Career

Turning passions or hobbies into a job

by Yin on April 30, 2012

When I saw the book Ignore Everybody and Other 39 Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod, the chapters I flipped that made me took the book were “Keep Your Day Job” and “Beware of Turning Hobbies into Jobs”. As I took the book back, I sat intently from afternoon and finish the book at dusk.

I really enjoyed the book, it is something that a creative person can relate to- and Hugh MacLeod understand the creative mind… if not, he would not be able to write out those insights that only another creative person can recognize.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: ambition, entrepreneur, stress, work

Should you work for a company with questionable principles?

by Yin on March 1, 2012

This is a continuation of the previous article, “Should you accept donation from bad people for a good cause?”

In terms of corporate life, a leader is often paid to sometimes implement changes that are more for the shareholders interest instead of the staff and customers. Should a leader continue to work for such an organisation?

If the leader leaves and join another organisation, it would probably be the same. Business are build in a way to be able to maximize profits and minimize costs. The way of achieving that objective sometimes are less ethical. The profit earned goes to the pockets of the shareholders and top management whereas demotivated staff find themselves not rewarded for the hard work done.

To stay and continue may imply that the leader agrees with the principles. And thus the dilemma.

Even if one goes to NGO, the situation is the same. Most NGOs are cannot pay well but people work there for a cause and not for the pay.  Sometimes people go back to the corporate world when they find the practice did not differ much from the corproate world.

We would again come back to the point: what is your personal objective and goal in life?

If you want to inspire and help others to realise their potential, then you can do it anywhere or in any company. For example, the company may be too profit orientated and have bad management, and you may feel you want to quit and go to a better company.

But if you look around the staff below you or around you who seemed to be suffering and demotivated, instead of joining the bandwagon and leaving, perhaps you can ask yourself, “what can I go to make a difference?”.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: ambition, stress, work

The Jam Tart Story

by Yin on January 24, 2012

Ever since from as young as I could remember, I had been helping my mother to bake jam tarts.  It is an annual thing before Chinese New Year.

The jam tarts would be then distributed to neighbors, relatives and friends… FOR FREE.  We get to take some back to share with our friends. The baking thing lasts almost the entire day- but as we, the kids grow up, we got faster and more efficient in our work so the baking could finish early.

I always wondered why of all cookies, my mom had to choose jam tarts? Jam tarts are one of the hardest and most time consuming cookies to be made. My mom  would put effort to do everything- including:

  • select the pineapples- usually she would buy about 10 big ones
  • take them back, cut and scrape them and cook them. The pineapple are corrosive to the hands and the scrapping is sometimes painful especially if there is a little cut on the hand. My mom would scrape the pineapples with her bare hands, not preferring gloves. Then the cooking takes 4 hours till the jam are dark and they are cooked back in their own juices – the process would take a day
  • another day to clean and line all the tins/ containers with tracing paper
  • prepare the pastry, oil the trays, and bake–and of course the cleaning up
  • distribute the baked tarts

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: choices, family, work

Many report drop in Adsense earnings

by Yin on January 16, 2012

More and more web/blog owners are reporting a drop in Adsense earnings- some as much as 70% or more sudden drop in recent months. As Google did a round of algorithm- and wiped out a huge amount of its Adwords advertisers- coupled with the overall economy downturn, bloggers worldwide are affected.

The change can literally happen overnight- and it is a huge blow for those who have financial commitments. If you have been a full time blogger or earning money through the internet for years, it is not easy to go out to the job market again- because first, there is not much job match to blogging and secondly, if you are used to lucrative passive income, it’s hard to go back to earning active income. The only option is to mull over forums and sites trying to figure out  what one had done wrong- and often, these factors are really beyond our control.

Over these past months, I’ve seen a lot of rise and dip in traffic and earnings on my site. From June to September, my earnings were up by about 70%- and then they dropped back since November last year and had not really recover.  There is just too much of factors beyond our control- because as a full time blogger, one relies heavily on Google organic traffic. Without organic traffic, it would come to naught.

But then, another factor is advertising. Most sites/blogs have Adsense ads. So far, visiting most blogs, I see only the same kinds of ads when previously there were more varieties. And the free Adword offer is back again. So if all the blogs have the same kind of ads, then there would be less clickthrough because visitors are seeing time same ads everywhere.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: adsense, Blogging, monetise

It should not be always about the money

by Yin on January 13, 2012

When we want to do something, it should not always be for the money,

Or what it is in for us.

Else, we would just be following like the waves of the world…

If people say this is good, we go for it…

When people say that is profitable, everyone flock to it.

When we earn, we are happy. When we lose, we are sad.

 

Read about the profile of successful people- they always try ideas and take risks on things that people don’t see value of.  And they meet with success. After they are successful, the copycats come along but often, they’ve made enough.

It’s just like working… if you work  just for the money- and choose to slack if you don’t get what you want, then there would be no end to what you want….because as humans, no matter how much we get, it’s never enough. Ask those who are rich- they still tell you it’s not enough.

If you work for a cause, for a value of something within you, then even though the pay may not be what you expect or the working condition is not favorable, you still can work if what you do matters to you. If you do what you love, time would pass more quickly. If you do what you hate, the minutes tickles by like an eon.

Tough environment can help built your character and resillience…. if you stay long enough. People who stay at the top with stability and able to command respect is because often they start from the bottom and had gone though the tough time and stuck to it till their build their values, leadership and resillience.

A person who gives up at the slightest sign of trouble would forever give up each time there is trouble. And who says life would always be easy?

Easy environment can make a person more lazy and complacent.

Therefore, it is our choice- to stay or to go.

So, it’s not always about the money….

…. for it’s no point if we are not happy

….. if it is meant to be, it is meant to be. If not, people can still cheat our money

…. we spend time chasing wealth and neglecting our health…..and down the line have to use all that wealth to try to regain health.

Tagged as: choices, money, work

Full time blogger would be affected by changes in Google search algorithm

by Yin on November 10, 2011

One of the challenges that a full time blogger must be willing to undertake is the uncertainties and strong dependancy of earnings based on Google’s traffic and search rankings. A change in Google search algorithm could drastically bring down traffic earnings – and this uncertainty is one of the main factors that prevented me from being a full time blogger.

Within this past month, I was a bit puzzled when I noticed a drop in my search engine traffic from sources of organic traffic delivered by Google. Upon checking around the net, I realized that many blogs have reported a significant drop in earnings after Google introduced its new search  algorithm, also known as Google Panda.

Blogs that are largely affected are those who go round scrapping content from other blogs. While this has been an ongoing issue that many bloggers have to deal with (I’ve had my original content scrapped many times over)- I am glad that finally Google is finding a way to remove this culprits from the search results.

Even though there is a slight drop in search results, I do notice that Google is delivering visitors who are seaching for specific content on the site- there are certain content that I write in depth about that these posts are finally getting traffic views.  So Google is effectively linking the visitors towards the content that they are really looking for.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: adsense, blog, Blogging, work

There is no such thing as a dream job or dream company

by Yin on October 11, 2011

Dream jobs and dream companies does not exist. So far, I have not come across anyone who could tell me that their in their dream job. You may hear people who just joined a company telling you this at first- but ask them back the same question after 3 or 6 months, you are bond to get a different answer.

Yes, when we first join a company, the newbie effect had not quite wear off yet- after we wake up to the actual realities of the job and the culture, or the same old daily grind of the job’s demand- then it would no longer be quite as what we have envisioned it to be.

Few people are lucky enough to be paid to do what they love for a living. Even if we do what we love, we may love the job, but not the people and/or working conditions. Or we may love the environment but not the job. So, nothing’s perfect.

But we can alter and change our perception of the job we are doing. I still don’t agree that a job should just be a job, ie we just show up at work, do what is required and get that paycheck at the end of every month. If we perceive it that way, it is a utter waste of life- because we spend our best waking hours working.

When we are in a stressful job, complaining about the stress, people or the management would not help much. It lowers our energy and make us more negative, overwhelmed and angry- in the end, we waste so much energy being negative that we could not be sufficiently focused in our job. So we do a bad job or a so-so work and when we get nothing but bad reviews, it further reinforces our negative views.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: ambition, dreams, stress, unhappiness, work

When you are sick of working with someone else for a living

by Yin on July 25, 2011

 When I was in Singapore, I’ve met a guy who is now in a similar industry as I was. He was only a few years older than me, slot his guts out with the company but find that there are many things out of this control. So he had wanted to come out and take the one gamble in his life- sell his house and take the money to start a business in another country.

Yes, when we need to work for a living, often we need to follow instructions and help to implement things in which we feel may be a total waste of time. No matter how much we brought it up or dispute about it, we’ll probably be told to ‘keep quiet and just do it’.

I remembered in one of my previous jobs, the company had wanted to launched something major in which I felt was non compliant and may risk information security thus opening us up to potential fraud cases. So I spent a lot of time and energy to fight the launch, writing emails and opening opposing at meetings. I even meet up with those in fraud and compliance unit. I think the VP really hated me for being a nail in the flesh. In the end, he pulled some strings and smooth talked his way to have the launch to happen. That period was stressful for me because I fought for something I believed in but lost.  But at least I had the comfort of knowing that the concerns had been brought up and if anything, no one could blame us for keeping our mouths shut.

When it happened, I was tasked with responsibility to implement it and had to have be in charge of a group of people. Lots of money and resources were poured into the project because everyone (except me) thought that it was to be a huge success.

But you know what?

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: choices, happy, stress, work

Some lessons I’ve learnt from my paycut job

by Yin on June 21, 2011

In my previous job, I thought that instead of all the corporate rat-race, perhaps it is a good change to take a paycut to opt for life with better quality. To work for those who are in the line of helping others. Therefore I was willing to take a pay-cut for a change and also because the job is supposed to be less stressful. In my job,  I was supposed to help people to help others.

But in the end, reality hits. When it comes to money, sometimes people are not ethical about it. Because, like it or not, who doesn’t want money- so if you have to ‘misled’ a trusting client to get that sale, you may just do it. And I find that some of the people who I had to take instruction from was disrespectful.

So, finally I learnt these lessons:

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: ambition, Blogging, choices, lessons, unhappiness

Should you work for a cause, or work for the pay?

by Yin on June 16, 2011

Someone I knew worked for close to 20 years with a company that on the outward seemed to focus on a cause that she believed in. So she put in the weekends and work during hours that people would be socializing. The pay was low because ‘profit’ was not supposed to be the bottomline.  She had to do some part-time job to help support her expenses and mortgage.

As the years grew by, she became more bitter and angry- but she stayed on, perhaps because she was on denial.

In the end, she grew disillusioned and had a falling out with her bosses. Things were not what it seemed. And she came out and started her own little ‘business’- at the age when people are supposed to be retiring- she had to start to knock on doors to sell financial services.

But this changed her. She become a more cheerful person, more approachable and happy. She even got her own car. Perhaps the training that she had attended had opened up her mind. She told me that she should have done it years ago. But still, she told herself- better late than never. She is now more sociable, and much happier because she had found something- a cause that she believed in that can help others. I am so glad to see the change in her.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: lessons, money, work

← Previous Entries