Meeting sambil berdiri..Ada berani??

Meeting and eating has become a regime in government departments. You can get a full meal if your meeting stretches the whole day. Meeting rooms are so cozy, you can doze off if the meeting is boring.

This culture has never been a practice in a Japanese company (oh should I mention, manufacturing company).  When I was working as an engineer in a Japanese MNC, meeting is usually conducted in meeting rooms in each building you are in. RF Design section was in Building 2, which has 1 meeting room. Meeting is done accordingly, short if everything is ok, a bit long if there is a problem. But never it surpassed 2 hours.

And, eating? NEVER. We were not even served a cup of coffee. If you have a meeting with customer in Building 1, where the General Manager is in, then you will be lucky enough to be served with one. Other than that, you bring your own mineral water la.

You knowla how the Japanese companies are very particular about "Muda" (wastage).They will try their best to reduce wastage in terms of money, energy, time and whatever.According to my husband, the company now is moving a step forward.

To reduce meeting time, make faster decisions, meetings are done standing.The meeting rooms are now locked, only opened for trainings for new staff.Another meeting area will only have a table, if they need to use projector and laptop.And this includes managers meeting which is held every Wednesday. (No wonder my husband looks so tired after work on this day).

They have been implemented this kaizen for about  a couple of months now. I am not sure how they quantify the results of this kaizen effort, but I am pretty sure everybody would want to end the meeting quickly.

Who wants to stand up and argue for more than an hour??

It is time for new DIARY!

Today we spent some time at Low Yat and KLCC. Had lunch at KLCC and then singgah PetroSains, then off to Kinokuniya.

As usual I will go to the stationery corner first and then only the book section.

Hah! The diaries & schedulers for 2011 is out!

Only God knows how fussy I am about diaries. Well, I used to keep the 365days diary during my early years in Japan. Later when I got busier, I turned to scheduler, in which I will plan and record my daily activities.

In Japan, scheduler is a must for nearly everyone. Even the teenagers keep their scheduler. And the new designs would come out as early as October, because usually the calender will start from December the previous year. And the design...oh...just can't help it. Sooo many!! A variety of choice on the sizes too! ( I will upload the photos of my previous schedulers later..no time now lah)

So, what is the design of my choice? Whatever the cover is, the internal part must have

1) Large monthly view, where I can see my overall schedule of the month (this is the reason why I don't use scheduler provided by UKM)

2) No week views. No need for that. I plan by month

3) Ample pages at the back to jot down prompt ideas.

4) The scheduler must be easily opened, meaning that it is flat when I am writing on it.

Oh ya, back to the Kinokuniya story, too bad the imported diaries and schedulers from Japan are way too expensive. And the locally produced ones, not attractive at all. I will wait  until more designs come out (which is unlikely for the local product) tapi takpelah.

Uhh..tak sabarnya nak dapatkan scheduler 2011. New scheduler will bring new spirit of the new year..:))