A Great Team Effort...

This morning I received an email from the aide of my divisional VP. The email is basically a thank you email from the VP to all of us for the very good result that we acheived in the last Fiscal Year of 08/09 in terms of reducing the loss of load. In fact, the achievement is almost 600% better than last year and frankly speaking, I could not imagine last year anybody in the company would think that collectively as a division, we could achieve this . I was overjoyed when I read the para that mentions "He said that such great achievement could not be achieved without support and hard work put by Asset Maintenance and System Operation, of course with strong cooperation from other departments". The fact that my department was co-singled out for this achievement really means a lot to me and my staff especially after what we have gone through together for the last 1.5 years. Looking within the unit, I could only attribute the success to each of my staff for their perseverence, hard-work, dedication and unselfishness in getting things done the way they should. Of course there were many ups and downs along the way not only for them but also for me, but alhamdullilah, we managed as team.

The challenge for us now is whether we can sustain this achievement in the current FY. With so many uncertainties about the industry future and the impending change of guards in the company,I am only hopeful that all of us can maintain the momentum and move forward with full of zest. But as they always say, maintaining is more difficult than achieving and with this may Allah help us in our earnest effort to be the best !

Change of Guard

I am very happy with the management decision to appoint a new VP for the HR group recently. The reason that I am elated is that the present thinking to elect someone for a higher position is no longer on the basis of age but rather competency and suitability. On top of that, I am also very happy because a technical person has been appointed to that position and with this I am pretty convinced that the current management is very serious indeed to put competency ahead of seniority and I hope this thinking will spread like wild fire to other positions in the company.

Speaking about seniority, I know very well now how delicate a situation is to manage a group of people particularly when many of them are senior in terms of age than I do. There were times when I feel that few still cannot accept the fact that I am younger and yet I am the one who gets to call the shot. However, the way that I was brought up by my parents help me to become more patient and stronger in this situation. I always believe that respect is earned and not commanded and we must always respect others first before we can be respected. I know that I may have gained respect now compare to a year ago but I still believe that there is still work cut out for me to really unite people under my responsibility.

Comes January, it is going to be one year since I acted on my current position. My wish and doa for the new year is to get confirmation on this position so that I can focus more on the work rather than thinking if I ever going to get the confirmation or not. Should the management decided against this, sincerely speaking, i will not know what will I do and maybe for the best of all, just remain calm and and let Allah guide me on my next move. Nonetheless, I always believe that if we have done our best and pray a lot to Allah, we will get the answer sooner or later. The answer to my prayer to Allah may not be a Yes but it will be surely the best indeed.

I also hope that next year is going to be even a better year for me and my family. I just hope and pray it starts with a good one...Salam Maal Hijrah and Happy New Year for all readers of my blog. May Allah bless us Always !!!

Back to Square One

It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.

The announcement has been made. As it turned out, nothing much different then what have been speculated. To most people it must have been anti-climax. To few people like me, the announcement has created more uncertainties and confusions. The new structure has resulted in many people being promoted to say the least. My boss will be reporting to the new divisional VP and our department will be splitted. Two sections from the former unit will also be joining my boss and will be working under the jurisdiction of the newly created VP position. As for me and the rest of the staff of the three sections excluded from joining the VP, we are still unsure of our fate. I like to refrain myself from speculating further as what has been decided has been decided and no turning back. I just hope that the power that be will place us in the current division where we can contribute the best for the company.



My new position in the old unit is a very welcome relief to me in the mids of the organization restructuring melee. Although I just held the position for two weeks already, I have noticed that there are a lot to be done and should have been done before. The first thing I did was to introduced a new working structure that will be fair to all ten of my subordinates. In big compnay like this where your assets are growing everyday, efficient work process and adherence to system procedure is utmost important in ensuring that targets can be encomplished. In my very first meeting with my staff, I emphasized the concept on disciplining others in the company when it comes to requesting assistant from us. As a unit which manages few billion ringgit worth of assets, we could not afford to accomodate others if they fail to help themselves and be organised. Gone where the days where problems of others are also our problems as this accomodating gesture will only promote lackadaisical attitude on the responsible parties. I beleive that we should embrace ourselves to the modern thinking of working efficiently and not expecting others to solve our problem. Yes, we are to help each others to solve common problems but individual issues must be solved individually. To me, to each it's own.






In few days the curtain of 2007 will be closing and the new horizon of 2008 will be beckoning. I don't have specific resolution to make for the new year but I hope that more people will be happier working in this company with the new organization changes announced last week. As usual for a muslim, I strongly beleive in qada' and qadar Allah. But I also beleive in working hard and making total commitment towards our responsibility. In the end, it's not what others' think about us that matters... as long as what we do is being redha' by Allah..Amin

Waiting for Change...

It is a sad fact that regardless of talent, second place only means you are first in a long line of losers.

Off-late I was not really into blogging due to many reasons. The biggest one is probably I have been spending too much time at home adjusting the HKB2 RC heli which to me was unexpectedly difficult machine to tune unlike the four channel Lama or Robbins. Nonetheless, being an engineer, solving technical problem like this is something that I enjoy the most and don't mind spending countless hours to get it fly smoothly again. Based on my observation and reading from several heli forums in the net, I somehow managed to understand the mechanic of the tail-rotor heli quite substantially relating to the HKB2. In the process of adjusting, repair and tuning of this micro heli machine, I acquired several special tools for this purpose such the the pitch-gauge device, ball-link plier, digital caliper, hex-driver and also assortment of allen drivers. I dare not count how much money I have spent on these tools and also on the spare-parts of the HKB2 and the 4-channel helis but I think I managed to cap it within a reasonable budget. If I were to follow my desire, I would go ahead and get the 6-channel T-Rex or the Nitro-powered Sceadu Hirobi which are more stable, bigger and of course expensive machines. Come to think about it, when the hell is the company is going to pay our annual bonuses ?!

I think another reason why I am a bit 'lazy' to write of late is probably because the uncertainty on my immediate future with the promotion of my boss recently. There were a lot of talks and rumours circulating around about the possible successor to him. As much as I would like to ignore these speculations, I am a 'bit' disturbed by them because of quite a few congratulatory greetings I received which to me are mere speculations and nothing more. I know very well that the management will have problem to select me because of my age and also my grade of which at the moment is two grade below the vacant position. In my opinion, this company is still plague by the prevailing culture of age and seniority. The idea of a double promotion is still essentially a big taboo and not well received by many. I have also kind of indicated my wish to move on laterally to other department to the power that be having had almost 20 years experience in the same field. The feedback I received was a bit disappointing with mix of a big No and sugar coated with unclear promise. Having said that, I am not the kind of person who has an excellent inter-personal communication skill that can advertise my achievement or ability to contribute to the company's success. To me, the prove of the pudding is in the tasting and I sincerely believe that I have contributed quite substantially to the company over the years, oblivious to many maybe. But then again, management always believe that your past record is not what there are looking for but rather the contribution that can be made in the future, with minimum impact to the morale of majority. Whatever it is, at the moment I am already accepting the fact that a new boss will come sooner that we expect. I also strongly beleive that I am not easily satisfied with whatever achievement thus far to be mired in complacency. What is even more important is that I am already gearing myself towards working with him or her. As long as I am an employee to this company, I am just a normal worker and have to abide to the company's rule and decision. Other alternative is to leave the company for good and frankly speaking, I could have left the company long time ago with at least 3-4 outside offers that came along the way if I really want to. But maybe I just don't have enough courage to do it for my believe that I have a good future within this company. To me, I don't have anything to prove anymore for now to the management about my ability to contribute. I think they know it judging from the past performance. But then again, what is past is prologue. The ball is at their feet now and they can decide the best for the company...

A Workshop and Perceived Gap...

I was involved in the system operators workshop organised by the colleagues from the SO department from 22-23 August. The workshop was held at the A'Famosa Resort in Melaka and was attended by about 50 people from the SO, OPP and RCC's departments. I have never been to this workshop before and when I was asked to nominate my engineers to go, I nominated myself instead ! Yeah, called me selfish but sincerely I really felt that this is one workshop that I should go to foster even better relationship with our counterparts in the SO office and also to understand their problems in operating the system daily. Nonetheless, there were 5 others from my office attended the workshop and I hope my presence would at least be a symbolic gesture that we are serious in closing the perceived 'gap' between the planners and the operators.



Although the forum coincided with the school 1-week holiday, I travelled alone because my other-half decided to preserve her official leaves for other important event later this year. Thus, on Monday at about 6.40pm after work, I drove to Melaka alone and arrived at the hotel at approximately 20 minutes past eight.

The workshop only started the next day on Tuesday and again our VP came down to officiate the opening, albeit his opening speech was deferred a bit after two presentations. Nonetheless, true to his form and energy, the VP did spend sometimes with us and I sometimes wonder how busy he is to do what he is doing.



The participants also include the technician level staff and several of them presented their papers. This workshop is more of of a forum of sharing information and knowledge and for a first-timer like me, the workshop is quite 'interesting' to say the least. A friend of mine did commented quietly to me on the quality of papers being presented having attended the Technical Forum a week earlier but I would say that it is good enough for non-exec to present papers and anything else would be a bonus.



For some reason, the organiser forgot to bring a camera for the photo session. Guess what, I was probably the only one who brought a decent one (apart from the mobile phone camera most people would have)and the organiser asked if I could take some group photos and also the event itself. Surely I would not object and thus I finally ended up taking close to 200 photos of the workshop and also the surrounding landscape of A'Famosa.




In summary, the workshop is totally new experience for me. At personal level, I feel kinda releive that I finally managed to participate in this forum and contribute during the discussion time. I also hope that my presence will be seen as sincere gesture of OPP to assimilate into or at least understand the 'culture' of real-time operators. Obviosuly we still have many differences in opinions and also the way we see things but as Maroon 5 says it, "It's not always rainbows or butterflies, but compromise that moves us along".

A Forum to Remember...

Last week I was in Sofitel Resort in JB attending the division technical forum from 14-15 August 2007. I was also one of the organising committee members for this forum and my main responsibility was to call for paper writers as well as to help the committee chairman in ensuring the forum will run smoothly. Luckily the chairman himelf is a very committed man and he basically drove and motivated everybody to ensure the event will be a success. With fully committed committee members, alhamdullilah, we managed the event very well and we were also able to get 23 technical papers to be presented in the forum. The level of commitment showed by the committee members was really outstanding. We were willing to stayed late and sometimes until 10PM at night at the office just to ensure every minute detail on the preparation has been covered. Nonetheless, our hard work was basically paid off by the similar commitment shown by the VP of the division who was present through out the whole forum. I also think that he took the opportunity to learn more about the division and also related technical issues that may be new to him. Our SGM was also there and I could tell that she was very happy with the forum judging from her smile and beaming face at the end of the event.



I did not present any paper in this forum. However, I let two of my subordinates to present the papers so that they can learn how to speak in front of the public audience and also to learn the skill in answering questions diplomatically. To me this type of event is very good to publicise oneself and also to find opportunities to network with other paper presenters and participants.



As for me, I have written more than 20 papers since I started working with the company. While I was completing my PhD, I wrote at least 5 technical papers and presented them at many conferences from Paris, Chicago, Bangkok, and also locally. My supervisor really made me work for my PhD but only now that I realise that my journey towards completing the study was worth every mile.



Although in general the forum was a success, I regretted the fact that we have nine missing participants. For whatever the reason, the least they could do was to inform the organiser and we could replace them with others. So much said. This is still the dominant culture of Malaysia. I guess we just have to bear with it for time to come...

An Event to Remember...

In has been more than a week since I last posted anything. Well, I just could not find the time to write. So much things have happened. Some good, some not so great. Above all, I feel that I owe some time to write the event that has happened last weekend which probably worth to remember for long.


My office held a business forum/meeting in Cyberview Lodge and Spa on 30 June and 1st July 2007. Again, I was to lead the organising committee in preparing the event. Last year we had the meeting in Malacca and this year we were told to have it within the Klang Valley and Cyberview was finally chosen after surveying other places nearby. Also this year, we were not allowed to get family members to participate in any of the event organised. Nonetheless, to show our commitment to the company, this was a small sacrifice to make and almost all of us accepted this decision with open heart.


Cyberview Lodge is indeed a great place to have a business meeting. The conference room is huge with good ventilation AC, thick carpet and good sound system. The resort chalet is spacious with free computer and Wi-fi. I even had a 42 inch LCD TV in my room. My boss is even luckier. His room was freely upgraded to a luxury room which according to the hotel staff, the room of which Michael Schumacher stayed during his F1 Race in Sepang ! Some guys just have all the luck !



The first day of the meeting went very smoothly and peacefully. I could see almost everyone was enjoying every moment of the meeting no matter how intense the discussion was. Being away from the office formality really created a fine kinship among us. The meeting started with motivational talk by two invited speakers. Having been to so many leadership courses this year, I particularly did not find the talk any refreshing than the so many I have listened before this. But nonetheless, I believe most of my fellow office mates were motivated indeed !



In the evening right after we finished the Day 1 session, we had a mini-treasure hunt game among the office staff. The game though really tiring as we had to run around the resort compound looking for clues, was a major success. I thought everyone liked it because the game kinda brought everyone sense of cooperation and a bit of childhood memory. We totally forgot about our office ranks and we were all equal during the game. My team did not do very well though as we only got third placing out of the five teams competed...too bad maybe next year insha'allah...


Perhaps the highlight of the business meeting was the buffet dinner and prize giving ceremony conducted on the night of Day 1. When we had the preparation meeting, one of the committee member suggested that we had a creative presentation by the office staff to light-up the night. I thought this idea was great and suggested that each group of the 5S Zones present one show. The leader of my group was actually my PA and she wrote two poems to be read by her with the rest of the team during the dinner. I volunteered to play the classical guitar pieces during the poem recital and played Lagrima and Romance de'Amor to accompany the team. Of course, we had to practice the recital at the office 2-3 days before the event and the same goes to other teams for the eagerly waited show.



To award the best show among the four teams, we appointed 3 judges to give the score on the performance of each team. The judges were the dinner invitees and two of them are GMs. Each show was performed after each lucky draw presentations and I could see that everyone was truly enjoying the night.

The best team for the night performed what I would term, creative dikir-barat. The ladies led by Hisham as the tukang karut really gave a truly amazing show. They crafted their own lyrics and the lyrics were actually reflecting the office day to day operation. I was so proud and could not believe at the same time that we have so many creative personalities in the office. Bravo to them ! I was also lucky to win one of the lucky-draw prizes but unlucky enough to lose it later when I checked out from the resort. The 2-person Hi-Tea voucher must have slipped from my luggage during the frantic rush to check out..what a shame..

The closing ceremony held on Sunday was also conducted in a very relax yet serious atmosphere. Everyone was given the opportunity to voice up their grouses or frustration if any. Our VP was also present during the closing ceremony. Truly, he is very committed in his work and willing to sacrifice a lot to see our success.



In short, the business meeting and dinner was a true success. However, the success could not be achieved without the willingness to sacrifice and persevere by the office staff. This just proved that we in OPP, are united in our action and committed in our responsibility. I just hope that the management will see this as a good gesture by all of us.

IEEE Industrial Lecture Programme

My boss and I were asked to give a 2-hour talk about Power System Security on Saturday June 17 at UiTM. I decided to participate on this program simply because the request was from a very good friend of mine whom over the years has become almost like a brother to me. However, he made the request while I was in Kuantan and away from the office. Thus, out of his own initiative, he took the photo from this blog and decided to use it in the leaflet he prepared for the forum. Nothing much I can do about it because the leaflets have already being circulated around and according to him, there are already many people registered to hear our talk. I just hope that nobody will have the impression that I am trying the conceal my true indentity by posting the embossed version of my photo and hopefully, we can deliver a good lecture to the academicians and also to everyone else attending the forum. Anyhow, everyone is invited and I also heard that the organiser will also serve refreshment during the forum !

Images from CIGRE SC6 2007 Colloquium Langkawi - Finale

The following are few candid moments I managed to capture during the colloquium. I fully utilised my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L for the pictures and I never had to use my flash unit with this fast lens. In addition, most of this photos were taken from a distance and those facial expressions you see were genuine...




Candid photos can be interpreted in so many ways. Sometimes it can also show the state of the mind of a particular individual. In a colloquium like this, one can only guest that the best expression will be people in deep contemplation or sheer exhaustion from listening to an intense intelectual discourse...

Images from CIGRE SC6 2007 Colloquium Langkawi - Part IV

One of the trip organised for the delegate of SC6 Colloquium in Langkawi is the trip to Pantai Chenang town and a stop-by at Pantai Kok to observe the sunset. I took this golden oppurtunity to learn the technique of silhoutte and also to capture the moment when the sky turned to red during sunset.


The following photos were captured during the trip to Pantai Kok, Langkawi together with the colloquium delegates.





I also tried my skill on photographic silhouttes and these are some examples out of my mediocre skill.





Later, I also tried the fill-in flash technique to highlight the main object facing bright light sources. Dr Salleh and one of the colloquium delegates were used as the models of these photos and I deeply sorry for the not-so-great results !!!




We were taken to Pantai Chenang town after the sunset viewing session has completed. The town is not so busy at this time of the year and I did not enjoy taking any photos out of this condition. Nonetheless, one night earlier I managed to capture the main road of Pantai Chenang town and you can just tell how quite the town was...