Double Team

Double Team

Watching Raito and Aidan grew was priceless. Every time I take a look at their photos, I am always amazed at the fact that I have two boys in my care. I feels like it's only yesterday when I'm still in college, but now I have my own family to take care of.

Both of them were adorable. Hopefully they would stay adorable until the next few years to come. I can still remember how small and fragile they were when they're around one or two months old. I enjoy every moment looking at how tiny they were back then. :)

Then there was this time when I have to shave their hair. They have quite a thick hair, especially Aidan. When it's time to shave them, I decided to go all the way to make their head bald and shiny. They sure look funny when they're bald. :)

Before the shaving, Raito has a habit of pulling his own hair from time to time. There are times when he was caught holding the hair that he pulled from his own head. I don't know for what reason he's doing that. Frustration, perhaps? Beats me. All I know is he eventually lost that habit after realizing he doesn't have anything on his head to pull away. :)

As they grew older, they became capable of doing more things. That also means they are capable of more funny things. I am always on the lookout for those things. Equipped with a Nikon Coolpix S200 and an average skill in using compact digital camera, I tried to savor every moment when Raito and Aidan doing funny things. Well I don't do it for the sake of laughter so I took every memorable moments possible.

There are a lot of things I can share about Raito and Aidan. Some that would make me smile, some that would make me laugh. However, I don't think I have the time to write that plenty of story. Since a picture contains a thousand words then I'll focus on uploading photos instead of blabbering in this blog.

A Hilarious New Feature from Gmail: Mail Goggles

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret

The link above was the original blog post by Jon Perlow (Gmail Engineer) explaining how Gmail could help us to stop sending mails we later regret. I believe such a feature would be helpful because there are times when I felt like taking some of the mails I've sent.

What I consider hilarious was how Mail Goggles actually do the work. Here's a quote from the original blog post.

what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?

I laugh the moment I read the above statement. How do we define that we're in a right state of mind just by solving a few simple math problems? Was that statement based on any facts related to human psychology? Beats me. One thing's for sure, I obviously doubt that answering math problems would show me the state of my mind.

I definitely should try using Mail Goggles before I go any further on this matter. I have to wait until the first "late night on weekend" before I can give it a try.

Pembantu Rumah Tangga dilindungi Undang-Undang?

Saya rasa keberadaan Undang-Undang (UU) untuk melindungi hak dan kewajiban Pembantu Rumah Tangga (PRT) memang diperlukan karena kasus pelanggaran hak dan perlakuan kasar majikan terhadap PRT sering terjadi. Tapi saya melihat ada kemungkinan keberadaan UU itu akan mempersulit para majikan untuk mempekerjakan PRT.

Undang-Undang tersebut akan mengatur segala sesuatu tentang PRT. Saya bukan orang yang mengerti hukum dan saya pun belum pernah melihat draft rancangan UU tersebut, tapi sumber-sumber yang saya baca memperlihatkan UU itu akan membuat PRT diperlakukan sebagaimana tenaga kerja pada umumnya. Upah minimum, waktu kerja, cuti, lembur, jamsostek, dan berbagai hal lain akan diatur dalam UU tersebut.

Majikan pasti akan bereaksi. Saya juga termasuk pengguna jasa PRT. Saya pun bereaksi. Tapi saya tidak memiliki maksud negatif. Saya tidak pernah memperlakukan PRT semena-mena. Saya bahkan berusaha memenuhi kebutuhan PRT walaupun kadang harus berkorban waktu, biaya, dan tenaga. Saya memperlakukan PRT yang saya pekerjakan sebagaimana saya memperlakukan karyawan umum yang bekerja pada saya.

Tapi sampai saat ini saya melihat ada perbedaan yang nyata antara karyawan dan PRT. Upah PRT melihat upah PRT pada umumnya. Waktu kerja dari pukul 5 pagi sampai 9 malam, tapi bukan bekerja tanpa henti. Saya senantiasa memberikan PRT waktu istirahat dan waktu berhibur yang cukup. Cuti saya berikan saat PRT perlu pulang kampung dari menjelang sampai dengan sesudah hari raya.

Mungkin bukan itu saja yang membedakan PRT dengan karyawan pada umumnya. Tapi kalau sampai PRT menjadi sama dengan karyawan umum, masalah paling utama sepertinya terletak pada waktu kerja. Saya tidak bisa membayangkan kalau saya hanya boleh mempekerjakan PRT selama 8 (delapan) jam sehari sementara saya punya 2 (dua) anak berumur 5 (lima) bulan. Saya perlu bantuan mengurus kedua anak saya mulai dari mereka bangun sampai mereka tidur.

Memberi uang lembur? Bisa saja. Tapi buat saya sepertinya hal ini akan menyulitkan. Upah Minimum Propinsi Banten tahun 2008 adalah Rp. 837.000. Saya tinggal di Tangerang jadi saya harus mengikuti aturan upah minimum tersebut. Kalau ditambah lembur, mungkin saya akan membayar PRT lebih dari 1 juta Rupiah. Kalau saya menggunakan dua orang PRT, saya harus menyiapkan uang lebih dari 2 juta Rupiah.

Kemudian masalah cuti, saya pribadi memilih untuk tidak mempekerjakan PRT yang sedang hamil. PRT itu pekerja kasar. Saya rasa PRT hamil akan sulit bekerja seperti biasanya. Apa jadinya kalau hamil saat sudah bekerja? Sepertinya saya harus mencantumkan "kesediaan untuk tidak hamil selama bekerja" dalam kontrak perjanjian dengan PRT saya nanti.

Masih banyak lagi hal yang ingin saya tuangkan. Sayangnya saya mulai kesulitan mengumpulkan kata-kata yang tepat. Pada intinya saya menyambut baik keberadaan UU untuk mengatur hak dan kewajiban PRT. Saya hanya berharap UU tersebut tidak menimbulkan masalah lain.

Referensi:

• Aprizal Rahmatullah. 11 Desember 2008. Pemerintah Siapkan RUU untuk Lindungi PRT. detikNews. http://www.detiknews.com/read/2008/12/11/142037/1052070/10/pemerintah-siapkan-ruu-untuk-lindungi-prt; diakses tanggal 20 Desember 2008.
• DATA UPAH MINIMUM PROPINSI (UMP) 2008. portalHR. http://www.portalhr.com/gudang/UMP/UMP_2008.pdf; diakses tanggal 20 Desember 2008.
  

Saw V

Saw 5 is now in theaters (and in isoHunt), but I couldn't care less. Even though I am a fan of Saw, I don't think I'll be watching Saw 5 before I finished watching Saw 2, 3, and 4. So I decided to watch each one of them. I even skimmed through the first movie to refresh my memories of Saw.

Saw was amazing. I am referring to how Jigsaw was able to manipulate his targets to play along with his game. In the end, his targets died (horribly) but he never pulls the trigger. He made it possible for his targets to try and save themselves even though saving themselves requires quite a sacrifice. I don't even wanna go through the details.

I continued with the next movie, Saw 2. Seeing that I still have Saw 3 and 4, I decided to skim through all of the movie. What do you know? Skimming through all four Saw movies was not a healthy choice. Looking at all the blood and gore at a constant and short pace really made me sick. Seeing trap after trap (and what they're capable of doing) made it worse. Damn!

I've had enough of Saw. Aside from the blood and gore, I still considered the movie interesting. However, skimming all four of the Saw anthology feels like having recurring nightmares. The characters were different, new traps were shown, but there's nothing new in the plot except that it shows the big picture. The newer one explains unsolved mysteries in the older one. I think I'll see scenes leading to Saw 4 if I watched Saw 5. This is merely a theory though. I don't think I'll be watching Saw 5. It's time to remove Saw from my collection.

Synopsis (at IMDB):
(2004) Saw
(2005) Saw II
(2006) Saw III
(2007) Saw IV
(2008) Saw V

Collateral Damage

The problem with Partner1 during the turbulence was bad enough. Failed projects add more to the damage. It was freaking hard handling all of them. Especially when I don't really have anyone else to back me up. I tried my best to solve them all but I failed to do so.

I assume you've read about the turbulence. In this post, I'll share some stories about the projects that failed. I don't have plenty of them to share though. There are only two of them which I believed to have great effect on my small business. One of them was the reason why I decided to drop my partnership with Partner1.

In both projects, I served as a sub-contractor. I worked for another Information Technology (IT) company which in turn worked for their respective clients. This is a common method in software development where an IT company would outsource their work to another (read: smaller) IT company.

In the first project (read: project D'oh), the super-contractor can't pay me. They claimed that their client was having financial problems due to global crisis. Hence they didn't receive enough payment from their client to pay me. This is a shocking fact for me because I thought the super-contractor would pay me regardless.

It seems that kind of situation is common. If my super-contractor doesn't get payed then neither do I. You might not find this stated in legal contract but that's just the way things go. I tried lobbying for several times but it was a dead end. In the end, I can't help but to accept the "cruel" fate.

Next project (read: project Damn) was quite similar. I also didn't get any payments. However, the reason was a bit different. The project was going quite smooth until I decided to break up with Partner1. It is within this project that I decided to quit working with Partner1.

During that time, the super-contractor was not satisfied. It seems Partner1 can't work it out with the super-contractor after I left. In the end, the super-contractor contact me directly. They offered me to take over the development. Partner1 was eventually left out of the project.

I took the offer but that would also mean a new contract. It was obvious that I would be involved with another round of negotiation with the super-contractor. To make long story short, the negotiation failed. We couldn't reach an agreement. Both of us stand firm on what we requested. Again I have to accept the "cruel" fate.

To tell you the truth, the situation was much more complicated; especially with project Damn. Telling the details would result in a much, much, much longer post than this one. Besides, the point of writing this post was to show you the damage instead of the process.

The damage was huge. Kinda like how an earthquake would bring down a straw hut. Both projects played a crucial part in my survival as an entrepreneur. I tried other alternatives, but the income from those two projects was what I rely on the most. Losing both projects was devastating.

At that point, I realized my partnership with Partner1 didn't bring me anything except plenty of lessons to learn. I immediately did a comprehensive review of the steps I took during that partnership. What went wrong? What was the cause of them? Where did I make mistake? How should I prevent them from happening in the future? There are plenty of questions that I ask to myself so that I don't have to be trapped in the same spot anymore.

I kept on going. Creating new partnership, opening new project opportunities, surviving the harsh life of entrepreneurship up until I met Partner3. We immediately got ourselves a new project. I was in charge of managing the project development. This is my chance to get back and regain what I've lost to this date.

However, starting up for the second time was hard. The fact is I'm already exhausted. I lost everything I've invested in my partnership with Partner1. Starting up with Partner3 was not going to be easy. Nevertheless, I took the chance and see what will come in the future.