping Mall and the Cinema. As a matter a fact let’s just stop everything after 6pm, go home and watch ... oh I forgot there is no TV. Why? Who is working in the TV station; nobody. Welcome to the world of 9am-5pm.

To the fresh graduates, welcome to the real world. Schools and Universities are illusions of the real world. Why? Work stops after 5.00pm for them.

In the office, it never stops. The larger the organization, the longer the organization works. Many organizations today work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year and it will continue to do so.

Are there individuals who work fixed hours these days, of course there are. They are usually the production line worker or the clerical staffs. So degree graduates, if that is what you want in your life, go for those jobs and the easy life and please don’t complain about the salary, you made the choice.

Oh I forgot, there is also a plus point if you take up such jobs. Overtime (OT) is usually one of the perks that you get. However if you want to be an Executive, forget the concept of OT immediately. The fact that I hear many degree graduates demanding for this is disgraceful. Ask your Managers if they get OT.

Additionally graduates, before you start citing from the Employment Act 1965, kindly read it from page to page. Why? You need to understand the realities of working life and that is a fantastic place to start.

Welcome to 24, 7 and 365.

A Language Change

After conducting countless interviews and trainings with Malaysian fresh graduates, I have come to a grave conclusion. There is something really wrong with the English of our graduates today. The majority of them cannot speak or express themselves in English. If they can’t do any of this, how are they to get a job in this globalized environment?

The three major languages spoken in the world are Mandarin, Spanish and English, in that order. However English is the lingua-franca of Business, Science and Technology industry.

As a proud Malaysian we can scream and shout as much as we want on the importance of Bahasa Malaysia for the purpose of cultural and nationalistic identity but look at the statistics, we are only a population of 25 million. The world has a population of 6.6B people, so that is a world population ratio of less than 0.004% speaking Bahasa Malaysia. Insignificant.

According to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008, we are the 21st most competitive nation in the world. Based on the quality of English that I am hearing and seeing, I sincerely hope that we can maintain our level of competitiveness in the years to come.

As a Malaysian, I truly understand the uniqueness of Malaysia. I love this country but I also realize the need to be practical. We need to ensure more Malaysians pick up good English fast, we are building the next generation, the old is gone. Malaysia can no longer be a big fish in a small pond. We need to be a small fish in a BIG POND. Only by being in the big pond can we grow to become a bigger fish. Change WE MUST.