Ethics : Are they necessary?

In the recent months, as I become more involved in the business aspect of the company that I am employed, I have come to know that some deals come with conditions which requires one to be flexible when it comes to ethics..

So what are the ethics or in simpler words, the proper way of doing things?
If a deal requires one to not be honest, is it right?
If the working ethics of an individual clashes with the business processes of a company, which one should bend?

Even more recently, I encountered a fair share of ethical and unethical taxi drivers. These drivers could be considered business owners, a one-man-show, confined to his vehicle, with any passengers within his taxi considered to be his customers.

This country that I had to visit quite regularly had an abundance of taxis awaiting outside its immigration customs, all eager to pick up fresh visitors. At the point, I should probably note that all these taxis though fitted with a meter, they are hardly used. Most of the fares are already decided even before the engine starts. One wanting to take a taxi needs to negotiate the price with the driver after informing the driver of the destination. Along the way, I noticed the taxi meter is still turned on and its numbers jumping happily away. Also, whenever I alight, I noticed , each time and everytime, the meter will always reflect a lower fare price than what was negotiated.

When selecting a taxi, it was noticed that also with each driver, comes different rates even when the pickup and destination location is relatively the same. And when it comes to popular taxi waiting areas like the Customs or close proximity to a major shopping landmark, the rates increase as the drivers proximity to these landmarks decrease. I had the chance to discover this fact when I tried to compare the given fares from the point where I reach the outside of the Customs and when I travelled about 100m inwards beyond the exit of the Customs.. The fares quoted was amazingly 100% different..No prize for guessing which was the cheaper quoted fare.

In any case, I'd also heard of cases where passengers were seriously overcharged because they weren't aware of the standard rates or they did not ask for a quote before going into the taxi...

Which brings me to the next few questions.
It is amazing that for some, even in the confinement and solitude of 2 persons, 1 being the customer and the other being the business owner and knowing that the chances of pickup up the same customer again in future is virtually 0%, ethics are applied and withheld proudly by the business owners.. Of course on the other side of the argument, there are jackals and hyenas waiting to pounce and tear the customer to shreds knowing the fact that their customers will definitely only be a 1-time customer..

So, in the scenario where there is no one but 2 persons and 1 of them lacks the knowledge and tact, would one still be ethical?

In a world where everything is regulated by laws, rules and regulations, must proper business ethics be specified?

Can ethics be taught?

Or more specifically, is there a 10 Commandments of Ethics?



Today is 15th Feb 2007.
Time is 09:14hrs

I am off work thinking about work.
Am I ethical?

An Erotic word

IMPALE..

Humanity's worst enemy!

STUPIDITY IS HUMANITY'S WORST ENEMY!

Because with stupidity, humans will not be able to see whats ahead of them even if you hang it in front 2 inches from their eyes..

With stupidity, humans are not able to differentiate good and bad.

Stupidity clouds vision, judgement and removes the brain away from the thinking process .

I hate such people whom are imbeciles..
Stupid people in this world should just be extinct before they let their genes affect the future population and affecting the race aversely.

IF YOU KNOW YOU ARE STUPID... START LISTENING TO THE SMART PEOPLE YOU KNOW NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

A Tough Description for a 5 Year Old

Recently a young niece of mine was eating satay.

She was holding a stick of satay while she was asking me to join the rest of my family on the dinner table to savour the satay together.

Out of pure cheekiness, I asked her what meat the satay was made of.
She replied quickly ,"Chicken lor".

So I asked her how she knew it was chicken and not lamb or any other meat.
It took her quite a while to answer.

Her answer was ," Because I know it's chicken"...
To which I asked her another question, "How did you know its chicken?".

After that, she ignored me.

Reviewing my question to her, a simple "how" question that is very difficult even for myself to answer.

The question of taste, smell, texture and reproducing it in your own words.
So does chicken taste the same to everyone?

Would my description befits the way how others describe how the chicken meat taste like?

This question was once brought up in the movie "Matrix" when one of the characters in the movie asked if the taste of chicken was just electrical signals sent, from the tongue, teeth and mouth, to the brain. In a way true in some sense that all our sensations are merely small electrical currents sent to the brain.

But the real question is ...
Are these sensations standard to everyone?

ie, if chicken taste and texture means an output of 1ms of sine wave current of 25KHz to my brain from my senses, will it be the same as of another person?

Food for thought..

Today is 4th Jan 2007.
I love diversity for it is diversity that makes me different from anyone else.

The Art of "Troubleshooting"

"Troubleshooting is an art"

That was what was told to me during the interview of the first job that I had.
I was knowledgeable in computers then and had no issues diagnosing PC related problems so it didn't really mattered that I had a manual or guide to assist me in find the root cause of the problem.

A computer is made of up several core components.

1)The Core Processor
2)RAM
3)Video card
4)Storage disk
5)Main board that all peripherals is connected to
6)Miscellaneous cables that acts is the interconnect between peripherals and mainboard

The fools [aka sure to work] method of locating the source of the problem would be to replace each item, step by step, until the problem is solved.

That of course is the most basic step of troubleshooting....
Provided that you have enough spares to swap around with...
This, of course, deals only with the hardware aspect of PC related problems, not dwelling into the software related problems which would open up to another world of possibilites where there is no easy or direct method of swapping out peripherals one by one..

Software aside, relating only to hardware troubles....
Humans are somewhat like that also.
The PC is a partnership of several core components.
A human relationship is a partnership of 2 beings.

A faulty PC can be repaired by swapping out faulty parts..
In finding out which is faulty, each part is swapped until the combination works again.

In a relationship, objectively speaking, the only way to troubleshoot is to swap to another person to share the relationship with. However, if the problem still remains even when the "supposedly" faulty component is removed and swapped with another one, what can it say about the unchanged component?

I recently shared an old thought with some old friends about marriage..
"The final girlfriend whom the swinging bachelor playboy married, isn't exactly the best, nor may she be any different from the first girlfriend, but simply the fact that he is tired of finding flaws and chooses to settle down with what he had at the moment and relentlessly works to make her the woman he wants and at the same time,constantly improving himself to be the man she desires."

So, if swapping isn't solving the problem, probably one should review what exactly needs to be changed...


Today is the 2nd day of 2007.
Someone had to spoil my first day of 2007.