Not On The Train but @ Specialist Hospital, May 26, 2010

As to beat the traffic jam we arrived early at DSH. It was 0631 to be exact. As instructed we walked towards the Emergency counter to register in. Formality done we waited for the next instruction. Around 0745 we were taken to the ward and I decided to have breakfast at the hospital’s cafe. Since DSH is fully ‘Wified’ all the three of us connected and communicated online easily. Then, I did not get the notion that I would be there for the whole day until late evening when I was at the cafe again having our evening coffee.

Now both of us are in the room waiting for Baqir to come back from the OT. And while waiting something very interesting happened and I want to add should not happen in hospital like DSH. Both my wife were in the room, I was standing making myself a coffee and my dear wife on the bed surfing the Net. A nurse came in and said to my wife ‘ nak ambil BP’ my wife straight pointed to the next bed and I said off the bat we were not the patients. After awhile the nurse went out and I remarked to my wife the nurse should not asked that stupid question and they should know who and where the patient is. True enough the nurse came back in and asked ‘ Patient pergi mana ye?’. I said straight away. ‘ You sepatutnya tak tanya soalan itu, you should know better. You kerja sini.’ Smiling sheepishly she said, ‘Saya tak tahu, saya baru masuk kerja.’ Sorry to say another wrong answer. No matter what, they should know who their patients are and where they are. The previous shift should do a serial knowledge transfer or a simple AAR by way of either written or verbal reports/briefing. Either way patient's records should be easily available to them.

On The Train (Wedding, Sungkai, Petai, Tg Malim), May 24, 2010

Another wedding over the weekend and this time at Tapah. It can be just like any other wedding but for the players involved. Sungkai, Tapah and Bidor were where my wife and her family used to reside. They were a part of the mining community there. My wife and her siblings attended their primary and secondary both at Sungkai and Bidor. Naturally they have a lot of friends there and naturally Tapah also came into equation for them. One of her sisters decided to make Bidor her kampung now. As strange as anything can be the family’s, read ladies, tailor is also at Tapah. So we frequently travel there to visit and recently my wife started to reconnect with her old family friends in the areas. Our host for the wedding was one of my wife’s closest family friends that I would not wrong to reclassify it as almost as true family itself. It is a place and occasion ‘where everybody knows your name’. Knowing how this thing works and having such an experience myself I was just happy to oblige. I just let my wife had her moment reestablishing her old networks of friends. Surprise as any surprise can be the bride, the host’s daughter, happened to be working in the same organization as yours truly. Now I can potential stake a claim on my wife’s network.

Photos here

After visiting my sister-in-law for a while I took the old route 1 home and when we arrived at Sungkai my wife remarked about the new railway station hidden on our right. You should know by how that I have this thing with train and train stations, I decided to check it out. The new station was not that interesting but being introduced to the old Sungkai town was a nice surprise for me. I’d never realized its existence. Of course my wife rebuffed me saying’ I told you so many times already. You are the one who was not listening.’ He he he, yes dear.

Photos here

When we arrived at Bidor from Tapah earlier my wife was pushing me to stop to buy some petai. Since I decided to take route 1 we missed buying them at Bidor. I drove straight on to Slim River (Mar asked me what is Slim River and I told her Sungai Kurus) from Sungkai firstly to fill up the Ranger and secondly to check whether there was a Pasar Malam there to buy some petai. I filled up the Ranger but there wasn’t any petai only a van full of petai coming along beside us that I tempted to stop. I entered the highway at Slim River and Schumacher my way down south. When we passed Behrang I remembered that there would be a Pasar Malam at Tg Malim town that night. I told my wife and turned left to enter Tg Malim.

The pasar malam covered half of Tg Malim town and to our surprised after we tawaf the whole pasar malam there wasn’t a single sayur kampung on sale. Which means no petai as well laa. But we discovered one of the specialties of the pasar malam, the biggest cheese apam balik that I have seen. Yes, not only it was the biggest it contain cheese as well. I guess you can called it Afem Ballick now he he he.

Photos here.

On The Train (The Pink Coach), May 21, 2010

Last week KTMB introduced The Pink Coach on the Seremban Rawang line. I knew its coming. No impact for me in the morning going to work but a big one going home as my favourite coach going home is the one in the middle. Well, I am not against the idea but they have not improve on even the smallest thing about their service and yet they are introducing this. Here’s my grievance list.

1. Punctuality is suck and the rate of train missing from the schedule is still the same.
2. The announcement still not timely and blatantly misleading. Obviously, both lines, under the pretext of trying to improve their service, would play on recorded announcement when arriving at various stations. Whenever these trains arrive at KL Sentral, to save cost or whatever, they play the same announcement like this. “ ..... kepada penumpang yang akan meneruskan perjalanan ke Pelabuhan Klang sila ke paltform 4, ke Seremban ke platform 5, .....‘ The problem is I am already on a Seremban line or Klang line. It may not be confusing to someone like me but to the new passengers and foreigners? In trying to help and save cost instead they annoy and confuse their customers.
3. In trying to educate and help the passengers, especially at KL Sentral, the guards sometimes are rude.
4. The touch n go and ticket gates are faulty most of the time. Especially to those that using weekly or monthly passes. It is a nuisance.
5. The ticket machine fared no better

KTMB can paint all the coaches pink if they want to but they are still not pretty. If you know what I mean

On The Train, May 7, 2010

I have been sharing and talking about Knowledge Management (KM) for quite awhile now since 1997. From the very infancy until what it is now. A lot have changed and still evolving. I could see an encouraging trends of Malaysian organizations wanting to ‘implement’/‘do’ KM. Though encouraging, one or two of them have been misled to understand and believe the wrong thing about KM. There are still organizations equating KM to a department setting up a KM Unit, KM is Document Management or KM is Portal. KM is more than that.

Another thing that came full circle and to my amazement few months back while attending a function I came across a printed slide presentation. When I browsed through them I could help to feel the slides so familiar. Until after a couple of pages I realised they were from my old slides that I used to teach. I have moved along since then and so did the slides, I thought. The slides were only useful a few years then and now some of the information are already overtaken by new developments in the subject areas. If anybody was to use the slides they should be used in perspective. Not in entirety.

On The Train ( The Pink Train), April 28, 2010

I was walking on the platform yesterday evening when I saw opposite on the other side that something was different. The first thing I saw was actually a police like barrier was tied around a bin against a pillar. At first I thought KTMB was trying to protect the bin from vandals but then I realised something else. All the pillars in question were actually painted pink. So I deduced that it was meant as an indication to ‘beware of a wet paint’. I was right but not sure why KTMB suddenly likes pink. Today my curiosity was answered firstly by a news report that KTMB has started to assigned a carriage in the middle of a Komuter train as a ladies only carriage and among other things decided to paint it pink. Secondly, when I walked along the platform today I saw across a big banner in between two pink pillars saying ‘ a waiting area for ladies only carriage’. The pink carriage. I was told by my colleague this morning when she boarded the specific carriage it was still full with men. :))). Obviously they were caught unaware of the new measure. For now the pink carriages are only available on Klang line. Well it is a good idea but let see how Malaysians react to that.