Some like it hot

I have heard many complaining about the hot weather these few days. I personally do not feel it is extraordinary hot. To me it's just like any normal day in Malaysia.

A friend is Thailand asked me via Skype if 'my country' is raining. I smiled and paused before I asked him which parts of the country he was referring to.

It's going to rain based on the rumbling I hear.

Do you ever have this person in your life that seems bend on trying your patience? It's like everything he / she says or does is an attempt to see at what point you will blow up. And then he / she will take out a clipboard and note the results. He / she will toss things on your tables (instead of putting them there like any other normal, courteous people well taught by their parents or teachers). He / she would tell others you are not a gentleman while you are holding the door for him / her. He / she doesn't show appreciation when you picked up after him / her to prevent him / her from landing in troubles. Well, I have. I will not spiritualize this. I will take it as well as I can. We want to be professional. If he / she doesn't cut it, I will make it clear to my boss.

So much for one person.

Let me continue with another bigger issues involving more people.

P.J. O'Rourke (American humourist, political commentator and journalist whose essays are collected in "Republican Party Reptile", "Parliament of Whores" and "Give War a Chance") said "There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause."

A group is often judged based on its past records. Many may be willing to overlook some small issues because of its achievements.

When a large group of people known for their good deeds set forth on a questionable journey, will the followers lose their ability to discern? Will the followers choose to ignore the obvious alarm sounding like crazy in their mind? Surely they can do no wrong if they have come thus far?

While we accord a high place to character, we also need to be objective when it comes to such situations. To err is human. Christians are not exempted.

I for one, reject and refute ANY form of wrong teachings disguised as new revelations. When it comes to the Word and the truth, it's either yes or no. There is no in between. There is no such things as having some truth in it. Christians should be helping one another to draw near to God. They should not seek sensations. They should not chase Christian 'superstars' or celebrities, ESPECIALLY when the said celebrities display glaring errors in the message they present.

New age and many cultic practices are being recycled and making their ways into the welcome arms of the church. We should WATCH and pray. Open our eyes to see clearly what is really happening.

I have not been feeling well. I feel like I am on the verge of getting sick. But my body would not relent. Normally when we get such signals, we are already sick. This time the 'confirmation' is taking a long time to come. I wonder when and I wonder if it will come at all.

Patience I have little bit

I was going to write about how I remained cool, calm and collected through two small incidents to day. In the first one, I was more of a third party enlisted to help. The issue didn't matter to me directly. So, no problem even when emotions run high.

The second one has to do with me. The colleagues from the south reported an error with a report. I asked them to elaborate. I got tired of waiting (hey, if the figures are not correct, who gets chased?) and checked the report thoroughly. No problem. I emailed back and Skyped them. A few minutes later, they confirmed there was no problem. Just 'confirmation' and 'thanks for your information.' There is no remorse. No embarrassment for not doing their part to at least do a check. The panic button is overused.

Either way, I myself almost started to pull off my hair. (Almost is the keyword.) I found that I could not drag emails from one folder to another in Outlook! That is like a given. Yes, I could right click and then choose Move to Folder. But I want to drag and drop! Then I found out there are others who experience this problem, some as far back as NT 4.0, so as recent as XP. Then I found out that I could not even drag my desktop icons! Even the touchpad didn't work.

I rebooted. Drag and Drop came back ... for awhile. I rebooted again. It worked again ... for awhile. Then, after frantically searching for solution to no avail and prayers, it worked again, hopefully this time for good.

This is something so simple. Drag and Drop. It was there since the early days of Windows 3.0 (that's the first version of Windows I used.) It has improved a lot since then. It's easy to take it for granted. Only when I temporarily lost it that I started to appreciate it. Lord, thank you for Drag and Drop. Lord, thank you for the people around me.

What if Google is down? Now that's a catastrophe of very big magnitude to this Learner. I don't even want to think about it. Lord, thank God for Google.

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord

"Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:19-21

I received an email 'pointing' out my mistakes. I consulted my boss and decided to just respond with facts. The emails, the documents, etc.

The person wrote back to retract her, err ... 'accusations' and apologized.

Some may mistake the heaping of coals of fire on the enemy's head as God's wrath being poured on the him. It actually means to melt the enemy into repentance just like metal ores melt in fire.

It's not even noon and I have learned a valuable life lesson. Trust Him! Trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not in my own understanding. His way is higher.

We know. We do.

Getting impatient

Dear blog,

I am angry at the attitude of some who wanted everything handed to them on a silver platter. I could appreciate the effort of someone who doesn't know but is willing to learn. But I cannot tolerate someone who uses what he / she doesn't know as an excuse NOT to do work.

I spent two weekends (well, a few hours each Saturdays) helping some people to take short cuts. You see, entering data manually is not something they want to do. I gave ample warning (my boss too) that it will not be 100%. I told them they have to check the data thoroughly before I start with the data migration.

There were errors during migration. But whatever errors there are, instead of correcting them manually using the system, they wanted me to do it because "they are not proficient with the system." The immediate questions that come to my mind include

1. When will they be proficient?
2. How would they use the system if DATA ENTRY is beyond them?
3. If spending two weekends to check data (which they HAVE to do ANYWAY if they enter them manually) is considered their limit, what is MY limit?

I get frustrated when I hear "our assumption", "we expected" and "we thought". Well, you are wrong. But boss didn't want to argue with them. She expected nothing less from them. Too bad I didn't do a super job and save her the trouble of having to deal with them.

I am normally not vindictive. But I am thinking, perhaps I should do this for the nice people in the North. They didn't ask for my help. They didn't even know this could be done. Perhaps, I'd just do it for them just to spite these people.

I can be nasty, huh?

Patience I have little

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. - Ralph W. Sockman

I got the above in my iGoogle starting page.

I normally do my things quickly. There are things I drag my feet on, e.g. terminating the developments water bill account and apply my own. Hey, the previous owner stayed for 16 years without changing it. And the postman told me on Saturday that he delivered more than 100 registered mails to the houses around my area from the same developer. Either way, I will see if I can do it elentronically without having to pay Syabas a visit.

I have quite a bit of work lined up for me. One particular time-consuming and tedious work is pending the input (data) from someone else. They have missed their deadline. This in turn cuts down the time I originally requested to do my portion. And they still have not completed their part. I can still work harder and longer hours to meet MY deadline but I am the teenie weenie bit annoyed. I know, love is not irritable. Still, I could not help why that party could not get their part done in time.

I don't mind people who are genuinely pressed for time and pass me their work late. In this particular case, I just think they are being slow.

I think I am partial to the people I like. There are those from the church who can request my help at the eleventh hour and I will gladly help with joy. There are those however that I will still help but I will talk to them professionally (a matter of factly).

It's the same in the work place. To some, I'll respond immediately. But I will "follow procedure" for others, i.e. send email, get approval from Manager, etc. Some people are just ... tsk tsk tsk. I think God put them here to get under my skin. This is how I learn to be more patient.