HR advice from a retired Human Resource Practitioner

It would seem the Human Resource Management is Common Sense unfortunately common sense is never common.


Advice for HR Practitioners

* Never allow the HR function in your organization to be relegated to an administrative function. It is more than signing annual leave forms, churning out worthless weekly manpower reports which no one reads or making sure the cookie jar in the staff rest room is filled.

* Always treat the people you encounter the way you want to be treated.

* Always be "available" for employees. Do not answer the phone when you are "dealing" with someone; give the individual your 100% attention.

* You are the "balance" between Management and Employees. Maintain it.


* Always maintain your integrity. If no one trusts you, you cannot do your work effectively.


* Never make promises you cannot keep.


* Never be afraid to make difficult or unpopular decisions if you know it's for the benefit of the organization and / or employees.

* You will never satisfy 100% ; use the 80 / 20 rule.

* Never be afraid to say you don;t know and that you will find out. Don;t try to "wing it"; you will be "caught". Make sure you get back to the person with the info asap, if not your integrity will be shot.

* Don't build boundaries for yourself. For example when you have to recruit for a specific position, don't start out by excluding certain groups of people ( aka discrimination); female, handicapped; 50-somethings

* Hire the best person for the job. When I was working for Apple Computer, it was refreshing to see that the Company believed wholeheartedly in this. The best person for the job was not the person who was technically the best , neither was he/she the one with the most experience either. We had an English major heading the Engineering Department and an experienced supply management person doing HR. We tend to "hire with blinkers". Part of the problem is convincing the Hiring Manager that the person is suitable for the job. As an HR professional thats your job.

HR Advice for All :

* Learn to "play the game"; don;t fight the system; you will lose. If you don;t like the game , then leave for another organization ( game) .

* Get a mentor.

* Never leave a job without another one lined up.

* Severance or Retrenchment benefits don't last that long. It may seem like a large nest egg at first , but it's not, unless we're talking about "golden parachutes" that are in the millions of $ but other than the CEO who gets those ? .

* When you are faced with retrenchment always remember closed doors , open others. Look at possibilites that you never imagined............be creative; hobbies can be turned into successful businesses.

* Don't stay unemployed for too long; it will be difficult to go back into the job market. Potential employers have a "problem" with this; although I don;t know why.

* Don't burn bridges. Singapore is very small ; remember the six degrees of separation rule ( Google it if you don;t know what I'm talking about)

* Take on whatever projects your boss hands you; bosses like "gung ho" staff and guess who will be remembered when its time for promotions?

* Unfortunately the boss IS always right but in the "rare" instance where he/she is not , don;t state the obvious...........just let it slide.......pointing out your boss's mistake

is NOT a good career move.

Heaven is..............

Have you ever wondered about this "place" called Heaven? Is it really a place in the sky somewhere, surrounded by clouds with angels flying around ? Well, thats how its always portrayed in pictures and movies. I believe its a place very much like our earth with trees and rivers and flowers BUT with one big difference.............the souls "inhabiting" it. Forget the concept of angels and flying around with wings on your back............that's Hollywood. I believe we will not have physical bodies and one "concept" that will be totally different will be the concept of space and time. How often have you heard people say especially us Christians that when someone dies we will meet again in heaven. Many times we think in terms of what we understand that to mean here on earth. We expect that the people we meet in heaven will be exactly the same as when we had last remembered them to be before they died. Will we meet grandpa as he was when he died , all old and decrepid ? He died when I was 6 years old so how will he recognize me now that I'm a lot older? I think we will "meet" as souls. The meeting will be the meeting of memories. It will be 2 souls meeting and they can meet as children, young adults or old people; it doesn;t really matter then will it? Time and space will have little meaning because your soul can be anywhere at anytime. Think about the concept of "beam me up Scotty" on Star Trek. You can be anywhere , anytime with whoever you want to be with. You can be 10, 50 , 100 places at the same time.
So if there's a heaven is there a hell ? I want to think that there'll be more of a "holding" place where people may be given the chance to "redeem" themselves. Maybe that's where reincarnation comes in. Maybe we will get reborn if we aren;t good enough for heaven. Have you ever thought maybe our lives on earth are our own "hellish" experience. Our lives on earth are a chance to do good and maybe redeem ourselves. So, could earth actually be Hell? Well, maybe not Hell but Purgatory where we're supposed to "redeem" ourselves. Which then begs the question......so why do some die at child birth ( a mistake?) and some live to be 100 ? So will we be reborn as cockroaches? I dont know. It'll be kind of difficult to redeem yourself if you came back as a cockroach. Which brings us right back to the age-old question of the meaning of life. What are we doing here? There must be a reason why we're here. I guess that'll be another posting..................

Exciting Things to do in San Francisco

* Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39 & Ghiradelli Square



* Shopping at Union Square - Macy's , Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus



* Shopping at the Outlet Mall at Gilroy



* The San Jose Flea Market at Berryessa Road



* The Golden Gate Bridge



* Lombard Street



* Ride the Tram



* Sausalito



* Muir Woods


* Stinson Beach



* Carmel



* 17 Mile Drive



* The Castro



* Twin Peaks



* Beach Blanket Babylon ( needs advanced booking)



* Alcatraz (day or night tours; needs advanced booking)



* Coit Tower



* The Painted Ladies ( Alamo Square)





* Goldern Gate Park ( Japanese Garden; Conservatory of Flowers; the AIDs memorial grove; Stow Lake; golden gate park windmills; the De Young Museum )





* Chinatown - Chinatown backalley tour ( www.chinatownalleywaytours.org)





* Japantown





* Clement Street ( the second Chinatown )

Friends

How many of you have friends whom you have known since you were little? I can count the number of such friends on one hand which is really sad. I often wonder what ever became of some of them. I only have 2 friends whom I've known since primary school with whom I am still in contact with , Vincent and Edmund and even these 2 I rarely meet. I guess we grow apart when we start leading our own lives and different interests pull us away from one another.
I remember I "lost" my best friend in primary 3 when one day my teacher walked into class and announced that all students who lived in postal district 12 ( in those days it was only 2 digits) had to leave the school and go to a school neaerer their homes. My first reaction was whew! I live in district 11 thank God and then in the next instant I realized that my best friend Ng Beng Hwee lived in district 12; Oh No!!! We promised to call and write and exchanged telephone numbers and addresses. I think we made 2 phonecalls and exchanged one letter. I never saw or heard from Beng Hwee again.
In primary 4 , I lost another classmate , Koji Aiba. Koji was an expat kid. He was always so clean and neat and tidy. He wore these really expensive looking school uniforms ; well they looked and felt different from the starched cotton uniforms the rest of us wore. I figured his parents probably bought his uniforms in Japan. He left the school too after a couple of years. I guess his father got transfered back to Japan. We exchanged addresses but never wrote.
And then there was KC; my best friend in Secondary 1. He was physically the biggest boy in class. It was always good to have the biggest boy in class as your best friend ; you were never bullied. KC came from a very rich family. He was dropped off at school in a big shiny black mercedes with a driver and he lived in a HUMONGOUS house in Queen Astrid Park. BUT you would never know he was a rich kid when you met him. He is the most humble person I have ever known and he never ever flashed his wealth. KC left Singapore in Secondary 2 when his parents sent him to boarding school in Geelong, Australia.I remember wishing then that my parents were rich enough to send me to Geelong too but I knew they couldn't. So I said goodbye to my best friend once again. I gave him a vinyl record ( remember those black disks with a hole in the center? the CDs of our time hahahha) of the Titbits ( a 3 girl group that had just won the RTS Talentime). KC was in "love" with one of them ; I think her name was Bernadette deSouza. KC and I exchanged several letters and then I never heard from him. Last I heard , KC married a top Japanese geisha and now lives and works in Hong Kong running his father's empire but is totally "inaccessible" because of his social position and standing.
My friends tend to be "clustered" according to periods in my life.....from Anglo Chinese School days, from University of Singapore days, from Webster University in Geneva, Switzerland days,from San Francisco days, from the different organizations I've worked for and from all the periods in between. Every one of my friends is special to me because they bring back different memories both good and bad; happy and sad. So, if you have any friends you've had for a long time; treasure them because they are like rare gems and very hard to come by and once lost they may be gone forever.

My Favourite Poems

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.



Do Not Stand & Weep - Mary Frye 1932

Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush; I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die.

Gone From My Sight by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speckof white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast,hull and spar as she was when she left my side.And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone," there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"
And that is Dying.


FRIENDSHIP by Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey

In those quiet hours
when dreams are born
and restless visions haze:
in that sleepy place
I step out and walk
through a timeless maze.
it's at this place
where I see your face:
your image lingers there
I walk the places we have walked
And remember sweetly
where we've talked
of princes, kingdoms,
pain, thoughts of growing old
and wisdom
bought at the price of our youth.
In those quiet hours
I think of you

My Favorite Restaurants in San Francisco

Sunflower Restaurant ( Vietnamese ) ( Cheap and Good)
506 Valencia Street ( at 16th Street)
Tel (415) 626 5023

Manivanh Thai Restaurant ( not your average Thai dishes, different, very good)
2732 24th Street ( at Potrero Street)
Tel (415) 824 6059 ( closed on Sundays)

New Aux Delices Vietnamese Restaurant ( excellent Vietnamese food at low prices; try the Vietnamese potstickers a bit like chee cheong fun with meat inside)
1002 Potrero Ave ( at 22nd Street)
Tel (415) 285 3196

Singapore Malaysian Restaurant
( if you're really craving for it.......chicken rice and Penang laksa - quite good )
836 Clement Street
Tel (415) 750 9518

Crustacean ( Euro - Asian ) ( a little pricey but worth it; Crabs and Garlic noodles to die for )
1475 Polk Street ( at California Street)
Tel (415) 776 CRAB

Ton Kiang ( Wonderful Dim Sum; must-try roast duck and crispy prawns)
5821 Geary Blvd( between 22nd & 23rd Ave)
Tel (415) 387 8273

Liverpool Lil's ( Great Pub food)
2942 Lyon Street
Tel (415) 921 6664

Sumi ( Asian Fusion; Small intimate restaurant with great food; try the calamari appetizer )
4243 18th Street ( at Diamond Street )
Tel (415) 626 7864

The Stinking Rose ( anything with garlic even ice cream!that was a little strange)
325 Columbus Ave ( at Broadway)
Tel (415) 781 7673

Burma Superstar ( Wonderful Burmese food , always packed )
309 Clement Street ( Between 4th & 5th Street)
Tel (415) 387 2147

Le Charm Bistro ( Excellent French at reasonable prices)
315 5th Street
Tel (415) 546 6128

St. Francis Soda Fountain ( Great shakes, burgers etc)
2807 24th Street
Tel (415) 826 4200

E&O Trading Company ( Asian Fusion - interesting twist to asian dishes; try the corn fritters appetizer)
314 Sutter Street
Tel (415) 693 0303

The Slanted Door ( Vietnamese Fusion; try the shaking beef its really good)
at the Ferry Building

Ceramic Painting for Kids

Ideal for Kids' parties.
Each child will paint 2 pieces which will be fired and returned to them
Minimum group size of 8
All art materials and ceramics provided
$25 per child ( includes the cost of firing)
Call 98304184 for details