The Message - 4Him

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Lessons from my boss #1

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In a number of organisations, there's a practice of appointing a "staff assistant" to the CEO or other senior leader, where the intent is to provide exposure and development opportunities for the staff assistant, while hopefully being useful to the senior leader.  Examples in the Government include the role of Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister or senior cabinet leaders, or possibly the Justice's Law Clerks for the High Court judges. In the private sector, titles include staff assistant, and for more senior appointments, even Chief of Staff. Many years ago, I was working late in the office when I returned to my desk from a meeting. Some of the office lights had already been turned off, so it was a bit dim, and the office was quiet. When I got to my desk, I saw my boss' boss sitting in my chair! I half thought to myself - oh no. I'm gonna be fired. I wasn't fired. Phew. But she *was* asking me to leave. She asked me how I was, and then in cha...
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Money, muscles and microphones

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=====MONEY===== Every month, I update my spreadsheet of finances. My mortgage, my CPF, brokerage and bank balances. And this time of year, being bonus season (our financial year runs from July to June), gives me more excuses to check how many points I've gotten up to in the Game of Life.  The weird thing is, no one in my family is a spender. My favourite weekday office attire is Uniqlo-sourced rather than, well, whatever brand people are supposed to be wearing, I honestly don't even know (see "I have one suit" ). My weekend attire goes even more rapidly downhill and, following some bargain-hunting, today comprises $4.90 Ts and $6.90 pants with a label that literally says "Fashion" for some reason. My watch is a scratched 2nd/3rd hand Fitbit off Carousell. Our supermarket run comprises making a beeline for whatever is on the "Clearance" aisle and happily browsing through what's new and exciting there. I don't think all this is even about me ...
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Bullying? Stand up!

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When I was a kid, I remember being bullied a fair bit.  I was small for my age, bespectacled, shy.    The teachers didn't help by putting a target on my back by making me Vice Head Prefect.  I would get my stuff just taken away from me by bigger kids, dragged out into the field to be tickled until I collapsed (much less fun than it sounds), and pushed into the storm drains.  Not all the kids were full-blown bullies of course.  But I remember some of them standing by, and politely holding my spectacles (so they wouldn't be broken) while the bullies did their work on me. Most of this stopped when I got to secondary school, where a much larger proportion of my fellow students were now just as nerdy!  And of course I grew up too.  I don't really look back on those days with any kind of animosity, because I think it never occurred to me that it was unusual.  But I do think my experience made me a bit more sympathetic about people around me who...
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