Haze,haze when will you leave?

The horrific haze from Indonesia is still around. The PSI at 5 am was 84 which is approaching the unhealthy zone. Even with the slight change in the wind direction from north east, the stubborn haze would not totally disappear...*sigh*.

Weather for today,my breakfast, lunch and dinner

Scattered showers in the late afternoon,temperature ranges from 29C to 32C. Haze still around PSI 62 as at 9am. Humidity is 85%, wind direction changing to N.E.

A cup of Japanese green tea, home made tuna and egg sandwiches for breakfast (6 slices of bread). Lunch was a bowl of healthy veggie soup and some walnuts.

Dinner was light. This was the best fried rice in the world cooked by my wife.

The grant of retirees' travel benefits is conditional

A retired SIA staff and his or her spouse is "entitled" to a free ticket on its network yearly. The free travel is granted on condition that the retired staff does not take up employment with an airline or company that is considered a competitor of SIA.

This restriction was imposed a decade ago after SIA discovered that one of its management staff joined another airline as a top management personnel after his retirement. A few others also engaged themselves in consultancy work with other airlines which were considered as SIA's competitors.

The irony is that most of the airlines that engaged former SIA retirees did not do well. Two of them closed shop and a few are struggling to survive.

My ex-colleagues started a company and trained a few third world country airlines cabin crew on how to give good inflight service to their passengers. Today, the company has folded up incurring huge losses and the airlines cabin crew they trained were out of job. One glaring example was Sahara Air of India.

Not all retired staff are brilliant people. Most are in their 60s.
As for the pilots, they retire on reaching their 62nd birthday and many do not think they should be flying during their retirement. Why?  The answer is a straightforward one, they are too old to handle such a big responsibility....the lives of their passengers!

A friend of mine told me this story:

He witnessed a road accident on the ECP. It involved a taxi and a motor bike. Apparently, the taxi hit the motor bike as it tried to swerve to the right lane. The biker was laying on the road in a semi conscious state. My friend stopped his car and offered help. The taxi driver called for an ambulance. A little later, the ambulance took the injured biker to the hospital. A tow truck arrived and parked itself next to the taxi. Then a minute later, my friend heard a loud bang.  A speeding taxi hit the tow truck from the back. It was followed by another loud bang and this time it was another taxi slamming into the second taxi. All in all, 3 taxis were involved in the accident. Guess what? All the 3 taxi drivers were greyed haired uncles of over 65 in age.

The point I am trying to arrive at is that old people has less concentration power plus their reaction to a situation is much slower than they think. Also, their modus operandi may be outdated. In fact they should be grateful they are still alive and kicking at that age let alone be employed in a high management position to do damage to SIA.

A former brilliant chairman of SIA was asked to help Tiger Airways out of its difficulties a few years ago. He is in his late 70s and was roped into Tiger as its chairman. Still, he couldn't do much and in fact Tiger lost more money than before. I believe he could have done a fantastic job and help Tiger out of its current position if he was a little younger.

Another ex CEO started an airline after his retirement and he recruited a retired SVP as its CEO. It disappeared as soon as it started from the skyline. So what's the big deal about retirees helping SIA's competitors? Perhaps, it may be an advantage to SIA for these retirees be employed by its competitors.

Therefore, I think SIA should not be unduly worried about its retirees imparting their expertise and knowledge to its competitors.

Octopussy inflight supervisor

You know what an octopus is but I bet you don't know or have not heard of the term "Octopussy" (maybe some of you've heard of it but the meaning here is slightly different).
This was a nickname the crew gave an IFS. Let us call him V. You see V was likened to an octopus because he would have his tentacles ...oops I mean his hands all over the young newbie stewardesses. But why "pussy"?  Well, pussy is the slang for the female lower pubic region.
So this guy V would grope the girls especially those who owed him money which could not be returned to him on time. Yes, V or fondly known as Octopussy was the airline unofficial money lender (loan shark).
One day, Octopussy groped the wrong stewardess. Feeling insulted,she complained to the company and he was demoted 3 rank down to the position of a junior steward.
Embarrassed, Octopussy resigned from the company.

My spaghetti and Salad dinner

The salad (shredded diakon or radish with onions and chilli) looks awful in the photo due to the shredded seaweed. The spaghetti has tomato meat sauce and green mussels on it. It's Saturday and that's the reason we eat in.

Compass Point Shopping Mall

Images credit: Frasers Centerpoint Malls

I was surprised when I visited Compass Point Shopping Center and found it closed for extensive renovation. I was told it has been closed since 25 Oct this year and would reopen only a year later (late 2016).
This mall is a short bus ride or drive from where I am living. It has been built 13 years ago. It is a good place to shop but was always crowded.
It is next to the Sengkang MRT station and the bus interchange.

"Emirates Safety Briefing"

Benefits of eating green mussels

If you do not want to have joint or knee pains, eat green mussels at least twice a week (about 10 at a time). My wife and I used to have knee joint pain but was cured by eating these green mussels.

The New Zealand Maori eat lots of mussels and they do not suffer from joint pain.  Read more