I arrived at the office early most of the working days. I make it a habit to be early half an hour before office starts. Usually it will be between 7.25 and 7.35 during the normal working days but for the whole month of Ramadhan, I opted to c lock-in at 7.30 and leave the office at 4.30. So half an hour early on both ends. Since the beginning of the Ramadhan months I use to arrive between 7.10 and 7.20 to clock in and has been the first to arrive and like a security guard has to open the office door and locks. It doesn't matter to me. At least I am doing some good deeds to my friends at the beginning of the day. I remember during my scout days, we use to tie a reef knot with both tips of our scarves which reminds us that good has not been done yet on that day. But whatever it is I am making it a habit to be early and arrive before time. Its my philosophy that "Let me wait for others and not the others wait for me."
As soon a I sit at my table, I will set up my netbook for work. My desktop computer was not accessible for about one year already. I made a complain and the technician from the IT Department came an took my hardisk but has not return them until today. Maybe they are sending the disk to forensic department to check whether I have been surfing porn during office hours. Hahahaha.........
I've been using my personal netbook for my official office work at the office or whenever I go for outstation assignments. The government policy is, never mind you use your own property for official tasks, but it is illegal to use governments property for your personal interest. Shit. The same thing goes if the government oves you money, you will have to wait just like waiting for the durian to be ripe enough and fall down but if you owe them, even one cent counts and you have a deadline to settle. But if the government owes you, there is no dateline. It's still in the Director's office. Worst still, ohh...the officer in charge is on maternity leave. OMG, government maternity leave is 3 months.
Log in to my Tweeter and there's a list of tweets from Xiaxue, whom I am a follower. On one of her tweets she posted that she had read the whole blog posted by a taxi driver who stole the limelight earlier this month. BBS China Daily posted this;
COULD this be Singapore's most well qualified taxi driver?
Dr Cai Ming Jie became an SMRT cabby last November after spending 16 years as a researcher at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).
His career switch has become a talking point online after he started a blog earlier this year. Alongside his experiences as a cabby, he takes issue with the circumstances of his departure from IMCB last May.
An SMRT spokesman confirmed that the former researcher is a driver with SMRT Taxis, but Dr Cai declined to add more beyond this: 'All that needs to be said is on the blog online...It should be IMCB that needs to be asked questions, if any.'
The China-born Dr Cai, who became a Singapore citizen, obtained a PhD in molecular biology from Stanford University in 1990. The Straits Times learnt that he did a two-year postdoctoral fellowship after leaving Stanford at the University of Washington, under famed genetist Professor Lee Hartwell, who won a 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology.
He joined IMCB two years later and worked as a principal investigator in the field of cell genetics up till his departure.
A spokesman for A*Star, meanwhile, said renewal of all its researchers' contracts is based on a number of factors, including the time taken to train PhD students, their performance and their contributions to the research institutes and the agency in general.
Dr Cai's work, like that of all A*Star researchers, was assessed by an external Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which recommended his contract be terminated.
Still, in spite of the submission of countless curriculum vitaes and applications to universities, government agencies and companies since he was told he would be let go in 2007, Dr Cai failed to get a successful response.
The former researcher now drives a four-year -old Toyota Crown. 'At a time like this, the taxi business is probably the only business in Singapore that still actively recruits people,' he said.
Now the PhD taxi driver relates his experience as a taxi driver after losing his job in the Institute's Laboratory doing research. His blog was written in simple English and it is interesting to read his positive attitude and ethics of a taxi driver,which I can see as very different from our
Malaysia cabbies. His blog tittle is
A Singapore Taxi Driver's Diary
How nice if Malaysia are made up of such taxi drivers.
