Robert Kuok's Notes On Business

I received this in an email about Malaysia's richest man, Robert Kuok.

Robert Kuok Hock Nien of the Kuok Group, aka the "Sugar King", is the riches man in Malaysia with a wealth of RM42.76 billion.

This was his speech at Kuok Group’s 60th Anniversary in April last year:

1. My brothers and I owe our upbringing completely to Mother. She was steeped in Ru-Jiao – the teachings of Confucius, Mencius, Laozi and other Chinese sages. Ru-Jiao teaches the correct behaviour for a human being on his life on earth. Mother gently, and sometimes strongly, drummed into the minds of her three boys the values of honesty, of never cheating, lying, stealing or envying other people their material wealth or physical attributes.
2. Father died on 25 December 1948 night without leaving a will. Following the Japanese surrender, he had re-registered the firm as a sole proprietorship. We went to court to get an appointment as managers, permitting us to continue to manage Tong Seng & Co. The judge said that, as there were two widows, the firm and the estate should be wound up.
3. We decide to establish Kuok Brothers Limited. In mid-January 1949, five of us met at a small roundtable in our home in Johore Bahru. Present were my MOTHER, cousin number five HOCK CHIN, cousin number twelve HOCK SENG, my brother HOCK KHEE nicknamed Philip (a.k.a. cousin number seventeen), and myself (a.k.a. cousin number twenty). We sat down and Mother said, “Nien, would you like to start?” I said, “Fine, yes I will start.” To cut the long story short, we got started, and commenced business from a little shop house in Johore Bharu on 1 April 1949.
4. As a young man, I thought there was no substitute for hard work and thinking up good, honest business plans and, without respite, pushing them along. There will always be business on earth. Be humble; be straight; don’t be crooked; don’t take advantage of people. To be a successful businessman, I think you really need to brush all your senses every morning, just as you brush your teeth. I coined the phrase “honing your senses” in business: your vision, hearing, sense of smell, touch and taste. All these senses come in very useful.
5. Mother was the captain of our ship. She saw and sensed everything, but being a wise person she didn’t interfere. Yet she was the background influence, the glue that bound the Group together. She taught my cousins and my brothers and me never to be greedy, and that in making money one could practise high morality. She stressed that whenever the firm does well it should make donations to the charities operating in our societies. She always kept us focused on the big picture in business. For example: avoid businesses that bring harm, destruction or grief to people. This includes trades like gambling, drugs, arms sales, loan-sharking and prostitution.
6. We started as little fish swimming in a bathtub. From there we went to a lake and now we are in the open seas. Today our businesses cover many industries and our operations are worldwide but this would not have been possible without the vision of the founding members, the dedicated contributions and loyalty of our colleagues and employees, and very importantly the strong moral principles espoused by my mother.
7. When I hire staff I look for honest, hardworking, intelligent people. When I look candidates in the eye, they must appear very honest to me. I do not look for MBAs or exceptional students. You may hire a brilliant man, summa cum laude, first-class honours, but if his mind is not a fair one or if he has a warped attitude in life, does brilliance really matter?
8. Among the first employees were Lau Teo Chin (Ee Wor), Kwok Chin Luang (Ee Luang), Othman Samad (Kadir) and an Indian accountant called Joachim who was a devout Roman Catholic and who travelled in every day from Singapore where he lived.
9. I would like on this special occasion to pay tribute to them and in particular to those who were with us in the early days; many of whom are no longer here. I have already mentioned Lau Teo Chin (Ee Wor) and Kwok Chin Luang (Ee Luang) and Othman Samad (Kadir), there are others like Lean Chye Huat, who is not here today due to failing eyesight, and Yusuf Sharif who passed away in his home country India about one and a half years ago and the late Lee Siew Wah, and others who all gave solid and unstinting support and devotion to the Company. It saddens me that in those early difficult years these pioneers did not enjoy significant and substantial rewards but such is the order of things and a most unfortunate aspect of capitalism. However through our Group and employee Foundations, today we are able to help their descendants whenever there is a need to..
10. I have learnt that the success of a company must depend on the unity of all its employees. We are all in the same boat rowing against the current and tide and every able person must pull the oars to move the boat forward. Also, we must relentlessly endeavour to maintain and practise the values of integrity and honesty, and eschew and reject greed and arrogance.
11. A few words of caution to all businessmen and women. I recall the Chinese saying: shibai nai chenggong zhi mu (failure is the mother of success). But in the last thirty years of my business life, I have come to the conclusion that the reverse phrase is even truer of today’s world: chenggong nai shibai zhi mu. Success often breeds failure, because it makes you arrogant, complacent and, therefore, lower your guard.
12. The way forward for this world is through capitalism. Even China has come to realise it. But it’s equally true that capitalism, if allowed to snowball along unchecked, can in many ways become destructive. Capitalism needs to be inspected under a magnifying glass once a day, a super-magnifying glass once a week, and put through the cleaning machine once a month. In capitalism, man needs elements of ambition and greed to drive him. But where does ambition end and greed take over? That’s why I say that capitalism, if left to its own devices, will snowball along, roll down the hill and cause a lot of damage. So a sound capitalist system requires very strongly led, enlightened, wise governments. That means politician-statesmen willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their people. I don’t mean politicians who are there for fame, glory and to line their pockets.
13. To my mind the two great challenges facing China are the restoration of education in morals and the establishment of a rule of law. You must begin from the root up, imbuing and infusing moral lessons and morality into youth, both at home and from kindergarten and primary school upward through university. Every Chinese needs to accept the principle of rule of law; then you have to train upright judges and lawyers to uphold the legal system.
14. Wealth should be used for two main purposes. One: for the generation of greater wealth; in other words, you continue to invest, creating prosperity and jobs in the country. Two: part of your wealth should be applied to the betterment of mankind, either by acts of pure philanthropy or by investment in research and development along the frontiers of science, space, health care and so forth.

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Please post your comments.

Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills

The web is a very powerful too to help you learn almost anything. You just have to know where to look. Here are the Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills.

Please post your comments.

Foreigners Seek Jobs In China

The booming economy in China has drawn many foreigners to the country. These foreigners are struggling to get their desired jobs in the face of fierce competitions from the locals and especially from those with overseas degree.

Boy Loses RM8mil In Gambling

 This picture is for illustration only

A 19 year old boy lost a total RM8 million within 3 years gambling online. The boy who is a millionaire's son started gambling since he was 16 reported the Star.

The teenager allegedly learned this habit from his father’s and ended up losing millions in football bets over the Internet.

He was such a big gambler that he came to be known as the "Little Dragon".

Apparently the boy started to gamble after gambling agents gave him a RM100,000 credit line. Each time he lost money, his father would pay off his debts. Over three years, his father has bailed him out several times.

The boy who was pursuing an Australian degree programme at a local college had on many occasions used college fees to settle his debts and extend his line of credit with the bookies.

Agents for bookies solicited bets from teenagers from rich families. These agents would go to expensive private colleges looking for students from rich families as customers.

Please post your comments.

St John's Institution Is Now A National Heritage Site

Photo by The Malay Mail

The Malay Mail reported that 106 year old St John's Institution at Bukit Nanas was declared heritage building yesterday.

The school was founded by the La Salle Christian Brothers on 18 January 1904 and was named after St John Baptist de La Salle.

St John's Institution trademark of red and white Romanesque architectural has been part of building this nation producing outstanding Malaysians such as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, several cabinet ministers and corporate personalities.

Please post your comments.

Do You Believe In Ghosts & Spirits ?

Colonial era schools such as this one in Kuala Lumpur tend to have more than their fair share of creepy stories.

Historic haunts

Invented or real histories of schools are a common starting ground for terrifying tales.

At the more historic schools around the country, it would seem that some of the troops who arrived in Malaya during the Japanese Occupation of the early 1940s have never left.

Tales of schools being former Japanese torture camps are a particularly popular explanation for apparitions of headless corpses and sounds of marching soldiers in the dead of night.

Perhaps the strangest tale in circulation at the moment are sightings of beheaded nuns in a well-known girls’ school in Kuala Lumpur.

 

While the school canteen may be the focal point for students during recess, it can at other times, turn out to be an eerie place where one can hear mysterious sounds and witness strange happenings.

 

Although the brutalities committed during that era cannot be denied, conclusive proof of all the exact spots where the Kempeitai (Japanese secret police) murdered their victims is hard to find.

Consultant Mavindren Naidu however, believes that his former school in Ipoh is a hotbed of paranormal activity.

“From 1943 till the end of the war, the Japanese government did have their headquarters in Perak.
“It’s not surprising then if some of the locations in my school were previously used as execution spots by the army,” he says.

Mavindren claims that his former schoolmates have seen silhouettes of bodies hanging from trees, and screams echoing down empty hallways.

“I’ve experienced the screams myself once, while waiting for my father to pick me up after co-curricular activities. Maybe it was a classmate pulling my leg, but there were no other students around and it didn’t sound human...” he says.

Many a student will swear to spirits lurking in empty classrooms.

 

Declaring himself to be a sceptic, Tan Seng Hong says a misunderstanding of history can easily cause rumours to spread.

“Some say that my school was a prison, or that it was built on an ancient tribal burial ground,” says the secondary school student.

“But my school is fairly new, and this area has always been a commercial one!

“Of course, if I believed the stories to be true, I too would feel scared or see things that aren’t really there.”

Permanent residents

As they tend to be located in isolated surroundings, boarding schools are rife with supernatural anecdotes.
One of the most infamous yarns is that of the boy who wakes up in the middle of the night at his dormitory room.

Upon seeing dark shadows hovering along the beds of his fellow students, the boy pulls up his covers and pretends to be asleep.

The abandoned Shih Chung school in Penang is supposedly haunted and the abode of different types of ghosts.

 

The terrified boy then hears a disembodied voice singing: “The rest are asleep, but one is awake.”
Civil servant Shazliza Ramli thinks that such tales are a way of keeping students in check.

“You can be sure that once a student hears a story like that, he is bound to keep to his bedtime,” she laughs.
Shazliza adds that another common “happening” at her former residential school in Kelantan is the doppelganger effect.

“One story I can account for is when a friend of mine had to go home for the weekend due to an injury.

“But the night warden claimed to have seen my friend wandering around the corridors late at night, and thought she was rude for not answering the warden’s calls.

Sightings of apparitions are often spotted along empty corridors and at disrepaired stairwells in schools.

 

“Upon learning the truth, the warden subesequently refused to do the night shift again; but I think it was an effective caution for the girls, because after that, none of us loittered around at night!” she says.

Residential school student Azfar Masom meanwhile, thinks that his seniors just take sadistic pleasure in scaring the wits out of younger students.

“This is especially true when we have overnight leadership-building or camping events,” says Azfar.

“The students would do things like sneaking up on unsuspecting individuals who dared venture out to answer the call of nature.

“The teachers have more subtle techniques — when doing the head count at the end of the day, they would add an extra person to make it look like we had an unexpected ‘guest’ sharing our tent for the night.”

Tertiary terror

At higher education institutions that are built around dense jungle areas, the old wives’ tale goes that empty buses were sent from the proposed site to the middle of nowhere.

It is said that this was so that bus drivers could transport unwanted spirits to their new “home”, away from the university.

While the sprawling campuses of some local universities appear spacious in broad daylight, taking a nightly stroll in them can be an unnerving experience for even the bravest of souls.

Economics student Sandra Ooi claims that sightings of a lone woman in white are common at her campus in Selangor.

“When my boyfriend came to pick me up one night, he said he saw a girl dressed in white in the distance.

“Thinking it was a student looking for a lift, he slowed down his car — but as he got closer, she disappeared.

“Several of my male classmates have seen this girl while walking back to their dorms,” she says.

In similar vein, Wong Li Ping is certain that she has personally experienced the urban legend of her former private higher education institution in the Klang Valley.

“I saw a person standing on one of the balconies of the hostel block facing mine,” says the sales executive.
“Suddenly the figure leapt down; I thought I had just witnessed a suicide.

“I immediately started to dial the emergency number, but when I glanced up again, I saw the figure standing there as before.”

Li Peng adds that the scene repeated twice, before the figure completely vanished.

Although there is no concrete validity to the relations above, they do reflect the Malaysian appetite for the supernatural.

As this writer went through numerous interviewees for this article, it seems that most people had a spine-chilling tale that happened to a friend of a friend of a friend.

Whether you are a believer or not, the very least these stories do is plant a small seed of doubt when walking down a lonely corridor.

Source: the Star

Studying About Ghosts At University

If you're interested in ghost sightings, spirits, ghouls and everything supernatural, you can now study parapsychology, where paranormal phenomena are investigated using scientific methods.

You can pursue courses learning about the supernatural at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dr Caroline Watt, a senior lecturer at the university, says that “Parapsychologists are studying the subject and testing hypotheses in a carefully controlled and scientific manner,”

You can read more here.

Obsolete Skills & Professions

As society progresses, technology advances and new professions develop, old occupations die and certain skills become obsolete. There a site called Obsolete Skills and a video called Jobs Of Yesteryear which are interesting. Track if your job and skills are becoming obsolete.

Please post your comments.

Boss Jailed For Kissing Interviewee

The Singapore Straits Times reported that Lim Peng Heng, 36, (pic above) was jailed for 2 weeks by a district court for outraging the modesty of a 25-year-old woman by kissing her on the lips and bragging about his sexual prowess.

The 25 year old woman was being interviewed by Lim Peng Heng, the boss of an advertising agency, for the post of administrative clerk when he pulled her close and gave her a "birthday kiss" on the lips.

According to the news report, Lim Peng Heng apparently has a previous conviction for molestation for which he was jailed for 2 1/2 months in 1995.

Kiss also cannot ? For some girls, if you don't kiss them, they get angry. For other girls, if you kiss them, they will report you. One girl told me when she first met a guy on a date, the guy started licking her face like a puppy dog - so weird.

When girls talk about sex to guys, its ok - guys have to just listen and cannot complain. Not fair, right ?

Please post your comments.

Do you have an unusual job?

Is your job special and out of the ordinary?

The following comments reflect the balance of views received:



I'm a female driving instructor for a fire brigade. I came from a family of hauliers in the North-East and after spending time at uni, in the Merchant Navy and running the family haulage business and driving tippers, I ended up with the fire brigade. I love my job. I'm a mother of a 5-year-old boy and can compare my job every day to seeing my son walk for the first time. Seeing new drivers driving fire engines successfully is so rewarding, it's fantastic. When I tell women what I do for a living, they nearly faint with envy. Recently, I went to a fire service conference where loads of fire brigade employed women from Britain had collected. There were cooks, cleaners, admin staff, as well as operational firefighters. I ran driving workshops in fire engines involving 40+ women. I only wish that I could have taken some of the women who normally work indoors and taught them to drive LGVs to a licensed standard. There were some talented drivers amongst them - they'll never realise their potential. Shame, apparently I have the patience of a saint. It's pretty much unheard of for me to yell. What have I discovered through my job with fire brigade driving school? Well you can call someone ugly, say they are fat and say that they smell but never, ever criticise someone's driving.
Lesley Cuthbertson, Radlett, Herts

Ever wonder how the clip on your fountain pen got its lovely gold coating? It was my job to mount those clips on racks to be dunked in a gold-plating machine. Long, boring days on little pay with sore fingers at the end of it!
Dave, Brighton

When I moved to Cornwall, I worked at a sewage treatment works as a secretary - in a Portacabin, in the height of summer right outside three sewage pools. The workmen used to come in to the office for their morning coffee and lined their erm... less than savoury wellies up outside the door complete with flies - with the smell in the heat and the flies buzzing around I only lasted a morning!
Nicky, Cornwall

I used to work as a games tester coming up to the Christmas season. Our job, to play the game until it broke! All good and well until Harry Potter's "Flipendo!" spell made you twitch after hearing it so much!
Nick, Vienna, Austria

I am a pest controller and have been for nearly 20 years. I now run my own business and employ four of the best people I know. We have a great time chasing all sorts of different creatures in so many unusual places. We get to meet such a diverse range of humanity in all types of abodes.
Keith Prowse, Cheltenham, England

I am a "dep" singer for cathedrals and churches. If one of the regulars has something better to do (eg a solo concert), they book a "dep" to cover for them. The main requirement is good sight-reading, since rehearsals are generally short (often around 30 minutes). It doesn't pay well, but it's fun if you love singing, and the 30-odd (?) fee-paying church choirs in London can add up to a living. Most deps have other jobs - I do translation, and others I have met include several barristers, a policeman and a plasterer.
Jason, London


For the past 18 months I have been a full time self-employed Henry VIII re-enactor
Mike Farley, Crewkerne, UK
For the past 18 months I have been a full time self-employed Henry VIII re-enactor, bringing history to life for junior school children around the country! Much better than my old job as a computer operator. I am married with one son.
Mike Farley, Crewkerne, UK

I am a Clinical Perfusionist. It is my job to operate a heart-lung machine which replaces the function of the patient native heart and lungs during heart surgery in children and adults. As well as operating the heart lung machine (HLM). Perfusionist also monitor, test and control a range of patient parameters and organ function, such as arterial and venous blood gas status, kidney function, clotting and fluid balance, acid/ base status, temperature and heart cell protection. The types of operation that we are involved with are coronary artery bypass surgery, heart valve replacement, heart lung transplantation, congenital heart defect repair, artificial heart support (VAD), long term support for people with diseased or failing heart/ lungs to recovery or transplant. Perfusionists are also involved in other surgical areas such as orthopaedics, oncology and hepatic transplantation. There are around 300 accredited Clinical Perfusion Scientists in the UK. Most people think that I am a mis-spelt Percussionist, or something to do with testing perfume, and sometimes (usually dead beat tired at 3 am with a very sick patient and an irritable surgeon), I wish I was.
Nigel Slade, Perth, WA

I am a penetration tester. I get to hack into banks, legally! Most people don't believe me.
Tom, London, UK

Hi I test new cooking instructions and taste test new recipes for companies such as Bachelors and Homepride, this involves basically eating lots of free food! Can't fault that.
Ian, Doncaster, Yorkshire

When I was growing up in Devon I had a regular Christmas job plucking turkeys and chickens. We got a lot of feather cuts under our nails. By the end of the second day the tips of your fingers would be inflamed and very painful and don't even get me started about the smell! The money was good though (70p a turkey and 40p a chicken) so it kept us going back.
Louise, Oxford, UK


My most unusual job was ironing logo transfers onto mortuary gowns
Stephen Buxton, Coventry, UK
I worked in a laundrette at a hospital in Ipswich. Fortunately, I was working at "clean" end of the washing machines. You could always spot those who worked upstairs and loaded them up - they were the ones who had gone a shade of pale green. My most unusual job there was ironing logo transfers onto mortuary gowns. The worst task I had there was to separate the freshly tumble-dried nylon bags according to their colour, and put them in large metal bins. I wasn't earthed, and received no end of electric shocks!
Stephen Buxton, Coventry, UK

Once it was my job to pack wok sets used for cooking. I had to get a box, put in the wok, put in some chopsticks, put in a spatula, some other utensils, and finally a recipe book before sealing the box up and putting it on a pallet. After doing this about 1000 times it was beginning to grate a bit. So I started to write messages in the notes section of the recipe books, like "Hi there, this was written by the poor sod who has to pack all the things in this box, I bet you thought it was a machine, but its not, it's me." I would have liked to see the faces of some of the people who bought the wok sets.
Paul, Oldham, UK

As a totally broke student in Brighton, I volunteered as an alcohol taster. Every Saturday I'd go to a couple of bars where we had to sit and taste different flavours of shots/ drink and rate them on a score sheet, to see if they tasted nice or not, and if it was worth the bar buying them to sell! The pay was rubbish, but it more than made up for it because I never had to spend any money on alcohol - I was always very merrily drunk on Saturday nights!
Bobby Nate, London

I spent a month working as a census-taker in 1996. There was one guy who simply wouldn't come to his door, no matter how often I came by or what I said. One day his neighbour came out, and after I explained why I was there, he helped me make contact. Turns out the recluse had recently won $300,000 in a lottery and was fending off all sorts of money-hungry visitors.
Ken, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada


I had a job with the school cutting out paper dolls
Karen, Andover, USA
In the summer between graduating from an Anglo-Catholic school in Arizona and going to university, I had a job with the school cutting out paper dolls all day. The results were part of a religious product for kids sold by the school. Worst part aside from the idiocy of the task was that the nun in charge did not allow us to talk.
Karen, Andover, USA

As a student I spent three weeks of one holiday turning pizzas upside down on a conveyor belt. It was part of the packing process and I always suspected it was considered too tedious to automate - the very essence of misery.
Richard P, Bournemouth, UK

In college, I worked at Taco Bell, refrying the refried beans, often 20lbs of them at a time. The worst time was after I'd been out drinking the night before and came to work with a hangover. The smell nearly did me in.
Scott, Fairfax, Virginia, USA

I work in a candy factory making moulded chocolates in all sorts of shapes. It is a small, family owned factory and we do lots of custom designs for just about anything you can imagine. Just call me Willy Wonka.
Mike, USA

I worked for a number of summers while at school and university as a sock turner in a local factory. Socks come off the knitting machine the right way out and have to be turned inside out so the toes can be sewn up. So yes, my job was to turn tubes of wool inside out. Paid piecework by the dozen pairs. Terrible job but better than the ladies who had to sort the sewn up socks into pairs.
Vikki, Leeds

One summer I worked as a DVD tester. This involved watching DVDs, so as a film buff I was in seventh heaven. The only problem was working night shifts and having to stay awake for film after film. By the mornings I couldn't even remember what I'd seen.
Dan, Aberdeen


His job was to open the covers on the mains in the street
Sue, London
My dad was a turncock which always caused peals of laughter and much teasing from my classmates when we had to write about our parents' jobs. His job was to open the covers on the mains in the street whenever there was a leak. He also had to inform householders that their water was being turned off. He wore a uniform that consisted of a blue shirt with epaulettes and a peaked cap and when some of the aforementioned classmates saw him they figured the TWA on his epaulettes stood for a famous airline and insisted he was a pilot and I was lying about what he really did.
Sue, London

In my time in the RAF one of the regular duties was to polish a VC10 in preparation for a Royal Flight. This involved climbing all over a rather large aeroplane with a duster and bottle of cleaning fluid; we even had to wear dusters on our feet (rather daunting when you realise how slippy this can be and how far down the floor is!). This was invariably carried out at weekends so as not disturb ground crew in the hangar too much. It was about the same time that I decided to leave for civvy street and that we would be much better off as a republic.
Darren, Cannock

I used to pick mushrooms. Mushrooms do not require light to grow, they require hot, humid, dark damp conditions. Oh, and some baked pig dung. The mushrooms were grown stacked in massive trays up to twelve foot high with just enough room to get your arm down to pick them. Each mushroom then needed grading into sizes using a template. Anyone who has passed a mushroom farm on the road knows what they smell like from miles away, you can't imagine what they smell like inside, or imagine the dark, hot humid uncomfortable conditions. I used to smell terrible at the end of the day. Needless to say I always managed to find an empty table at the pub on the way home when downing a well earned pint.
Jason, Cheddar


It cured me of any desire for a career in entertainment
Dan, Leicester
I once worked as a runner on a famous, long running soap. It wasn't so much the running that got me down as the constant ego massages you were required to provide. "I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Hollywood offers you a blockbuster role." It cured me of any desire for a career in entertainment.
Dan, Leicester

I once boiled dates in a large steam kettle in Fife. We then pressed the dates in an industrial press. The resulting slurry was then bagged up and sent to the USA. Why the Americans wanted this stuff I do not know! But pouring boiling date juice into a press is one of the most unpleasant and rather dangerous things i have ever done. Luckily it was a short term contract.
Ally Binns, Glasgow, Scotland

As a summer job I popped pills! I kid you not - the company made Beta Blockers and the like, so when the machines that put them in their blister packs went wrong they employed students to pop the pills out so they could be repacked!
Gill Rickson, London

I am an accommodation manager for a large University. It is my job to look after 1,250 undergraduate bedrooms, and get them clean. Any of you who have teenage children at home probably have an idea of the problems my team face. A good sense of humour is essential.
June Taylor, Coventry

During my student days I used to make candyfloss for tourists on Weston's Grand Pier. It was fun, meeting lots of people but when the hot weather set it, mixed with high winds, the spun sugar would be blown into the face, hair, nostrils and eyes and stick, leaving me pretty uncomfortable. But after a hard day, you still left smelling sweater than when you went in!
Ben Whitwell, Weston-super-Mare

I am a Scene of Crime Officer for the Met Police, and four years into my career I still love (almost) every minute. Each day is different, I work with a great team, but the best thing is that I actually am making a difference for everyone - my job is not to make my employer richer!
Sean, London

I once had a summer job as a very specialized translator with the Canadian government. My job was to translate daily reports from the American government on the risk of forest fires in the American deserts. Needless to say the risk was always low.
Mark, St. Norbert, Canada

My job involves handling faeces, blood and occasionally pus. I get called in at crazy hours and am expected to treat each of my clients with a smile. Coffee is what I run on, sandwiches when I'm lucky. I am a junior doctor.
Hasan, Luton


You couldn't even work fast or the machine clogged
Alex, London UK
My worst job was putting the beef mince in the beefburger machine years ago. In a noisy factory you climbed three steps and put in a tray of mince which was formed into burgers for packing. You couldn't even work fast or the machine clogged. I only stayed a day and I hope now it's all done by a machine!!
Alex, London, UK

While at school I had a Saturday job in a bridal shop. The worst part of which was after brides-to-be tried on the dresses, pins, threads and other bits of fluff would fall off them on to the floor. I used to have to cover my hands in Sellotape and crawl round the floor banging my sticky hands on the carpet to make sure they had all been picked up.
Jude, Edinburgh, Scotland

I worked one summer for the local authority in Nelson Lancashire mapping sewers. The story was that the plans of the town sewerage system had been lost in a fire and whenever there was a problem they did not known where the pipes came from or went to. A whole summer of my life lifting manhole covers and peering down into the dark smelly interior to check pipe size in and out and direction of flow. Good old Job Creation, even before YTS!
Geoff Barber, Wolsingham, County Durham

Judging by your responses to date, I have a very unusual job.....9 - 5, Monday to Friday! But seriously....my most unusual task was to spend 2 hours every Friday afternoon driving around my old home town trying to catch out council employees who were on the skive! A very unpopular task.....
Lloyd, Birmingham


There are lots of things which make it special for me
Renee, New York, USA
I'm a museum educator at an farm museum technically within the boundaries of New York City; it also happens to be the oldest continuously farmed land in New York State. I found the job ten years ago, when my children were small. At that point, I was looking for part-time work that would satisfy and draw together a number of my interests and in which I could use my training as a teacher. There are lots of things which make it special for me, chiefly that it combines lots of time outdoors in nature and working directly with animals with hands-on living history lessons (often in period costume!) with art, literature, science and math. I often marvel at the fact that I've got a job where roaming chickens and guinea fowl greet me as I park my car and walk onto the grounds, or a peacock might poke his head in the door as I'm preparing a workshop for visiting school kids.
Renee, New York, USA

When I go to parties and say I am a Pastry Chef people's eyes sparkle and they say 'Mmmm, You must get to try lots of tasty things'. Actually, no. Working with it cures you of any sweet tooth you may have had.
Aizlynn, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK

As a young girl in Mousehole, Cornwall in the early 1950's I once had a job as an apprentice Cornish Pasty crimper. It took years of practise with Plasticine before we were allowed anywhere near the real pasties though. Oh, how we took pride in our work.
Lucinda Payne, Bristol, England


At the moment I'm responsible for finding animals for our resident taxidermist to stuff
Dan, Newcastle, UK
I'm a curatorial assistant in the museum service. There can be lots of cataloguing and cleaning dusty objects, but the work is very varied. I do some photography, help design websites and write text panels for exhibitions. At the moment I'm responsible for finding animals for our resident taxidermist to stuff for a new permanent exhibition. I've just managed to get some Canadian fishermen to catch me some arctic fish, which will hopefully be in the post before too long. Finding a dead reindeer is proving more difficult though. People I tell about this have suggested I write a letter to Santa.
Dan, Newcastle, UK

Working on the phones for a Danish Colostomy/Urostomy bag manufacturer... Every other call was someone added to a deceased list and most others were too disturbing to describe. Happy working that was. I'm now a professional photographer.
Mike, Cambs, UK

I am a Simon Cowell look-alike and have done many competitions across the country. Also been on TV umpteen times and in a pop video called Fifty Grand for Christmas which got to no. 34. Know Simon and met Sharon and Louis. Also worked with look-alikes of Sharon and Louis and Pete Waterman.
Kevin Yeandel, Macclesfield

I was a lifeguard in a sauna bath. I started out as a regular lifeguard at a swimming pool. The sauna bath was part of the pool complex. One day there was a near accident in the cold plunge pool in the sauna. The manager of the pool/sauna complex was the cautious type so he decided that someone with resuscitation skills should be on duty in the sauna. Like all lifeguards I was trained in resuscitation so I got the job for the men's sessions. I had to sit there all day surrounded by fat old blokes - it was a long way from the glamour of Bay Watch
Al, London, UK

I once spent a couple of weeks during the Easter holidays 'polishing' chocolate ducks for a very famous retailer.
Emily, London

2 years selling lorry parts, 12 years as a weapons engineer in the RAF, 3 months assembling super-precision bearings, 6 months as an IT contractor and now I'm a Network Manager in a secondary school. I've been there for 17 months and for the first time in many years I actually enjoy going to work.
Mike, UK


We had to break through a thick crust of hardened oil and grunge
James, Cork, Ireland
As a professional diver in my youth, the weirdest job I did was some pipe repairs in a huge reservoir of used cooking oil at a chip factory. The oil was jet black, and thickened up by waste potato skins. We had to break through a thick crust of hardened oil and grunge to get in and out. No amount of hosing down afterwards could get rid of the smell!
James, Cork, Ireland

My partner and I have just started our own business in which we make, design and restore stained glass windows and leaded lights. We still use the original techniques used in the 10th century AD as described by a German monk called Theophilus.
Babs, Birmingham, UK

I used to work in a theme park where I had to dress up as various characters in a haunted house and jump out at people. Best job I ever had! Could get hurt from time to time when the customers got, er, over-enthusiastic or violent! I also worked in a meat factory making gammon, which I will never eat, ever again!
Martin, Scarborough

As a student, I worked in a food canning factory on the beetroot pickling line. My job was to shovel the rotten bits of beetroot off the floor into a wheelbarrow and take it to the skip. Not only was I bright red by the end of the day, I was stung by wasps all the time. Happy days!
Edward, Cheltenham, UK

I worked in a factory that produced pre-forms for 2 litre plastic bottles (looked like medical sample jars). I had to stand by a machine that spewed them out into large crates for 12 hours at a time, changing the crate when it was full (only once every 2 hours!) Not only was I not allowed to sit down in this time, having to stand and watch the box fill, when I did come to change the box I would get a massive static shock from the warm plastic. Great fun and great memories.
Matt, Bridgnorth, Shropshire

I used to work in a flare factory as a student (that's explosives not jeans!) My job involved putting a teaspoon of gunpowder and a teaspoon of something else into a cardboard tube. We had quotas of how many we had to fill each day with the added danger that if we dropped anything, the factory would have to be evacuated!! A totally hideous, mind-numbingly boring job but I was so desperate for money that I even worked weekends...........
Sarah Wolf, Somerset, UK


My job was to make sure residents tossed their bagged garbage on the pile in an orderly manner
Al Long, Stoughton, Wisconsin, USA
I worked a few weekends one January for our ailing, dump attendant. My job was to make sure residents tossed their bagged garbage on the pile in an orderly manner. My day was mostly spent blowing on cold fingers and stamping circulation back into cold feet. The entire afternoon was used to unsuccessfully search for the bag of garbage that had a toy or music box in it that kept playing over and over "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
Al Long, Stoughton, Wisconsin, USA

Have a great job where I have to test fruit machines and pub video quiz games for a living. Have done it for 8 years now.
Christopher Phillips, Notts

I deal with emotions, spots, jokes, world issues, sex, drugs, fights, laughter, strange events, jealousy, bullying, family issues, pollution, celebrations, roll-calls, music, Justin Timberlake or 50 Cent, discipline, disgusting lunches, politics, A grades and G grades..... I'm a teacher and I love it!
Ross, UK

Whilst backpacking around Australia a couple of years ago, I posed naked for a local art club. I was awarded the handsome sum of $50 (about £21) along with some pizza and wine. Unusual for me as I would only have done that on the other side of the world!!
Jonathan Owen, Cannock, England

A great conversation stopper when meeting new people: after being asked what I do for a living I simply tell them "I make drugs". Legal ones of course! The Pharma industry is great, constantly changing and it makes you feel all gooey inside knowing that in the end you're helping a LOT of people!
Matthew Morley, Bradford, UK

I have the good fortune to have a job which encompasses both my qualifications and my hobby - I'm a multilingual web designer responsible for the editorial content of our company website, and then translating it. Oh, and I do a bit of normal translation on the side.
Darryl LeCount, Paderborn, Germany

I worked for two weeks in a sausage factory - 17 yrs old, 7am-5pm with a 30 min break putting indescribable animal parts into a huge mincer. Nice!
Adam, London

I'm a call handler for NHS Direct and I love it. You get such a mix of people and problems, and no patient is ever the same. One call can result in me calling an ambulance for anaphylactic shock and the next one can be asking advice because the patient has swallowed his fiancee's engagement ring.
Ellie, Newcastle upon Tyne

Hospital incinerator. Night shift. Two weeks. Enough said!
Matt, Ashford


I worked for 10 hours every Saturday - peeling kiwi fruits
Steve, Warrington, Cheshire
My worst job came when I was a lowly student - as most of the posters here seem to have. I worked for 10 hours every Saturday - peeling kiwi fruits! Nice. Nowadays in happier times I am still able to amaze my friends and win bets in my local because of my ability to peel one of the fruits in about five seconds flat, with the aid of a sharp knife of course and I've just realised how sad I am!
Steve, Warrington, Cheshire

Believe it or not I used to work as a 'bubble popper' routinely testing bubble wrap, by popping thousands every day, unusual? Maybe. Tedious? Definitely!
Abigail, London, UK

I drive a Park and Ride bus around town from 7am to 7pm. I simply drive in circles all day.
Will, Ipswich, UK

Have you ever wondered how those little stickers end up on apples? Well wonder no longer: we used to stick them on by hand, for £4.50 an hour. Genius.
Mike G, London, UK

I used to be a door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman in Australia, a job which has since all but died out as a result of the internet. I only did this for a month (the time required for me to work out that I was not a good salesman) but I learnt more about psychology and selling in that month than in any other period of my life. I also learnt that the average Australian was much more welcoming to strangers than we are here in the UK.
Vincent, London, UK


We had to look at all these day-old chicks and work out which were hens and which were cockerels
Roger Price, Reading, UK
As a student I worked one vacation as a chicken-sexer. We had to look at all these day-old chicks and work out which were hens and which were cockerels. Ever since, I can't eat chicken!
Roger Price, Reading, UK

I am a student and my job is to dress as a giant cheese grater in the local cheese warehouse and encourage small children to try new cheeses. I get paid very little but it's a good story to tell at parties.
Hilda Jones, UK

Last year I was a paid costumed singer at a Renaissance Festival. I was part of a group that rehearsed for weeks leading up to the festival. It was great fun and as a permanent member of the group, I will continue to work at the festival every year.
Beth, Bristow, Virginia, USA

I knew a lad who, while at uni, volunteered for an experiment in which he had to wear a t-shirt for a length of time (I forget how long, I think it was days) to see what effect his "natural odour" and pheromones would have on a group of equally specially selected girls who had to sniff his t-shirt. I did not volunteer to be a "sniffer".
Corran, Newcastle, UK


I worked one summer in a cucumber-growing greenhouse
Eloise, Essex
When I was at university I worked one summer in a cucumber-growing greenhouse just outside Hull. It was mind-numbingly boring, always too hot and the cucumber plants were spiky and left little plant-like splinters in your hands. The pay was £3.50 per hour (this was only about 5 years ago) but all the permanent staff stayed there because they thought the money was 'so good'. Awful.
Eloise, Essex

I've had some fairly varied jobs, including working in a pot-pourri factory (always went home smelling nice), working on a Muppet movie and working on telephone chat-line advertising! I am currently in a complaints call centre for 3 UK rail companies. There's never a dull day, but I do find myself getting insulted more than ever before!
Julian Sturges, Cambridge

I'm a librarian in a small local library. This might not sound interesting at first, however in the last week (among many other things) I've photocopied someone's hands, made African rainmakers, found out all about lip reading classes, helped 22 five year olds with their sponge painting, and tried to translate a sentence into Mandarin. And it's been a quiet week!
Fi, Birmingham, England

When I was at college I worked for 3 weeks in the summer at engineering company my dad worked for. As I was not skilled, there was limited stuff I could do. Of all the things I did the most boring had to be the removal of the little "pips" from the end of tiny rollers. I would load 100 of these all by hand into a plate and then grind the little pips off. The loading would take 20 mins per plate and then only 2 secs to grind them off... soul destroying
Sam, Grays, England


My job was to stand next to the onion chopping machine
Ben, London
Similar to some of the other posters here, as a student I worked on a factory line. My job was to stand next to the onion chopping machine and make sure that the onions were the right way up as they went in. Stunning boredom, too noisy to talk to my colleague (yes apparently this demanding task required two people!) and the constant sting of onions in your eyes.
Ben, London

I used to work for a huge advertising company and once, when filming the "pack shot" for M&Ms had to spend about 2 hours sticking bright little white "M"s onto the sweets so they would show when shot tumbling through the air. Fun. Not.
CCC, England

The reactions I get when I tell people what I do are always amusing. As a female construction manager I get the full range of reactions from the 'she must be a lesbian' look to the 'oh dear watch out for the feminist' scared look from men. Ok so I have to wear ugly shoes and a very bad looking hat, but I spend my day outside and one day is never the same as the next. I couldn't see myself as an office monkey, even if you do get heated offices in the winter and indoor toilets!
Jill, Scotland

I used to earn £2.50 a night as a chicken catcher. It was quite easy because, they went to sleep as soon as the lights were turned out. I've also worked as a daffodil picker. It was very similar to chicken catching but smelt nicer.
Ed Heaver, Wrexham, Wales

I used to work at a bottle factory, where the day consisted of sitting at the end of a conveyor belt packing the bottles as they came over the edge. The bottles were all the same shape and colour, depending on which belt you were on. The highlight of the job was to sneak one of your bottles onto someone else's conveyor belt to see their face when this different coloured bottle appeared. Needless to say I soon left and went back to college, and now have a degree and work as an engineer. I guess I owe it all to the bottle factory.
Steve, Cambridge, UK

For twelve weeks and on nights I used to check the bacteria levels in a new sewage plant. Gave me extra money for holidays but I would not recommend it.
Steve K, Worcester, England

I'm a freelance visualiser in advertising. I draw scenes, people, situations etc in a vaguely comic-book style for clients to see what their advertising agency has in mind, before they go to the expense of having a photographer take the final pictures. I really enjoy it, even if a lot of the work involves doing the same old scenes for different agencies. The money's good, but the work could be a little more regular, and you don't get any of the perks of full-time employment, like holiday pay or benefits. I sort of fell into the job after leaving art college, previously I had no idea such a role existed.
Rob, London UK

I used to work as a bilingual telephonist for the world's biggest producer of plastic covers for cash register keyboards. You'd be amazed at how many we sold!!
Paul, Isle of Man

When I was at university my mum got me a job at our local chicken factory. I had to stand on the production line and as dead, de-feathered chickens came past me I had to stuff bags of giblets into their carcasses. The worst job ever - but I stuck it out for two months! Amazing!!
David, Redditch, UK

My two worst jobs ever - read and weep:

1) 'glue checker and folding monitor' for a cardboard box factory, where my production line pumped out flat-pack boxes destined for more glamorous workshops.

2) 'ham honey roaster'. Oh yes - wrestling a 7 foot roll of processed ham to a morgue-like table to then glaze it with a special varnish, then blow-torch the beastly serpent for that 'authentic taste'!!!
Henry, Watford

I had problems at a job club here in London in 1988. We had to list our previous jobs. The organiser of the job club wouldn't believe it when I put one job description down as "Faggot Baller". This is true because I used to ball faggots (meatballs of a kind), for a famous brand, then put them on trays for cooking.
W P Derbyshire, London

If I ever get famous enough to write my autobiography, I shall name it after one of my school day Saturday jobs: "I Was A Teenage Tripe Packer". Ten tones of tripe on a Saturday, now, that was a cold, wet job!
JG, Huddersfield, UK

In the dim and distant past I was an animal keeper - doing parrot shows 5 times a day then scrubbing flamingo ponds or feeding vitamins in fish to dolphins at Windsor Safari park - (now Legoland). Those were the days. Now work in an office - got more sense from the parrots than the humans I work with now.
Berni, Slough


I had to test thousands each day
Daron Harris, Llangernyw, Conwy
I used to work for a well known bottled water supplier. My job was to stand next to a conveyor belt as plastic cups of water went flying past and to check each one to see if the top was on each cup! I had to test thousands each day - truly the worse job ever!
Daron Harris, Llangernyw, Conwy

I convert cine film to DVD. Mostly the films are run of the mill family stuff, but now and again you get, Grandad's, ah, very personal home movies which can be a bit of a shock to the adult children who didn't own a projector and couldn't check beforehand.
Therion Ware, Stevenage, UK

When I was doing A-levels, I used to work in a packing factory sticking stickers on Barbie doll boxes for a living. Gave me a real inventive to carry on at school and do a usable degree at uni!
Tom, Cambs, UK

I used to be the "wringer-out" for the village window cleaner who lost one arm in a factory accident.
Paul, Sileby, Nr Loughborough

I develop computer games for a living, which in real terms means that one day I could be designing a new kind of plasma rifle, and the next I'll be re-creating the inside of a shark in photo real detail. How's that for variety!
Kaye, Leeds, UK


None of my jobs have been boring
Barry Lowry, London, UK
My first job (in the 1970's) was in an R&D lab making duplicator (remember them) inks. My second job (in the 1980's) was as a technical editor on computer software/hardware directories. My current job is a web programmer for an airport parking company. None of my jobs have been boring, each has added friends and experiences that have enriched my life.
Barry Lowry, London, UK

My best friend tried to recruit me to the phone sex chat company that she worked for when we were at university. She made surprisingly good money chatting with lonely men, pretending to be whatever they wanted her to be. I couldn't read the manuscripts without cracking up laughing though, so I never got the job!
Christine, UK

My first job after leaving school was working alongside a lumberjack. My job was to stack the logs from the trees that he cut down, all day for 10 hours, with a one hour lunch break. Two sizes of logs - one for fence posts and one for paper pulp. Very dull! Lasted a couple of weeks.
Dave Wilson, Manchester, UK

In my student days I used to take part in police ID parades for extra money. Thankfully I was never mistaken for a criminal!
Ms B, Oxford

I work in the wonderful world of independent cinema. By law, a day's filming cannot be longer than twelve hours. Of course, what this means in practice is that the art department and the location department all need to be on set several hours before it starts and have to be on hand to tidy up after it finishes. On my last film, working as a location assistant, I routinely left home at five in the morning and didn't get back until one in the morning. And all this for five weeks for no pay! There is nothing glamorous about film-making, but at least the amount of work means that only people with a genuine passion end up working in the industry.
David,

Way back in a period of total skint-dom, I took a job in a box factory. The kind of place that makes decorative boxes for perfume bottles and the like. My job was to take the boxes off the conveyor belt after the fancy paper had been stuck on, and smooth out the air bubbles in the paper. I kid ye not. Lasted about 2 weeks before I quit!
Lisa, Surrey, UK

When my brother used to live on a farm I used to visit him and help in the chicken shed picking eggs. When I would go to bed I close my eyes and see chickens and eggs all night. Very bizarre!
James, Luton

I used to test toothpaste for a living, and part of it was to do a taste test. Not quite so good as wine tasting, but I had the best teeth in town!
Dave, York, UK

I am also rainforest explorer, a go-go dancer, star ship captain, worshipped as a demi-god by little known tribes in South America, oh what the heck, by everyone in the Universe!.....then I wake up and remember that I am a 'desk jockey' in an office full of miserable people just like me going round and round and round.
Zach Rathore, Manchester UK

I'm a fully qualified Engineer, Builder and Accountant, I've done telesales, shelf stacking, filling boxes, delivering yellow pages, administration, grounds keeper, credit control, administration for the MOD, water purification, labouring, pot washing, customer services, worked in a petrol station, worked in a ladies lingerie store, barman and now work for a multi billion dollar company debt collecting and now thinking of leaving and going into bar management. But I'm not yet decided on what career path i really want to take, but my options are open i like to think.
Spencer, Surrey


I did a few stints as a silent movie pianist
Maria, Glasgow
When I was a student in the early nineties I did a few stints as a silent movie pianist at the Glasgow Film Theatre. I would usually get to see the film once in advance and my performances were entirely improvised. I've since swapped my piano keyboard for a computer keyboard, where my skills are rather more in demand, but I'd love to do it again some time.
Maria, Glasgow

My family have been building wire wheels for vintage racing cars for twenty five years, having previously made water wheels, steam engines, canal boats and chip shop ranges. (Just to boast, I'm escaping this to medical school in two weeks time)
A H, UK

I suppose it's quite unusual, I design, print and encode access and ID cards for use with security access systems. You should see some of the miserable faces I have to look at, so many people hate having their photo taken that it can really get depressing some days. But otherwise, it can be really interesting.
Elaine, Letchworth Garden City UK

I work as a Complaints Manager in the NHS. Most people wince and shudder when I let them know. All I can say is that they can never begin to imagine the worst of it. Why should they? I never grasped the enormity of what I was taking on!
Ed, London, England

I've recently moved on, but my job use to be counting the country's money in HM Treasury. Rather boring, but unusual since only seven people in the whole country did that job. It's not the sort of job you'll find advertised anywhere either and I ended up in it after working elsewhere in Treasury. For some reason people were always really impressed when I told them what I did.
Joseph, UK

I used to raise chipmunks on a farm near Winchester. At one point we had the European record for breeding the most chipmunks in captivity.
Rod Watson, Winchester, Hants

Before joining the civil service, I spent a few months working in a maggot farm in Dumfries. The stench was appalling and my wife insisted on me having two baths every night. That was the worst job I ever had... the civil service is paradise by comparison!
Bill Stitt, Edinburgh, Lothian

Nope - I have a generic office job - the desk version of stacking supermarket shelves. And I absolutely detest it... Anyone looking for an Environment graduate in the London area?!
Dave, London, UK

I am a mind-reading, clairvoyant who can acquire new skills without training - instantly, multi-task and survive on half to a third of the salary of my co-workers. Yes, I am a school secretary!
Judith, Bury, Lancs

BBC

Sunway University College Students Scandal Video & Pics

There has been rumours circulating online that the 2 people having sex in this homemade video were students from Sunway University College, in Bandar Sunway, Selangor. Although there are no records as to when the video was actually recorded or when it was leaked online, it is understood that the video began circulating online as early as 3 years ago via Rapidshare file hosting.

Apparently the girl is Chinese and the Malay guy was her boyfriend at that time.

Please post your comments.

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How To Become A Gigolo

Richard Gere in the movie American Gigolo

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In the west, where the culture is more liberal, women paying for sexual services from men are acceptable. While rich women purchasing the social company of young men, as we have seen in the film "American Gigolo" are seldom discussed , it is quite normal in the west. It is also normal to see white women in the company of the local "beach boys" at holiday destinations such as Bali and Phuket (read: Are all Bali beach boys gigolo’s ?). We have also read the news last year about the BMW heiress blackmailed by a gigolo.

However the trend is growing among Asian women to pay for masculine entertainment. In Japan, host clubs (clubs where male GROs entertain rich female customers) have started operating in Tokyo since the mid 60s. Within 30 years, there were already 200 such clubs in Tokyo. This shows the growing demand for gigolos or "male hosts" among rich Japanese women.

This trend is currently apparent in Singapore with Toy boy clubs or Tai Tai clubs mushrooming in the republic. Rich men's wives, mistresses and professional women are seen to be willing to pay highly for carnal entertainment with young studs.

Last year there was a news article confirming that there is a demand by Malaysian women for gigolos. According to the article, there is already a growing underground industry where Malaysian women are willing to pay big bucks for the right man in bed.
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A Kuala Lumpur gigolo calling himself Ding Dong John is taking advantage of this trend. In his name card he lists his services and charges. Doing a simple calculation, a woman has to pay almost RM500 per hour with Ding Dong John. His business card says "Spinsters satisfied. Virgins treated gently" and he gives group discounts as well.

Gigolos or male prostitutes, sometimes more politely referred to as male social escorts have always attracted interest from males more than females, the reason: why not get paid for doing what they like doing ?. However, there is a misconception that gigolos only provide sexual services. There is a huge disparity between people's conception and the realities of making it in this "profession".

The money is good but it is not easy to succeed in the profession. The basic qualifications are good looks and an extraordinary personality - you must be attractive, charming , suave and have excellent communication skills. Gigolos at the "higher bracket" have "advanced level" skills such as the ability to make their clients (mainly old ugly rich women) feel good about themselves and they most also be willing to be at the beck and call of these clients - in other words, they must be willing to swallow their pride and be a sex baruah (a male sexual lackey).

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Please post your comments.

Making Money From Your Hobby

Some of the best home based business success stories are from people who have turned their hobbies into lucrative businesses. There are many different hobbies that can translate into a successful home-based business - handicrafts, photography, cooking, baking, writing, customising cars and motorcycles and the list in inexhaustible.

In the clip above, May Gan talks about how she turned her passion for baking into a home based business.

Please post your comments.

Estimated 50,000 To Lose Their Jobs This Year

In the above video, the Star interviews Human Resources Ministry’s Deputy Director-General of Labour (I) Datuk Sheikh Yahya Sheikh Mohamed about Malaysia's current job market and strategies taken to reduce the impact of the current global financial crisis.

Last month, the Reuters reported that 26,000 jobs has been lost since since the start of the global financial crisis in September last year. Its is estimated that 50,000 employees could lose their jobs this year as manufacturing companies downscale production.

However, the news agency quoting a senior government stated that job cuts in the current recession is not as bad as during the 1997/98 Asia financial crisis. Then, Malaysia lost 84,000 jobs.

The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that Malaysia’s unemployment rate would raise to 4.5% this year from 3.7% last year. Based on the latest third-quarter labour figures, this apparently amounts to approximately 500,000 people jobless this year.

Most of the job loses are in the manufacturing industry.

Despite the pessimism in the job market, major Malaysian job vacancies websites still post plenty of jobs on offer.

Please post your comments.

Why Are Malaysian Undergraduates Studying Only "Cari Makan" Courses ?

Source: NST

ANALYSIS: For undergrads, it's all about 'cari makan'
By : Chok Suat Ling

The higher education minister is concerned about the dwindling number of students taking up humanities courses. This has opened up, once again, the longstanding science versus humanities debate, writes CHOK SUAT LING. WHEN she received a nondescript brown envelope a year ago, Julie Lim literally tore it to shreds in her excitement to get to its contents.

The offer letter from a prestigious public university was quickly given a once over. Lim was pleased with the course offered -- her first choice -- but her parents were deeply concerned.

Lim recalls her father's immediate reaction. "He asked me what kind of job could I possibly expect to get with this degree?"

She eventually decided to take up the offer to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in history.
"It is not exactly what I want to do, but with my Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia results, which are only average at best, it would not be wise for me to aim for the more competitive courses. What if I didn't get a place at all?"

Her story is apparently one shared by many other undergraduates who opt for humanities courses.

They settle for fields of study perceived to be less in demand, or less demanding. Many humanities students appear to be where they are not because they want to be, but because they had no choice.

What students want, or indeed clamour for, are those programmes bluntly referred to as the cari makan courses, that will enable them to easily secure jobs, preferably well-paying ones, when they graduate. These are the science-related courses and, to a certain extent, business management programmes.

The dwindling number of students taking up humanities courses was serious enough for Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin to voice his concern last week. He said if the trend continued, the humanities -- which encompass courses such as literature, philosophy, music, art and history -- might become irrelevant in future. This would have negative consequences, he cautioned.

There are not many employers who prefer employing humanities graduates in Malaysia.

Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Aminah Ayob agrees that humanities courses are becoming less popular among students.

When she was based at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Aminah recalls how they could not fill the 200 places offered for social science.

"There were hardly any takers. However, for the science-based programmes, we had to allocate more places."

She observes that students flock to courses they are confident will secure them jobs upon graduation.

Of course. If they have no jobs, are they all going to become lecturers ?

"The job market determines the type of courses they choose. That is why many steer clear of history, philosophy and other similar courses. Students who do go for these courses are usually those who are content to just grab anything in order to secure a place in university."

She points out, however, that teaching remained a popular arts-related course, going by the numbers enrolled at UPSI.

The nation's aggressive emphasis on science is another factor that has caused arts and the social sciences to be pushed to the side.

One example is the fact that more scholarships are allocated to those pursuing science-related courses at graduate and postgraduate levels.

"I have always believed that when we do something, we tend to emphasise one thing and ignore the others," notes former Universiti Malaya (UM) vice-chancellor Datuk Rafiah Salim:

"It is a pity really. History, for instance, is important as we stand to learn a lot from our past.

"But now, UM is the only public university left offering a BA in history. The swing towards the sciences, therefore, is hardly surprising. It is the whole approach taken by the education authorities."

A general lack of awareness of the job opportunities available upon graduation is another factor why students shy away from humanities courses.

According to Monash University senior manager (relationship management) Gavin Gomez, there is a different level of maturity in Malaysia as regards arts-related courses, compared with other countries:

"In Australia, there is awareness that if you take history, it does not mean you must end up a historian. You can become a researcher, for instance, or something else. But here, students are unaware of the other options."

In Australia and in other western countries, the work culture is different. Australian companies are willing to employ all types of graduates and retrain them to suit the work. In Malaysia, companies do not really want to send time retraining graduates. Further, when there are so many graduates with "preferred degrees" chasing so few jobs, which employers would want to employ humanities graduates ?

There is also a perception in Malaysia that humanities graduates are less intelligent than science or business / management graduates.

The declining popularity of humanities is glaringly obvious going by the type of courses offered by private institutions of higher learning.

Not one offers humanities-related disciplines such as history, geography, literature or philosophy, notes Chu Chin Koo, a lecturer at the Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University.

The reason is simple. As private educational institutions are market driven, it would not make economic sense to offer courses which are not in demand. "They would be committing business suicide if they did," says Chu.

He believes the aggressive focus on science was likely to have an adverse impact.

"We would have a generation of highly-educated people but they might be totally clueless about things outside their areas of specialisation. I have encountered PhD holders in science-related fields who cannot form grammatically sound sentences in English."

This scenario is even more glaringly apparent here, he adds, as Malaysians generally do not read for pleasure.

In the West, the reading habit is still very much alive. Science graduates can thus contribute meaningfully in conversations about subjects outside their scope of expertise. In Malaysia, it is all about getting that gilt-edged scroll and securing a job thereafter."

Many believe the trend is irreversible.

The focus on science will not wane, but become even more unrelenting. "We can't run away from this. It is the way forward and we will just have to adjust and adapt," says UPSI's Aminah.

But the outlook is not entirely sombre. She believes that humanities will not become irrelevant, only less favoured.

"And if job prospects are indeed the prevailing concern, students should be reminded that it does not matter whether they take science or arts.

"In the end, it is whether they have the requisite soft skills. It is those with excellent communication, leadership and critical thinking skills who are most likely to land the jobs."

Whilst those with soft skills are more marketable then those without, depending on the career, someone with a "preferred degree" will always get priority over others.

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Bomoh - A New Career Alternative ?

With the advent of the Internet technology, education, formerly confined only to the classroom finds its way online. Internet based courses offers a more convenient and cheaper alternative to traditional methods of education.

Demand for online education has seen a huge increase over the years in line with internet accessibility and affordable computer technology. People all over the world are pursuing many different kinds of courses online. There has never been a time in history where one can study practically anything from the comfort of one's home.

Apart from the normal technical and academic courses like information technology, cooking, graphic design, sociology, philosophy and law, there are also online courses for those interested in fortune telling, feng shui, astrology and similar genres.

How about studying to become a Bomoh ? If Malaysians were willing to pay thousands of Ringgit for the past few years to learn feng shui, I wont be surprised if Malaysians enroll in Bomoh courses as well. Further, in the current economic downturn, the demand for Bomohs and other spiritualists will be highly sought after, thus, you can be your own boss by starting your very own Bomoh business.

The other benefits of being a Bomoh is that, if you're still employed, you can jampi (cast a spell) on your boss to give you a raise. For those retranced, you know what to do to your ex boss, right ? And those in love can jampi your loved one to ...[fill in the blanks]. Now you see the major benefits of becoming a Bomoh.

Thanks to the Internet, those interested can now study this online. According to a report by a local tabloid, there is a local website offering "kursus Bomoh" (Bomoh study course) via distance learning online. Through the website, aspiring Bomohs can now study the mystic arts at only RM30 per module.

It is believed that certificates will be issued to successful graduates presumably so they can further their studies at similar institutions of higher learning whether locally or abroad.

Rumours has it that the website in negotiating a "twinning program" arrangement with the prestigious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,

For the uninitiated, Hogwarts is one of the top school of magick in the UK. It has produced some of the most distinguished wizards in the world, including its most famous graduate, Harry Potter.

The website also offers 10 full scholarships to Malaysians (of any race). So Malaysians, don't miss out on this magical opportunity, apply today.

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More Malaysians Seek Additional Sources Of Income

Source: The Star

By LAALITHA HUNT

PETALING JAYA: Tay, 46, a sales manager at a local manufacturing company, has been forced to take unpaid leave for a week this month.

“My salary has been reduced by about 25% as a result of the unpaid leave and benefits such as handphone, petrol and entertainment allowances have been cut by half,” he told StarBiz.

Nirmala Paramaswaran

Tay, who declined to give his full name, said that with demand not showing any signs of recovery in the near term, he was prepared to accept further pay cuts.

“My wife recently took a course and just started a part-time business offering nail art and treatment services from home. This additional income proves useful at times like these,” he added.

Like Tay’s wife, more Malaysians are seeking additional sources of income to cope with the current economic slowdown and higher cost of living.

Nirmala Paramaswaran, 27, a team leader at an IT outsourcing company in Cyberjaya, is selling food items such as nasi lemak and sandwiches.

“Demand from my colleagues has been great and the extra income is handy as daily necessities have become more expensive,” she told StarBiz.

Nirmala, who enjoys cooking, said the venture had also been a good learning experience as she was able to improve her culinary skills based on her customers’ feedback.

Many people are also drawn to seek a second income to sustain a comfortable standard of living.

Samantha Chin, 28, a technical support executive at an insurance company who aspires to buy an apartment for her family, earns up to RM1,000 a month providing Web page design services to small and medium-scale enterprises.

Leigh Howard

“The additional income has increased my savings considerably and would enable me to make my purchase much sooner than I had hoped for. However, orders have fallen slightly in recent times,” she said.

Meanwhile, Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Bhd senior group sales manager Reginald Yoganathan Hunt said a good part-time insurance agent with more than five years of experience can make up to RM6,000 in recurring commission.

“The insurance business can yield lucrative income even on a part-time basis, provided the agent is commited,” he said, adding that he had 16 part-time agents in his group.

Talent2 International Ltd director for South Asia Leigh Howard said the current job market in Malaysia was definitely slowing.

“Several multinational corporations have blanket hiring freezes although they would continue hiring for specialist skills,” he said, adding that the manufacturing sector appeared to be having a tough time as retrenchments loomed, but they were still looking for higher-grade skills as well.

“The current economic climate may also see wages stalling while the cost of living continues to rise,” he added.

Howard said that it was possible for employees to seek a second income but they should first check their current employer’s policies.

G. Rajasekaran

“Specific permission may be required and potential conflict of interest declared. It depends on the situation. The rule is, make sure a second job would not jeopardise your current one,” he said.

On the downside, a part-time job could be tiring and leave one with less time to spend with family and friends, Howard said.

“Also, look out for hidden expenses such as transport costs,” he added.

Malaysian Trades Union Congress secretary-general G Rajasekaran said there was no restriction on workers pursuing part-time jobs except for certain key or high-risk employment positions.

“In fact, in view of the rising cost of living, it was recently announced that government staff would be allowed to take on part-time jobs, but for a limited number of hours per day,” he said.

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World Class University Courses For Free

Today, with the internet, you can have access to world class education for free. There are many top universities that offer free courses online, these are, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Carnegie Mellon University, Tufts University, Stanford University and University of California at Berkley, amongst others.

The wide range of courses available include Accounting & Finance, Economics, Communication, Management, Marketing & Advertising, Technology, and Law.

100 Free Ivy League Business & Entrepreneurship Courses

Universities With the Best Free Online Courses


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