I Wonder...

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Hi guys. This must be the fastest time I ever took to post a new entry
after posting one less than a day ago. I'm not sure whether it'a boon or
bane for you people reading my blog. Sure banyak nak baca kan? ;) Hmmm... I
guess you'll just have to live with it, eh? After all, this is my blog and
I'm entitled to write it whenever I please. Especially during times of
extreme boredom like now. ;)

Well, in actual fact, now's not that boring compared to yesterday. Today
seems to start fine (apart from waking up late: 6:40 a.m., to be precise).
I went out of home at 7:30 a.m., expecting a traffic jam due to road
closures for the NAM summit in Putrajaya today. Alhamdulillah, none of the
roads I usually take to reach the office is closed, ensuring a smooth
drive. It is not that smooth actually, since at certain 'usual' parts of my
route, I will always encounter traffic jam, such as at Jalan Tun Razak. But
still, I was able to arrive at 8 a.m.. Approximately 30 minutes of driving
time from home to office is always a sign of good traffic!

Upon reaching the office, Ernest, my so-called "co-supervisor" assigned me
something to do. I'm supposed to write a spreadsheet based on formulas
given in a handbook that I borrowed from one of my officemates. It is a
petty job, when compared to the stuff all the technical staffs here
normally perform, but hey, I'm not complaining. Doing something is always
better than doing nothing at all, no matter how small the assignment is.

*But I'm still writing this blog entry. Heh... Work can wait... this can't!
;)*

And just now, Miss Lee, one of the engineers in this office, offered to
assist me in understanding how to use the PVElite software (used to help
design pressure vessels). Alhamdulillah again... now at least I know I can
do something else when I'm bored. Other than write a blog entry, of course.
;)

Ahhh yes... Last night I successfully installed the wireless router and
wireless adapters (all of the 802.11 g kind) for my home. And I've finally
secured the connection, so that no one outside our home can snoop our data,
and piggyback on our Internet connection. The wireless security feature is
very important because upon connecting my father's laptop to our wireless
router, I can see that other wireless connections (most probably from other
houses) are available to be connected to, with no security features
installed whatsoever. Are these people crazy? Fortunately their connections
are weak from our house (less than 40% signal strength) and our house
already has Internet connection. If our house has no Internet connection,
we can just easily get free connection using these people's networks!

But don't bother coming to our house and trying to connect to the Internet
from there, coz I already installed the security feature WPA-SK, so that no
unauthorised people can steal our Internet connection. =) But to
knowledgeable people out there, I want to ask: what's the difference
between WEP and WPA-SK? This WEP and WPA-SK is the authentication and
encryption (securtiy) features available to be used on our wireless
network. However, which one's the best? Which one has the most performance
impact on the speed of our connection?

And now, we go to the reason for my post's title. Last night I chatted a
bit with my friend, and the friend told me his/her job responsibility. It
seems that TNB (at least the division that he/she is working in) starts you
off, upon completion of PEP, at quite a high post. But, as I have posted
previously, their starting salary upon completion of PEP is RM2300. Reading
what his/her job responsibilities and the type of work they have to do, I
can't stop thinking that that RM2300 is too low! At least here in Technip,
even though they kinda work you as much as possible (an online friend says
it best: perah macam tebu!), at least they pay you accordingly, RM2400 with
overtime , bonus, project claims, etc. possiblities. At TNB, they give you
possibly comparable amount of work, but they expect you to be satisfied
with that meager sum of salary. So, I thought to myself, "What?!!"

When I highlight this to that friend of mine, he/she said that I'm
materialistic; say that money is not everything, knowledge and experience
is more important; don't be greedy, and all the phrases you would expect
from these people when you tell them that their salary is incomparable with
the amount of work they give you. To that I personally say, you're wrong.
If you were to say these things years and years ago, maybe it was true. But
now, the fact is, we're living in a materialistic world. Almost everything
in this world requires money, especially in a capitalism type of economy
like ours. Thus, I would like to get as much of it as I can in order to
secure a bright future for my family, and for Islam, in general. Imagine if
we all have money just enough to survive in this world. Less monetary
assistance could then be given to our Muslim brothers and sisters in this
world. That's why money is important to me.

Yes, I do agree that knowledge and experience are all important stuff that
we should get a lot of, but if my company expects me to do lots of work, I
at the same time expect them to pay me salary comparable to the amount of
work I do! It's sort of like doing work for them for free! To me, that's
just unfair. In this case, I might as well just work for charity. :P

Of course, these are just my opinions. Just like most of the things in
life, comparability between amount of work and salary paid is not a
black-and-white matter. It's more or less a grey area. It's based on
personal preference. Some people might feel that RM2300 for lots of work is
considerate. Others, like me, feel differently.

What are your takes on this matter?

Sorry for another long post... I was just trying to kill time, yet again.
;)

Posted by Nikman Shah at 10:22 am
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