Sand and Pebbles Travelogue - Reflections of Life

Process of reform within any organization - be it small or large – is a continuous process to ensure the organization’s continued relevance, efficiency and effectiveness. As such, the proposal mooted by PM Dato’ Seri Najib Razak should be looked welcomed by the civil service to ensure continuous efficient delivery system to the public. In implementing the proposal, however, government needs to look at the issue comprehensively and not solely on the ability or capability of officers only. There are other contributing factors that determine the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness such as the operating guidelines or procedures. Interdepartmental rivalry issues need to be reined in to ensure that policies and its implementation are supportive of national interests and not merely any particular department’s interest. There have been too many instances where certain programs introduced by departments had negated the overall national agenda..

The ongoing global financial and economic crisis is perhaps a blessing especially to the developing and under-developed countries. It helps to bring to the fore the many anomalies existing in the world economies under the pretext of globalization. The call for globalization which was primarily aimed at bringing equal opportunities for all to compete has not sincerely been true to the letter when it comes to the actual implementation. In reality it merely another form of power wielding instruments by the powerful economies on the poor struggling economies. What we have seen over the years is that the concept of the "global economy" is very often an exaggerated one, generating confusion and negative political consequences to the less developed economies..

Wish to share two interesting news that I came across while browsing the internet. It may be laughable but it is true.

i. Bus Driver Sacked for Saving Frog [As reported in Austrian Times]

French bus driver has been told to hop it by her German bosses - after stopping her double-decker bus to rescue a frog in the road. Astonished Christina Pommerel, 46, had been working for the RBO bus company in Regensburg, Germany for 13 years before she was sacked from her 1,300 GBP-a-month job.

"One of the bus passengers complained to the management. They told me I should have squashed the frog and not stopped. When I said I couldn't do that I was fired," said Christina. "It was in the middle of the road so I slowed down and put on the hazard flashers. Then I climbed out and put the frog in a box so I could take it to the side of the road and let it free.

"Then I got back on the Number Five bus and carried on with the journey and pretty much forgot about the incident until the management said they'd had a complaint," she added.

ii. Russian Doctors Find Tree Growing in Man's Lung [As reported in Novosti]

Surgeons in Russia's Urals Region were staggered to find a 5-centimeter high spruce growing inside a man's lung, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported on Monday. The discovery was made while Artyom Sidorkin, 28, from the Urals city of Izhevsk, was undergoing surgery.

Sidorkin had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood, doctors suspected cancer. "I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," Izhevsk surgeon Vladimir Kamashev told the paper. Medical staff believe Sidorkin had somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted inside his lung. The spruce, which was touching the man's capillaries and causing severe pain, was removed.

"It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me," Sidorkin said

Follow-up to my earlier posting entitled Juvenile Delinquency, I came across an interesting decision by the government of Syria in relation to mitigating the rising problem of indiscipline especially among school going children. It was announced that the government will be taking actions against parents of misbehaving children. The full report available here.

In relation to that, Malaysia may perhaps look into introducing such actions in order to address the rise of crimes such as murder, rape, robbery and theft among school going children. The parents could not just passed the problem to others. They have to take full responsibility on their child upbringing.

It is going to be a serious social problem to the country in the future if not appropriately addressed now!

There are always time that we need a boost in life and we go around browsing at book stores available near us looking for “Self Improvement” books on the bookshelves which are now aplenty. Most bookstores have now special shelves marked for such books and it makes browsing a lot easier though not on the pocket. There are also times when we look for memoirs or autobiographies of personalities to read and hopefully emulate their successful life. A strong believer that learning is a lifelong process that never ends until the last breath of air, I too picks up the habit of reading whatever that I could lay my hands on. And as mentioned above, I too go around looking for self improvement books and memoirs when I'm in a bookstore (off and on} with the hope of improving myself and to be a better person. But lately, since blogging and the availability of resources, I generally tend to browse the websites for such related topics. Hence, the reason why I put the widget “Words of Wisdom” in my blog to keep on reminding me of things that I could easily follow to further improve myself in this competitive world besides primarily aimed at making me a better person.