All entries for January 2006

Tax is very taxing…

…and don't believe it if anyone tells you otherwise. Almost lost will to live but have finished tax return. Happiest I have been in weeks. Can go to bed now. Zzzzz.

: 27 Jan 2006 00:27 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Six Sigma

The past two days have been spent learning about the human aspects of six sigma. After spending a few days thinking about it, it is clear that people are the most important part of any improvement initiative. How else will the improvements happen? Sounds like common sense to me.

Dealing with people is much harder than dealing with technical problems but one cannot be taken without the other in any six sigma improvement programme. I decided to check out what others thought about human aspects of 6S…

I was warned about the level of the isixsigma forums but wasn't really prepared for this (the first forum post I read)

"Are you, as you have frequently appeared to be, merely a disgruntled employee? Your railing has all the earmarks of a cubical farm dweller frequently passed over or not otherwise qualified to be a manger. Or are you as the cell phone commercial goes, a manager sticking it to the man – yourself? Or is it just that your experience is limited?"

Oh, the temptation to get stuck in but a flame war would take up too much of my time right now. I've seen some trolls in my time but this guy is unreal. So, naturally, I reported it. If this is how some managers think of their employees then there is a long way to go. Unbelievable.

: 17 Jan 2006 22:09 |  Tags: Eee Sixsigma |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

2006

The only really good thing that i'm feeling about the new year is that damned FACS assignment is finished. But some people love accounting. I'm freakish in that I love sitting with a load of numbers in a spreadsheet and doing some lovely number-crunching. Hugely satisfying. But there are people who would rather eat glass. I like things that can be proved. But in EEE there are very few things that one can say, in the mathematical sense of the word, are true.

Just because one knows something to be true, doesn't mean that it has been proved, or even that it can be proved. Often one can prove that something can't be proved, which leaves a big hole for me at the moment in the context of my research project.

When thinking about how CSR activities affect the success of businesses, we may have good reasons to think that something may be true, but that doesn't mean that we can ever prove it. Just because things 'ought' doesn't mean things 'are' or 'will'. And can we ever know? Empirical studies on the topic differ in result with many methodological flaws. But one can always pick a hole in the method or argument. I'm exploring this 'hole' of what it means to be true and following on from this, the dissertation.

I suppose it is naive to think that the project can ever be totally watertight; to have a flawless methodology and argument. I understand that this project is about the process as well as the result, but the ambiguity of the result and its validity bothers me still.

: 09 Jan 2006 11:51 |  Tags: Csr Eee |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Accounting

I am constantly reminded, when trudging through my FACS assignment what a good decision is was NOT to become an accountant like my sister. Whilst I feel a deep satisfaction at a good decision made, I feel cheated, because here I am analysing sets of accounts for 40 hours. What happened?

It's one of those tasks in which there is no joy. I am not, and nor will I ever be, interested in accounting. Accounting is dull. I have to exert some serious will power to sit myself down and do this assignment. No course is perfect, and I suppose that this is the most boring module, so I will be happy when its done. But until then, back to the grind.

: 04 Jan 2006 16:32 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Blue Screen of Death

After innocently repairing a driver for my DVD writer, my computer won't boot. It's a big frickin problem. It's irritating and frustrating. Reinstalling Windows would work but i'd lose everything. The system restore doesn't cover the file that is corrupted (I made a restore point yesterday). All I wanted was my damned DVD writer to work properly. Shit.

: 03 Jan 2006 18:24 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem