The Pharmacy(TM)

Haha, just couldn’t resist posting this after seeing it on the Murphy’s website (see previous post below). Here are Murphy’s Laws of Commerce–dedicated to you poor unfortunate souls stuck in the rat race. The cool ones I’ve highlighted…

1. The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the other 90% of the time.
2. If you can’t get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights.
3. A pat on the back is only a few inches from a kick in the pants.
4. Don’t be irreplaceable, if you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.
5. It doesn’t matter what you do, it only matters what you say you’ve done and what you say you’re going to do.
6. After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the month than you did before.
7. The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.
8. You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.
9. Eat one live toad first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
10. Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested in, and say nothing about the other.
11. When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves.
12. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
13. There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when the boss asks for a ride home from the office.
14. The boss is always right.
15. Mother said there would be days like this, but she never said there would be so many.
16. Keep your boss’s boss off your boss’s back.
17. Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous".
18. Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.
19. To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.
20. In case of an atomic bomb attack, work rules will be temporarily suspended.
21. Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing.
22. Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.
23. The last person that quit or was fired will be the one held responsible for everything that goes wrong - until the next person quits or is fired.
24. There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.
25. The more pretentious a corporate name, the smaller the organization.
26. If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it. (YES YES!!!)
27. You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.
28. If someone says he will do something "without fail", he won’t.
29. People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn’t.
30. People are always available for work in the past tense.
31. People don’t make the same mistake twice, they make it three, four, or five times.
32. If it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.
33. At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.
34. When you don’t know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
35. You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like.
36. No one gets sick on Wednesdays.
37. Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules. (Puta talaga!)
38. Following the rules will not get the job done. (Puta puta talaga!)
39. When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?".
40. No matter how much you do, you never do enough.
41. The longer the title, the less important the job.
42. Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives.
43. Progress is only made on alternate Tuesdays.
44. An "acceptable" level of employment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
45. Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.
46. The employee who has performed his duties faithfully and without fault for 5 years will be given an increase of five cents per day in his pay - provided the profits allow it.
47. All vacations and holidays create problems, except for one’s own.
48. Success is a matter of luck, just ask any failure.
49. The value of any job task is inversely proportional to its deadline.
50. When you see an item in the flyer, by the time you get to the store its either sold out or the price has doubled.
51. The person at the meeting or discussion who is right will be the person who is not listened and will later be blamed for coming up with the bad idea.
52. Just when you have no cash, you are in great pain and got to the bank to find the bank computers offline. (YES!!)
53. Bills travel through the mail at twice as fast as checks.
54. No man is an island, until it comes to paying the bills
55. If you have a little extra money to blow, something will break, and cost more than that little extra.
56. If you don’t want it, there is plenty of it; If you really need it, they’re all out of it.
57. The more you like a product, the more likely it will be discontinued.
58. If you are shopping to find a certain thing, no matter how simple it may be, no matter where you go, you will find every conceivable thing except that which you are looking for.
59. The one time you didn’t make a copy of your 1040, that’s the one the IRS did not receive.
60. I’m as good as my Employer
61. Slog all day and no-one notices, take a 5 minute breather to play Window’s Solitaire and the boss silently appears behind you.
62. All urgent and critical reports are handed out on Friday evening and are due first thing Monday morning.
63. Zain’s Nutcracker Law
    The best time to ask for a raise is when everything has gone wrong and your boss is in a panic mode.
    Corollary 1:
    Never ask for a raise after you have successfully completed a project.
    Corollary 2:
    If you do it right the first time, you will not be asked to resolve the problem and therefore will not be in a position to ask for a raise.
64. Expenses rise to exceed income.
65. Just In Time inventory isn’t
66. In a line the biggest order is in the front, and the customer has coupons and wants to write a check.
67. in a 24 hour store, there are 5 customers in the store and they always come to the register at the same time. (and again the customer with the largest order is the first one in line)
68. What you don’t know, will cost you a lot of money.
69. It is no disgrace to be poor, but it is awfully inconvenient.
70. When in trouble change the subject. However, this may lead the subject to another one of your offenses.
71. When in trouble do what you can. If that fails try what you can’t. If that fails give yourself an A for effort and run like hell with pride!
72. You pay peanuts and you get monkeys. In some organizations you pay doughnuts and you still get monkeys.
73. The Customer is always unhappy about your product and service.
74. Little things make a lot more of a difference; but the little things don’t get as much recognition.
75. The pressure of responsibility taking a difficult decision is the result of a division between its importance and the number of participant persons.
76. Excess of analysis causes paralysis
77. The quality of workmanship of any given object is inversely proportional to how useful it is.
78. The quality of workmanship of any given object is inversely proportional to how well it works
79. Eldredge’s Aphorism:
    Procedures should not be used as a substitute for thought.
80. law of activity:
    One’s willingness to do something is inversely proportional to:
    A) the need for it to be done.
    B) the number of people who are relying on that person to do it.
81. Ament’s First Law of Corporate Survival:
    When you see the shit is about to hit the fan, shut your mouth. (Amen)
82. Ament’s Second Law of Corporate Survival: Duck.
83. Inverse Rule of Contracts:
    The smaller the dollar amount of a contract the longer it will take to negotiate.
84. Somers’ Law of Management:
    One learns at least as much about management from poor managers as from good ones.
85. The more complicated the job is the less time and useful information you will be given.
86. If the salesperson says, "All you have to do is…" you know you’re in trouble.
87. When a customer says, "It’s perfect except…" you know it will be necessary to rebuild the whole piece.
    The last three laws were sent by Robert Nicholson
88. Assaf’s Laws of Lines
    • The number of open service windows at banks, post offices, airline counters, etc… always equals [n/2 - m], n being the total number of windows and m being a random number between 1 and the total number of windows minus 1.
    • The simpler and quicker your transaction, the more complex and time-consuming the transaction of the person immediately ahead of you in the line.
89. When you stand at your counter for hours on end and then go to break, that’s when the customer comes and rings the bell for help.
90. Any item that you want to purchase from a catalog will always be out of stock at the time you want to buy it.
91. If your Check-Book and Bank-Balance Sheet agree… Re-Do-It… You Goofed Up This is from my own experience over the past 50+ years!
92. "Billing Statements do not provide ‘Actual Posting Dates’ They reflect ‘Accurate Posting Dates’"
    This was contained within a reply from a Retail Credit Account Analyst of a major Banking Establishment

It’s been raining more often lately, a sign of changing seasons–eventually people will take the hint and begin bringing their fashionable jackets and unfashionable umbrellas again… and on goes the cycle until next summer.

Meanwhile, onwards and upwards… Although it’s probably just me, things on my end seem to be dying down, in cyclical fashion. My hope is that we’re not on some obscene carousel running in circles like hamsters (read: Twilight Zone).

The Accidental Patient

It may help to let everyone know that Rica (my crazy ward from two posts ago), has already recovered quite well from her ordeal weeks ago and is peacefully spending the month recuperating in her home town of Bulacan, spending her nights watching DVDs and singing to karaoke VCDs. In the day she tends to her son while watching her mother’s shop.

But business goes on and I’ve found a replacement for her, who is even younger, but hopefully not as despondent.

Why The Philippines Is Such A Cool And Crappy Place

In 1993, research was conducted in Washington DC on how collective meditation was able to reduce crime in the city:

http://www.istpp.org/crime_prevention/

Basically, the evidence points to the contention that what people think likely will happen. This supports and discredits the value of Murphy’s Law (what can go wrong will), and the value of taking precautions. Or perhaps, this discredits the act of taking precautions "emotionally".

http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-laws.html

Then one thinks on how often "People Power" tends to occur in our little country and why things seem to go haywire just when the country is about to recover–it may be just because we think it likely. For all the pessimism, Filipinos are still a motley fun-loving lot. Which may suggest why our country is in such a mess, but is still generally a fun place to be in. Another such country is the US…

Water Crystal Psuedo Science

Unverified research by a Japanese scientist on the effects of external factors on the formation of water crystals suggest that our thoughts and feelings do have an impact on the outside world, apart from making us cranky inside.

This further suggests that by thinking something, it makes it more likely.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/crystals/

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/

Thought-Provoking Films

While certain acquaintances I know were indulging in more prurient interests (hehe look it up. It’s not in MS Word) this weekend, me and a friend of mine were blown away (to half-sleep on several occasions) by two films, which I do not recommend you watch consecutively:

Mirrormask

When Neil Gaiman came to Manila last year, I saw the trailer of this movie at his press-conference and I was immediately hooked.

A fan of his Sandman comics myself, I found it quite a thrill to see his trademark wit and suspense and along with artist Dave McKean’s exquisite art on the big screen (er… TV screen in this case).

The result was a surreal journey, in the tradition of my childhood classic favorites like "The Never Ending Story" and "Labyrinth". Personally I found this movie quite apt given my own surreal experiences in real life recently and the resurgence of my sense of wonder about life.

In the meantime, I’m trying to avoid looking at life like a circus as in the movie, despite awesome evidence.

Stay

Ewan McGregor (StarWars/Trainspotting), Naomi Watts (Ring), and Ryan Gosling (Murder by the Numb3rs) are way cool in this movie. Although probably not for the non-intellectually inclined (if you have to ask, don’t even try).

Ever fallen asleep and thought you were out for days/hours, only to find out you’ve only been sleeping for five minutes? This movie takes that thought to the next level. Although, watching it right after "Mirrormask" at 1230amsh will probably not leave you in the best of dispositions right after.

Anyway, that’s all for this weekend, which for all intents and purposes, was quite fulfilling, even sans my usual social calls. Perhaps age is catching… perhaps not.

Happy week ahead.

Women who work at night prone to breast cancer

Here’s the Inquirer link:

http://newsinfo.inq7.net/breakingnews/nation/view_article.php?article_id=7644

He cited a study by the US-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center which found that women who work the graveyard shift may face up to 60 percent higher risk of breast cancer compared to those who never work at night.

The study showed that exposure to light at night may affect the production of melatonin, a hormone which is mainly produced by the pineal glands during the night, Colina said.

"Nighttime sleep deprivation or exposure to light at night somehow interrupts melatonin production, which in turn stimulates the ovaries to kick out extra estrogen, a known hormonal promoter of breast cancer," he said.

Just another example of how media can sensationalise facts. What we probably will never know:

1. Is how many people were in the study. A 60% higher risk can mean just 16 over 10 people, out of a sample of 10,000. Practically random.

2. Is if the sample is only limited to women who are diagnosed. It does make some weird sense that night shift girls would have more time to have themselves checked in the morning… while morning shift women hardly have themselves checked… skewing your sample a bit.

3. Is if now that this article is out, more night shift women will be checked… further skewing your sample.

"Painful menstruation (dysmenorrhea), absence of menstruation (amenorrhea), and heavy menstruation (menorrhagia) are conditions associated with women taking the graveyard shift," Colina said

4. Or perhaps, like those being diagnosed, there are just more night shift girls who would complain about it…

He said call center companies should provide free and regular breast cancer screening for their employees as well as seminars on how to prevent breast cancer.

What the article fails to impress is that this goes not only for call centers, but everyone, regardless of the shift. This is just one of those articles that color everyday life with useless insights… for the sake of sounding apropo and popular….

Aspiring critical thinkers, be warned.