What’s the difference between a higher degree collecter and a LV bag collecter?

Sometimes I think Hong Kong people are the most loyal followers of “Knowledge changes life”. Many parents struggle about how to make their kids stand out from the others at interviews just for a place in a famous kindergarten. Well before kids are capable of speaking Cantonese well, they have other challenges – learning foreign languages including English, Mandarin, Japanese and so on. Kids are expected to be proficient in a skill apart from studying well with a nice academic record. Very often they are arranged to learn a musical instrument. This is not for amusing themselves but serving as a proof of they are talented kids able to do many things competently just for competing for a place in famous primary or secondary school later, and finally the ultimate goal, university. That’s why a primary school teacher once said, “Piano is no more considered to be a musical instrument.” Yes, there are too many kids are graded piano players so that playing piano itself is nothing special.

Even after sucessfully attatining a degree, that does not mean you have got rid of the spell of further education. Not to mention how torturing the professional examinations are, wager earners are trying to advance on their career stairways by achieving higher qualificatons, hoping for higher pay in return.

It’s good if qualifications can help you to achive your goal. However, except some professional or academic jobs, most vacancies available in the market do not require higher qualifications at all. Although it is not out spoken, most taught master is just a new proft generating machine of institutions. Low entry requirement and loose grading are ways to please students who are willing to pay for a diploma.

I heard that someone was upset he was not promoted even he had a master degree, losing his place to a degreed holder which was hire outside, while some people kept studying a master programme after another, seemingly to be thristy for knowledge. But to me, these person might be want to do something to make themseves feel good. They might think attaining a higher qualification is showing they know more than their counterparts therefore respect from others, promotion, praise are expected. These people consider they have already fulfill their responsibility. However, in the eye of bosses, to promote whom is not a game solely depending on qualifications. It is about picking a reliable person who can get the job done, lead subordinates, take higher responsibility and be discussed with for important matters. Similarly, whether a person is knowledgeable enough does not counts on how many diplomas he is holding as long as we all know it is not particularly difficult to get one if you have money. Such kind of qualifications collection game is no different to a lady who loves to embrace herself with LV bags and brand fashion. They are distinguished by the former one would like to depict himself as a wise man while the latter one is tendy. Both of them in fact don’t really concern what they are doing. They only want to look great without pouring genuie passion on knowledge and fashion.

How a dignified blogger make big money without stepping down from his altar?

Recently a high profile food blogger (but on the other hand self-claimed low profile) is going to publish his book and busying on promoting his piece. In one of his interviews, he shared his life as a food blogger, complaining how hard his life is since restaurants were not willing to pay for him to write critics andcomment in the media about them. He did think being paid to write is no bigdeal, just like his counterparts in beauty and fashion field.

Every body thinks he is doing brilliantly and should beat all others working on similar things. However, a piece of personal opinion is not neccesarily from a fair point of view. Toanswer his doubt, we should stand on his supposedly potential clients’ feet.

As a businessman or a PR, what makes you decide to hire somebody to write for you? No one will concern how much thewrite have contributed into. Instead, they will ask for the value of this kindof food critics. They expect acclaims, priases, and all kinds of good thingswhich can boost their revenue. Of course it would be more than ideal if thewriter is a respected and convincing one. But as a respected and convincingwriter, you worked very hard to win all these from readers for long time.Surely you don’t want to give up his pride, becoming reluctant to accept theidea of giving positive comments for awful food. So, is there anyone damp hismoney for something dragging him back? Absolutely not.

As he said before, to be a successiful food critic, he should eat more to experience a variety of tastes so that he coulddistinguish good food from bad one. This is time consuimg and costing you a lotof money. Being paid to eat is one thing, but I am hesitated to trust arrangedtasting dinings. For a dinner intended to be discussed in the public forpromotional purpose, how dare you feed your guests with trash? Leave alone paid food articles. Some serious food critics overseas even try hard to avoid beingrecoginzed when they go tasting. Maybe the food blogger is more honest to whathe has tasted. But it is just another myth of “All PRs are pretty and nice”.Being accompanied by a pretty PR or chef who note that he is a food critic whois known for his honesty, I am sure he gets most delicate and attentive foodand service that is you and I can ever imagine. If PR arranged meals havepotential cheats, paid ones are even dangerous. That would possibily erode thelong time built trust from his readers. Do you think paid news is news? Idon’t. I will say it is an advertisement. We all can tell the difference.

The food blogger mentionedthat he would make 2 offers to restaurants for negative comments: post it orhold it, but anyway, he still responded and commented honestly for therestaurants for improvement. I don’t know how confident he is about his fame,ability and influencing power. But he doesn’t know his position for sure. Hemight be have some knowledge in cooking (as he claimed), but still uncomparableto a professional chef. For restuarants seeking improvement in recipe, whydon’t they turn to a professional who can provide details of how to cook betterbut now you a food critic who merely comment a few words for the food is goodor not? Unless you are an auditor, you hardly make money from your client likethis. The truth is, if you are not prepared to step down from the altar ofcredible bloggers, please accept that you can’t win them all,  and keep accusing beauty bloggers who areoften paid for writing as these bloggers agree to acclaim low quality productswhich you don’t give a damn. 

Stopmaking yourself feel good by showing off how you are devoted to food andcomplaining how people are unfair to you. Try make use of your fame onprofitable business. No one even Choi Lan or William Mark manage to makethemselves rich by merely offering articles to newspapers or appearing on TV.

Little words about jobs

Just finished the first, and most likely the last EO interview in my life.

To be honest, I feel a bit strange for telling people about my application. Firstly, my competitors are mainly fresh university graduates whose supposed to be under my supervision if they join our research team. Secondly, EO is a general grade position, my training or even my higher degrees will be meaningless and I shall start from the horizon if I really got this job. It is not wondered that my friends asked me to think deeply when I decided to sit for the interview.

When I was very young, I wrote "scientist" as my dream job. Later when I knew more about how this world works, I wrote "civil service" as my target in my friends' contact books. I think I can marginally call myself as a scientist now because of my degree, publications and the number of them being cited. Even it may be a bit later than my expectation, at least part of my childhood's dream comes true. It's time to look into the reality now.

Job security and structured promotion opportunity is the two major reasons that I focused my job seeking in government jobs at this moment. I am willing to work hard, but I want to have a target. It is bullshit or even cheating if you tell someone "You work hard and develop your personal skills now, then you will find a bright career outside!", especially if the outside won't think your working experience in university is value or useful. I worked and paid tax for 8 years already, but most of the outside company will only consider me as a fresh (PhD) graduate.

I like doing research, but it is just too good to be true if you think you can get money and career from your interests. Working in the government or semi-government organizations at least can have some kind of work-life balance, and this is what I want in this stage of life.

Hope all of my friends can have a suitable job in the near future!