Lunch at Kopitiam, Indrawashi

Today is Monday. A blue's day. Start work on time until lunch and decide to call my friend, ES for lunch. He was available and he drove to pick me up for a quick lunch at a fast food joint. The Kopitiam. The restaurant only serves a few varieties but I love the half boilded egg on toast. I really love toast with the egg with ipoh white coffee. For the main course, I ordered curry noodles and it was barely enough. ES ordered Koay Teow Th'ng for his main dish. h

ES have been my friend since high school and he went to MU and join the banking industry. He was a banker for more than 25 years. He calling it quit this coming June. He has been toying with the idea of retiring each year but he had continued on contract basis for the past three years.This time is for real and he is going into business.

I caution him about doing business at his age because it is a totally different ball game. Many people who have been working for his employer think that it is easy to do business. I want to tell all of you, it is a very difficult thing to do. Your workmanship mindset must change when you in employment, you need not worry about money to pay for your rental, salary for your employees, collection and paying your vendors and worst still, there is no such thing as 9 to 5. You have to work 7x24. It is really horrible and you cannot imaqine the difficulties you will have to go through.

When you are in employment, it is like a fish in a small pond and you think you are the king but in business, you are a small fish in a deep red sea. Hey, it is a dog-eat-dog world outside. The big fish will eat the smaller fish and small fish to eat the smallest fish and the small fish will eat shit. If you want to do business, do it big and if not, don't do at all. The optimum scale of a business is very important where you can enjoy all the perks of doing business.

I may be a pessimist but it is better to have such conservative mind sets. In the past, people line up infront of the bank manager's office to get loans and now, it is the bank managers who have to knock on the doors of their potential clients to give loans. Cold calls are very normal now for bank managers. The world have flip over and the model for doing business have changed so much. I have warned ES on the need to change his mindset. When you are in position, many people want to be your friend but if you are retired, all these so-called friends will disappear.

I have a retired friend who holds a very senior position when he is working in an MNC ( a multi-national company). After he retire, he found that all his friends and previous subordinates don't even have time for lunch with him. His golf kakis, suddenly become very busy at work. Only then he realiszed the reality of life. Very often, we think we are different but in actual fact, everybody suffers the same fate. The earlier you realize and accept this fact, the more prepared you are when you dive into the shark infested waters like the "Shanghai Beach".

In this world, there is no free lunch and I have realized this fact soon enough. During new year, I was invited by a banker for lunch. She insisted that we go for lunch but I told her, I have no business for her and she told me it was okay. Just have lunch and to know each other. This afternoon, she called me and ask me to help her to attend a dinner with her country manager and their senior members from their HQ who are in Penang for dinner with their key clients. I have not enough done one transaction with her bank and I have become their key client. I should have known better. Haiyaa....

I have done my best to advise ES and I hope he listen to me before it is too late. One more lesson, I told ES is that "never rely on another person to make money for us ". It is absolutely nonsense. Don't be stupid and fall into this fantasy world. We have to make money for ourself. Period.

Namaste.