Nowadays many jobs are more stressful and the working day is longer. What are the reasons for this? What can employers do to help employees?

Surprisingly, the advent of technology did not bring forth an era of relaxation and easy life for common people. Instead, a recent survey has demonstrated that work has become increasingly stressful, and works hours have gone haywire, that the most popular last word is now ' I wish I did not have to work so much'. Stress and longer working hours normally have detrimental effects on employee performance - over-burn and inefficiency. The reasons for these phenomena are thus subjected constant debate. To uplift the productivity of company, employers are seeking to redeem the worsening condition. 

There are two principal reasons that resulted in longer working hours. Firstly, the increased competition from globalisation has droved workers to work harder, as they strive to maintain their value for the company. Every growing desire in materialism is the second reason, in the pursue to fill their greed, some will overestimate, over task themselves with impossible jobs.

In order to combat the increase of the fatigue, employers can enforce merits based rewards and know(understand) their workers well. Performance based rewards will prompt workers to value efficiency rather than raw working hours, thereby counteracting the negative influence. Through the act of knowing the person well, projects and time could be better allocated, leading to better workings environment and steam-lined management.

In a nutshell, competition and pursue of materialism driven jobs to be more stressful and having longer working hours, the negative influences can be counteract by employers through merits based rewards and good communication.

" You could always work harder."

"Do you think my current level of knowledge would suffice?" I asked, doubting my current standard.
"Well, You could always work harder." The researcher response to me when I inquire about potential research under him.
" True." I muttered, couldn't really find proper words to response.

Surprisingly, this scene depicted above kept replaying in my mind. Where I displayed typically characteristic of getting accustomed to the world, not daring undertake adventure and risk, refuse to "jump start" and insist on" slow pace walking". Argh, must remind myself not to walk my path on auto-pilot. Never stop believing, especially on myself.

Side Note
On the other hand, meeting and talking projects with researchers regarding their field is an amazing experience. The dazzling eyes, enthusiastic aura of theirs and most importantly, the research topics, all amaze me. The feeling of Eagerness and thrilling underwhelmed me, how I wish I will get the summer scholarship....

Exams

The fact that my mid-term examination is just next week came to hit me yesterday (Yes, I weren't aware of this until yesterday). This realization really have me reconsider everything I have done so far.

This semester have been 'littered' with more assignments and report than previous. Overloading for science is just a crazy idea, so is having 3 labs (which all need formal report to follow up) and assignments weekly.

The worst thing happen when mid-term exam hits the fan, making my nightmare of having two assignments, one lab session, one lab report and one exam all on Monday a possible reality. Looking at what kind of situation I have got myself into, I must have vastly overestimated my abilities...

Well, worst come to worst,
I will preserve..

Mel-Adel-Syn Trip Photoes

Photo Album

The Photo I have in the collection is mainly photoed in Melbourne, Simply because my camera auto-focus went frenzy after that, and there isn't a way to shut it off. occasionally still, when luck in on my side, the camera works just fine, so there is still a couple of photos taken after that.



There is also a few shots that are taken by others and posted in the album.


Generals Thoughts

This is quite a special trip, we didn't plan ahead much beforehand. So technically we simply stumble across here and there, almost like animals running amok in a big city. I prefer this kind of trip though, no fixed itinerary - Adventure Spirit.

Although I would deem the trip too time consuming because it lasted 2 weeks and 2 days, while I only have 3 weeks of holiday. It took up most of my time in the holidays, in effect, this is the only holiday so far I haven't spent my time on computer games until I'm rotten...

Well, that could be a good thing.

P/S: Wanna thanks those people that make the trip possible, mainly Chek Ying ,Kia Yee, Troung and Troung's relative. (In alphabetical order!)

Some random stuff I came across

Origin
"My mind is a web of thoughts, ideas and concepts, all delicately interwoven in such a way that none can be isolated without destroying any sense of context it might have... which is why I cannot convey to you what I'm thinking or how I understand it. Without a complete explanation of everything that relates to a particular idea, it falls flat; it cannot stand without the support of the rest of the web. Trying to channel my thought process into a single dimension of language is like recording video with a paintbrush and a string." by AsteroidPuncher

in which I couldn't agree more.

Back!

Back for quite some time in M'sia.
To be exact, two weeks have past since I came back.

I worked in pc fair, interview for a job (failed).
Both which I have gained experience,
Particulary about the way they do business (how to con people,haha)
I will write more about it, in time...

Didn't update for quite some time....

Somewat felt different,as if I'm no longer the person I used to be
Clouded by too many meaningless thing, I really need this travel.
to rediscover and reflect on myself.To be alone and without influence of others.
For somethings can only be learn in silence.

I'm posting here just to inform that I have settle down with no problem in Melbourne.
It is just a couple of days. Wandered around in the city center today, I got into quite some good locations ( both accommodation and travel wise). Will be posting the pictures later.

On my path...

The clock never stop ticking,
But we do, occasionally.


The journey has started,
On the pursued of dreams.
I'm with nothing but a paper,
Which have numbers and time on it.
Brought to this strange place,
of which I have no memories off.

Perhaps, time has flies too fast.
That the past has failed to register in my memories.

All I have,
Is the path that I am supposed to take.
I was told that it would lead me to my destination.

The pointer was a stranger,
but what options I have,
except of having faith in him.

Time past,
light dim,
hope flee.

The prophesied chance appeared,
Yet my heart is waving.

Wondering,
What if,
this isn't the one I'm waiting for.
What if,
the pointer misguide me.
What if...

Shaking off my fear,
taking my chances,
I ride onto the infamous wind.

Alone I sit,
With the battle of curiosity and pride rage.
In the end,
Pride take hold,
and it muted the other party.

I taken a backward direction,
A unique position it was.

The Images proceeds,
I slowly but surely familiarized the picture.
Of which, with love and hatred,
Both unforgettable.

But Images doesn't stay,
Only distance acknowledged understanding.
The instant it appeared is not treasured.
....

I will leave it at this state,...


*Pause, observe and feel

Pool

Played pool with my friends yesterday. Everyone seems to know how to play and are able to play well, even my friends from Johor know how to play well. We are roughly around the same age,I wonder how can our exposure differ so much.

Flashback for pool

"I only contacted pool once in my life, before this. If I recall correctly, the pool players in the first game I played consisted me, Wowyay and Joseph. It was during our Akido trip. It turn out be totally nightmare because none of us have any idea how to play properly,we don't even have any clue how to grip the poles properly, and yet we try and try. For half an hour we struggle to goal - trying to get a ball into the holes. We gotten one in the end, the white ball. There is no fun at all, we end up feeling very boring and decided to not touch the game for good."

I don't know where I get the picture but I always have a bad feelings about pools (Is this is influence of TV?). I always thought it's a game for pub, and pub is evil, stay away for good.

Funny thoughts though, after playing it, feels like it's just a another game that can be learn and mastered. The culture of game is same with all other sports, just that the environment it's portrayed in is usually different - Pub.

Side Note :
Oh, we didn't play in pub, we played in some hall/college until 3am. It's FOC

Eden, additional information

* Some information might already be given via the comments on the picture in the Picasa web albums



Here's a piece of map of Australia, it shows where Eden is. You could look for Canberra and Melbourne in it as well.

From the map it's roughly 200km, but it take at least a 4 hours drive from Canberra. To my surprise, there is no widely developed highway in Australia (Maybe because it is such a big country). This means that the bus we rode drove though two ways one lane round through the forest and while on a zig zag path. This would normally enable us to see the forest, but it simply isn't possible because we are travelling at night.

We departed from ANU about 5pm, stopped in Cooma for dinner before continue our journey. The trip consisted about 130+ people I believe. We have three big and one small bus. Oh, their bus is nice, at least better than I once experience in M'sia (we got on what they called a VIP seats, luxury ride, but it was crap). But I might just have been cheated on that.

Cooma was a small town, it's main form of income is tourism, skidding I believe. You could notice there is a lot of motel and hotel on the way, along with skidding shops. There is a Snowy Mountain nearby. If you want a skip trip from ANU, here is it.

We then continue to Eden, arrived at something about 10pm. Distributed to our cabin and sleep. Our accommodation for these 2 night is Garden of Eden Caravan Park. Too bad we aren't sleeping in Caravans, instead we get to sleep at the cabin provided.



The Small cabin which we slept in. I found that the Aussies (local) are quite funny. I shared my cabin with two of them. One of them was taking photoes of the cabin. He claimed that he want to keep memory and prove of it so that one day he could tell his grandchildren that he once live in these hobbits house.



Sleeping quarters during the trip to Eden, triple deck. With the limited space, it's hard for me to sleep well, I couldn't imaging what the situation the two Aussies would be facing in these spaces.


I brought nothing (linen, sleeping bad, pillows, blanket) there and they offered nothing. It write that they might offered those, and I happen to decided to test my luck. Never have I heard that a hotel/motel that doesn't provide these. It then turns out they only offered that in another park which is for group A.

Slept without blanket for two days (had to improvise with tower). As it is further south, it's getting very cold, I was awaked several times during the first night because of the cold. But it's very relaxing as our park is near the beaches, you could hear the sound of the wave hitting the beaches while you are on your bed.

*to be continue

Trip to Eden

This is a field trip, don't have the leisure to play around a lot...
Some Photos are taken just for the report.
You might notice that a pen sometime appear in the pictures, it is for scaling purpose.

http://picasaweb.google.com/howt51/Eden#

Edit :Comments added (12.13am 8/10/2009)

Happy Labour Day

Well, not that happy actually, just that I couldnt refil my quota another day, haha

Aborting

I will have to delay the photoes upload and all online communications until monday. This is due to the fact that I run out of quota ( how could I didnt notice/foreseem...) and couldnt refill it until monday.

Back, with more problems....

It has been a while, since I have left this blog behind me...

Well, I ain't here to say that things will change, nor I am going to state that things will not change. I haven't make up my mind yet, regarding posting or so...

Having holiday now means that I have plenty of time to spent on whatever I want. And, so far I spent a great deal of time gaming. I played fallout3, world in conflicts so far in the holiday, currently a bit sick of gaming though. But, nothing much to do, it's very hard to bring myself to study, just can't find the mood.

I managed to go through my physics a little. But not much, just read through. Doesn't seems to have problem as long as I don't jump over. Found out that if I go through words by words, I have no problem. This does require extra attention as I always tend to skim through without bothering with minor details, and my attention span is considerably short. Slowly getting the hang of it now.

Spend the half of yesterday (1/10) trying to validate the win7. I could do it 1st time, but somehow fail during my second trial. I just don't understand why it did not work. Could it be that the validation program only work one time?

I am not ready to give out using it yet, it is quite a wonderful windows. Will continue to try ....

You might be asking why I reformat in the 1st place, when win7 is running perfectly. My answer is that eventhough it is running well, I allocated too little space for it (only 15gb), and the windows itself ate up 13gb. This prohibited a few operations I want to run.

When I tried expanding one of the drives using an external program. But not only I failed, but also could not recover the 20gb I used to extend. Oh, it gets better. I then try use reformat the whole drive (only drive C) to extend the drive as well as recover the 20gb. Failed again, both in recovering and extending......

And now I set myself a timebomb, win7 beta only last for 30 days.
By 30 days, I either solve it, reformat, or just leave it.
Well, at least I solved the vista issue, it's time bomb just being diffuse...

Posting some picture up 2morrow, those which I had taken during the trip to Eden....

Trip

I will be going for a field trip to Eden this weekend. . This trip is compulsory and costed $130. Thus I will probably be away from Friday to Sunday.

Coming back on Sunday after 5pm. To face the last week before the break and Chemistry examination that is on Monday. Oh, sigh, what a time table. Good thing is that we don't need to be in a rush to submit ours report, for it is only due one month later...

Holiday is approaching, looking forward for it.
Guess that you guys in M'sia are already enjoying it...

That being say, I did not enroll in any holiday trip though. My friends told me about those and I just felt lazy, dragging along while idling until it is too late. This might be a good thing though, I need some time alone to catch up with everything...

Subjective

In terms of viewing things, people can't help but to be subjective, although it is not wrong to be subjective in some case. As in the case of handwriting, I do deserve such marks. Infact, I,myself find it hard to read my own handwriting.

Learning to view things objectively is a tough task, we just couldn't get ourselves out of the small subjective world we built and surrounded ourselves. I am not blaming to specific people, instead I'm complaining about the human nature. The habit that we always put ourselves in the center when interpreting.

And thus, it takes times for human to grow. To learn that we are not the center of the universe. To learn that we are just tiny little planet in the sea of universe. This, in some sense, is not just sience facts, but philosophy as well.

Hand writting ....

Sorry for lack of updates...
Just couldn't discipline myself enough to start.

For those of you that don't know, I have terrible handwriting. People have commented that my handwriting seems childish, and this does not only happen once, but a few times. So basically when I start dotting down a lot of stuff (paragraphs) things start get ugly. Well, not that it is not ugly in the first place, but it just get worse.

Handwriting have been a major set back in my life, though the affects of it are not obvious until now....

Last week, we have a practical seasons during the earth science session. In which we are to hand up our assignment at the end of the session. Most of my friends, who are in the same group as me were clueless. But due to a misunderstanding I made, I done the question beforehand. And thus, my friends, who all want an easier route, copied the answers from me. We even share the same graph and data. Oh, copying is pretty common here, as far as I'm concern, this is normal.

But after the marking, I got the lowest of all, only 7/10. My friends who referred to my answer got 8.5/10 and 7.5/10....

I guess I have to find some other way to offset this weakness....

Mess?

Under construction...

Event Report.

First of , event report.

I had bid goodbye with the 'gang' I used to have dinner with. The action doesn't take effect immediately though. In order to evenly distribute the food fund we shared, it will only take effect after Tuesday. I guess all that changes is that I would no longer have dinner and shopping with them.

They doesn't seems to care much though, are they expecting this?

The fact that they doesn't care ( Or at least appear to be) is a pain. I do infact care about this relationship. Sigh. This doesn't mean the end of our friendship though, it just mean that our interactions will be far less if compared to the way it was before.


One particular thing that I have done this week, is get my hair cut, by myself. My standards for my hair isn't high, But I wouldn't accept dog-bite hair style as well. Thus, it is very demanding work, as I was afraid that I might create a hole within my messy hair.

It ended well though, at least within my satisfaction ( You have to compensate for my 1st timer-skills). The only thing I didn't do well is maintaining the symmetry of my hair ( left and right is a bit imbalance). I will post my pictures later.

It took me some courage to start. But it wasn't so bad. I keep telling myself, it I really ruined up. All I need to do is go to a decent salon and ask for 1 inch hair.

The Ruler

One of the main reasons I did not leave the 'gang' in the first place is because I want to know their point of view. Although I changed more or less a bit in this new environment, the core remains. I was anxious to find out what others think of me.

In high school, particularly during years of seniors, I practically doesn't care how others view of me. The only thing I know from others is that they find me a bit strange, but that was it. My ignorance caused me to totally hide myself within the my world, a world which I only share with my inner circle of friends.

The reason I went overseas to study is more than pursuit my goal, but to change as well. In a new environment, with no-one who know your past, it is easier to start totally new. I can mold myself into any form I want ( I always thought I was versatile).

Problem is, to find the correct shape ( Character) I want to be, I need some ruler. And so I participate in groups. Wanting to find my flaw, strength. (Sorry, it sounds like I am using others as tools) Thus, even-though I know it all along the group wasn't the type for me ( Basing on their way of life and types of interaction), I still joined, I thought it shouldn't be a problem. As I'm always good at hiding and molding, or at least I thought I was.

But life wasn't a breeze. Since the badminton incident, the only trend I find the relationship is going is downwards. And I actually drag until now to make a decision, a move. What was I waiting? Could somehow another incident happen to change the tide?

I had been a fool who only wait for his destiny call, Not taking any action to cure the source. It is as if I believe time will solve the problems....
How pathetic...

At least it is solved now, I felt a mixture of feelings when I announce that I'm not going to have dinner with them anymore. A mixture of sad and happy, reluctant that our interactions is going to an end, yet relieve that this is all over.