Sengaja ditulis dalam bahasa Indonesia supaya tidak malu-maluin nama sendiri…
Dari milis tetangga:
Bila ada kasus seperti ini : belum 5 tahun, tetapi ngotot minta
penghargaan proporsional spt yang kategori 5-10 thn kerja. Dan ini
menyebabkan demo spontan solidaritas dari seluruh karyawan, produksi
berhenti total > 2 jam. Apa yah, kira-kira solusinya?
This is m first writing in the new year, with some suprises of course.
First of all, I got my salary increased..(yeea), and the CEO begged me to stay. It’s the good news. Plus, I’ve got the whole software division under my control.
The bad news is that one of my colleague leaving the company. He got better offer in other company. We’ll miss him much I guess, since he’s very good in his job and has assisted us a lot.
The second bad news (well maybe not so good news) is that this is gonna be the point-of-change year to the company. Starting from this year, our sponsor (MAVCAP - Malaysian Venture Capital) stop injecting funds into the company. As the result, we must get income at very least equal to that we spend (or I can say bye-bye to Malaysia).
From CEO’s plan, we will have very good project that’s enough to fulfill our needs for this year and the next years (Of course, still in plan, and may be changed). Otherwise, the other plan is to sell the company to other owner (with MAVCAP approval of course). The point is, he’s guaranting that this will not be the company’s last year. Pretty impressive for me.
So, my choice is : to stay or not to stay.
Reason to stay:
That’s true. We have so much difficulties to attract talented people (because most of them doesn’t like to work in small company). Plus, with the current human resource, I don’t think the company will survive without me. So, if I stay, work at my best, and make this company big…I could be hero here. It’s my life achievement that I will tell to my kids when I’m old. It’s definitely cannot be measured by money.
I’ve seen and experienced small companies collapsed. But I’ve read thousands small companies become billionaire. Maybe this is my chance to see how small company become billionaire. In the end, even if the company collapsed, I could learn a lot from its experience.
Reason to leave:
I’ve experienced a lot of small companies falling, but I haven’t experience of how to work in stable companies. I’m wondering how do they manage everything, what makes them different from small companies, how do they survive. It’s the point that I lack until this day.
To be a winner, you need to think and act like a winner. That’s my motto.
What it feels like to live in different part of the world ? I’ve experienced two countries, but I want to see more. I don’t know why, I just think that I should do it.
So, which way that I choose ? Until this day, 80% of me choose to stay, the rest choose to leave. Maybe it will change later, when my contract ended this July.
Selain masalah teknis, masalah sepele macam company profile juga penting kl ingin mengerjakan proyek-proyek outsource.
Beberapa bulan lalu, saya disuruh mencari perusahaan Indonesia yang bisa mengerjakan web application berbasis JSP. Saya lempar permintaan itu ke berbagai milis, dan beginilah seleksi yang dilakukan manager saya (bersama saya) :
1) Profil perusahaan A : Expert di java, javascript, php, jsp, rails, perl/CGI, xml, flash, C#, VB.NET, VB, Crystal report, etc..Kesimpulan yang kami ambil :
a) Perusahaan ini penipu (setelah dapat uang trus kabur)
b) Perusahaan ini tipe kontraktor (kl dapat kerjaan pasti dioper ke sub-kontraktor)
c) Kalaupun benar memang bisa semuanya, mutu kerjaannya pasti hancur-hancuran/ asal jadi.
2) Web site perusahaan "under construction", atau cuma HTML page sederhana, atau Mambo/Joomla yang kosong/baru diinstall.
Kami cari web aplication developer. Kl ngembangin website perusahaan sendiri aja ga bisa, gimana bisa ngerjain web application milik kami.
3) Nama team (yang submit ke email saya) dan nama perusahaan di company profile yang diserahkan ga sama
Yang ini 100% ga jelas (hubungan perusahaan itu dengan team ini). Dicurigai sebagai pendompleng nama. Kl dapat kerjaan, mungkin cuma di-subkon-kan ke orang lain (kl dah gini, mutunya lebih susah dipertanggungjawabkan).
4) Nama perusahaan yang ada di portofolio tidak ada di google.
Antara perusahaan "hasil karangan" ato emang dah bangkrut sekarang. Yang jelas, dianggap portofolionya ga ada.
5) Link yang ada di portofolio dah tidak aktif
Verifikasi portofolio jadi susah. Akhirnya dibuang, sambil nunggu penawar berikutnya.
6) Kontak email pake alamat yahoo,gmail,hotmail,etc
Nggak dilihat sama sekali. Langsung masuk kotak sampah.
Selain penawar dari Indonesia, kami juga dapat penawar dari Singapore, dan langsung masuk dalam kategori "yang akan diseriusi". Inilah bedanya :
1) Menjelaskan personel strength yang ada dalam team. Contoh :
- Mr X, Position : Team Leader, Master of YYY from Nanyang Univ, 8-years experience in IBM SEA, Oracle DBA Certificate holder, expert in web app with distributed database, etc etc.
- Mr Y, Position ; Security Analist, Master of YYY from NTU, 5-years experience in HHHH Bank, RedHat certificate holder, CCNA certificate holder, etc etc
2) Menjelaskan dengan detil apa yang dikerjakan dalam portofolionya. Contoh :
- Modul X untuk perusahaan Y
Problem yang dihadapi persh Y : bla bla bla
Solusi yang ditawarkan team : bla bla bla <menjelaskan konsep solusi yang ditawarkan>
Perbandingan perusahaan Y sebelum dan sesudah menggunakan modul X <dilengkapi grafik, beberapa foto, etc>
3) Website perusahaan : keren
Kelihatan sebagai team yang bonafide.
4) Semua portofolio dapat diakses via internet (ataupun via foto-foto/gambar di company profile-nya).
5) Panjang company profilenya ga lebih dari 3 lembar =)
Semoga bisa menjadi inspirasi bagi yang mo cari kerjaan outsourcing
Ok. I dreamt about it when I was 4, now, at 26 I built it..my first
robot. Well, it’s not the kind of high tech robot (not even better than
ordinary toys that people sell), but at least it has some sort of
mechanism to avoid the walls/obstacles.
Here’s the beetle bot in action :
The whole idea was grabbed from this site : GoRobot
There’s always been the first time for everyone in love. For me, it was this name that I hardly forget : Evie Farica Gunawan.
It was my first year in junior high, in my first 7-days in new school where I spotted this beautiful girl. It was a rule in old Indonesia to have "Penataran P4" for every new students. Everyday, for a week, they would send you to sit back and listen about how greatful Pancasila is, along with other bullshit and so on. So, I was always sat in the back row (since my class was 1-D), and saw this pretty girl always sat couple row in front of me (she was in 1-B). For almost a week, there was nothing that impressed me more than her. She made the whole boring "Penataran P4" sessions far more interesting.
Anyway, I did what a man supposely did: getting her name, class, and telephone number….at any cost. It was combination of nervous, afraid being rejected and humiliated, and also hope. You know, first time is the hardest time. So, I did it. In the end of the week, there was a sport clothes distribution. Every new students should line up, with their card to get the sport clothes (it was an uniform, to be weared during sport classes). I waited, not to be in the queue, until she came. Then, just a few steps before she joined in, I joined the queue. By that way, I was right in front of her in the queue (Nice trick huh ?). I forgot about what I was saying for the first time, but I remembered that she came with other 3-girls (Ria-bebek, Amelia, …and the other one I forgot). So, I had to wait a bit longer (because the girls was busy chatting each others), before I could say something to her.
The topic that I was talked to her was "how slow the queue was", and "what was her class, so I could help her pick the correct queue line", and later : "What’s your name ?" (It’s called tactics..To make it not to obvious that I want to know her name).
So, that was the good start, but it didn’t work well afterwards. Let’s just say that I had a lot of identity crisis during my teen. So, I never came up to say my feelings to her. But I sent her christmast cards, valentine cards, birthday cards. Also, called her (hey..that was my first telephone to woman that I like). I always found strange reasons to call her. I don’t know whether she knew it or not =)
The most dissapointing part of my first love story was my friend said that she tore up all of my letters/cards, and hated me. I never knew the reason, and I didn’t have courage to ask her personally. So, that’s ended my relationship with her. Eventhough, in the last year in the high school, we’re in the same class, I never have courage to rebuild relationship with her.
But that’s not the end of this story. Around 3-years ago, during the early friendster days, I found out her email address. Thus, using MSN, she contacted me and cleared up the things that was happenned in junior high. I found out that my friend was actually lied to me. She never hated me, and absolutely never ever tore up my letters and cards. She kept it save in her personal box =)
I’m writing this because I heard that she’s going to marry soon, and I’m so jealous with the guy that she choose =) You’re a truly lucky man, bro. I hope both of you live happily ever after.
Moral story for the others : if you’re rejected, ask the reason
Teman kerja gw bertanya pada gw : "Kenapa orang Indonesia begitu benci dengan Malaysia ?", sambil menunjukkan slogan "Ganyang Malaysia" di monitornya..Waktu itu si gw jawab sekedarnya.
Tapi lama-kelamaan gw mikir juga, kayanya bullying orang emang sudah jadi kebiasaan orang Indonesia. Dulu waktu jaman Suharto, yang paling sering di-bullying adalah orang tionghoa. Sekarang, zaman berubah, yang muslim nge-bullying muslim lain, partai yang lain nge-bulliying partai lain, dan, yang paling baru : nge-bullying warga negara lain (Denmark, Australia, US, Malaysia)…Hmmm…emang bener-bener heboh negara kita.
Kayanya kebiasaan itu harus kita ubah. Bullying adalah tipe prejudice, menyamaratakan semua orang berdasarkan apa yang didengar dari orang lain. Contohnya : wanita dengan pakaian seksi adalah pelacur. WN negara X bangsat semua. Orang keturunan ini hobinya merampok kekayaan negara, dsb, dsb..
Kl gitu caranya, kapan kita bisa menunjukkan bahwa kita adalah bangsa yang bermartabat ? Bangsa yang bermartabat mampu menghargai orang lain, terlepas dari suku / agama /ras / kebangsaan mereka. Selama kita tidak bisa menghargai orang lain, jangan heran kl dunia memandang rendah bangsa kita : bangsa kita masih primordial, primitif, sebangsa manusia gua, dsb dsb.
Kl memang masalahnya adalah paten tempe, kenapa tidak selesaikan dengan hukum ? Kl masalahnya adalah batas wilayah, selesaikan di makamah internasional. Kl masalahnya cuma hak cipta lagu, kenapa tidak kita diskusikan bersama ?
Ada banyak cara untuk menunjukkan bahwa kita adalah bangsa yang hebat, tanpa harus merendahkan bangsa lain.
This is the story of my friend about the my company’s previous CEO games. Currently, I am working in the start-up company in KL, Malaysia. During 4-months in this company, I’ve seen massive changes both in upper management and the working engineers.
In the beginning, the founder of this company invited venture capital to fund the start-up. They (it was two of them that had the idea of this kind of company) were engineers, good one, but with not so good marketing network.
After the company run for several years, they felt that the venture capitalist were taking too much of them. They were the one who was working very hard, but in the end most of the shares was within the venture capitalist. So, they did some tricks to make the things fair for them.
They took the money that belongs to the start-up company (the venture capitalist’s money) to fund new company (Note: I would categorized that as stealing the venture capitalist’s money). The new company was sharing the start-up company’s resource (including the engineers, tools, etc). So, there was two company inside the start-up company. One of them was secretly registered in Singapore (owned by them), while the other one registered in Malaysia and owned by the venture capitalist.
The problem was the Singapore’s company didn’t run very well, and there was nobody that was running the Malaysian company. So, the money was spent for nothing. Then, the venture capitalist found out their game.
As the result, the venture capitalist hold their money. The company stucked, with the engineers’ salary unpaid. They wanted to procede the case to the court, but one of the founder promised that they would pay back the money.
So, for about 3-months, there was no payment for the engineers. Everyone grumbled, but they couldn’t do anything. After 3-months, once they got their salary, they run from the company =)
How about the CEO’s fate ? Well, his friend was kicked out, and he was de-promoted into CTO. The new CEO comes from one of venture capitalist’s friend. But I think, the new CEO push him a lot, until he finally left the company.
This will violate my asian commitment of not talking about one’s bad side. But, this might be an example of how not to be a boss, that’s being hated by your employee.
I was working somewhere in Bali, for an outsourcing company. My boss was the one who got the deal with U.S. based company. So, he led the team, but the contract was not the only thing that my boss got. He built another company, using the money that he got from the contract (which was legal, since it was his own money share).
He’s a good guy. It’s true. But I didn’t like what he did on my team. My boss seemed like being attached too much to the other team. He spent so much effort (time and money) to the team that was built on the money that he got from my team.
He was rarely be on my team as the leader, which was suppose to be his job (he was paid to do that). He’s only job was come in the morning, checked emails, and distributed the jobs to the rest of the team. After that, he was gone until evening. In the evening, he would come to the office to gather my team’s work.
I never mind with that. The thing that bothers me is that he never thought about the team’s future. He was simply didn’t care. I’ve been asking about this several times (and the rest of the team did the same thing too) during my two-years career there.
He’s answer was simple :
I tried to play along with his game. During my years in the company, I proposed several alternatives to move the company. I’ve even contacted his boss in U.S. about my plans. The result was : BIG ZERO..All of my plans rejected, both from U.S. and him.
At the end, I felt like being cheated. I was the one who’s working very hard in the team, but other than salary, I have nothing at all. I did the same boring job years, with excellency, in hope that I can help the team achieve success. Yet, if the contract was terminated, I was the one who sufferred much.
As conclusion, the team was not worth fighthing for. My efforts was gone in vain. It wouldn’t matter whether I could do more than this or not, the fact was my boss (and the upper management) didn’t want to make the team success..So, how could I make the team successful ???
You know, I’ve been working very hard for the last 4-months. I don’t care whether my company is start-up or not, whether it will end tomorrow or not. I only know that I have to be successful. It’s the only reason why I left everything back home.
I didn’t think that someone would notice this, but my boss did. He called me and said this : "We need new engineer here, preferably the one that comes from your faculty. Do you know someone that’s willing to work here ?"..
Wow..Think of that. My boss, Iranian nationality, barely know Indonesia. I bet he didn’t know whether my university/faculty was good or not. But, yet, he asked me : "preferably from your faculty"..How about that ??
I’m flatterred. For me, it’s a sign that I did a great job here. And he’s assumming that my almamater’s faculty produces good quality engineers, so he asked for more =).
Well, if you come from my faculty, don’t dissapoint me guys =) I know you can do better than me.
After some talk at lunch yesterday, I agree with my colleague, I don’t think with this kind of condition WP (wireless-people) would last for long time. Or should I say, this is most likely to be my first year and the last one in Malaysia. Too pesimistic though, at least it’s too early to say so. But we should always prepare for the worst.
So the next question was : what would you do if WP failed ? My colleague looked like had a plan already. He said he wanted to open up new company selling and design embedded PC for industrial application. He’s been working on his ARM boards for at least this two months, I think.
But, I’ve been there. I was thinking the same questions before : if I could make cheaper embedded PC, would it lead to my company’s success ? I guess not. Since the OLPC boom, most of board producers are making smaller PCs for multimedia applications or OLPC compatible (If I’m not mistaken, the jargon is UMPC/Ultra Mobile PC..such as Via’s NanoBook). It’s going to be a price war soon. Besides, since 32-bits PCs are easier to design than ever before, what’s the barrier that I can use to block other competitors ?
So, here I am again, with empty minds looking the way that I should follow.
Actually, I still have some crazy ideas in my head. But I’m not sure whether I can live with it or not. Here’s some of them :
The problem is these area is not mine. I’m more familiar with real-time systems than programming moving animation(though I admit that it’s quite interesting challenge).
This one looks promising, but it’s far from what I have now.
3) Fleet management
Interesting, since there’s a lot of Indonesian company that works in goods distribution area. But the players in this field are mature enough to kick new competitors.
Recent ideas that I got. Haven’t explore it yet. The interesting point is that every company (manufacturing / design) always need it. But instrumentation is very wide. There’s electronic area (oscilloscope/logic analyzer), computer network area, industrial area or …. bio-technology area (if it’s sound crazy enough..well it’s me anyway).
So, what instrumentation do these people in bio-tech use anyway ?
