Thursday, May 14, 2009

okkaaayyy..do we have it here?

MELBOURNE, May 14 — A restaurant owner who brought a Malaysian to Melbourne to work as a chef and paid him less than A$10,000 (RM27,000) over 18 months has been fined A$180,000.

Businessman Hong Poh Meng and his company, Penang Kayu Nasi Kander Ltd, which traded as Kayu@Boxhill, admitted breaching 11 workplace laws, including underpaying a full-time cook A$76,000, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reports.

Two 19-year-old casual waitresses were underpaid A$4,876 and A$899 respectively.

Hong was fined A$25,000 and the company was penalised A$158,400 in the Melbourne magistrates court yesterday for the breaches, which occurred between 2005 and 2007.

Workplace Ombudsman executive director Michael Campbell said Hong admitted bringing the Malaysian national to Melbourne and then paying him just A$9,650 for 18 months' work in his restaurant.

"This was less than 12 per cent of the minimum amount the man was entitled to receive," Campbell said in a statement.

"This sort of blatant exploitation is completely unacceptable."

AAP said the company repaid the cook A$10,600 and the two waitresses a combined amount of A$805 after the Workplace Ombudsman began investigating the case in 2007.

But magistrate Kate Hawkins ordered the company to pay the chef A$65,341 in outstanding wages and another A$4,128 and A$841 to the waitresses.

She said the cook was subjected to a "pattern of exploitation" and was particularly vulnerable because of his immigration status.

The underpayments were "staggering" and "defied belief", Hawkins said. — Bernama

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~```

How do we know what is the minimum wages we should be drawing? Apart from the JOBSTREET info / comparison, i don't really know. Is it depends on our outlook? attitude? ways of kissing people's a@@? hehe...

Monday, May 11, 2009

Here we go again

For the umpteenth time, i had to hail a cab to office this morning. Don't ask why.
There was even a time when i took cabs to work every morning. I have read in the paper/email.etc how cabbies push their luck when it comes to cab fare. Mind you, Glenmarie area is not popular amongst cabbies as they will either take you in and ask for extra RM2 or RM3, or they will say "tak pegi laa". Why do i get the impression that cabbies are supposed to go where we want them to? Movies? or it is supposedly to be that way..i don't even know now. There were only 2-3 times where the cabbies didn't ask for extra fare and there were even 2 special incidents. Why? Both cabbies asked for a RM7.00 fare one-way to my office and i agreed. When we reached the office, the meter was running at RM7.90 and RM8.20 respectively. To my surprise, both driver asked for the fare agreed earlier!! I should have asked for their numbers!! What i did? of course, i paid as per the meter as i pity them since Persiaran Kewajipan in Subang Jaya could be very2 unnnerving in the morning, sometimes.

Despite the 2 wonderful incidents, i have my own reserved opinion on drivers that some people may not like em such as:
1. Usually, i observe the way how the cabby approach the waiting area. If the cabby drive fast and stop suddenly, i will not take that cab. Why? based on past experience, they could be very picky where you're going and demand for extra fare. And some of them are not pleasant to deal with.

2. I observe the look of the driver himself (i never had a female cabby) and the outlook of the cab itself. First impression is very2 important to me when taking a cab. Fierce looking driver is a no-no for me. Takut seyy.

Imagine you're in Bandar Sunway PJ and going to Glenmarie area. How much is the fare? By the meter, it usually ranges from RM5.50 to RM7.00 on normal traffic day depending on which route is taken and could be more (but less than RM9.50) during heavy traffic. However, there are some undeserving souls who demands for an extra of RM10.00, or even put a RM15.00 or RM20.00 fare /way. Come on. Asking for an extra of RM2 is still acceptable considering in Glenmarie, very rarely will have people hailing cabs. and the fact if the driver is an old-man. But RM20 per way?

What about those cabbies who simply decline passengers when the destinations does not fit in their route? Just 3 days ago, i watched a lovely young lady tried her best and only managed to get a cab at the 7th try. I wonder where she wanted to go but come on, it was 8am in the morning, she was all dressed up to work, and how far could she go at that time? Perak? Then there was this young man with similar fate. Then there was this English man from my office who said KLIA instead of KL to the cab company. If you were the cab driver, what would you do? Remember, you have driven all the way to Glenmarie. Yes, the cabby didn't want to ferry the poor lad to KL.

so, are we at the mercy of the cabbies? Isn't there anything , we could do? at all? I am sure, lots of other unfortunate souls especially Klang Valley dwellers have at certain point faced the same predicaments as i, and many others faced when it comes to cabbies. For me, i now have a special cabby who do not wait for me but we happened to cross path so many mornings. Yes, he's willing to drive me to office and i don't even have to ask him . I just jumped into his cab. The fare? fixed at RM10.00/way.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother's Day

Janna has spoken! yeah yeah..it's been some time since i write in the much abandoned blog..here goes some of the highlight of my life for the past 2-3 months (nuthin much interesting ey?..hahaha)

ok..finally, we had our SMSSBAT OF 94 reunion in Malacca after months of planning. I am not gonna details here since it's all plastered all over my FB. But, it was nice seeing those people especially the lepak-ing session sampai pagi. laki/bini/anak dok bilik, kami dok berborak sampai hantu laut pun dah menguap..

There are happenings in office with some people leaving, joining, promotions, re-organisation of Valve Division, re-structuring or branch office, re-designation, etc etc. At the end of the day, it's just work and nothing else. I just spend my Wesak holiday yesterday meeting (work related, duhh) on the handover of ECO accounts to ECO Team. I will be handling EMO accounts in sabah/sarawak, here comes the not-so-notorious zatul. :P..foyo...


Just last weeks, my grandmother passed away. May peace be with her. Al-Fatihah. She was 90++? 100++? we couldn't tell since the records those days were not reliable. Anyways, i went back to Keningau for a week with my Muar-based sister. It was a refreshing trip not only going through new way to Keningau via Kimanis, it was one of the time i managed to catch a glimpse of our family's past. I have few question answered and i like it.

I've been trying to arrange for a reunion/mini gathering of ex-YS students but to no avail, at the moment. I will try again. It seems like everyone's is supa-busy. Another mini-gath is on the way for all ex-trasnwaterians and existing staffs for suka2 purpose. i like! see u guys on 5th June.

Mommy dearest.. (on the left) & my MIL (on the right)

So, Happy mother's day to all mothers in the world. I have wished my mom and mom-in-law this morning. There will be a Mother's Dayt celebration in my Kampung on 23rd May form am to PM with activities such as aerobic, telematch, football match, cooking contests, some cake cutting event in the evening and gift giveouts to all mothers (of course form their children la). Maybe i shall be looking for one and send to my mom all the way from here.

Here are ways to say Mother's Day in other languages:

Albanian

Dita e Nënës

Arabic

Eid Al-Omm

Armenian

Mayrutyan or

Bengali

Shubo Matri Dibosh

Bosnian

dan majki

Chinese

mu qin jié

Czech

Den Matek

Danish

Mors dag

Dutch

Moederdag

German

Muttertag

Estonian

Emadepäev

Dari

Ruz-e Madar

Finnish

Äitienpäivä

French

Fête des mères

Hebrew

Yom ha-em

Hindi

Matru din

Croatian

Majcin dan

Hungarian

Anyák napja

Irish

Lá na Mháithair

Icelandic

Mæðradagur

Indonesian

Hari Ibu

Lithuanian

Festa della mamma

Japanese

Haha no Hi

Korean

Oboi Nal

Latvian

Mates diena

Malay

Hari Ibu

Maltese

Jum l-Omm

Montenegrin

Dan majki

Norwegian

Morsdag

Persian

Rouz-e Maadar

Polish

Dzien Matki

Portuguese

Dia da Mãe

Romanian

Ziua mamei

Spanish

Día de la Madre

Slovak

Den matiek

Slovenian

Materinski dan

Swedish

Mors dag

Swahili

Liepstacoq Bua

Tagalog

Araw ng mga Ina/Nanay

Tamil

Annaiyar Dhinam

Turkish

Anneler günü

Welsh

Sul y Mamau

Malayalam

Ammamar Dinam

Kannada

Ammandira Dina

If you wanna say Happy Mother's day, i guess you just add in Happy in front ..haha...

By the way, 6h June is Jiji's wedding (my husband's cousin) and the family from Terengganu will be here early June. In that case, will i be able to attend the mini-gath on 5th June? i don't know.
I'll try my best!

so, as to above June reason and for being a good mother, im gonna spring-clean today. so much for a Mother's day..here goes...petang kang baru nk claim reward mother's day :P...

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...