A good friend of mine, Ms Intan had previously asked my opinion on a subject which is “When to give advice?”. Well this is what I think.

The ground rule is you should always give advice. Giving advice is basically another words for voicing your opinion or to remind. In fact I remember there’s a saying in Islam, Do remind each other, as reminding each other is beneficial to mukminin.

However as always, there will be few factors one need to consider before giving any advice.

Factor 1 – The Person Giving

• Must be very sure of the advice. Don’t advise anyone to walk in the dark, when you are not sure where the cliff is

• It is always better if the giver practise the advice first before advising others. However we must know that the advice will always be more important than the giver. A drug addict advises us not to use drug is a good advice. And we should take it irregardless of the giver condition.

Factor 2 – The Person Receiving

• If the person ask for advice then it is almost an obligation for you to help. Who else will help?

• However if the person clearly say no advice needed. we should know what to do. Some people prefer to settle their problem their way, and this is a good quality.

• Sometime pople asked for help, but when we offered the help or advice it’s like “curahkan air kedaun keladi”. He expect us to agree and back him up. Truthfully, I always get annoyed with this people. And I usually just back away.

Factor 3 – The Advice

• It is very important that you believe your advice is beneficial or at least better. Friend A is giving advice to B about how smoking will make him look more cool. Obviously you disagree, (advice against smoking is always better).. it would be wrong if you don’t stated your stand there.

• The advice must be beneficial to the receiving person, not to you. For example, your best friend has a crush on a girl, and he asked for your advice. once you see the girl, you decided to sabotage this friend of yours so that you will have better chance with her. you then advise your friend to run her with a motorcycle… that’s wouldn’t just be non-ethical… that’s plain evil.

I’m sure there’s a lot more we can add to this rule. Anything else that I missed? please help add in.

Conclusion – the rule of thumb when you are not sure is to think with both your heart and mind. you usually will already KNOW the answer.

————–Personal Note————-
There are millions of reason why we should not interfere. But how do we live our life when we see a child learning to smoke in front of us.. and all we do is look the other way. Aren’t we all related?

Dear friends… For your information, Alfattah will be starting her first day at work this coming Wednesday. And she would appreciate if everyone could give some advice on her first day. Congratulation sis…

Let me start by laying out some lessons I personally learnt during my first day. You probably knew most of them already, but it is in my opinion that important to be repeated

Tip 1 – First impression
That’s why it is called first impression. Only the first one will count. So.. be presentable. Dress suitably, Get enough sleep the day before. If you are excited like I was, you will not be able to sleep anyway, but no worry 🙂

Tip 2 – Learn as fast as you can.. (jgn malas)
You must realize that work is work.. It’s not like studying. And you are expected to work the first day you reported in, even though people say you can start later. So do some research on what your job scope is (MOST IMPORTANT), Prepare some question to ask on your work. Of course they will allow you some familiarisation period. But seriously you need to show that you are not some student doing practical training. You are there to work. Ask question if you don’t understand but please try to research the answer yourself first.

Believe me, the first few month of your work will be very demanding. You are expected to know everything as fast as you can, and in the mean time, all daily task need to be done. So be strong kay. it will get easier.. I promise

Tip 3 – Make friends immediately
Do not be shy, I made a fatal mistake of being a bit shy making friends when I started working. As a result after a year gone by, I still don’t know the name of a few of my staff. It’s very hard to work with a person if the two of you are strangers to each other. So make friends… Of course you will have to screen them eventually. Not all can be made friend.

As you are the new person, you are allowed to ask their name again should you forget. “Sori ye, tak ingat lah pulak nama, boleh saya tau sekali lagi?”

Tip 4 – Observe the culture
Make a mental note, you will be surprise with the working culture there. So keep your mind as opened as possible, because if not, you will start to be uncomfortable with everything. You cannot change the culture there on your first day. So go along with it.. For example, you see people got yelled in public because they are late for work… don’t freak out just yet. Just nod, and try to be early to avoid that kind of embarassment. observe and adapt… later we’ll change the culture

Tip 5 – observe the people
This is the fun part. You will see many people testing you. Yes.. testing you. They want to know what kind of person you are. So be smart with them. observe and listen. You will figure out the type of people in no time. Typically, there will always be

• people who’s good
• people who’s a suck up
• people who’s manipulative
• people who’s just plain annoying

Last Tips 6 – Don’t be nervous
After reading all this tips, you may start to be a bit nervous. Don’t… actually if you notice, there’s no reason to be. All you’re doing, is coming to work with an open mind. it is not hard at all to do.

Guys… do you have any other first day tips for Alfattah

So again, congratulation sis… I pray all the best for you 🙂