Apa Cerita? Any Stories?

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Last year in Miri, 2 kids were found lying unconscious after bouts of glue-sniffing near a rubbish dump with cans of tyre glue next to them. If those kids were to survive, it would not be long before they upgrade themselves to using stronger drugs like heroin as well as synthetic drugs when they get older.

Glue addiction are detrimental to health as it could lead to brain damage which could be fatal and even failure of the kidneys and liver. The cause of those devastating effect are simple. Glue contains substances like toluena or trichloroethylene, a type of toxin which affects the brain function as well as the heart. If they are lucky and not dead then they might develop memory loss, psychosis and paralysis. They might as well be dead than to suffer those side-effect and not to mention the agony of their loved ones.

According to a research, most of those drawn to glue-sniffing were children aged 11 and 12 who had yet to even try cigarette smoking and due to their addiction to glue-sniffing, they tend to lose interest in their studies which will lead to skipping schools before getting involved in other unhealthy activities, like stealing. It is said social problems and stress were the main causes of children and even adults adopting glue-sniffing.

Unfortunately, legal action cannot be taken against juveniles for glue-sniffing, unlike those caught for drug addiction, pushing or trafficking. The reason being that glue is not a controlled item and is used in our daily life. Authorities such as police could only bring those caught for glue-sniffing to the stations and then would contact their parents, who would take them home.

Coming back to the children playground, the guards employed by the resident association are powerless in dealing with those kids. They tried chasing away those kids but to no avail. It appears that when "high", they are not afraid of anything and might easily resort to violence if provoked. The only action to take is to call the police (there is a beat less than 100 meters away) to take them away albeit temporarily before sooner or later they'll find another fixing spot.

Dear parents, please monitor your children and do know their activities. Do not put the blame squarely on other people if they are caught doing such bad activities. Spend time with them as frequently as you could. To muslim parents, this is the month where the kids are almost free to roam the streets at night because we are at the mosque praying. Its good to trust them but it never hurts for once in awhile to do spot checks on them.

So this shows that we have so much to do than just arguing about who's the next PM to be or probing why the PM exchanges portfolio with his deputy. Why are the MP's busy flying to Taiwan when they haven't deal with this pressing issues at hand and at times arguing some stupid things in Parliament? If the men in power can't do anything to solve those problems, it is up to us now to get things right. So let's re-adjust our priorities and try to make our country a better place for our kids.

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What a joke we must have been to the world. At a time where we should focus on strengthening our economy to fight the global recession, we are drawn into individual’s power struggle that is affecting the nation.

The tussle for power evidently let to the foolishness of several leaders saying things that could lead to racial sentiments all in the cause for party victory. Media in desperation to gain more readership and circulation put petrol into the fire by carrying the story over and over again. Journalists should know their roles and responsibilities before typing away such sensitive stories excessively.

Why let one stupid leader foul mouth gets to us? I do admit that the slow action and lack of punishment clearly showed how weak our leadership is at the moment and by using ISA makes it even weaker.

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

Please don’t let ourselves being drawn into their childish fights. We are all Malaysians regardless of race or religion. We have lived harmoniously all these years except for that one black day in our history.

My son’s hero today is Lee Chong Wei. They don’t care if he’s Malay, Chinese or Indian. All they care is that he’s a Malaysian who has made our nation proud at the Olympic. As a motorsports fan, I was delighted for Karamjit Singh when he became APRC champion and when Alex Yoong clinched race victory in A1GP. We may not have the same race or religion but we have one thing in common, we are Malaysians.

Honestly, that is all the news that I wanted to read everyday, great achievements that would unites us as Malaysians.

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Interviewer asked you a question when suddenly you experience a non-responsive brain moment or in other word, you froze.

You were in the midst of an interview when your Ricky Martin "She Bangs, She Bangs" ringtone undiscreetly broke its silence. All eyes are on you while you scrambled to turn your mobile phone off. Apparently, you had forgotten to do it before entering the interview room.

You set vibrate mode for your mobile phone. While you were busy answering their questions, your mobile phone starts to vibrate in your pants. While trying to act professional, you discreetly tried to find the magical off button.

You were responding to their questions when you noticed that they did not maintain eye to eye contact but instead were busy scribbling away at their note sheet.

You noticed that the interviewers kept looking at their watch as if they were in a hurry or simply timing your answers. Either one is not a good sign.

You were 10-15 minutes into the interview session when another interviewer conveniently came in and you had to start all over again.

Your scheduled interview is at 10.00am. You had arrived early so that you can recompose and relax. Time passes by and it is now 10.30am and no sign of you getting called in. Front desk was telling you it might be awhile longer as the person supposed to do the interview is attending a meeting.

You really wanted the job so bad and you were trying hard to impress. Nervousness kicks in and suddenly you feel the urge to go to the loo. The golden question is, do you hold or suffer an incontinence label later?

9. Stupid Questions

10. Annoying Figure

11. Lack of Privacy

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The recent “squatters” issue that has been dominating the headlines would not have happened if the people involved are true leaders. Leadership skills can be taught and learned but having vision cannot be taught. Vision is essential for any true leaders because it isn’t just about leading people; it is also about uniting people.

Lack or blurred vision causes leaders to do the unthinkable things that would jeopardize the whole concept of leading. Nations goes to war not just because of their leaders ego but because their leaders visions are out of focus. Reality is that this blurred vision is an epidemic waiting to infect the whole community. Uncontrolled, it would mean disasters looming in the background.

Admit it; we are all guilty of racism in some time of our lives. We tend to be racist when we have lack of knowledge and relationship. This behavior is considered normal. It is abnormal when we cried racism to gain support or mislead the people. Leader’s personal vendetta using racist chants is just simply primal behavior.

Imagine if the President of United States publicly call on all citizens to not vote for Obama because he is black. What would happen? The nation will be divided and unwanted incidents will take place. The weight of a leader’s words is heavy indeed.

Being a leader is about putting the interest of the people first. Waging a fight that disrupts the existing harmonious of the people is not a befitting quality for a leader. Somewhere along the path to the top, these leaders had lost their focus of “working for the rakyat” but instead found the path of “using the rakyat”.

During elections, these vying leaders came knocking your door, shaking your hands, promised you of a good life once they are elected. After the elections, you came knocking their doors, kissing their hands and begging for a piece of a good life.

Don’t solely put the blame on him. We are the ones laying the red carpet for him. We are the ones elevating his position. We are the ones calling him with titles that cannot be use in the grave. We are guilty of not taking the appropriate actions when it matters and now we have to suffer for it. If we don’t act now, forever we will be the servant to the lords of the ring.

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It is still in development stage but it could soon be on its way to those rich people's bathrooms. Source [+]

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Big words indeed but those words perfectly sum up the definition of leadership. A great leader is one who is able to anticipate the future, establish clear visions, communicates goals, sets and provides the values of excellence, balancing conflicts, eliminates boundaries and motivates the masses

I have and you too have seen many styles of leadership. There is one golden rule of leadership, which is there are no superlative styles. True leaders practice a combination of leadership styles depending on the situations.

There are numbers of leadership styles as we have learnt in any business books. Let us refresh our memories to what some of them are;

Autocratic style leadership
The leader centralizes authority and allows limited participation by others. Demands full power over decision making.

Participative of democratic style leadership
Substantial participation from others in decision making process and allows freedom to communicate.

Free rein/free-run style leadership
Leader is passive and allows freedom to its members to establish their own goals and make their own decisions.

Bureaucratic style of leadership
Leader is rule centered. Rules and specific procedures are set to administer the conduct of subordinates for work performance.

Delegative style of leadership
Leader transfers decision making power to others, but remains responsible for their decisions.

By combining some of the styles, leaders are able to effectively coaxed subordinates to higher performance. Some situation would even conjure more pressing styles or using styles tailored to any subordinates individuality.

Scholl, R. W. believes that leadership styles are determined by two theories, cognitive choice theory and the personality theory. The cognitive choice theory states that the leader actively chooses the leadership style that will be most effective in increasing employee performance, while the personality theory states that the leadership style happens naturally based on the leader’s personality.

Great leaders apply leadership styles that are determined by combination of both theories. By deliberately choosing the suitable leadership style based on the situation and combined with using the leadership style that is most comfortable for the leader’s personality, most likely will lead to an effective leadership. Therefore, interpreting both theories to determine which style or styles to use at a given scenario will be the best course of action to become an effective leader

While natural leaders are born, great leaders are nurtured to become one. If we want to succeed as leaders, we need to surround ourselves with smarter people, be fair and open-minded, rejects personal gain and learn to trust and empower our subordinates to maximize their potential. In order to move to a greater height, groom a successor to take over your job.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch is a big believer in building internal succession plans. In his 2001 book, he wrote of choosing his successor, "Making the pick was not only the most important decision of my career, it was the most difficult and agonizing one I ever had to make. For at least a year, it was often the first thing I thought about each morning and the last thing on my mind at night.” He took over six years to groom a successor from a handful of clear finalists before he finally retires. Being a good leader is hard; being a great leader is even harder.

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