Met ons land en met ons nasie sal dit wel wees, God regeer.

My gebed vir Suid Afrikaners:

Op U Almag vas vertrouend het ons vadere gebou:
Skenk ook ons die krag, o Here! om te handhaaf en te hou -
Dat die erwe van ons vad're vir ons kinders erwe bly:
Knegte van die Allerhoogste, teen die hele wêreld vry.

Soos ons vadere vertrou het, leer ook ons vertrou, o Heer -
Met ons land en met ons nasie sal dit wel wees, God regeer.

- Die Stem - Vierde vers

Vergewe en vergeet

(Met betrekking tot die effek van die Anglo-boereoorlog op die Afrikanervolk)

Daar het 'n doringboompie
vlak by die pad gestaan,
waar lange ossespanne
met sware vragte gaan.

En eendag kom daarlanges
'n ossewa verby,
wat met sy sware wiele
dwars-oor die boompie ry.

"Jy het mos, doringstruikie,
my ander dag gekrap;
en daarom het my wiele
jou kroontjie platgetrap."

Die ossewa verdwyn weer
agter 'n heuweltop,
en langsaam buig die boompie
sy stammetjie weer op.

Sy skoonheid was geskonde;
sy bassies was geskeur;
op een plek was die stammetjie
so amper middeldeur.

Maar tog het daardie boompie
weer stadig reggekom,
want oor sy wonde druppel
die salf van eie gom.

Ook het die loop van jare
die wonde weggewis -
net een plek bly 'n teken
wat onuitwisbaar is.

Die wonde word gesond weer
as jare kom en gaan,
maar daar die merk word groter
en groei maar aldeur aan.

- Totius

General Knowledge

There are more than 100 world known personalities on this painting. If you can name a minimum of 25, you may consider yourself a well-informed person, good luck.

I am back

It is a blogging shame, but its been more than two years since I last did something here. And what a time it has been. Francois Viljoen made me think of starting to blog again. Perhaps I'll try to keep them short, this way I'll find more time to do it. I do also post quite a bit on my Facebook profile, but access is of course limited.

So what happened in the meanwhile. Firstly I got permanently employed. And what a pleasant experience, especially considering that I was fairly successfull working for myself. It was surprising to find a work environment that allowed growth as this one.

I also spend 6 months in Lagos, Nigeria with my wife and children. What an experience! Although I felt much safer there than in South Africa (really!), it was probably the most difficult time of my life. I learnt quite a lot about African politics and how bussiness is done in Africa, especially in Nigeria. It was a very educating time for the whole family. We now appreciate South Africa just that much more.

Even Nairobi, Kenya seemed so much better now than two years ago. I suspect that both Nairobi as well as myself has changed in the last two years. The biggest change in me was probably because of the 6 months in Lagos.

Will be back soon.

In the meanwhile, how old do you believe the Earth to be? Thousands of years old or Billions of years old?

The Boiling Frog

I heard a story about a frog that I thought applies quite a lot to most people in their Jobs. Not sure if the story about the frog is true or not (hopefully not!) but it makes a good analogy for what I'll say later. Furthermore, P L E A S E don't go and test this on a frog!

The story goes like this. If you'd put a frog in a pot of hot boiling water, it will immediately jump out again. However, if you'd put him in moderate water he'll quite enjoy it. If you now turn up the heat just a fraction, he might get slightly uncomfortable, possibly start moving around, but not enough pain to jump out. After a while he gets used to the warmer water and relaxes completely. You then turn the heat up a little more, similar reactions, but again he gets used to it and settles for the new situation. The story goes that this will go on and on until the frog dies and gets boiled, never realizing he's on his way to be boiled, just getting used to the environment every time.

Now you might have possibly heard this before, but it may just illustrate something I started noticing in the working environments.

My first job was computer literacy training and that did not demand too much after hour work. Here and there we had exams to evaluate and I also studied part time, but this didn't disrupt my personal life too much. Besides that I was still very young and single. I got a much higher paying job and at the same time got married, this was after about 4 years in the training job.

Initially I learned more than anything and I stuck to sort of standard office hours. Later I got better and better at the work I was doing (UNIX System Administration, Programming, etc.) After a year or two this resulted in me getting more work from different projects. The demand on my time and personal life got more and more. The good side of it was that I started earning much more, I got really good raises, although never what I wanted or felt I earned.

This continued more and more and my last year at this company turned out to be extremely successful. I was in a position in the company where I could never have dreamt I'll end up in. Because of some seemingly temporary money problems we (the whole company) didn't get increases for quite a long time, and that was when South Africa still had very bad inflation. I was away from home quite a lot, despite having a baby that was not even 1 year old. I kept on telling myself and my wife it is only temporarily and its necessary to maintain my growth in the company. I have to also say that I did try to set some boundaries at work to not spend ALL my time at work. At the end of the brilliant year, the company however went down the tubes, we were told they won't be able to pay our salaries anymore!

Anyhow, to get back to the boiling frog. My own experience and certainly what I've picked up around the business world is that the following tend to happen. The work at some stage demands a little more of your time, initially its a bit uncomfortable but later you get used to it. Then you become more successful (promotion, etc.) and a little more of your time is required. You think its justified since you got a promotion. Then again more is demanded of you without a promotion. Again you start feeling more discomfort, especially at home, but you get to cope with it. This gets worse and worse.

Then things start to fall apart at home. Your relationship with your wife and children gets worse and worse. Since you start noticing some of the symptoms, you start feeling guilty, although most people won't admit it. Because of all the fights and unhappiness you feel more and more like not being at home. Longer hours, perhaps starting to play some golf or have some time out with the friends, because you deserved it after the hours and hours of work. You probably feel your wife and children does not appreciate how hard you're working. And a vicious cycle gets momentum.

During every step, it seems like a small thing, but just one day you realize your life is a mess. Hopefully this is long before the word "divorce" starts becoming a threat. This might also be caused by a stress related incident like a heart episode, or some other psychological episode.

Slowly, but surely the Frog became boiled and died without noticing what happened. If you realized this was going to happen on the first time you were confronted with working a "little overtime", you would possibly not have started down that road, but you were not placed in a boiling pot, the heat was just turned up a little at a time. The result however may be devastating.

So please feel free to share your experiences, your decisions when the heat was turned up a little at a time, and what do you think is the solution to this.

T: stress work Life Family Personal

Are we bucket carriers?

If you read my previous blog posts on this weblog, you'll realize I'm very passionate about family time. I have seen so many people chasing a career and in the process sacrificing the happiness of their children and families.

Initially I guess, I was a bit judgemental (quick to forget my learning curve in this area) and realized later that many of these people really deep down want to spend time with their families. Many (if not most) of them just get so stuck in their current job commitments and the ever increasing demands, that they slowly but surely start compromising their time.

After reading an amazing book, Parable of the Pipeline, I realised most of us are bucket carriers. We don't have a passive income, no pipelines. This way we dread losing our jobs and the boundaries between work and personal live gets compromised along the way.

Recently I started building a pipeline in order to gain true financial freedom where my passive income exceeds my expenses. If you're interested feel free to contact me at lootsd at gmail dot com.This used to be an Amway oppurtunity. I was part of Network 21 / Amway and believed it would help with problems of people spending more time at work and less at home. However, I resigned from Amway a while ago due to various reasons.

By the way, if your money stops when you're not working, you're a bucket carrier. If your money comes in with or without you, you've got a passive income from some sort of a pipeline. When you work, it only increases your pipeline income more.

I used to think that this kind of dream is beyond my reach, beyond most middle-class people's reach. I recently discovered, it is not. Once you set your goals and follow a specific proven system and work hard at it for a while, you may just make it without having to spend huge sums of money.

Tell me what you think.

Hard realities of live

Boy did a lot of things happen since my last post? After the last vacation I returned fully charged to work. For a while it was the usual, but then I had various requests from different customers (keep in mind I am an independent consultant). Due to various reasons I had to accept all. All of the jobs turned out to be longer than expected. The end result was that I was away from home for little more than two weeks, 3 days back home and then away again for another two weeks.

The effect on my family was more than I am willing to sacrifice. I have small children (3 yrs. and 6 yrs.) and I try to have a very good relationship with them. The first two weeks was tough, but the second trip was devastating. When I went into the airport for the second trip it was already heartbreaking, to say the least about the rest of the time I was away. My very good relationship with my wife also had a huge dent. It felt as if we were completely losing touch with each other and we share everything.

When everything was eventually over, I thought I'll never leave home again, not one day! After working for quite a long time from home again, I had another request. This time for only one night away from home. Everything on this trip was okay, but the night away from home brought back all those terrible memories of the time I was away from home. It almost felt like I was still in that period of 4 weeks.

To make matters worse, while I was away, I had a call for a request for another week away about a week later. This time round I was confronted with major opposing emotions. On the one side was me as father and husband that did not want to be away from home ever again. On the other side was me as a business man. The money is very good for traveling in Africa (compared to South Africa) and this specific customer was quite new and presented huge opportunities for me. I cannot even begin to describe the thoughts and emotions I had to go through.

The end result was that I did go, made some good money and the trip was a resounding success. The family was okay, since I was away for only three nights. I decided that for now I'll accept one week trips only (preferable no more than 4 / 5 nights).

Now during all my travels, I realized that I am quite fortunate to have all these opportunities and I am still very thankful for them. It is however, as always not an easy task to keep a healthy balance between work and personal life.

What are your comments? And your experiences with traveling away from home, especially with small children?

Fully Charged!

Apart from resting a few muscles, limbs, etc. as a result of thorough holidaying, I am now much better of than before the holiday. I have strengthened some of the most important relationships in my live. I am now ready again to take on the world and all the difficult customers (and managers?) out there.

I know so many people that does not go on holiday frequently (less than once a year!). I really don't know how they manage to do it. I don't know if it is at all possible to work optimally under the usual stress and challenges, without a balanced live.

In my humble opinion (IMHO) I think a healthy balanced live starts at home.

For you going on leave soon, enjoy and come back relaxed. Now back to working, although I must admit, it is hard to get going after such a good holiday.

Holiday

I am about to do what any good employee should do on a regular basis. Go on holiday with my family. Since I'm a consultant, it means unpaid leave, but believe me, it is worth a lot more than any money can buy.

What is more, I'll come back supercharged, ready to take on the challenges of this world. I'm going to fix all the cracks and just re-enforce a very important foundation of my life, i.e. my relationships with my beautifull wife, my lovely children and my Source / Saviour / Creator / King.

Remember, don't make the wrong investments. Work hard, live happy, play a lot, but make sure the most important relationships in your live gets stronger.

The perfect employee?

I think the perfect employee is one that does his (of course I also include the female employees, but I don't want to add /her or /she every time) work to his best ability with dedication and confidence. This person will first do the work that needs to be done and then come up with new ideas of new things to do. I am not saying this person should not find better ways to do the work, but get the work done, then go look for new projects to take on.

Furthermore, this person should give his absolute best during the hours expected from him. Not unnecessarily be on the phone, Web, email or whatever is not really necessary. This person should be focused on what needs to be done and the quality of the work.

In times of emergencies or stressful times, this champion employee will still continue to work mostly unaffected. He will not waste his time and energy with unnecessary office politics. Yes he should be part of the team, he should be friendly and interested in colleagues lives, but not spend too much time with idle chit-chat.

Should this person be someone that regularly works overtime, without compensation? Will a person like this be more productive? I believe not. I think the perfect employee will understand clearly the boundaries of work and personal live. The perfect employee will work hard and dedicated, but he will plan carefully and not spend unnecessary time at work.

The main reason I believe this, is because I firmly believe that the employee with a healthy personal live / family live, is the one that will be able to work dedicated, untouched under any circumstance. Because his family live is healthy, he will not care that much / will be less affected if some colleague mistreats him. He will get into less office politics. And because this person is not sacrificing any personal live to for work, he will also not use work time for personal matters unnecessarily.

When he goes on leave, he'll make sure that the office will not need to phone him while on leave, and then he might even switch off his mobile phone / redirect all calls back to the office. This might sound very unproductive and very disloyal, but I believe that the perfect employee will make sure that his holiday is used very effectively to rest and forget all about work. He'll build relationships that will make his personal live even more healthy and he'll come back, ready to take on the world again.

What do you think?

Nerd score?

Some of you might be very interested in your Nerd Score and you would hope to get the highest possible one.

I also tried it, hoping to not get too high a score, I got 71%! Far higher than I would have liked it.

I guess if you know as much technical detail about stuff that I know, you have to be at least a little bit nerdy. Not that I know THAT much.

Check it out at:

Work vs personal live

Wow, that was quick. I could not believe how quick I got feedback and now I appeared on a very popular blog by John Clingan. It was very interesting to read John's comment as well as some other feedback.

Yes, I understand that some of the personal time you're investing is in order to gain more knowledge and experience. I have also done this various times, specifically in the days I were permanently employed. I also agree with doing this.

But one important piece of self discipline you have to practice, especially if you've got a family, is to not let them pay for it. I have seen so many people being very unhappy because of their unhappy family / personal lives.

I have seen men and fathers (not sure if mothers will do it) work very long hours and then still demand some time for themselves. They hardly ever see their children during the week, and then on Saturday they're on the golf course!

My attitude in life is that nothing in this world (other than God) is more important than my family. If I need to work overtime, invest some extra time in work, then my family should not be the ones paying for the investment. So I try to do this extra investment at night when everybody is in bed and if I had to be physically at work early evening, I get up earlier the next morning (my children are still very young and they always get up early!) and send at least 30 minutes - 1 hour with them.

This way I am sure that this very important aspect of my life gets its due priority. What I also found is just exactly how important this aspect is to my own sanity. What I figured out is that no matter what happens at work (good or bad) if I have a healthy family life, I can handle it.

I had some very good managers, I had some less professional managers, I had some good times at work (especially working for Sun Microsystems, don't even get me started on that) and some bad times at work (two companies went down the tubes, survived two company wide reduction in staff, etc.) One thing remained, I could always return to a happy home, a family that is happy to see me, a wonderful wife who helps to carry my burdens and worries and shares in my joys and happiness.

The reason I mention this is because I once got it wrong. I have seen so many people getting it wrong. Colleagues that spend too much time at work (mostly because of bad self-discipline) and then when things don't go that well at work, they can't handle it.

I have seen so many times, that people with a healthy and stable family live, tends to be able to handle a lot more stress at work. They tend to be more stable overall, not easily get caught up in office politics, etc. And most of all, they seem to be more productive, especially the self-disciplined ones.

At one programming job I had for example, I was a lot more productive than most of the young lads that used to spend about 12 hours a day at the office, because I knew there was no time for idle chit-chat, no unnecessary surfing and emailing (there were no blogs at that time).

During these times I also invested some of my time in learning new things (like C++, Java, etc.) Nowadays I work mostly on the hardware of Sun Microsystems and I also need to spend some time on them. But I always try to keep a balance. I always try to give back to my family, what my work took from them. I try to make some time for enjoying myself as well, but after my family got their time.

To summarize, I guess self-discipline is the answer. Work hard and dedicated at work, invest the necessary extra time, but get your priorities right. Don't harm the most useful relationships in your live for your career. Believe me, it is worth the while. If you don't have it, you cannot imagine the worth of a heavenly marriage / family live.

If you're single I guess you'll need to apply the above however it fits to your live.

Boundaries of work and personal live

This is my first attempt at blogging. I was inspired by the blogs of Sun Microsystems, specially I spend a lot of time on the blogs of Jonathan Schwartz and John Clingan. My intention for this blog is not necessarily Sun or Solaris related, thus I decided to use rather use Blogger.

My first entries will be about how much am I supposed to allow my work to interfere with my personal live. For now I just want to start the discussion and later I'll start posting more stuff. Firstly I must add that different jobs, different countries, etc. may affect this topic in different ways.

I'll mention a few observations. Firstly let me say that I am now a self employed consultant in the IT industry in South Africa. I have seen jobs where the boundaries are very clearly defined, where people work exactly on an per hour basis. They still "clock in" and "clock out", and the amount of hours they should work is very clearly defined.

I have also seen some countries where people just don't work overtime unnecessarily, firstly because work is available in abundance, thus almost everybody just work the required hours.

What I have however seen in a lot of IT (and other professional jobs) in South Africa, is that many people work long hours overtime without extra payment. They do this because the boss wants them to do it and they thing it is right. The work somehow has the right to make you work overtime without the overtime pay.

Some may provide the overtime pay, but you don't really have the freedom to decide yourself if you want to do this or not.

I suspect this mostly happens because South Africa does not have a "dole" system, which basically means that if you don't have a job, you die of hunger. This is very different in most European and other countries. Furthermore, it is not always easy to find a job, specifically a job that pays well. Thus people in South Africa tends to tolerate a lot more from their job than they're supposed to.

The reason I posted this blog entry, is because of some personal experiences, observations and some books I read. One of the best books on boundaries, is one by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.

So if you happen to stumble on this blog, let me know what you think. In due time I'll add bits and pieces that I have time to post.