I think you’re crazy… Just like me !, originally uploaded by Nas .

They say that learning isn’t like a ramp, but like a step. A leap of faith would be succinct, to put it another way. Because, to be honest, faith isn’t grown, it is learned.

Ever since I started work, something in me has radically departed its core, in search of bold new worlds that may have never existed before. Part of me always wanted to create something worthy. And I thought I could find that in an office.

As much as I tried, I never quite felt as accomplished, which explains why I end up taking too many side projects. I’ve learned to work too much with too many limitations, mostly monetary. A born innovator, I began to remove assumptions one by one…

Assumption: Don’t piss off the boss

Assumption: Don’t piss off your colleagues

Assumption: Don’t do stupid things

Assumption: I need to save face

Assumption: I’m mostly right

Assumption: I can’t afford expensive things

Each time I challenged an assumption, I gained a new learning curve. I learnt how to piss off the boss, how to piss off colleagues, how to do stupid things and get away with it, how to lose face and still manage to survive, how to stay mostly wrong but get to talk about it, and that Alfa Romeo.

Now, why doesn’t anyone tell me that the answers I really want come in the form of random sets of occurrences that come one after the other as though you were suddenly taken up into heaven and got to meet the Son of God himself, and then sent back down to begin life again.

I have a weird admission that it does happen only to people who avail themselves so much that the system cracks at one point in time. I think in physics this is called entropy, but I really don’t know much about it. Something about energy or the lack of it.

But anyway, I fulfilled two big parts of my being by convincing to someone that life really is worth living the way our gut says it should. I think people ignore too much of their gut. I think everyone’s gut isn’t a magic dice. It’s got a lot of potential, and it tells all sorts of things from what clothes to wear to what person we should date.

Sometimes, it tells us to keep going in one direction and never stop even though it may hurt sometimes. THAT’S the part of gut that I think people are avoiding.

I think a lot of people know what it’s like to chase something and get it and be utterly satisfied with the entire experience. I believe ultimately, chasing God has to become that pursuit. But I also believe people chase God in different ways.

Mostly, we all chase God through the purpose in life we believe we have been created to achieve. And I feel that God was the one who put that gut in us that tells us what that purpose is. It gets activated the moment we awaken to consciousness as a toddler, and it doesn’t stop chasing us until we breathe our last breath.

Now, the problem is that, because we already have the impression of chasing something that’s attainable and deeply fulfilling, we continue chasing things that are somewhat off-course, purely for the sake of the chase, instead of obeying our gut. This includes things like chocolate, the new M1 supercar, your very survival, and the fairy godmother.

Because, frankly, at times our gut can only point to things that are faraway and scary and intimidating, and it has no concept of manners or common sense. It just points to something big, and everything is beyond us.

I’ve been learning that my gut has always been right. I’ve screwed up trying to follow it, but my gut has been right all along. In fact, it doesn’t matter if I’ve screwed up or not. It doesn’t matter if I win big while doing it. All it matters is that I obey my gut, and live to tell the story of what happened while obeying it.

And I believe that’s what God placed us here on earth for, sometimes – to tell the story of how we followed our gut, messed up, made some wins, and survived the whole journey to the very end.

Somehow, that’s extremely satisfying, knowing that we have obeyed our gut. I do not know why.

I launched a career-related blog. I’ve decided to come out of the dark that I care a lot about work enough not to do too much of it or too little. While that makes me go crazy, some of it makes sense.

Like, there are so many better ways to run a business, fax a receipt, and so on. So many ways to save time, to communicate, to enjoy it all. And I’ve attempted at least some of them. Some work, some don’t.

The blog is a way for me to share what I’ve learnt so far, from others, from stuff I’ve done. But it’s a good way to get good feedback from others.

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been frustrated at a job. It affects all of us – at different levels and points in time. No job is perfect, but there are jobs that fit better. And we can be true to ourselves and adapt at the same time.

I’ll retain this blog as my personal space, so I can write about stuff that’s totally random. More serious and processed articles at leapwalking.

http://www.leapwalking.com

70/365, originally uploaded by hijukal.

One of my biggest problems is my inability to get things done. It’s a psychological problem – I rely on motivation too much. If I could just take a “robot” pill, it would solve all my problems, at least for the meantime – because I have so many things to do that I don’t want to do. It’s making me go crazy.

This morning, I told myself that the world is not going to end, that there’s still oxygen left in the air, I don’t have to save the world – so let’s just get on with life.

It’s particularly hard because the only person I’m talking to is myself. It’s like I’m affirming to myself that I’m a lunatic. I gave up talking to other people because they (I) live on another planet. Even my wife has resorted to an isolation of continual manga consumption, leaving me to untangle the mess I made for myself. I’m not complaining – it could be worse.

I’m taking a breather this weekend, and escaping to Singapore. I’ll have some free time to myself before meeting my aunt-in-law. I volunteered to help her out with something there, so I decided to take the opportunity to experience a change.

For some people, change is scary. I’m exactly the opposite. Somehow I have a vague notion that change equals comfort. Change is attractive. Change is consistent. Change is necessary.

It doesn’t solve my GTD problems, though.

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I haven’t been in the workforce all that long – at least not as long as my parents have, and they’re still adamant on not retiring so soon. But I don’t think I need to be working for someone else any longer to realize that there’s no such thing as a corporate ladder.

It’s a myth. The only people who believe in it are people who think bosses know what they’re doing and that what they’re doing is the best thing that has been conceived by man.

Ladders are invented by people who need a sense of comfort and belonging, and a simple way to understand how to communicate – up, down, or sideways.

In recent times, it has been increasingly difficult to navigate the ladder, because it has been beaten out of shape by all sorts of powers, mostly consisting of customers.

This is because customers don’t give two hoots about the ladder. All they want is someone to talk to, so that something can get done, and get done well, preferably.

It is extremely frustrating to customers who need to communicate with companies, only to find that they have to navigate this proverbial ladder, beginning from the customer service representative, all the way up to the CEO.

My point is this – if someone at the “CEO level” is present at the customer service center, and someone at the “customer service level” is present at the CEO office, all contributing at equally dynamic positions for the customer, things can be accomplished a lot better.

I am not debunking the fact that there needs to be lines of functional and organizational authority. All I’m saying is that people too often get comforted by its perceived structure.

And as long as this myth persists, customers will continue to suffer.

His Royal Highness, The Duke of York, Prince Andrew graced us with his presence at our office a day before Independence Day. We were told many things regarding protocol, since we didn’t want to look like fools in front of a member of the royal family (especially not one who’s currently 4th in the line of succession).

We were taken aback by his candidness and warm demeanor, since we had absolutely no clue what he would do or say. A lot of us Asians tend to remain very quiet and very important people we’re used to don’t talk much around us peons. But he really is a really nice person, and genuinely keen to know about us and our work.

Things went really well, and I think he got quite a good impression of us. Nice of him to drop by for our Independence.

Happy 50th Merdeka, Malaysia.

*gasp*… closure! Finally!

I hope the functional testing following this is successful. I’m just dying to get my hands off this project already – it’s been too long.

Thank you, GOD!!!

Some tips for folks going through the ordeal:

• choose a test house in the same time zone where you are
• make sure you completely understand and test the signing criteria
• include the appropriate value for “City” in your ACS ID details
• waivers are your friends – use them wisely, and know what you’re getting into
• when in doubt, ditch the emails and make phone calls to the Test Houses, Nokia and Symbian respectively. Be prepared to justify your waiver requests. It will save you lots of time
• make sure to prepare the test house with whatever they need so that the functional testing takes place like a piece of cake
• symbian developers advice count – treat them nice
• keep a backup of the items entered in the online submission forms – it is likely you will enter it more than once
• never underestimate the delays signing can cost – especially if you’re doing it for the first time. Double your most conservative estimation
• Budget appropriately for the testing – have some float prepared, just in case
• Use waivers to save cash and time
• Pay close attention to your source code in the event of a testing failure
• Understand the capabilities you are requesting for
• Be prepared for symbian website downtimes
• Forgive yourself a lot

I wish I was in dream world like this turtle and fish here, but I’m not. Instead, I just got another negative result on yet another round of symbian signing, and it’s really starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The project’s dragged so long, when it’s finally over, I never ever want to hear any part about it. I don’t really care if the customers are happy, sad, or indifferent – I just want it over and done with.

I don’t even want to hear the part that I did a good job, and I don’t care right now whether I did a good job or not. I never want to go through this exercise ever again.

I hate programming on mobile devices – for the plain fact that mobile devices are the most overly-regulated, over-priced, hyped about, underpowered digital convergent things in the world.

We only end up using 10% of what ends up in a mobile device, and 9% goes to making phone calls.

Unfortunately, that piece of software that I’m supposed to help get out of the door is all about that – making calls – except it does it in some special way that gets in the way of some things that symbian makes difficult to get past.

It’s so difficult that you need to go through 5 rounds of signing to discover that you screwed up in singly small areas, one round at a time.

Each round of signing equals the cost of the largest ipod. And payment has become complicated – why pay for so many rounds? And fingerpointing ensues – who foots the bill this time round?

I’m upset and tired and frustrated and I hate Symbian.