Wednesday, December 30

Someone I look up to at work

The above pic is a picture of me and my previous GM. His name is Ng Bon Leong. There are veryyyyyyyy feww people that I admire and like at work. I mean reallllyy few. But this old man is someone I look up to very highly. Anybody how knows him will agree he is very knowledgeable, humble and a very pleasant man. I remembered one saying when he was referring to someone else but it instead showed me his character.

"Those who are the most knowledgeable are the humblest"

In TNB, it is a very hierarchical society with more than 28000 workers. Those who are high ranked mingles less with those in low ranks more so if its unrelated to work. It is very obvious and deep in our culture. In my first month of office this old man saw me lining up at the canteen, paid for my meal and followed me to an empty table with his entourage tailing behind. Later I found out at other TNB offices, you will never hear a GM level having breakfast with a 'budak hingusan'.

As far as engineering knowledge is concern especially TNB wise, nobody that I know can top him. Even specialist with national awards when they present and see him in the crowd will be 'segan'. "Betul tak Mr. Ng ?" will be the routine question during their presentation. I have been to outside TNB talks and seen other experts in our field. Every single one of them will know about Mr. Ng and how good he is. Once I approached a speaker (who seemed really knowledgeable) to ask him a question and told him where I worked. He laughed and said, next time you should ask your boss cause thats what I do if I cant find the answer. It also paid off during my Professional Engineer interview when I dropped his name as my boss. Passed with flying pig colors.

He is currently around due to some project as an adviser. He has been on extended contract for more than 4 years (the longest ever in TNB as far as we know). But his current contract ended last september. So he has not been paid since but you will see him every day nonetheless. He was reluctant to tell the story cause in a way TNB wanted him to work but with no guarantee of pay. He seemed not to mind and I asked him why. He said that he didnt feel right to leave yet cause the project is not completed. "How can I show my face to all of you... anyways TNB has given me enough" . I never fail to learn something from this old man.

I can tell you more in detail how great he is as an engineer and how much he has save TNB (financially and operationally) but I dont think most will understand cause I sometimes too dont understand. Just to simplify things, most good things that are working in a way as to with what he did.

i have a theory in TNB that only 10% of its staff is carrying the company while the 90% is just tagging along for the ride. But this old man is a whole new percentage by itself in my opinion. Unfortunately TNB is running out of this rare species but instead filling itself with morons instead. Thats why given a chance I would want to run too mainly due to self-moronic preservation.

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