Ballmer's Peak

I LOL-ed, hard..

My New Environment

I'm gonna tell a bit about my work. Currently I'm working with a company that provides telecommunication services. The pay is quite decent, considering that I only have a little bit more than 2 years of working experiences. Salary aside, the environment is nice. To tell the truth, this is my first time working within big organizations. My previous employers are small-to-medium organizations, with employees less than 10 people. It was quite a shock for me at first, imagining that I need to work with a large number of people. I admit that due to I'm used to work with small companies, I tend to be self-organizing and thus reluctant (or ignoring, to be more precise) on the standards defined within my unit. Oh yeah, I'm attached to R&D unit. Seeing that I came from software houses, my managers see this as a blessing while some of my colleagues see this as a curse.

Firstly, I rejected *all* development tools that they are currently using and I use my own that I am familiar with. They use WSFTP, I use CuteFTP. They use 1stPage 2000, I use EditPlus. They use HeidiSQL, I use Query Browser. This sometimes causes communication errors due to the terms used in these softwares differs although the functions are similar. But then nonetheless, some of them (mainly those experienced ones) started to understand why I use my own tools and begin to learn the advantages of both and exploit those advantages.

Then, there comes the coding part. When first assigned for a project, my supervisor gave me her (yes, her) source code from previous project with hopes that I'd just follow her coding standards and change whatever necessary to suit the new project. Lo and behold, to much of her horror, I redesigned her codes from scratch, removed any unnecessary functions and changing 90% of the code structure. To be honest, there is actually no standards at all inside her coding. There's no proper indentation, variables are declared on the fly instead of pre-assigned, unused functions/variables/procedures are carried over from previous projects and too many rubbish such as xMsg = xMsg. I mean, who the Hell writes this? But then although this sometimes irks her, my managers and Head of Department (HOD) like it as they now starting to see quality (and readable, this is the important thing) codes within the company's code repository. I do admit that I didn't take any programming certificates to boast about my coding ability, but if you are coding at least please make your code readable if you can't make it efficient. I'd rather look at a readable but inefficient code than efficient but incomprehensible code.

Working there is considered a godsend to me. The workload is minimal as compared to what I endured in my previous job. This do sometimes make my colleagues wonder why I'm so laid back in any development task. Things that are major to them, are considered as small to me. Those worked with me before knows that when I do my codes, I like to do it right the first time. I hate debugging for simple problems, it's just a waste of time. Unless it's big thing like non-working API or query optimization (as example), I'm not really thrilled in doing debugging process. So when I received a project White Paper, I like to iron out the system logic flow before I start typing my codes. This, in return, will save me time to change my code later as I have already expected the requirement changes and be prepared for them.

But then this evening, while I was doing the process flow for my project, I asked one of my colleagues on a small flow error that I want to clear off first. "No no no no, you don't care about this first. Do the core engine first, I worry you don't have time to finish it. Leave this part first, it's not important."

"Fuck la. I've code, install, debug and maintain system bigger than this okay. This thing that you call a system, for me it's just a programming tool."

Of course, this was just roaming within my brain. I was very tempted to utter it with my mouth actually, but then my brain was quick as usual. Let the error undone and unnoticed. At least when it's discovered during testing, I know who to blame.


There you go. Actually this post is just for me to vent out my frustration with the incompetence of some of my colleagues in deciding which is important and which is not (that's why you'll see the post seems like to scatter everywhere). Ah well, as long as I get my pay every end of month, the current workload isn't killing me, I can live with that. Just enjoy the minimal work while surfing aimlessly during office hour..

p/s: with my current salary, I'm now required to pay for tax. fuck..

Schedule

Category 1

Running
Week 1 - Monday, Wednesday, Friday (2 miles per day, 8:30 pace) - 6 miles
Week 2 - Monday, Wednesday, Friday (2 miles per day, 8:30 pace) - 6 miles
Week 3 - No running (High risk of stress fractures)
Week 4 - Monday, Wednesday, Friday (3 miles per day, 8:30 pace) - 9 miles
Week 5 - Monday (2 miles), Tuesday (3 miles), Thursday (4 miles), Friday (2 miles) - 11 miles
Week 6 - Monday (2 miles), Tuesday (3 miles), Thursday (4 miles), Friday (2 miles) - 11 miles
Week 7 - Monday (4 miles), Tuesday (4 miles), Thursday (5 miles), Friday (3 miles) - 16 miles
Week 8 - Monday (4 miles), Tuesday (4 miles), Thursday (5 miles), Friday (3 miles) - 16 miles
Week 9 - Monday (4 miles), Tuesday (4 miles), Thursday (5 miles), Friday (3 miles) - 16 miles

Body Weight
Week 1 - 4 x 15 push ups, 4 x 20 sit ups, 3 x 3 pull ups
Week 2 - 5 x 20 push ups, 5 x 20 sit ups, 3 x 3 pull ups
Week 3 - 5 x 25 push ups, 5 x 25 sit ups, 3 x 4 pull ups
Week 4 - 5 x 25 push ups, 5 x 25 sit ups, 3 x 4 pull ups
Week 5 - 6 x 25 push ups, 6 x 25 sit ups, 2 x 8 pull ups
Week 6 - 6 x 25 push ups, 6 x 25 sit ups, 2 x 8 pull ups
Week 7 - 6 x 30 push ups, 6 x 30 sit ups, 2 x 10 pull ups
Week 8 - 6 x 30 push ups, 6 x 30 sit ups, 2 x 10 pull ups
Week 8 - 6 x 30 push ups, 6 x 30 sit ups, 3 x 10 pull ups
Note: do alternately. a set of push ups, a set of sit ups, a set of pull ups. repeat.

Swimming (side stroke with no fins, 4-5 days per week)
Week 1 - 15 minutes continuously
Week 2 - 15 minutes continuously
Week 3 - 20 minutes continuously
Week 4 - 20 minutes continuously
Week 5 - 25 minutes continuously
Week 6 - 25 minutes continuously
Week 7 - 30 minutes continuously
Week 8 - 30 minutes continuously
Week 9 - 35 minutes continuously
Note: if no access to pool, substitute with cycling (double the time taken for swimming e.g week 1 = 30 minutes cycling)

And this is just Category 1. After this there'll be Category 2. As a result, you are comparable to those Navy SEALS in cross-country because this is what their trainings are during Hell's Week.

Sure or not k-mie..

New Job

Long time never update my blog.

Cut short, I'm now working as Application Developer. No more project management for me for the time being. Can be a blessing and a curse, I guess. I do like my current job though. Although I'm the new guy there, as per experience level I am considered a senior within the development team. Others mainly consist of fresh graduates that just started to join working environment. They don't ask me about technical things most of the time, heck some of them are even better than me in terms of programming language. I don't really know .NET, for instance. Normally they'll ask me the environment world as a whole. What should and should not be done in office, which thing(s) to prioritize, how to speak to managers and so on. Suddenly I feel like an old wise man there, with beards and all..

As for office environment, it is heavenly. I arrive 9am every morning, well, sometimes 9:15am. KL in the morning can have traffic jam without any reason okay. And I'll go back home sharp after 8 hours of work. Arrive at 9am, go back at 6pm. Arrive at 9:15am, go back at 6:15pm. Due to the nature of my current company that is very different from the software house that I used to work with before, I find that the environment is quite relaxing. There are times where I just sit lazily the whole day without any work to do. It's either my job integrates with other people's and they have not finished their part yet or it is really there isn't any job for me to do. I found this quite unrelaxing at first, I was accustomed to being constantly busy in my previous job. But now bit by bit I am starting to adapt to the company's culture and environment, and boy these are heavenly haha..

Watched Journey to the Center of the Earth last Saturday with Izma. I'm not gonna give the summary of this movie here, if you want it then either Google it or read from the newspaper. What I want to say is the movie is fun to watch, and it did take my mind of the cruel reality of our world for a while. I must say I like Brendan Fraser's acting especially after The Mummy's series. He does make an act looks funny while not overdoing the joke (not like one self-proclaimed No 1 Joke Group in Malaysia). It's a light movie and suitable to be watched with family or your loved ones, as long as you don't take the storyline too seriously LOL.

I think that's it. Till another update. Oh btw, I signed up with True Fitness gym just 2 weeks ago. Apparently I've become concious about my body condition. Need to get physically fit like before. I was able to run for 2km without stopping during Form 4, doing 30 push ups straight during Boy Scouts training, and here I am. Not even able to finish 500m jog without panting for breath and 10 push ups seems unbearable. WTF has your body become, k-mie??

Job Interview 101: k-mie's Style

I'm sure you have been to job interview(s) before. As for myself, I've been to numerous job interviews. Some went well, some didn't. Congrats to those whose interviews went well. I'm pretty sure you've read articles as well as books on how to attend job interviews. Me, well, I do not believe what are written in those books 100%. For me, those books are written by HR people with the intentions of standardizing how interviews and resumes should be conducted and written in order to make their job (in getting rid of unsuitable candidates off) easier. So now, these are my tactics in attending job interviews. Please disagree with me if you think I'm wrong but do give reasons/explanations for disagreeing. Here goes..

1. Resume. This piece of document doesn't serve other purpose than to present your weaknesses and thus, making it easy for HR people/managers to not select you. Common mistake I notice is that people change the resume content, but not the resume layout. If you already have 1 year of working experience, do not put your academic qualification part in the front. Put your working experience(s) and your top skills in front after personal details. I personally like Adi's resume, it circulated the Internet for a while long time ago and caused 'havocs' within UTP (and Petronas) haha. Reason is, the resume is so unique that it'll catch people's attention to read. You want your resume to be read, not to be easily categorized and making the chance of it to be rejected bigger. Owh, I've once mistakenly brought an old copy resume which did not reflect my current details and expected salary. But I did get the job with the current expected salary I was asking. This one can't be told here, need personal face-to-face story to be told.

2. How you enter the interview room is also important. Get rid of that shy, overly-polite attitude. Do you seriously think managers want to hire people who are shy and too polite? People who are too polite most probably are also who are afraid to make mistakes, and those who are afraid to make mistakes are useless to the organization. Walk inside shoulder broad, face high, and greet everyone in the room. While greeting people, make sure you look at them in the eyes and smile. Always offer handshake to people in same gender as you, and nod to those who aren't (unless they offer their hand first).

3. Talk with confidence. Present what you talked about with facts or article references. If you can't find one, just say it is your own opinion BUT give reasonable reasons why you say like that. Other than useful skillsets, managers also want people who can present things and back it up with facts. Just remember that in interviews, the managers are as blind to you as you to them. Use this opportunity to get them to learn your strengths, and do keep in mind to tell them how your skills can make their job easy. People like their burden to be taken off, and by doing that your chance of getting the job is pretty high.

4. Do not be afraid to tell them your expected salary. I once gave my employer my expected salary at the highest range they were expecting and still I was hired. Tell them that the expected salary is because of your working experiences and skills, although this only works well if you aced in point 3 above. I once had a fresh grad candidate who asked for RM2500 salary. Instead of brushing her off, I asked her how she justified that salary range with her working experience and skills. Obviously she failed though, not because the salary was too high. But because she couldn't give reason why that salary was comparable to her skills. Read back point 3, back up your statement with facts or justifiable opinion.

5. Eye contact is important. I know it is very hard for us to look at a person in the eyes. The trick is, always look at the part between the eyes (above the nose). Combine this with a smile, it'll make you look confident and pleasant. If there is more than 1 interviewer, make sure you maintain eye contact with all of them. When you are asked a question, maintain your eye contact with the person asking only. But when it is your time to answer, alternate with all of them. Shuffle the rotation to make it look more natural.

6. Always know the position you are applying by heart. I'm sure most of you will be presented with a form to be filled in with personal details, work experience etc when attending job interviews. Take me as example. I'm a programmer by nature, and people know programmers are lazy-asses. We simplify things and we don't do redundant things. Why would you re-write the whole thing in the form if the info is already in your resume? I had once given back the form to the interviewer with most of the fields empty and surely I was asked why I didn't fill it all. I just answered that other things were all inside my resume, they could just read it, it's a waste of time for me to re-write it and because I don't do repetitive things. And yes, I got the job offer.

To cut short, don't take job interviews as a place where managers evaluate your working skills. Those skills can't be evaluated in 1 or 2 hours session, don't be stupid. Interviews are just a place where you present yourself to a potential employer and tell them why they need to hire you. I always believe that once you get a job interview, you already secured 70% chance of getting the job. The other 20% is how you ace the interview, another 10% left for the first 3 months from your start date. Happy job hunting.