"Take as much as you want" vacation policy

"The worst thing is for a manager to come in and tell me: `Let's give Susie a huge raise because she's always in the office.' What do I care? I want managers to come to me and say: `Let's give a really big raise to Sally because she's getting a lot done' - not because she's chained to her desk."
(Excerpt from MecuryNews)

Read more here.

Are you working in a company that thinks that a person who is always at his/her desk is doing the most work?

World's coolest new products

There is even a two-month waiting list for that hand-built barbecue grill!!!

Which do you fancy? This is a list of world's coolest new products, varying from kitchen equipment, consumer electronics, and even prefab houses. Some may be available only in the United States.

(Source: Business 2.0)

Wholesale gasoline, wholesale price, wholesale retailer - there's a queue!

Whenever any petrol station in Singapore has pump prices increased, the petrol stations in the entire (almost) of Singapore follow suit. It is competitive, and consumers have the last laugh, of course.

It is different here in California, and for the whole of United States. Gas prices differ from state to state due to different state regulations (eg. smog); and even within a state - gas prices can differ as much as US$0.30/gal, city to city, district to district, town to town.

So, when gas price is relatively cheaper, you see a queue like that -


Costco is a wholesale members-only club. You pay $50 as basic member, and hopefully, "recover" what you have paid upfront as member, from the savings you get when shopping in this wholesale retailer.

How can we help a barber to cut more hair ?

IBM's New Motto: Think...About How Others Think

Can technology speed up hairstyling? How can we help a barber cut more hair?

Many management experts say we should devote more of our research efforts to figuring out how people think, work, and think about their work. The biggest company betting on this approach is IBM, ranked 10th in R&D spending in a list compiled for IEEE Spectrum by S&P.

Do any of your companies hire anthropologists, sociologists, and economists to study how people behave and interact with objects, environment and other people ? This might be the way to revolutionize new designs, research, and useful technology. I believe recruiting anthropologists and sociologists is nothing unusual in the United States. But in Singapore ? Is that common ?

(Excerpt taken from IEEE Spectrum, Dec 2006)