Tuesday, March 17, 2009

When equal isn’t really equal

There was a point in time when women protested to gain equality with men. They wanted to be more liberal and they wanted equal opportunities that is given to men.

After a long while, we men became soft-hearted and gave in to those demands and treated women equal in almost anything humanly possible.

We started having female astronauts, female scientists, female construction crane operators, female cabbies, female bus drivers, female wrestlers, female executives and directors, female firefighters, policewomen, female racers and even female criminals.

Almost all industries, which were once dictated and monopolized by men, have been given equal opportunities to women to pursue. But that wasn’t enough, was it?

They wanted more. Instead of just taking equal opportunities, they now strive to control men in return and lead us by the nose.

After a long evolution of men, we are slowly, but surely, becoming wimps. Don’t deny the fact that you’re not as manly as men once were because, now, we strive to PLEASE women.

We started cooking for them, carrying their handbags while they shop, do house chores for them, follow them around while they spend your money shopping, when they yell you fold and submit, when they’re angry you beg and cry.

Are most of these actions being appreciated? Most of the time, no. And this just makes us more vulnerable to further actions, that led to us being taken by the nose. We submit to their terms.

Somehow, equal isn’t really equal anymore.

Let’s assess some scenarios to see the difference between actions done by a man and similarly done by a woman, and the perception of it.

Scenario #1: Breaking Up

  • When a man breaks up with a woman, he/she must have done something wrong. They fight and break up.
  • When a woman breaks up with a man, he was a jerk and she was right.

Scenario #2: Cheating

  • When a man cheats, most of the time he’s just finding someone else to do things with that he can’t do with his partner.
  • When a woman cheats, her current man isn’t good enough for her and she deserves someone else.

Scenario #3: Spending

  • When a woman doesn’t pay for dates, the man will gladly pay on her behalf, mostly without collecting back in return.
  • When a man doesn’t pay for dates, the woman will be reluctant to part with her money, and Scenario #2 will start and ends with Scenario #1.

The word “gentlemen” is actually a very manipulative word. Women use it to influence men to behave ourselves and to do things FOR women. If we don’t, they just say that we’re “not gentlemen” and proceed to blacklist us.

I don’t speak for all women and men. But this is my general observation from a lot of female specimen.

And some women have a good sense to say that “all the good men in this world are dead.”

Gosh, 95% of the women in this world are born half blind.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Sights and sounds of…..business.

Lately I’ve found myself travelling quite often. Usually outstation whether on day trips or overnights.

For those who don’t know the nature of my work, I currently handle designs and New Product Developments in my company. We have customers spanning from Jitra all the way to Singapore. And at times, we do have Thai customers in our accounts.

Therefore, when the sales people travel to meet their customers on discussions of new projects or new designs or new customers, I am required to travel with them to meet those customers. Well, I too have my own customer. Kampai.

Yes, we handle all food and beverage customers as well as liquor customers. And they’re all over the country.

Just last week, I travelled up north with 2 sales personnel to visit 11 customers. In a day. The trip started with the first customer in Bidor and the last is in Sg Petani.

So, since we were so near the Thai border, we decided to stay over at the small town right at the border, called Dannok.

It was a good choice because a room in a decent hotel in Dannok costs roughly half the price of a decent room in a hotel in Kedah. If there are any, that is.

[Company paying but dunno why are we helping them to save]

But being in Dannok is a whole different experience. Mostly only for the guys.

Things there are cheap. So are a lot of other “things”. The price of a PROPER Thai massage there is about half the price of a Thai massage that is available in Malaysia. At the end of it, the tired body of travelling around is fully relaxed and rested.

But, Dannok is a place of “see but don’t touch”. There was a decent club there that isn’t sleazy and also features live singing and dance performances. There are male and female, Thai and even Chinese, singing English, Chinese, Thai and even Japanese songs to entertain the patrons there. Drinks are decent, compared to those here in Malaysia.

Today (Friday), had to visit my own customer’s filling factory in Muar.

Kidnapped one of my sales person and my QA officer to come along to check out their machinery and filling process.

Left at about 8.30am, reached the factory at about 11am, done everything before noon and then gone down to town to have lunch.

Got back to the office by 3.30pm. Not bad. I’m proud of my Myvi. We even brought back some otak-otak and biscuits from Muar.

This concludes some of the travelling that happened in the past weeks. I left out some but these were the biggest ones.

Now I feel like sleeping in the office.

*Yawn*