A chinaman-company called Nible2

Yes, the title would have been a dead give away. And now, as a first step towards healing, my admission " I work for a chinaman company".

Nible2 should have been a fantastic company to work for, and to invest it. Nible2 is pretty much involved in electronics, and special kind of electronics. The business is really recession resistant, and will bloom with the good times. It has a few core products, so, from a business point of view, a damn good place to invest and work.

Unfortunately, the fairly tale stops there. The company has pretty much moved from ICU to CCU due to extremely poor management. How bad, I hear you rush. Let me put it this way, if it was fiction, it would make Dilbert look like a Fortune 500 company. The place is full of Pointy Haired Boss (PHBs), the micro managing kind; a HR directors that's missing a tail - else, Catbert; plenty of Asoks, the innocent interns but fortunately, not many good Wallys.

Ah, and this is when my QQQ training comes into play. During my Asok years, I had the privilege to work in another company called QQQ. Fortunately, 3Q had plenty of good workers and there was a chief weasel, let's call her Miss K. And yes, I owe her most of my survivor skills.

Anyway, back to Nible2. My colleagues there are usually the innocent kind, some of them kind of incompetent, but really, no real Wallys. Some would forever be carrying a coffee mug around the office. Needless to say, you won't find me educating them. For the uninitiated, a little trick here - at work, always look busy. Never ever be seen carrying a coffee mug. That's advertising to everyone that you are free... you are not doing your work... and you need more work. Bad idea. Instead, carry a laptop or a thick logbook. The contents of the said laptop or logbook is not important.

But the real problem is the PHBs. There is no operations at all. There isn't any systematic way of doing stuff. Always the cart before the horse. Believe it or not, the entire company does not run on a budget. If one needed to purchase something, just fill up a purchase request. If there is money in the bank, well, it will be approved. Otherwise, KIV. No big wonder we ran out of cash 4 times in the last 5 years. Of course, the PHBs have the grand idea of scrutinizing only PRs for a large sum of purchase. Ah...but Wally has a way. Just break the purchase to a few requests - all of it under RM 5000 (about USD 1800), each, and no questions will be asked.

How about is the company? Let me put it this way, no one in the company, yours truly included is able to answer any of the following questions accurately:

1. Who are the top 10 customers, in the correct order?
2. What's the best selling product, in terms of sales volume?
3. What's the product with the best margin?
4. What are the top 3 things customers like about Nible2.
5. What are the top 3 things customers hate about Nible2.
6. Which department is losing / making money?

In short, Nible2 has no clue what is happening. It is a culture to do the urgent, never the important. PHBs hire more managers to row the boat.

Oh well, all I can say is, I already have half a foot out of this plane. Looking for the right spot to bail out. It is flying on fumes, the pilots are busy entertaining the business class passengers and a beautiful air hostess playing pilot. What more can I say... for today, at least.