Are we ready?

This afternoon, a customer came to the place where I work (a Computer/gadget shop) and buy an Iphone 6 one of the newest gadget in town. He was buying this smartphone as a gift for some one else.
However a problem arise when the one who are going to use the smartphone asked my customer to set the phone for her (It is a "her"), obviously the "her" is someone who take it for granted that everything was prepared and done for her and never cares to do things for herself especially if it is something to do with technology.
Naturally my customer asked me for help, but I explained to him that Iphones are a special kind of gadget which requires the user to set it themselves because there are lots of private data involved which was supposed not to be shared with other people. But the "her" insist that we set up the phone for her and since the "her' is very special my customer very reluctantly  try to set it up for her.
During the setting up process there were lots of phone conversations done and one who have set an Iphone will know what the questions are to be answered.
Even though at last my customer succeed to set up the phone, he make a small note on all of the answers, password etc. needed to operate the phone but his comment is he feel guilty that he accidentally was exposed to very private data on which bad people can use to abuse the user.
Morale of the story is many of us were actually not ready to use today's gadget and in many occasion don't need the features of the gadget..... what a waste of resources just for the sake of self pride without knowing that we are fooling ourselves, because people will notice that we never use the gadget features and only use the phone and or Text feature which can be found in many simple mobile phones...
Even though we have the capability to buy such things are we ready to humble ourselves to read the manual and learn how to use it correctly?? And by that not embarrassing ourselves.

Loyalty Vs Commitment

Loyalty Vs Commitment

Recently a friend came to me and share his struggles.
He told me that he has been working for more than 10 years for a small private owned company. The company is run by a single person, the owner, and through all of those years he has been loyal and faithful doing his job. He even met his wife at that company.
After listening to his story, I found out that his boss has a communication problem. The boss also tend not to trust people (maybe due to traumatic past history) and withhold things only to himself. On the other side, My friend is a guy aside of his own weakness (we all do have our own weaknesses don't we?) is a very capable guy in doing his job, but a bit introvert and tend to keep things for himself.
Therefore I find that both of them were not open to each other and no wonder they cannot communicate well. Both of them tend to think that the other side must know what is inside their mind without expressing it.
One day my friend's wife fell very sick and has to be hospitalized and on the other hand they have a son who is still a small kid depending on his parents to take care of him. Since my friend have nobody to help him to take care of his son while his wife is hospitalized he has no choice than to ask his boss for a dispensation to come late to the office (please not it is not a leave but coming late) because my friend is the only technician at the company (the company sells and service computers) and if he did not show up there will be work left undone.
My friend told me it was on Sunday when he called his boss and tell him the whole story and according to my friend he got his boss approval for his request.
However things did not go as predicted, technical work demand is high and customers are asking for immediate service which is quite impossible. Panicking, the boss seems to find no option rather than blame his technician to the customers, probably he has not told my friend what he really expect from my friend by giving the dispensation. My friend told me when he arrived at the office he was greeted by sour face and there were lack of communication and instructions are given via other employees not directly.
Eventually my friend find out the his boss has put the blame on him to the customers and feel very hurt.
Oh yes I forgot to mention that the boss is actually a school mate of my friend at high school and they should actually know each other quite well.
In his cries my friend told me that it will be the end of his loyalty to the company, from that onward he will just give want is standard in his job description not more that is his commitment.He even think of resigning from the company.
I think, what a loss the company will have if that person actually leave the company, because despite being an employee for more than 10 years he actually did not get a high salary....
Yes nobody is indispensable but at what cost?
Too many things has gone wrong just for the sake of pride and ego, could not we be humble to each other or are we too stubborn to learn that we are not perfect ourselves? Wise man says "No man is an island" therefore I am of the opinion that we should learn to trust and humble to others use our ears to listen what others says not to what is in our mind only. Loyalty is not easy earned and on the other hand loyalty can be destroyed in seconds.......

ASTRAY

Today, I learn a very good lesson from my sad experience this morning.

I simply feel very sad this morning....

When I was preparing myself to go to work, my wife called me and told me that one of our cat (We called him "Lurik" because his fur pattern has stripes of grey and black) was half dead at a ditch behind our house.
In the beginning I thought that he was already dead but when I pick him up he still responded with a silent meow. We have a slight shower as it has been raining all night, and Lurik was very very dirty.

So I picked him up and try to clean him with warm water to ease him a bit but seems that it was very hard because somehow the water was mixed with oil and very sticky.

His condition is very sad and I think maybe he will die very soon (although I still hope he can survive).

Lurik is a male cat who was born at our home, and his mother was one of the cat that visits our house and make our house a base for her living because we occasionally gave her some food to eat. However Lurik's mother is not a good mother because she was not able to take care of her kittens and nearly all of her kittens die of worm infections and other diseases, however Lurik is the one who survive because he was able to response to the medication I gave. Lurik grows up to be a young healthy cat and show his affection to me, every morning when we open the back door, he always come to me and lies at my lap for about 5 minutes while I pat him before he goes to my wife to look for food. Normally he stays behind our house and we provide a simple shelter for the cats to live/stay.

Some people may ask why do we have numbers of cats at our home, actually they are "not" our pets because we simply were not able to take care of them as they should be properly taken care of. However since we feel pity for the homeless cats, we provide them with shelter and some food that we can afford to share.

But Lurik has one bad habit of wondering to hostile neighborhoods and there are times when he was gone  not at the shelter for the whole day and night, but then returned the next day. But last week he was gone for days and we simply could not spot him anywhere at the neighborhood. We gave up hope of him returning back, but two days ago he showed up very skinny and very sick. He also got conjunctivitis and refuse to take food, although as usual he comes to me and sit at my lap in the morning.

I tried to treat his eyes and put him in a box inside our house so he can rest well to recover but again he refuse even to take his favorite food. We were very concerned about how he will be able to recover without any energy intake? I was thinking of buying a vitamin syrup for him. Please do not ask me why I don't bring him to a Vet, simply because I cannot afford to pay the cost as we are living a very simple life ourselves. Yesterday he was put outside on the sunshine to enable him to get some warmth and fresh air, but then we wonder again and I could not find him last night even though I called him.

As you know the rest has been told. However I still hope and pray that he will survive but the possiblity is very slim and I would not be surprised if he dies although I am very sad to let him go, because I loved him.

Isn't many of us is like Lurik? Although I am not the creator of Lurik I loved him very much and is willing to give efforts to make him well from his sickness, What more is God our creator? He loves us so dearly even we always gone astray and away from Him. God has provided us with what we need but we always ask more things which is not good for us (but we think so) and go look for it in places inappropriate for us and as a result we always harvest what we have done bad and we complain of our condition.

God always wants us to be near Him to be protected but it is us who went away and very often we come to our senses after nearly all things has gone wrong. And still God welcomes us with open hands. There are times when people doesn't have the luxury of repentance because they were not able to survive.

Will I learn the lesson well? I hope and pray the God will provide me with the strength to be faithful.

I hope this true story will bring new inspiration to you all....
God Bless you
December 4, 2014