166: Border

'Don't write the word out of the border of the square, otherwise teacher will gibe u a black pig ga la.' When we were children, our mum should have talked similar things to us when we were doing penmanship homework. We must write all the things within the square or above the line and this is how our hand-writing be judged. The border is very clear.

When having public exams in secondary school, we need to put our answers in answer booklets. There is no limit on number of words of the answers and most candidates would tend to write more and write as many as they could. Although a long answer does not guarantee high marks, an answer with only a few lines or half page cannot earn many marks. There is no border indeed, but there is a self-created border.

When came to work, we usually have to make up the skeleton and no one will provide clear guidelines. And sometimes very detailed analysis is preferred, but sometimes your boss would want it to be as brief as possible. We definitely would not and could not knock the door of the boss and ask the word limit and the main ideas as we did when we were students. We have to make judgement ourselves. There is no established border and no one will create a border. The border is invisible and judgemental.

Adults have independent thinking. Even not all adults are working as a professional, each of them usually have to make professional judgements at their position. Since the border is invisible, this should not be deliberately created and limit one's action, as long as it is not in contrary to established ground rules and morality.

Jump out of the invisible borders and discover more!

165: Who decides the direction?

The Olympic torch relay in HK is really a great day for all HK people. The atmosphere all over is so excited that all people over HK and China are full of smiles and fire, yeah~~

To celebrate this special event, my firm announced a few days ago that on May 2, 2008 our office will be closed. Very happy to have one more day holiday so that we can have 4 consecutive days of holidays!!

But I think the announcement was too late that we cannot plan what to do beforehand, say having a short trip or going hiking. Anyway, it's already a good thing to have an extra day of holiday.

This announcement also illustrated it should be the boss to make the decision and provide a direction and all the supporting staff to think how to go well in this direction. The boss announced: Oh! Let's have a day of extra holiday! To relax and to support the Olympics!! Then many people will come to the supporting staff: How about I really have to work on that day and will another day of leave be compensated to me? How about I have to attend exam classes and do I still need to attend? How about I have a day of annual leave approved for May 2 and I need to cancel this and have another day of paid-leave? How about I booked air tickets for business trips and I still need to travel? Many many similar scenarios will be left for the supporting staff to analyse and resolve.

So it's the boss to decide, and you guys to adjust yourself and follow.

It's how our society normally runs. As long as we can adjust and follow, there is no problem, and the boss will be justified to believe he is in the right direction. Even if we can't adjust and can't follow, we still have to make all feasible adjustments, walk, keeping walking in that direction, and wait and see whether it will really go wrong, wrong to the extent that the boss can realise and decide another direction.

This is not a pessimistic attitude, nor is it a reflection of certain issue. It's only how an individual can adapt to the group he belongs to.