Talent is an abused term in employment

The term talent has been shooting off everyone’s mouth like referring to gold or diamond. And often this term is prefixed with another word, foreign, and conveniently attached together as foreign talent. What does this mean to the users of these terms, the ordinary people, the employers, job seekers and the govt?

Very often we also heard people quipped that there is not enough or no Singaporean talents to fill a vacancy. And many do not pause to ponder what is this vacancy that needs talent and why are the talents not found locally. Take an example of a HR Manager. What kind of talent that is so rarefied that no Singaporeans are found to have them that this position must be filled by a foreigner? In the same vein, an Admin Manager, a Finance Manager, a Sales or Purchasing Manager, a Banking/Finance Manager, an IT Manager and so on, even politicians.

On more technical skills like Engineering, IT, Medical or Science, why are the local graduates not good enough as talents and foreign graduates are the right and suitable talents? Did their universities teach them different stuff that is useful to the industries and ours don’t? If that is the case, either we revamp what is being taught in our universities or we close them down and send our students to those universities that are teaching the right stuff.

In the more generic jobs as mentioned above, what talent is one talking about? A HR or Finance professional will have acquired the same basic training and knowledge to do the job reasonably well. All that makes the difference is the attitude and drive in the person, unless the applicant is a moron. And if one is to know the extent Singaporean students drove themselves to acquire good grades, that is telling in itself, that they have the drive, stamina and determination to do well. These graduates who worked so hard to get good grades cannot be the same employees that switched off when employed and paid to do a good job. They strove for good grades without being paid, and now refused to work when they are paid well?

Even those that do not have the good grades but rose to higher management, this fact is enough to show that they are able and capable of doing the job at that level. The knowledge and experience on the job are more valuable than the qualifications of a fresh graduate.

Now, what kind of talents that the foreigners have that the local talents did not have? The foreigners have two brains, three mouths and trained differently and acquired unusual skills from their universities and countries that made them better than the local PMETs?

For the very technical and highly skilled jobs that needed post graduate training, the expertise would set them apart. But many skills can easily be trained, be transferred with on the job or in house training that would not take more than a year to do so. What is so difficult about that?

The truth is that many jobs even at senior management level do not require this thing called talent or exceptional talent that cannot be found in local PMETs. The word talent is an abused word, a red herring that means nothing really.
Anyone who uses this term to justify his special needs as an employer, make him explain why it is a talent in the first place. Talents are needed in very special positions, in special appointments, in highly skilled fields that demanded gruelling years in academic discipline. Another type of talent is how to cheat which is inborn, how to get paid excessively without having to do the work or not knowing how to do the work but getting others to do it and claim the credit. This is unusual talent.

Actually one of the highest level of talent is to be able to con your way to success without acquiring any useful skills but by capitalising on connections, wealth, associations, politicking and conspiracy.

Boorish primitive genes are good

Most people are aware of the problems of inbreeding. The genes, no matter how superior, would degenerate with too much in breeding. Even the animals, we are no different, in the zoos need wild genes to keep the stock healthy. So the tigers and lions and the elephants need to have mates from the wild to retain the wildness in them.

The years of genetic engineering in developed countries like ours have created a breed of people that are very different from the days of old, or from those in less developed countries. There the people are hungrier and are mentally tuned to fight for their piece of meat or loaf of bread. They are mentally tough to fight for the right to live, to exist. They have little refinement, less care about niceties like gracious, little thought of what will be the consequences of their unrestrained and selfish acts.

The most obvious sign of the new breed of Sinkies is their spectacles. Then their nature, more careful and self restraint, the kiasu and kiasi traits. They would not go out to fight for food, or even their little rights. They withdraw from society, into their little world of comfort and safety. None of my business, I am comfortable and secure within my cocoon. That is the new sinkie, an inbreeding of the nerdy kind, intelligent intellectually but minus the brawn and muscles.

Flash back to the uncouth, boorish and aggressive Ah Tiong in the MRT. We will be no match for such aggressive. He is tough, bigger, louder and daring to pick up a fight. The Sinkies will shy away. I have seen a couple of such roughness this morning in the train, one likely to be a Malaysian and another a Pinoy, both getting hostile to two oldies. The same traits when imposed on an army of boys, specky, soft and tender, meek and weak, what would we have? An army of school boys, looking every bit like boy scouts. And they will have their favourite weapons in their hands, the mobile phones and ipads or something similar. These are the things they will be comfortable with. They would probably faint when they see blood, and screaming for mother.

Yes, we need to input some wildness into our degenerative gene pool. We have too much brains but lacking in brawns and muscle mass. We are shrinking in every area except a head that is getting bigger by the days, a swollen head, so they said. But this is no good in the face of aggression. We need to stand up to aggression individually, to protect self and the weak, and to defend the country.

We have lost that aggressive trait, we have lost that feeling of hunger. So the Ah Tiongs and the likes are a good thing to have here. We need more cross breeding with the wild and primitivity. Go and sow your wild oats or bring home some Ah Tiongs. It is good for health and the future of the people and the country.

Heheheh. Let’s welcome the Ah Tiongs and all the wild men and women from the hungrier countries. They are good tonics, ‘chiat poh’. Forget about being graceful when being so becomes disgraceful, to be bullied by the simpletons and the simple minded.

The case of the reappearance of empty ballot boxes

The official explanation so far, after the counting is over, the ballot boxes would be disposed off by contractors. So there would no longer be consequential to the election and not really meaningful or accountable. A few seen floating around and reappearing would just reflect that the contractors were ‘slaykay’ at most, nothing to worry about. There is no need to make a case out of the two boxes found and nothing serious really. Let’s move on, this part I say one.
 
Two of the Presidential candidates are still not happy and smelling foul. What is the real system of checks and balance? Would all the empty boxes be part and parcel of the election process and must all be accounted and destroyed together without any one left floating around. Did they claim that something is amissed?
 
Presumably, this part I guess one, since I have not been a polling agent and thus would not know what is the correct procedure. Presumably, at the end of the counting of the ballots, all the ballot papers would be placed in these same ballot boxes to be transported to the High Court for safe keeping. There was no need to pack them into the same boxes according to the area or groupings they came from, but in some of the boxes would do. Presumably they were not packed into new or different boxes that were brought in for this purpose. Presumably, some boxes would be empty if all the boxes were fully stuffed.
 
Presumably every box was a controlled item and there would be an officer to count them and check them out, X number used for ballot papers and Y number extra were empty. Presumably the total would match and all squared up.
 
Then the puzzling part, should all the boxes, as they were controlled items, be sent together to the High Court and eventually be destroyed together? Looks like this is not the case and those extra boxes were left behind to be removed and destroyed by the contractors after counting was done. They became not controlled items. If this be the case, then the reappearance of the five empty boxes needs not be an issue. It was just a slip by a slipshod contractor on non controlled items.
 
But if the procedure is for all the ballot boxes, empty or otherwise, to be destroyed together and kept together, then people may ask how come these controlled items could be left behind as they were countables and if missing would not do? But then again, as an after event, ie, after the ballot papers had been properly delivered on the counting tables, the missing boxes would just be a technical issue and would not affect the results.
 
This does not mean that imaginations cannot go wild like the boxes were already missing and switched before the counting. The understanding or assumption at the moment is that they were left there after counting. Is this assumption and understanding true or reasonable? Or is this proven, a fact? This, I presume, would be playing in the minds of those who wanted to see mischief. But this is highly impossible as the polling agents would have their eyes glued to these boxes and no one could take them away without being noticed. It could only happen if there was a gap in which the ballot boxes were out of sight from the polling agents while they were on the way to the polling stations. Presumably there was no such window to begin with.
 
So? What do you think?

USA – The warring state up to mischief again

When there is an opportunity to incite war, to create rivalry among nation states, to create tension, be sure the USA will be there. The USA has for many decades being trying to provoke the two Koreans to destroy and kill each other in North East Asia. It has repeatedly held provocative joint military exercises at the borders of the two Koreans, simulating an assault or landing into North Korea. And with the used of western media and reporters, continuously accused the North Koreans of being aggressive and unstable, unpredictable for reacting negatively to the joint military exercises at their doorstep. The most recent and closest attempt to start war between the two Koreans was of course the sinking of a South Korean Naval ship, the Choenan, and killing several tens of seamen in it.
 
Now sailing several thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean, the Americans are at it again holding joint military exercises with the Japanese to simulate attacking Chinese islands. And further south, it is conducting a more dangerous wargame with an equally trigger happy but top empty Filipino armed forces in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. And China would be blamed by Washington and all the western media for reacting to this hostile provocation at their front yard.
 
China cannot stay away and look the other way with such blatant and provocative acts of aggression. China must react firmly which is what the Americans wanted to be used as proof of China’s militancy against a small country like the Philippines. And China must react, like it or not, to keep these warlike countries away for good. Appeasement or taking a low profile will only embolden the Americans and the mindless Pinoys to think China is weak. It would not be surprising to see China showing its muscle and intent not to be pushed around by the Americans.
 
The American pivot to Asia is a hostile military strategy. Do the Asean countries understand this or pretending not to see it? How many Asean countries are welcoming this American move to stick its fingers in between the legs of the Asean countries and calling it a peaceful interference? The American lackeys would no doubt sing praises for the Americans to be the new master and ruler in the region. Asean and South East Asia will again be the chess board of American imperialism and Asean countries by its chess pieces for military dominance in the region.
 
China will not only protest, but will also have to stand up to push back this unwelcome initiative of the Americans. How many Asean countries will be on the Chinese side, to keep the region free of American power, provocation, intimidation and eventually war? Like it or not, China has to confront the warmongering USA and may have to risk a war in order to hold its ground and defend its territorial integrity. It is only a matter of when.

Talking Point – A special moment

I caught a couple of minutes of Tuesday’s Talking Point programme in CNA. I couldn’t remember what was the exact title of the discussion but it was all about public transport and how to improve it. The local counterpart Sinkie expert was a professori. And when probed, he gave the standard govt reply of all the shortcomings and excuses that we have heard for the last century. Oops, I am exaggerating.
 
One particular hilarious moment was the question of whether it would be better to nationalize the public transport system and then came the parroted answers, it would become inefficient, the operators would skive and lack the motivation to improve the quality of the service, service quality would fall. Basically it would just rot. They forgot to say that the operators or management would become marbok or would be waiting for bribes or else would not work. In short, once it became a public service run by civil servants they would all forget about working, about responsibility, about excellence, and spent their time drinking kopi. And nothing could be done to them. No one will be watching over them to kick their asses.
 
The Hongkie expert roared into hilarious laughter on hearing these. He was shock into disbelief that such stupid arguments could be uttered in public by supposedly respectable people and professionals, including very top people. I squirmed too.
 
How silly can Sinkies be to believe in such craps? The instant and spontaneous reaction of the Hongkie expert only showed how stupid Sinkies are to allow this nonsense to be repeated over and over again and for stupid people to say it again and again without knowing how stupid they sounded. Didn’t they know they looked silly saying it?
 
So? Never mind. It is group think like they said.