Very recently I have received an email asking a very interesting question. First of all, I would like to thank the sender, Pankaj, who had taken the time and sent me the email. It is always a pleasure getting to know my reader.

The following is the email Pankaj sent me. “I want to know how exactly to say NO to people. My work is almost always overloaded, but even so, when other people come to me asking for help with his work, I can never say no. I always try to help others but in this way I am always taken negative.”

Well Pankaj, this is what you should do.

1) Identify why exactly that you cannot say NO

To tell you the truth, this is the most difficult steps of all but it is also the most important. Let me list a few reasons why a person cannot say NO.

• He is a very polite person
• He dislikes confrontation
• He tries his very best to meet people expectation
• He is afraid that people may not like him

Believe me there are hundreds more reason why some people cannot say NO. These four are in my opinion, the most popular reasons. Identify the reason why you cannot say NO. Close your eyes and go deep into your heart to find this out. Once you have identified the reason, everything else will be easy.

For example, let say that you dislike confrontation. You prefer to work harmoniously with everyone even to the extent that you have to do other’s work. Then you can draw your own plan on how to slowly learn the art of confrontation.

If you want to shoot an apple with an arrow, you must first know the direction to shoot. If not there are infinite numbers of direction to shoot and thus infinite numbers of failure.

2) Practice with smaller things

Still using the previous example, let say that you know that you cannot say NO because you dislike confrontation. You must then draft your own plan to be more comfortable with confrontation. Draft a small program like disagreeing with your friends about a trivia topic. An example is like why you hate the Harry Potter when everyone else adore him. That should keep the ball rolling.

Keep in mind that you are training yourself to disagree with people. The more trivia the issue the better you will be able to develop the confident to disagree. Do not start with a heavy issue like religion etc.

3) Not Important Tray

Buy a document tray and label it as “NOT Important”. Remember to capitalize the word “NOT”. Anytime a person ask you to do a job, and you still cannot say NO, just ask the person to put the work inside that tray. Make sure the person see the label and tell him that you will only help with his work once all your work is done. Even then you may not be able to help. Leave it to him to decide whether he still want your help or not.

4) Give yourself 10% allowance

If you have 60 minutes of work, always give yourself a mandatory rest of 6 minutes. That 6 minutes must not be spent in doing your work or others’. You must spend that 6 minutes to do your favorite things like replying emails to friends, chatting etc.

When you give yourself this allowance, you will subconsciously teach yourself the value of your free time. Exactly the opposite of what a lot of people believe, having allocated free time in the midst of your never-ending work will really help you appreciate the time. After a while, you will find it easier to just say NO to people since you have earned that free time with blood and sweat.

5) Create red tape

Red tape basically means the requirement and procedure that need to be followed to get things done. It is almost always a trivia task like submitting a cover letter, filling up forms, waiting for the form to be approved before you are given another form.

Why not do exactly the same to people asking you to do their job. Get them to fill up a form and submit the form to your superior. If your superior approve the form, then you will have to do the job. If not, you can just walk away. You can say that you are having a lot of trouble with your superior since you are not able to meet deadline. I sincerely believe they will not bother you anymore.

6) Give them a taste of their own medicine

If your colleague give you a work to do, you can take it but in about 5 minutes, walk to his desk and give him your work for him to do. It doesn’t need to be 5 minutes but the sooner the better since they will remember that they had just give you the work. If he can’t help you with your work, just return his work to him.

It’s basically another way to say NO

7) Teach him to fish

You know the saying. “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for the day, Teach the man how to fish and you will be feeding him for the rest of his life.”

Some people may ask you to help because you are so good at what you do. Maybe your English grammar is excellent, or you are very good with software etc. The best way to handle this kind of situation is to actually spend time coaching them on how to do their job. You may not get paid for this but there are so many other benefit that you can reap.

• He will be so grateful to you and he will definitely return the favor one day
• You will be seen as someone who like to help people grow
• You can get them off your back forever

/end

I must stress that helping out people is a very good thing. But in this article, I am assuming that the people asking for help are abusing this kindness. They are still asking others to help with their work when they should be able to do it just fine.

- I Wonder -
Do you have any other tricks to help Pankaj say NO to his colleague?

———- Personal Note ————
I once went to the immigration office with a colleague. My colleague were in front of me when We were queuing up to get the number. He got the number 100 and I who was immediately after him got the number 105. (Of course I can’t really remember the number but I know that there were gaps between my colleague’s number and mine.)

That is step number 4 and 5 mixed together.

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One of the biggest fear for anyone attending a job interview is the fear of not knowing the answer to a question. I’ve been there and I can safely say that nobody is exempted from it. If you think about it, it’s a perfectly normal thing. There is no way a person can know everything there is to know about a topic.

However, don’t you think you will have undergone a perfect interview session if you know the answer to every single question? Don’t you think that will make you memorable and in the end hired?

Now would you believe me if I tell you that there is actually a trick to accomplish exactly that?

The Trick

The trick to actually know the answer to every questions in an interview is to give your interviewer a list of questions to ask you (Not literally of course). Allow me to elaborate.

Let say you are an expert in gearbox maintenance and you are attending an interview for an engineering position. Be sure to drop some hint in your answers that you are directly involved in gearbox maintenance. The interview conversation below will show you how.

Interviewer : What are your past experience?

You : Bla Bla Bla

/end example

As you can see, by hinting that you are involved in gearbox maintenance, the interviewer will usually make use of the topic as their next question. Of course being an expert you will be able to answer the question effortlessly.

Once you know this, any interview will be a walk in the park. However, you may want to first read a few ground rules of using the trick.

Rule 1 : Be very subtle with the hinting

Do not end every answer with the word “Gearbox”. The interviewer will start noticing the effort and it will not end well. If your first 2 attempts fail, try other topics that you are good at.

Rule 2 : Never show off your expertise

A friend of mine had actually memorized one whole book about Machinery Act and he boasted about it in the interview. As a result, the interviewer asked him question from other books and he failed.

Rule 3 : Do not give all the details

If for example, the interviewer asked you about “Gearbox”, don’t explain to him from A to Z. Be smart with your explanation and leave out interesting topics hanging for him to ask. A person who can answer every question asked is more memorable than a person who can answer only one question in the interview.

Rule 4 : Prepare a few real life stories

Everyone loves a story and if you play your cards right, the interviewer will want to hear more from you. They will then start asking the related question about it. That’s an extra point for you.

Rule 5 : Ask questions

Try to shoot some questions to the interviewer related to your expertise. You may know the answer but still ask away. It will convert the whole process from an interview to a mini discussion. Believe me, it will help reduce the stress and more importantly you will be memorable to the interviewer.

The best topic to be discussed is the topic you know best.

- I wonder –
Any other tips to subtly highlight your strength in an interview?

———- Personal Note ————
I just came back from my first semester of Palm Oil Milling Diploma in MPOB. There are 23 lectures compressed in 7 days. To make things even more interesting, the examination for this first semester will be held on 11th May. Wish me luck!

Photo Credit – DIDEO

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The Problem

Have you ever had that day where you just don’t know what to do, despite the mountains of things you can do? It worsen when you actually know what you are supposed to do but you just don’t want to do it. Am I making any sense here?

For example, you know you have a blog entry to write, the ideas are pouring but when you switch on your laptop, you just end up spending your day browsing through millions of other blogs or socializing via twitter instead. At the end of the day, no entries were written. And there goes another day of your life.

This is NOT another case of procrastination. It’s more like doing everything else except for the one thing you need to do. It happens to me all the time and I’m sure it happens to you too. Can I ask? How do you overcome it?

Ths Solution

This is how I overcome the problem everytime I encounter it.

I am often overwhelmed with a thousand things to do, like researching, visitting others’ blogs, stumbling interesting articles etc, when all I really should do is write an article here in Lesson In Life. What I will then do is to rediscover what my immediate role at the time.

There is only one rule to this technique – There should only be one role to play at any time.

If I am a blogger, I should be blogging.. Period. Something is definitely wrong if I declare myself a blogger when I’m not even blogging. Realizing this immediately gives me more focus and clarity to write. Try it, you will be amazed that something so simple can do wonders.

The same goes to your career. Something is definitely wrong if you are a fireman but you like to show off how brave you are by creating fire.

Or if you are an assistant manager but the manager has more work on his table than you.

Conclusion – if you are a blogger, you blog. Everything else should take second place. Apply this to everything in your life, and your life will be so much simpler.

- I wonder -
If you can pick any one role to accomplish something today, what will you be? A blogger? A kitchen slave? A student? or others?

——— Personal Note ———–
What I usually do when I am supposed to be writing

Photo Credit – Striatic

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One of the biggest problem for working people is that they always bring back work home. I used to think that this is nonsense. Who would want to bring work back home? But when I started working, the habit comes naturally and without even realizing it, I’m already doing it.

The worst case scenario would be when you bring back your problem from your workplace. The problem is in your head, and it will haunt you the rest of your day at home. If you bring back only paperwork, you will be able to finish it and you’re done. But if you bring back your problem which is in your head, it will always be there. And this will have more negative effect on your life.

• You will have no mood to have fun.
• You may accidentally channel your anger and frustration to your family.
• You will suffer stress and your work is becoming more of a burden to you.
• In short.. nothing good can come with bringing work back home.

How to leave work at work

If you are suffering from the above symptoms, and you know it is because you are bringing work back home, you may want to try these tips :

1) Create parting ritual
Create a parting ritual everytime you finish your work at your office. I personally clear up everything on my table and put it in one tray. I imagine that that is my black hole tray, where no work will be able to break free until 8am tomorrow morning.

You can create your own ritual like consciously locking the door of your office and saying goodbye to your work. This may sound silly but it has a great impact on your subconcious mind. You are making a closure.

2) Put up the sign – Do Not Disturb
Even when we successfully leave the work at work, the work sometimes manage to find you. Your colleague may call you during your off day to help him with something. What you should do, is to formally inform everyone that you are not to be disturbed unless it is a matter of life and death. A bit harsh, I know, but works like a charm.

I however am working as a maintenance engineer. And I almost always will be called to work if there’s any major breakdown. In my case, I can’t really turn down any call for help even when it is 3 in the morning.

If you are in other line of work, you should put up the sign. It’ll help.

3) Remind yourself in black and white
Take a piece of paper, and write these sentence on it. Whenever you are returning from work, read them out loud.

• My family is the most important thing to me.
• The time with my family is precious. I don’t want to miss a single thing.
• My family deserve the best from me, the best attention, the best conversation, the best treatment.

After a week or two reading them, you will memorize the sentence and it will be permanently written in your subconcious mind.

I’m sure there are many other methods we can do to keep work from following us home, but these three are the best way to do it. Try it.. You’ll see.

- I wonder -
How do you leave work at work?

——– Personal Note ———-
In two more days Muslims around the world will celebrate Aidilfitri (It is pronounced Eye – Deal – Fit – Ree). Just a brief explanation of the day, it is to celebrate the victory of successfully completing the one month of fasting. It is a joyous holiday here in Malaysia, where everyone will take this opportunity to be with family.

“Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin”

Photo Credit – JCardinal18

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• Dress sharp
• Speak confidently
• Research the company
• Be polite
• Etc

Can I suggest another few tips that may also help?

1) Talk to stranger.
Try this, get on a bus. It can be any bus. And immediately say hi to the stranger besides you. Please don’t just pick seats to flirt. The idea is not for you to flirt. It’s for you to practise your interview skill.

Expected results:

• You are no longer afraid to speak.
• You can generate question on the spot.

2) Redo a sketch of your favorite sitcom.
You will need the help of another fan for this. For example, you love “Friends” the sitcom. Pick one scene about 1 -2 minutes long and memorize the dialogue.

Now redo the whole scene without looking at the script. I’m very sure you will forget most of the line, so improvise. Make up your own line. It can become another story.

Expected results:

• You should be more confident in improvising your interview script whenever necessary.
• You will learn how to be witty with your words and make you memorable to the interviewer.

3) Go for a “mock” real interview.
Spend some time to go to a shopping mall and apply for a job there. Any job. Practise everything you have learn to get the job. You can try being very funny, or very aggresive. It shouldn’t matter if you were accepted or not, this is just for you to practise. So go crazy

Expected results:

• You will get used to the whole interview scenario, it no longer terrifies you.
• You can actually ask the interviewer how you can actually improve yourself.

4) Help a friend to haggle.
You have a friend, and this friend wants to buy a laptop. You should follow him and do the haggling part for him. Haggle the price until you can get what you want. After all, you have the buying power. Why not get the most out of it.

Expected results:

• You will have more confident in discussing your salary or benefit.
• You will learn a few tips on how to haggle.

5) Monitor people being interviewed.
Assuming you have a friend of a friend who interview people. Why not ask him to let you in in one of the interview session. You are not interviewing people, you are just going to watch how people are interviewed. Take note on what works and what’s not.

Expected results:

• You will have an updated and real version of interview skills.
• You will see that the interviewer is actually not that scary.

/end list

Conclusion – Being interviewed is actually not that difficult. They are not going to ask you why you fail English, or make fun of the weird society you joined. They already have all the details in your resume. What they want to see is how you behave, what’s your attitude and motivation, and most importantly how you potray yourself.

The best part is they can only see all these via the way you express yourself (listening and speaking). Concentrate on those as suggested by the 5 items above. You will do fine

- I wonder -
Any other interview tips you would like to add?

——— Personal Note ———–
I still remember my first successful interview. To tell you the truth, I was not that prepared. I didn’t research the company, I have no idea what my job scope is, and I think I was very hungry at the time. It’s a difficult time then. I needed a job ASAP.

Banji – Hm I can always find a new girlfriend there
Interviewer – (Laughing out loud.. both of them)

Photo Credit – Nathan Callahan

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This time around a lot of my blogger friends (younger friends anyway) are doing their internship. Basically internship is a part of their requirement to get a college degree where they need to work at a company for a period of time and learn all there is to learn about working experience.

Today’s post will be dedicated for them. A collection of my own experience on what the hidden lessons in internship they need to acquire to get the most out of the program.

1) Learn real people skill
Working people are quite different from students. They often view other people competitively, or sometimes they are too self-centered that they just ignore you completely. Yet there are still people who is kind hearted. Colorful people.

You should learn what is the best way to introduce yourself to them. And more importantly how to get their coperation on your task at hand. Basically you need to

• Befriend one quick and get the inside story of everyone (of course casually)
• Identify who people listen to, who people hate, who people like etc.
• Your aim is to get your task done, and if you ask them for help (what ever group they are), they will more than happy to help. Find out how exactly to achieve this.

2) Learn how a boss become the boss
Once you had observed your colleague, you should start monitor your superior or your boss. Try to pinpoint what quality he has that makes him the boss. If for example, to be a boss you will need to have certain specialization certificate, jot that down. You now know what you need to get to sit on his chair someday.

• Study how he handle people
• Observe his working attitude, can you do that?

3) Secure your future career
The next thing you should question yourself is whether or not you would want to work in the company after you graduated. Well, you should because job hunting after you graduated can be a very tiring thing to do.

• Obviously you will need to perform well in that internship.
• Do some research on the company’s hiring process. It will be a good idea too to get to know the HR manager of the company and casually hinting to him about your intention of working there.
• Insist on a recommendation letter from your superior. This will help a lot in your job hunting later on.
• Take note on the details of other similar companies, such as contact person, type of industry. You may very well be working there.

4) Learn surviving work
One great thing about internship is that how ever you do, be it good or bad, you will stop working there after your internship is over. So do take up some experiment. Here’s a few ideas

• Identify what motivates you to come to work
• Try out the many ways to manage your stress
• Get involve in the office politics
• Make mistake, get yelled at by the boss and learn how to get up from that
• Experiment with management system of the company such as 5S, or Decluttering etc. See which works on you

5) Learn how to manage your money
Most of the time, intern are underpaid, so this is a great challenge. How to survive with that small amount of allowances.

As easy as it sounds, this may be one of the hardest thing to do. It’s almost come naturally that when we have money, we will spend more. This is the basis of all budgeting.

• Start by analyzing your expenditure everyday. Keep track of them and make a summary by the end of the month
• Categorize your expenditure to maybe food, entertainment, travel, phone, bill, etc.
• Now find a way to cut down 10% of expenditure in every categories.
• You are now saving 10% of your salary. Keep increasing the percentage.
• Other tips on managing your finance

/end

Internship can be heaven or hell. However, since we must undergo it, why not take full advantage of it. You know people will take advantage of you.

- I wonder -
Any interesting stories from your internship?

———— Personal Note ————-
I actually did my internship at a petrochemical company. Unlike most universities, I worked there for 7 months. Hate waking up early then to catch the bus. Love the continuous supply of hot milo Can’t forget the time I hitchiked a car to go to work, Good times good times

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Anybody here actually hate their job say “Yes” I know the feeling. The fact is we are not hating the job every single day. It’s just that on some days, the idea of quitting our job and do our dream job can comes to mind. And it is tempting.

But a job is still a job. Who’s to say that when we quit and do our dream job, we will not suffer the same hate feeling sooner or later. So what we can do is to try to find a way to be in love with what job we are having now.

This is what I do.

I searched my heart for the one thing that I really enjoy. One that I can do 24 hours a day without realizing it’s already 24 hours.

Upon checking, I realize that one of the things that I enjoy is playing games. Not any kind of games, specifically Role Playing Game. For those who has no idea of role playing game, it is basically a game where you play a character in the game. And you start with a mission for your ultimate goals and as the story folds you encounter a lot of adventure, mini mission, upgrade level etc.

Still clueless? No problem. Let me explain further. When I’m bored or starting to dislike working, I will imagine that I am the character in the game. And that with completing all the mini task, I am gaining experience point. I can actually see the point being added (Of course in my imagination)

Sometimes I was assigned by my manager to negotiate with the worker’s union on some matters. I quickly get into my game mode. And with every successful negotiation, I imagine 1 point of Communication Skill is added to my stats I’m sure those who play RPG game will understand.

I don’t know about you, but this alone will help me get through some tough day.

You too can do just the same. If the thing you enjoy the most is gardening, and you’re working as human resource manager. Try imagining your workers are like plant. You need to give them attention and all the right nutrition for them to grow. When they do grow into a more efficient worker, take the time to enjoy your success.

- Disclaimer -
This method may not work for everyone. But try away, maybe you can further expand it to cater yours

- I wonder -
What are the thing you enjoyed the most? The thing that you will lose track of time the minute you started on it.

———- Personal Note ———-
I have to make it clear that I don’t hate my job. It’s just sometimes, I feel like quiting my job and maybe start blogging professionally. Anyone hiring?

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As previously mentioned in my post on mindset needed to survive job hunting, just after I finished my study, I worked as a customer service assistant at a department store in Kuala Lumpur. Generally my task involved assisting customer’s query and complaints, help in membership registration, wedding gift registry and most importantly, wrapping present.

The work was very rewarding, and in a way had helped me greatly in my quest for job hunting. In fact it helped me a lot in my coming interview. Here’s how :

1) Interview = Communicate = English
There’s no way you can sell a product just by pointing, smile and giving a thumbs up. You need to speak comprehensible and confident English. Please notice that I didn’t use the word fluent and good English I can testify that out of the years of learning English, these periods were the time I improved the most.

2) Know the product in and out
In my line of work (at the time), I need to know how to differentiate between red wine glass and a goblet. I need to know how to point out the reason why some bedsheet are expensive and some don’t. In general, I need to know how to sell everything there.

Let say I’m selling the expensive bedsheet, and the customer ask why is it more expensive than the other one. If all I can say is, “I’m not so sure”. Do you think the customer will buy it?

The same with interview, everyone is trying to sell themselves. They say that they are more special than the others. But when asked, they usually don’t know how to describe their strength.

Tip : Try to describe your strength with respect to what you can offer to the company, and not just by saying that you are this and that.

3) Don’t sell the wrong thing
When potential customer call me and ask for some information on a product, I was advised by my manager to avoid persuading them to buy. All I need to do is to provide all the information needed and help him in any way I can.

Most of the time, the customer will buy the product, simply because he is impressed by the attention given.

Similarly in an interview, the interviewer usually have read your resume and they were already impressed. The interview is just their way to see your attitude, confidence and passion for the job. Highlight these as often as you can. No need to worry about technical knowledge or your present perfect tense.

When they’ve already like you, the job is practically yours.

- I Wonder -
Any interesting stories on your experience undergoing interview? Please share

———- Personal Note ———
One of the thing I love the most about my job then is wrapping gift. I learnt there the actual art of wrapping gift. I really take pride of the work done.

Anybody want their gift wrapped?

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I still remember when I first graduated. It was a very difficult time looking for job. You see, I am not from a wealthy family, so I know immediately that I have to work just to finance my job hunting. I started with a job at a department store as a customer service personnel. Seriously one of the best time of my life, a job without that much responsibilityIt is my belief that the most important things during job hunting is not the resume, or your interview skills etc. It is your mindset. You will need to have these mindset in order to survive that period.

1) It’s all you
If you don’t do it, it will never get done. This is particularly important when you have that lazy feeling that you don’t want to do anything for the day.

Yes, it’s really hard work to go through the paper for job advertisement, and to write that cover letter etc. But remember, that thousands of people are looking for the same job, and they are possibly more motivated than you. If you didn’t apply, it will be just the same as you handed them the job on a silver plater.

2) Everyone is a different person
When I was in the job hunting phase, I basically just reprint the cover letter with some slight changes for every advertiser. Doing the same thing 10 to 20 times a day, everyday was very exhausting.

So what I personally did, was to consider that everytime I send the resume, I try to have that feeling of first time applying. Generally, it means that I try to maintain that excitement of sending my first application everytime.

I know it’s hard, but I truly believe that when we have that excitement in writing the cover letter, call the advertiser, they usually can tell that we are excited. Our writing will become more personal, and not just a copy paste from other cover letter (even though we are copy pasting it)

3) It takes time
Let say, We have been job hunting for half a year, sometimes it get frustrating when one of the company we applied for is taking his time to call us for interview.

The truth is, whether we have been job hunting for half a year or a year is not relevant to the company. They will treat each application through the same process. However, there is always this urgent feeling in us that they should speed up their process. And this frustration can have negative effect on your overall job hunting attitude.

Let it go, you do what you can the best you can. That’s actually what we can ONLY do. whether the application is accepted or not, is not for us to decide. So don’t think too much about it. Concentrate on the more important task – how to improve and where else can we apply for?

4) No place for being shy
Some people do have this problem. They are being shy for the wrong reason. Job hunting is a process where you are selling the most important product of all, YOU.

Would you buy a television that is said by the salesman to be nothing special? The same goes to the whole job hunting, you need to market yourself, your skill, and highlight to the company what you can offer to them.

Stop being embarassed or shy. You just can’t go far with that attitude.

- I wonder -
What other mindset do you think should a job seeker have? Or maybe you can share your experience?

—————- Personal Note —————-
I studied Chemical Engineering while I was at the university. Generally, my colleague all aim to work in the petroleum based field, myself included.But not long after I started looking for job that I know I had to accept any offer that came and of course applying for almost any engineering field. I even send out for management trainee post.It took me about 4 months to secure this current job I’m having. And it took a friend of mine more than a year to secure his. As long as you keep working on it patiently and motivatedly, you’re bound to be accepted.

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I previously wrote an entry on the tips for first day at work. So many friends joined in and added additional ideas to it.

But what happens next? So for those that had already worked, are there any tips?

There’s one thing that may be worth sharing. It’s on how to free yourself from the zombie trap. These questions can determine whether or not you are already trapped.

1) What is it about the job that makes you happy? the freedom, the money, the colleague or the girl/guy you’re eyeing
2) When you go back this evening, can you predict what’s your work going to be like tomorrow?
3) How’s the boss? friendly? enemy? Do you even have any friends?
4) Did you improve when compared to yourself when you first started working? knowledge, experience, attitude, qualification wise?
5) If you are on leave for 1 months, can somebody else do your job?
6) We work to make money, do you have an emergency fund (at least 6 month of your salary)?

We go to work, work, go back home and collect money end of the month. This is very much like a zombie. It is a very soul-depleting process. We are supposed to gain more than just money in working such as friends, experience, knowledge etc

To summarize : A person free from the zombie trap will work for 5 years and by the end of the 5 years –

• He can resign from the job anytime, and the company will make an increased offer for him just to make him stay
• Other competitive companies had already proposed to him, and anytime he resigned they will take him
• He had a six month emergency fund.. maybe more.
• He make friends in the company (lots of friend)
• He is now an expert in what he do. Nobody can do what he does
• He now know what exactly he want from his life

- I wonder -
How do you think we can be free of this trap? maybe writing up a resignation letter dated 5 years in the future. It will remind us to be very secured when the time come. (The letter is just for reminder only, not to be submitted)

Any other tips?

———— Personal Note ————-
I have this dream of becoming self employed. But in order to do that, I must be very secured with my source of income. And the work must be something I enjoy doing.

Hopefully 2008 will be the year I started my very very small business, a lemonade stall perhaps.. Amiin

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