Slow Culture, maybe should start using this instead of forever rushing for nothing

[Dynaway]

i got this thru email.... 28hrs work week for germans... damn ....good life..

 

 

 

 

Good article ... esp the last part.

 

[/size]

 

A MUST READ

An excellent article to read and enjoy (may be action as well!!).

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalized processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results.. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

In other words:

[ol] [*]

Sweden

has 2 million inhabitants.

[/ol] [ol] [*]

Stockholm

has 500,000 people.

[/ol] [ol] [*]

Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, are some of its renowned companies. Volvo even supplies NASA.

[/ol]

The first time I was in Sweden , one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work).

The first day, I didn't say anything, neither the second or third days. One morning I asked him, "Do you have a fixed parking space?

I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot."

To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, don't you think that whoever gets in late will need a place closer to the door?" Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe named Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart, Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fuelled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being".

French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%..

This slow attitude has come to the notice of USA , the pupils of the fast and "do it now" brigade.

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity

• It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress.

• It means re-establishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous.

• It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive work place where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do.

It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence.

In the movie, 'Scent of a Woman', there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance the tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious to live for the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists.

We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Congratulations for reading this email till the end of this message.

There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this "Globalized" world.

[Iliketodrive]

hmm do everything slowly...? pri sch take 12yr to finish, sec sch take 8yr, poly take 6yr, uni take 6yr. NSF 4 YEARS!!! 40 year old than start work? 50 year old marry, 55 year old 1st child.

[Falc]

Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%.

Officially clock 28.8 hrs, but unofficially clock 38.8 hrs. Of coz productivity goes up.

[Ody_2004]

I work in a german MNC. Yes they get to enjoy life more as compare to asian. But for us we get frustrated at their slow response to issues/problems and such.

 

To me if the world is still dominated by the european then it work. But at this moment the growth is center in ASIA (esp China, india and upcoming like vietnam, cambodia..).

 

In time to come, with their current culture they are playing catch up instead of a leader/innovator.

[Friendstar]

Life and How to Survive It

 

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

 

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

 

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

 

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

 

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.

 

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

 

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You're done learning.

 

You've probably been told the big lie that 'Learning is a lifelong process' and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

 

The good news is that they're wrong.

 

The bad news is that you don't need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

 

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

 

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

 

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

 

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

 

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet their life expectancy.

 

I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

 

After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

 

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

 

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

 

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

 

What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

 

Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

 

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

 

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

 

The most important is this: do not work.

 

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

 

Work kills. The Japanese have a term 'Karoshi', which means death from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

 

There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are 'making a living'. No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

 

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan 'Arbeit macht frei' was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

 

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

 

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

 

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction

[Russ]

I don't quite buy all the arguments in the convocation speech but the Volvo one, yes, I subscribe to that. Nowadays, I almost never get angry at anyone on the road, driving is more pleasant, I often cruise at 75km/h (more or less depends on what other users are doing - I just follow) in the left most lane of expressways, get 15 km/l on my 2 litre car. And I have great pity on those rushing around, breaking speed limits, tailgating, etc I can just feel them shortening their lives and getting angry for nothing.

 

OK it takes me 5 minutes more to get to work. Big deal, it often takes more time to get through the telephone line when you call SIA, banks etc. So why rush and get there 5 minutes earlier?

 

Problem nowadays is this - people are spending long hours rushing things at work and not taking time to THINK about what they are doing. Sometimes, you can drop 20,30,40% of what you do because it is unproductive work. Spend 10% thinking and planning so that you can reduce the workload by half and still achieve the most important productive things.

[Dicksonzhang]

[Ody_2004]

If u read the article on BT yesterday, Aigo is reinvesting 80% of their revenue back to R&D!! That's alot!

 

Some believe in getting thing right the first time while the other group may spend a considerable time, effort and money on substaining work.

 

But with the current market situation. No product be launched with perfection. It is always time to market. Look at the Iphone, even with the releasse of the 3G model. There are some bugs not fix and feature not incorporated.

[Friendstar]

what is ur car?

2 litre 15km/litre super good leh

[Russ]

Subaru Legacy - and I get 10km/l when I am driving around town (provided no jam).

 

Used to get 17 km/l on my Corolla 1.6 G9. Reckon now I can get 20+ km/l with my newfound patience.

Edited August 7, 2008 by Russ

[Espire]

Yes I do work with Germans.

That is their way of life.. very work life balance.

On top of that, they had at least 30 days annual leave per year and are expected to clear it within a year.

So normally they will got for 2 holidays, 1 short and 1 long..

For long holidays which is normally year end, they can be away from work for a month.

Sounds cool huh..

 

For us to have work life balance... wait long long lah..

We are just slaves.

[Jughead]

who's this litigator-speaker?

very enriching piece.

tks!

[Bmz3]

Me work with Germans too.

 

Their working hour/system is really good, if they are require to work overtime or on weekend, the $ they get is really .

[Zanter]

Adrian Tan from Drew. He wrote the teenage text book ages ago. He really loves what he does. In fact he is so busy, he need to take leave to service his car but thats the dream, to do what you really want.

 

I guess Singaporeans dont know what they really want, so they just copy from other Singaporeans who dont really know what they really want too

[Jughead]

adrian tan? wow - used to love his textbook series.

tks for the post.

[Louisckp]

me too work with european boss, they got 30 days leave, house & car (at least 2litres) provided. and many more (no need to spell out)

 

why so good? be'cos they speak up! but to who? not to their boss, but to their govt!

 

they have strong union that look into such welfare. the govt no choice but to obey the union. so over the years, this benefits slowly form the norms standards for every ang mo who not only work overseas & also in their own land.

 

look at their leaders, do they stay at top for very long? do the country thrown into chaos everyear? who make of G8? how many of them take peanuts for living?

 

if our eilte smash the peanuts & throw the crumb onto the public, many of us no need work liao

 

work life balance? there yes, here next lifetime maybe. we are always asian slaves. forever...

 

best part is slaves supposed to walk very slow with whip lashing behind , but we are rushing as if our master is hanging carrot in front of us.

[Roborovskii]

What he suggests only seems plausible for graduates with well-to-do parents, and totally impossible for young adults from low income families. Not to mention those who are lesser educated.

 

While some of his views are true and insightful from a different angle, they also omit the harsh reality that not everyone has the same opportunities to make these kind of choices. Don't work, relax have fun and wait for money to fall on your lap? Whose gonna pay for this month's bills?

 

He should have spoken on the balance of truth/reality/positioning versus wants/needs/expectations. Seems like he was just blowing sunshine up graduate's arses.

[Zanter]

I'd prefer to see it in another way. His speech is about doing what you're passionate about, rather than put ur nose on the grind stone to erk out a living. Its not about being alive but living?

 

The reality is that if you wish for the Singapore dream of car, condo and status you'd need to work hard or have rich parents. The point is that if you're doing something that you're passionate about the money, status etc will come naturally. Warren Buffet said something like that as well. Well some people are lucky to find their passions and chase their dreams