DEADWOOD

Being a deadwood normally gives a negative connotation when describing the current performance of a paid employee.  For those who are not familiar with the definition, it simply means that the person is not performing and his/her presence is just an added number to a growing manpower.

I am currently having this feeling towards my own presence in the company and so far, I could not think of pushing the department under my supervision to another level. Seems that my mode has hit the glass ceiling. What else is there? Am I being positive to the point of insanity or just plain pessimist? God forbid, I do not want to do the same old stuff over and over again and expecting excellence…now that is insane!  Maybe if I were to discuss this matter with a motivational trainer, he/she would say that I am stuck in my comfort zone and I am crookedly insane.

Let’s look what we have in store for this year.  The year is 2015 and according to the Chinese calendar, this year supposed to be the year of the Goat. Would there be a good leap and good grazing or otherwise? Only Allah knows best. For us the so-called intelligent creature, we ought to think of a way to get out of the current mess we are in.

Our government is ever-ready to graze the middle income and consumers by introducing the Goods and Service Tax aka GST.  Even before this new tax takes into place, already the retailers and producers hiked the price of perishable goods in the wake of petrol down price.  Surprise? Not at all.

Layman like me would expect the price of goods would reduce coherently with the downward petrol price but it proves to be the other way round. Why? I would perceive that the raw material, which mostly are imported still subject to transportation cost and duties imposed by our Royal Customs. Added with downward trend of our Ringgit against the foreign currencies, buying power of our manufacturers has decreased which makes even worse for the consumers. But then, what about the home grown or locally manufactured stuff which derived from local raw material? Should it be cheaper especially when the petrol price has gone down?  This is where the hard grazing by the producers and retailers (and also the middlemen) existed.  To put it mildly, it is an act of profiteering from the situation.

Now here comes the RM 1 million-layman question.  What is the government take on this matter and are they aware of the price hike of perishable goods?  Our government is always good at stop gap measures but seldom has a long-term solution, resulting some flip-flop decisions and the final scenario will end up as it was from the beginning.  Our government and its ministries are fast becoming deadwoods and if they still have some sense in them, our country’s economy model should be reviewed in the wake of a global crisis.  Otherwise, the population will find somebody else who is more dynamic to lead the country out of the brink of self-destruction.

If this writing considered as seditious, then I say go screw yourself!