The Greatest Human on Earth

08.08.08 is an extremely special day for me.

Today, the queen of my soul, the very reason of my existence turns 60!

Happy Birthday to the most wonderful human being in the face of the earth – My Beloved Mother :)

May the Benevolent Allah continue to bless you for all the goodness you have done in this world. Personally, where will I be without in my life? Nowhere!

Thanks for everything mom and I love you!

The Evilness of the Corporate World

Why is the corporate world created in such a way that, more often than not, organizations tend to reward the patronizing ones and not the deserving? How often has anyone of you go through the disappointment and anger at seeing a colleague promoted because they’re chums with the bosses?

Better still, why are the people in these country practiced favoritism at the expense of the truly deserving staff? I have seen this when I was in Nestle and now I am relieving this sad state of affairs in my current employment.

With the exit of my Japanese boss, the new regime brings with them their own favorite people and while I am somewhat affected, it is not up to the level of some of my colleagues. I really sympathize with them because they are forced to report to someone who is not only incapable of what she is supposed to do but worst, pretend as if she does.

Before this new people came on board, we are the best marketing team in the Dell world and the incumbent MVP within the Asia-Pacific region. I hate to admit this and sad as it may sound, the reality is that we are never going to be the same again. When the leader is weak and need to depend on an individual – the wrong one at that! – to make his decisions, then we are doomed.

The only saving grace for all of us is that in a few months, this weak leader would be reporting to someone who knows what Marketing is and hopefully, when the time comes, the two would have had so many debacles in their attempt to run the business that the powers that be would know how bad these two really are.

As for me, I know I have the support of the people in our regional team because they know my capabilities and have witnessed first hand my contributions into making us the best in the Dell organization. They have even spoken to the new boss about his pet’s inability to undertake the role she is supposed to do. Heck, if you ask me, they should have told the boss the same thing because, as far as I am concerned, the guy is just so lost when people talk about Marketing!

I mean, sooner or later, the whole organization would pierce through these people and realize that they have appointed the wrong people! And this is what keeps me going; the day this happens is worth the shit that we all have to go through now :)

Perks of the Job

One of the things that makes My Small Baby's life exciting while at work is the chance that she gets to meet celebrities on board.

This time around, in her recent trip to Los Angeles, she had the entire Pussy Cat Dolls and Jared Leto as her passengers and seriously, My Small Bbay can hold her own against the likes of the Dolls :)

Small Baby and the Dolls

With Jared Leto

Flying 'Low'

I have always been a high-flyer, so to speak.

In everything I do, I always aim high. But lately, I have been aiming for more 'lows' in keeping with my biggest passion or fetish, depending on who you ask :)

Of course, the search for all the Air Jordan's available is still a priority in my life and whilst I am still in-touched with my purchases, I somehow shifted my focus to the AJ 'Lows' that have dropped. I mean, the ‘Lows’ have always been there, I have lots of them in fact, but lately, they are growing on me like never before.

As always, when I want some J’s, I call my friends and ask them to hook me up. And as always, they never fail me :)

These are what I wanted and thanks to my friends, these are what I got. My Small Baby is off to New York in the middle of the month and all these babies will be passed to her. (All Pics courtesy of Sole Collector)

AJ XX3 Low White/Navy

AJ XX3 Low White/Red

AJF3 Flint/Maize-Silver

AJF3 White/Uni-Blue

AJF3 White/Black-Maize

I can’t wait!

Hoping for A Great Weekend

After a tumultuous two weeks, I am so looking forward to spending a good and relaxing weekend.

With my Small Baby back from LA, I thought I could spend some time with her and just do normal stuff; something that may be ordinarily routine but one that I am in seriously dire need of.

There's more to life than work and albeit I always haven't practised this despite my beliefs, this weekend is a good time to start.

Purity that is Children

This is so sad, yet touching.

Reece Fleming was diagnosed with leukemia back in 2004 when he was just 4 years old. He battled the disease for years until this May, when doctors gave the 8 year old boy only a few weeks to live.

The family decided to try and help him achieve most of his goals before he would pass. And one of those was to marry his school sweetheart, Elleanor Purgslove.


Reece's mother said "When we found out that we only had a few weeks with him we tried to do absolutely everything with him that we could. Him and Ellie had been 'special friends' for a couple of years but then they broke up. We said we'd have a pirate party, and Ellie came. She went to visit Reece a few times in hospital as well."

Then during a recent laser tag party, Reece "proposed" to his little friend. After she accepted, their parents arranged a pretend wedding at Reece's home (not the kids pictured above).

The families went out to dinner in the mayor's limousine and organized the wedding with rings and even a fictional certificate.

The kids got married on July 4th. And Reece told his mom, "I can go now," after his wedding wish had been fulfilled. His mom added, "He was so proud of her, and we were proud of them both." The following day after the wedding, Reece died at home with his family.

Soooooo sad!

During the funeral, the mourners followed a horse-draw hearse on foot.

His mom added, "Even on the Saturday that he died, he got out of bed and walked to the sofa. He always tried walking, right to the end, so we thought if he walked for us then we would walk for him."

What an amazing little boy.

From Bad to Worse

Sigh...

Things at work have officially changed from bad to worse. With the repatriation of our Japanese boss, things in our business have really looked wayward; no clear direction as to where we want to go.

On top of this, the scope of the staff is still very much unclear; well, we know what we're supposed to do but with the new regime in placed, the scope changes everyday to a point where all of are confused.

Heck if our external agencies are confused and can't say I blame them. There are just too many indecisiveness right now and fo’ sure, it ain’t coming from me. The new peeps seem to eager to show their capabilities and in the process disrupting whatever semblance of process we have worked so hard to establish.

We’re back to zero and I seriously couldn’t a fuck anymore!

ASEAN Consumer, We have a problem!

The dust is supposed to have settled down.

And instead of having a clear direction after things are supposed to be settled, there are far more unclear things than before.


The issue starts with the inability and indecisiveness of the man on top. Confusion is all over and I just hope we all can come to a solution fast to enable us to fulfill the growth potential we have in our business and in our markets.

Somebody has to put his feet down and ensure that everyone in the team is comfortable with what they are supposed to do. And it should come from the man in charge.


It also doesn’t help that the new staff who just joined the core group in the last week or so think that respects is given without earning it. I feel for those who have to report to the new peeps; they have worked their asses of to make sure that we all grow as a business and when the hand-picked few took over, they wanted to show their self-perceived power and authority by imposing things that are not only contrary to where the core group have taken the business to but they’re downright stupid!


Case in point: when the lady who was brought in by the boss to oversee the team in his absence, she took her new found authority to a whole new level. The position she is in is a trust given to her and it shouldn’t be abused at any cost.

My beef with her started when she tried to take over my department! Honestly, I don’t give a fuck if you have been with the company the last 10 years; if you can’t do my job, stop pretending you can!

Seriously, this lady pissed off the wrong person. Just because she has been around longer than I have doesn’t give her the right to even try to talk to the boss to head my organization. I’m really ok if she has the right credentials and experiences to do so but she knows nuts about what it is I do. And when he pulls her so-called European experience, it really makes me laugh.


Her experience in Product Marketing has no bearings to what I do; there is a world of a difference between product marketing and Brand Marketing! And my interactions with her in the last one week just reinforced my suspicions that she doesn’t know nothing about my world and what I do for the company.

We do have a problem and I hope it is settled soon.

And as far as this ‘iron lady’ is concerned, time will prove how little she knows about the beautiful world of Branding…

RIP Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch, the former Carnegie Mellon Uni Professor who inspired millions of youtube.com viewers with his 'Last Lecture', passed away yesterday, he was 47.

May his soul rest in peace...