BYOB

Before BYOB became the famous acronym for Bring Your Own Bag in Selangor, it was mainly used for Be Your Own Boss. There were a few books on this, I think and they were all Best Sellers about 6 or 7 years ago. I flipped through one of this BYOB books at MPH many times but was not really interested to buy as I was afraid the book would end up collecting dust on my bookshelf. Didn't have much time to read back then. The best thing I could do was read as many chapters I could at the book shop. Then came back again a few days later to read a few more. In the end, I didn't buy any of the BYOB books. 

Since it's a self help book, it did a lot to influence my tiny mind. I started thinking on what I should do next in life that can make me a happier and more content person. I was famous for being unhappy and unsatisfied with everything, in other words - tak reti bersyukur. LOL. 

So, the book was quite an eye opener when I realized that I was unhappy because I was not doing the things I really enjoyed or perhaps I was not surrounded by people with positive energy. BYOB encourages people to be independent, be an entrepreneur, do what you love most and hopefully you'll live a happier life. 

Makcik Gemuk's Chicken Chop Restaurant operating hours. 

It got me thinking, what business would suit me most? What did I love doing most? Did I have what it took to become an entrepreneur? If I were to be my own boss, my business hours would be like the above notice. Will I ever be successful or end up with piling debts?

I made a 5-year plan back then, it was 2004. I didn't really know what business I wanted to start. One of my ex-colleagues shared some info on Franchising opportunities. I glanced through the list and made a point to research further but knowing me, I didn't do any follow up on that because I suck at following up on anything. Even on my own Credit Card balance.

So I didn't start any franchise business. Had a few sessions of brainstorming with my friends on starting up an IT consulting company but since we were so aware of the local IT scene - and how frustrating it was to small Bumi consulting companies, we scraped the idea before any paper work started.

In the end I just changed job. From one System Integrator to another. I continued working as an IT engineer. The first 3 years was a lot of fun as I got to do technical hands on works. Becoming IT Project Engineer again after more than 2 years locked up in boardroom was so refreshing as it was something I enjoyed.

However my happiness didn't last long as I was put back in the management line about 2.5 years ago. I'm not a manager, but I'm doing people management work, which I really suck at and I hate it wholeheartedly. I'd rather deal with the biggest, heaviest, most complex machine on earth than to have to manage people. I find it difficult to talk to certain type of people when I'm at my best when I can communicate in syntaxes. My interpersonal communication doesn't reflect my writing ability.

I can write essays, technical reports, long winding emails, formal letters and sometimes even short stories but once I'm told to confront an engineer who is constantly missing his deadline, I'm just tongue-tied. Finding Unix commands is a lot easier than finding the right words to advice people. And I just suck at that too and ended up making a few enemies and losing a few team members. When the management announced that we're not getting increment this year, it made me ask myself, 'Are all these worth it? Am I going to be happy with these?'

Happier times - updating server IP list. Hahaha...

With all that dilemma and mountains of spreadsheets I have to work on, I find myself unhappy with the things I'm doing now. A few months ago, I was back on the drawing board - working on my next 5-year plan.
Will update you later on the results.
Not sure what will materialize - but it's definitely going to be shocking.

Note: First Picture was Googled. Second Picture was from Uncle Darren's camera.