POISON LETTERS = LETTERS WITH POISON?

This is my first try at blogging. I have been reading other people's blog. Some are interesting and funny, others may have their own motives and agendas. My writing would be more on my observations of common things that spice up the corporate world. You know.. the bitching, the uncertainties, stories on bosses, etc, etc. It could happen to me, it could also happen to you...

Let me start with the first one... SURAT LAYANG ( Poison letters).

When I was working in the 100 per cent private sectors years ago, I had no inclinations of what is actually a surat layang. Everybody was professional enough to take no for an answer by the boss or to toe in the line with the management's decision. Everybody is eager to create good results for the company they work in. The same goes to me. My life was just work and work, produce good results in my performance and receive good bonus and increment at the end of the year. Simple. You work hard and work with the management, you will be rewarded fairly. I remember once when I was working in a consultancy. The increment that I received was peanuts compared to the amount of money that I brought in for that company. After three years of receiving the same amount of increment, I plucked up enough courage and confronted my boss by telling her to consider giving me more based on the statistic of income brought in through my clients. I succeeded! She gave me RM1,000 increment, a big amount in those years! No surat layang to help me get that.... but sheer hard work and results to prove that I am worth that amount.

Here I am today, still working hard, but in a slightly different environment. I joined to help transform the company. But after slightly more than 3 years here, I find that its not an easy job. From the moment I joined until now, we are never short of professional surat layang writers. Every move or actions taken by the management is always translated into some negative thinking. They even have nicknames for us... mr cut and paste, mrs blur, mr CIA, ms outsourcing, mrs IQ Zero, mr bodek, etc, etc.

What the professional surat layang writers fail to understand is that it is not easy to transform a company, what more trying to change a culture that has long been embedded in their working system. They ( the surat layang writers) go back at 5.30 pm sharp, while we, work until late at night. It has become a luxurious moment if we can go home before the sun sets.

I remember working from 7.30 am to 9.00 pm everyday for 6 months when I first joined the company. I had to build the department from scratch, nobody was competent enough in doing work that is supposedly to be carried out by that department. Thus, I ended doing everything myself until I started recruiting towards the 3rd quarter of the year. Not that I was slow, but there was never enough time to even squeeze in to start looking for possible and competent candidates.

Do these surat layang writers think we can perform magic?

No, they know that it is difficult. They just hope that by writing the surat layang, we will be discouraged from carrying on the plan and leave the company for them to manage the way they like it.They also hope that the powers up there will be influenced by the letters.

Fat chance. Dont they know that the days of surat layang are already gone? Results, especially financial results speak louder and longer ( hey, some surat layang are like 6 pages or more!)than those letters.The more surat layang we receive, the harder we will work to show that they are
wrong and out dated. Years of slogging in the private sectors have equipped us with thick anaconda-type skin!