Author: Randolph

All the lessons I have written in my blog so far took time to reveal and reflection to unravel. When a crisis hits, you have many theories about what happened. Only when the dust settles and your mind clears do you begin to understand what actually caused it. Sometimes it takes leaving a company, talking…

While I was fresh working in construction, you are bombarded by various inputs. Subcontractors say one thing, their managers say another. The inspectors says one thing, then my boss says another. Because you want to be helpful person, you try to listen to everyone, and eventually, you get confused yourself, and you can’t get things…

Once I was listening to Brain Chesky. He was known to be a sharp and contrarian thinker. I realized that his depth of thought is much like I did when I was in university, when I had a lot of time for myself to reflect. Consumed with work, and to be honest, not planning my…

As a natural workaholic, I enjoy working hard. When I was in university, take part of internships, take positions in extracurriculars and public organizations, read, tinker, exercise, socialize, date and write blogs like these. Other than some tutorials and exams I need to attend (I mostly skip lectures), I have full control of my time.…

We had a process called virtual BCA inspection — cameras and webcams recording inspections that would normally be conducted on-site. BCA published best practice guidelines. I read them carefully, synthesised the requirements, and concluded that our existing camera specs were insufficient. We needed higher quality equipment to meet the written standards. When we invited an…

Two years ago, I wrote a blog on my apparent breakthrough in learning social skills. When I read back the blog, I realized how shallow my understanding of people was then. Here is a excerpt I pulled out from the blog: I feel disappointed and also a little arrogant when I realize my newly befriended…

This is part of a series “Lessons from my internship experience” # 3 In the workplace, people tend to focus on getting the work done. I get it – in the department in which I interned, most of the employees are extremely busy. They just have to spend the hours to produce the promised output…

This is part of a series “Lessons from my internship experience” # 2 Before this internship, I had a short summer internship in an architectural firm. It was my first time working in a company and I was definitely inexperienced behaving as a good mentee/employee. I recalled many behaviors and habits that may hurt myself…

This is part of a series “Lessons from my internship experience” # 1 They say that comparison is a thief of joy. Most people use it as an antidote to envy and insecurity, but I use it differently. If you are ambitious, driven, and risk-taking, you will be disappointed how rare a specimen you are…