Start Up My Own Biz

Hi, ladies and gentlemen, I've started my own business. You must be wondering what kind of biz that I had ventured in, right? Scroll down :P

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I was driving along this road this morning and saw this signboard.
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I got down from my car to take a closer shot.

Guys, you're welcome to drop by my shop to find your DIY things.
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WTF!!!!... LOL.. Some fella with the initial "LKK" (same as mine) has just started a new business.

08.08.08

08.08.08

Salary Survey - Due for a Pay Rise

Got it from the Jobstreet.com Malaysia:

A typical Manager with a Professional Degree in Finance/Accountancy/Banking,

• working in Malaysia
• specializing in Finance - General/Cost Accounting
  

earns an average salary of RM5,650.00. Others would earn between RM4,600.00 and M7,050.00 (Bottom 25% and Top 25%).

I don't feel like waking up and going to work tomorrow :(

So, looking forward for a pay rise? Read below for tips ^_^

• Be persuasive: Keep on asking for a pay rise until your Boss could not stand it anymore.

• Aim high, and be realistic: Stand in front of a big mirror and tell yourself that you’ll get a pay rise one day. Do this consistently without fail.

• Start off with the right tone: Preferable using a strong tone and/or give threats (e.g. will resign if you don’t increase my pay). How your Boss is going to notice if you start off with a soft one? If you are a girl, maybe, try to be bitchy a bit lor.

• Clarify your interests: Tell your Boss straight away that you are only interested in the compensation package and other valuables (e.g. flexi working hours) rather than producing results.

• Create several options: Joint brainstorming on the type of compensation packages.

• Focus on objective criteria: No money no talk, as simple as that’s.

• Think through your alternatives: In case you cannot persuade your boss to say yes, you need to have a plan B to satisfy your interests. RESIGN or TRANSFER?

• Prepare thoughtfully to achieve your goals: You have to invest a significant amount of your time and energy in asking for a pay rise.

• Review to learn: The only way you can really improve your ability to negotiate is to explicitly learn from your experiences. No pain no gain mah.

PRACTICE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

But, make sure your Boss is not Mr. Trumph kind of Boss or else.....

Your Own Risk Management

Risk Management - I'm sure everyone is familiar with this term. Some of us may have involved, direct or indirectly, in designing or defining risk management for your Company or work area.

Risk management is defined as a structured approach to managing uncertainty related to a threat or danger, a sequence of human activities including: risk assessment, strategies development to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources.

The strategies include transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk (by going out less? hah hah), reducing the negative effect of the risk (pay less so to speak), and accepting some or all (why bother to manage the risk then?) of the consequences of a particular risk.

True Stories

3 of my fellow colleagues having a common problem about their parent, ie either their dad, mom or both, had been admitted to hospital. And August is not a good month according to the Chinese calendar.

I'm not going to name them....
Colleague A - His dad was admitted to hospital due to heart compilation. He's going back to Kuantan almost every weekend for the past few weeks. He was on EL today for two days. Don't worry, it's not a bad news.

Colleague B - Her mom, quite old already, having some breathing difficulty and currently lying on the hospital bed as well.

Colleague C - She's the most unlucky ones. Both her parents were admitted to hospital. Her mom was admitted for few days for some operation (due to?? sorry, forgot!!!) and had been discharged already. Yesterday, her dad was admitted to Ampang Puteri due to stroke and .... also forgot =( But she did mention that it was serious and not sure for how long her dad is going to stay at the hospital. Before she left the office this evening, she told me that she need to take time-off tomorrow to withdraw some $$$ from her EPF account to pay for her parents medical charges, close to RM50k!!! No joke!!!

And my friend, Grace Lee, is facing the same problem as well. Read here....


With medical cost on the rise, have you done your own risk assessment? I have run through mine:

1. Motor insurance - Just renewed!! I wanted to insure it for flood disaster for another extra Rm90. But when I think about it, what's the changes of getting it, right? :P By the way, going to claim the RM600 rebate soon.
   
2. Motor assist membership - Just renewed!!
3. Life insurance with critical illness & disability - Checked!!
4. Personal accident with medical insurance - Checked!! But going to expire soon in Oct'08. Got to look for new company already. wtf man... Don't ask me why.
   
5. Credit cards shield - Forget about it. Just clear your debts every month or cut down your spending with the plastic cards.
6. House fire insurance - ??? Shit!!! Have you seen a banker rejecting your business (they have their panel of insurance co). My banker is refusing to renew my house fire insurance. Reason? My apartment's management office had it insured on my behalf. wtf, if I want to buy extra policy, that's my problem lah. Why rejecting my renewal premium? I'm really confused now. Why? My management office said "House owners are supposed to insure their house". On the other hand, my banker said "My management office had insured it on our behalf". Who's to trust? Going to shop again lor.
   
7. Term life insurance - ??? Thinking to buy it soon.
8. Burglary insurance - ??? My house?? Go and find other areas lah.
9. MRTA - ??? naahh... How about life insurance? I have two policies.
   
10. Will - ???
    
11. Personal liability insurance - ??? Who's the f88k want to sue me?
12. What else?
    

Please!!! Go through your list!!!

NUFFNANG Gift Ideas Contest - I'm in!!!

I’ve been thinking about whether want to join this NUFFNANG Gift Ideas Contest for a while. I’m new to NUFFNANG and world of blogging.

Since I’m not going to lose anything, why not give it a try. All I need to do is to select a gift from the Realmart Online Merchandise Store and give it to a fellow Nuffnanger.

NUFFNANG Gift Ideas Contest is pretty easy. All you need to do is to follow the following steps:

First – Knows your recipient.

I’ve selected Avatar to become the man of the day. He will receive my gift from the Realmart Online Merchandise Store. Hurray!!!!

Second – Pick a Gift

I need to pick a gift from Realmart Online Merchandise Store and it’s really a coooool site. You can find all sorts of things inside there. From bags, leather, health and beauty, games, home appliances, IT gadgets…… it’s a long list. Why not give it a visit, who knows, you might find your “dream items” inside there.

No worry, all major credit cards are accepted!!! If you have a Real Rewards points, you can redeem the points for a cheaper price. WoW!!!!

I picked a gift from the IT gadget section, the Philips Xenium 9@9z comes with Celcom Xpax SIM Pack worth RM10 (RM5 Air Time).

Third – Blog about it

I want to give Avatar the Philips Xenium 9@9z comes with Celcom Xpax SIM Pack worth RM10 (RM5 Air Time) from the Realmart Online Merchandise Store because Avatar does not own any mobile phone!!! You don’t believe me? TRUST ME!!!

Since we left college, my buddies and I stay connected with Avatar only via email. So, it’s difficult to contact Avatar especially on weekend if we want to come out for a gathering in a very short notice. What we usually to do is to arrange the gathering before hand and to make sure the invitation email is being sent out to Avatar before the end of working hours on Friday!

Who’s Avatar? Avatar is our “Investments & Financial Guru” and the next up and coming philosopher… hah hah

I find this Philips Xenium 9@9z is a cool phone and Avatar will find it very useful too.

• Brilliant 65K color main display
• High quality FM radio (Avatar could stay in touch with the market news)
• Up to 8 hours of talktime (hah hah… I can chat with Avatar on what are the hot stocks of the day)
• Polyphonic ringers
• Convenience call management (Call counter, call waiting, Caller ID, etc)
• For more other cool specifications, please to go to Realmart Online Merchandise Store!!!

Avatar, I have reserved a slot in my mobile phone’s contact to add in your new and free Celcom Xpax number.

You may ask why I chose this not so expensive, Philips Xenium 9@9z comes with Celcom Xpax SIM Pack worth RM10 (RM5 Air Time), mobile phone? Well, I listen to Avatar’s My Money advises, we must save our $$$$.... hah hah.

So Avatar, let’s pray hard that I could win the NUFFNANG Gift Ideas Contest! One more thing, the contest will end on 5 August 2008. So better be hurry if you want to join!

XBRL for Financial Data & Extra Income $$$

There is a language that is commonly used in the business and financial reporting. Some of you may have already heard of XBRL. It's a language for the electronic communication.

It provides major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data.

XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language and is already in use for more than 10 years.

XBRL is a member of the family of languages based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), which is a standard for the electronic exchange of data between businesses and on the internet. I’ve been exposed to XML language in my work just that I don't bothered to find out more about it. Now, at least, I have some basic understanding of it :P

If, and only if, you want to find out more details on XBRL, please visit it's official website: http://www.xbrl.org/Home/

XBRL is useful for consumers of financial data eg investors, analysts, financial institutions and regulators - can receive, find, compare and analyse data much more rapidly and efficiently.

An example of XBRL

This is a small example of XBRL -- intended for reading by computers, not humans.


With the proper tools, it will convert the above XBRL data into human readable form.

Regulators and XBRL

By introducing XBRL for reporting, regulators and other authorities can:

• Obtain data which can be entered automatically into systems without rekeying, reformatting or other "translation" effort.
• Dramatically reduce costs by automating routine tasks.
• Quickly and automatically identify problems with filings.
• Analyse and compare data much more quickly, efficiently and reliably.
• Monitor data and activities and reach judgements with far greater speed and confidence.
• Promote efficiencies and cost savings throughout the regulatory filing process.

Pick our neighbour for example. The Accounting & Corporate Regulatory Authority Singapore (ACRA) has made it compulsory for all the incorporated companies in Singapore to submit their audited financial statement for financial year beginning from 1 January 2007 in partial or full XBRL format (ACRA introduced XBRL in 2006). I'm not sure what's the different. I'm still awaiting for further details from the Corporate Secretarial company.

There is a guide on the XBRL submission, please visit ACRA’s website: http://www.acra.gov.sg/

Back home, this is a good news for those who provide the Corporate Secretarial services, you can increase your fee income in the future by assisting those incorporated companies to file it's audited financial statements in XBRL format, should the regulator implements it. However, very likely that most of the companies would to do it on their own to save cost mah (this what my company is doing...hah hah). But we still have other smaller companies where they may not have the resources, e.g. finance executives, to do it. You guys can charge a hundred or two, I think.

Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM), where are you now?

It's getting smaller and lighter

I have too many things need to be upgraded. My car, my laptop and my pay as well :P

Only God knows for how long I have been using this "Dinosaur".

The specs? wtf...
Processor = PIII
RAM = 384MB

I've tried to upgrade it's RAM by another 128MB but many of the PC stores are no longer selling those older Sodimm ram. They are selling DDR ram now. But I managed to upgrade once, a 256MB, last year. Probably, that is the last piece of Sodimm ram they have in their stocks. I've since given up hope for upgrading the RAM and just live with it lor.

People nowadays are talking about lightest and thinnest notebooks. I wish I could own it.


Getting smaller in size... waahhhh....



By the way, Mimos is now ready to licence the production of the Malaysian computer codenamed Mak Cik, which it took two years to develop. The laptop and PC are named after the Prime Minister and his wife ie i-Dola and Jean-i. WTF!!!! Why they want to name after them? And these things are very cheap only cost RM1,000 (S$420) and RM500 (S$210) for the laptop and PC respectively.

Where I am now? Are we talking about Core 2 Duo LV series? wtf....