Monday 9 March 2009

A blog you can drink

I was shopping with the wife at Smart Market in Pandan yesterday. We came across a drink stall that sells blogs. They have coffee blog, smoothie blog, fresh fruit blog and even an oreo blog.

Out of curiosity, I bought a bandung blog. It turned out to be just a simple ice-blended sirap bandung. The poster pic showed the drink topped with some fruits but the drink that I purchased did not contain any. And the RM1.80 price applied to the tea drinks, not the blog. I was fooled.

Why would a drink vendor want to call their products `blog' anyway? Dah tak ada nama lain ke?

Now, you can write a blog and drink one too, literally.

Saturday 7 March 2009

Salesmen Vs Engineers (Part 3 of 3)

Okay... let's get this over with so that I can prepare myself for the return salvo from the marketing and sales people, heheheh.

Here's the 3rd and final part of the story about salespeople and engineers.

SALES STAFF AND ENGINEERS

The third…


Once upon a time, three sales people were walking through the woods and suddenly they were standing in front of a huge, wide river. But they desperately had to get to the other side. But how, with such a raging torrent? The first sales guy knelt down and prayed to the Lord : “Lord, please give me the strength to cross this river!”

*ppppppffffffuuuuuuffffff*

The Lord gave him long arms and strong legs. Now he could swim across the river. It took him about two hours and he almost drowned several times.

BUT : he was successful!

The second sales guy, who observed this, prayed to the Lord and said : “Lord, please give me the strength AND the necessary tools to cross this river!”

*ppppppffffffuuuuuuffffff*

The Lord gave him a tub and he managed to cross the river despite the fact that the tub almost capsized a few times.

The third salesman who observed all this, kneeled down and prayed : “Lord, please give me the strength, the means AND the intelligence to cross this river!”

*ppppppffffffuuuuuuffffff*

The Lord converted the salesman into an engineer. He took a quick glance on the map, walked a few metres upstream and crossed the bridge.

Send this to an intelligent engineer so that he/she has something to smile about;
And to the sales people if you think they can stomach the truth!

You guys have a great weekend!

Friday 6 March 2009

Salesmen Vs Engineers (Part 2 of 3)

Here's the second instalment of the salespeople and engineers story.

SALES STAFF AND ENGINEERS

The second...


A group of engineers and a group of sales people take a train to a conference. Each salesperson holds a ticket. But the entire group of engineers had bought only a single ticket. The sales people are just shaking their heads and are secretly pleased that the arrogant engineers will finally get what they deserve.

Suddenly one of the engineers calls out, “The conductor is coming!”. At once, all the engineers jump up and squeeze into one of the toilets. The conductor checks the tickets of the sales people. When he notices that the toilet is occupied, he knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please!”. One of the engineers slides the ticket under the door and the conductor continues merrily on his round.

For the return trip, the sales people decide to use the same trick. They buy only one ticket for the entire group but they are baffled when they realize that the engineers didn’t buy any tickets at all.

After a while, one of the engineers announces again, “The conductor is coming!” Immediately all the sales people race into a toilet and lock themselves in. All the engineers leisurely walk to the other toilet. Before the last engineer enters the toilet, he knocks on the toilet occupied by the sales people and says, “Ticket please!”

And the moral of the story?

Sales people like to use the method of the engineers, but they don’t really understand them.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Salesmen Vs Engineers

Here's something from my `Forwarded e-mails' category. It was received back in 2002, originally as a Powerpoint presentation. I can't remember who sent it, but whenever the young engineers under my supervision get discouraged, I would show them this.

SALES STAFF AND ENGINEERS

3 Real Life Stories (well, not quite real life...)

The First…

Eleven people were dangling below a helicopter on a rope. There were ten sales people and one engineer.

Since the rope was not strong enough to hold them all, they decided that one of them had to let go to save all the others.

They could not decide who should be the volunteer. Finally the engineer said that he would let go of the rope since engineers are used to do everything for the company. They forsake their family, don’t claim all of their expenses and do a lot of overtime without getting anything in return.

When he finished his moving speech, all the sales people began to clap…

Moral : Never underestimate the powers of the engineer.

The next 2 stories coming soon...

Monday 2 March 2009

As quick as lightning

I was at my parent's place in Singapore over the weekend. On Saturday evening, the TV news on Channel News Asia reported that the Merlion, the iconic tourist attraction located at the mouth of Singapore River, was struck by lightning. There was some damage to the top of the statue.


Last night, before driving back to JB, I again watched the news on TV. This time, CNA showed pictures of the statue with scaffolding already erected all around it. Wow... that was fast. Someone in authority had obviously issued directives that the damage be repaired immediately. And over the weekend at that. They sure waste no time, don't they?

Pic 2 : From Channel News Asia

It got me wondering, if such an incident were to happen in Malaysia, say for instance the Tugu Negara was damaged by lightning... how quick would our authorities act to get the damage repaired? One week? One month? Your guess is as good as mine.

While some of us may be amused by the well-known `scared to lose' attitude of our southern neighbour, we must admit that we trail them by a long way when it comes to efficiency.