Deeper and deeper

Kurang lebih sudah sebulan gw tinggal di Cilacap, meski baru cuma bentar disini gw udah hampir hafal semua jalanya. Bahkan gw banyak mencari tahu tentang objek terkenal yang ada disini, misalnya Nusa Kambangan, Pasar Wage, dan beberapa lokasi industri lainya. Gw bener-bener meng-explore yang ada disekitar gw, maksud gw sih ya mumpung masih punya kesempatan disini.
Kemarin gw menemukan sebuah fakta menarik, bukan tentang suatu tempat baru, tetapi tentang kebiasaan orang. Jadi gw setelah mempelajari tentang hystory, geography, dan demography wilayah ini, gw mencoba menanyai beberapa senior gw tentang kota ini. Dengan ekspresi tidak tahu, gw tanya sama beberapa temen gw yg asli sini dan senior gw yang udah lama tinggal disini berpuluh-puluh tahun. Misalnya gw tanya tentang sejarah Nusa Kambangan, tanya kok bisa bernama seperti itu, dan kejadian-kejadian yang pernah ada disitu. Sungguh mengagetkan ternyata mereka tidak tahu. Yang bikin heran adalah karena gw yang baru tinggal disitu beberapa minggu aja udah lumayan tahu banyak. Trus gw evaluasi balik ke diri gw, misalnya gw ditanya tentang Yogyakarta, yang merupakan tempat kelahiran dan gw besar, ternyata gw juga nggak tahu banyak tentang history nya, mungkin banyak pendatang yang lebih tahu dari gw.
Kalau dihubungkan dengan soal ilmu agama juga seperti itu, gw sejak lahir sudah memeluk Islam, sudah 24 tahun gw memeluk agama ini, tapi sampai sekarang gw belum tahu banyak tentang agama. Selama ini gw "merasa" sudah cukup tahu, dan enggan menggali lebih dalam, padahal sebenarnya gw nggak tahu apa-apa. Sungguh ironic memang, gw yang sudah lama memeluk agama ini ketinggalan dengan orang-orang yang baru masuk islam. Mereka explore semakin dalam, terus menggali dengan antusias.
Seperti tulisan gw yang sebelumnya tentang truly discovery harusnya kita selalu digging deeper and deeper buat hal-hal yang sebenarnya sudah lama kita jalani. Seperti ketika gw bekerja, bukan hanya tahu prakteknya saja, tapi gw harusnya mengerti filosofi dari pekerjaan itu. Dalam beragama harusnya kita juga ngerti dasarnya agar tidak melakukan kesalahan prosedur, melakukan ibadah yang tidak sesuai SOP-nya. Karena itu kita harusnya menggali ilmu agama semakin dalam lagi, tidak stagnan di posisi yang sekarang. Bagaimana mungkin religiusitas kita meningkat kalau kita nggak pernah menggali ilmunya.

Ilmu yang hanya turun 4 tahun sekali,
Cilacap, 29 February 2012

Jono dan Pulau Kenangan

Suara diesel dari perahu nelayan yang hilir mudik memecah kesunyian pagi itu. Diteluk pantai itu memang tidak terdapat ombak yang menderu-nderu seperti di wilayah pantai selatan Pulau Jawa yang lain. Teluk pantai di Cilacap yang dikenal dengan Teluk Penyu ini memang berbeda, pulau panjang yang berdiri didepanya itulah yang membuat teluk pantai itu tidak mempunyai ombak besar seperti pantai selatan lainya. Pulau Nusa Kambangan melindungi cilacap dari sapuan ombak seperti yang ia lakukan tahun 17 Juli 2006 lalu saat terjadi tsunami akibat gempa berkekuatan 6,8 skala Richter di Pangandaran. Cilacap terhindar dari tsunami padahal saat itu daerah disekitarnya terutama Pangandaran terkena tsunami yang mengakibatkan 432 warga meninggal dan 32 orang lain dinyatakan hilang, ribuan rumah warga rusak, puluh ribu jiwa penduduk terpaksa tinggal dipengungsian sampai berbulan-bulan. Syukur saat itu Cilacap mempunyai Pulau Nusa Kambangan yang berdiri melindungi Cilacap sehingga terselamatkan.
Pulau yang dikenal sebagai Alcatraz-nya Indonesia itu memang terdapat lembaga permasyarakatan berkeamanan tinggi. Awalnya hanya digunakan untuk narapidana dan tahanan politik, tetapi sekarang juga digunakan untuk tahanan kasus narkotika. Istilah penjara Nusakambangan sebenarnya adalah kesalahan masal masyarakat dalam penyebutan, karena sebenarnya tidak ada lembaga permasyarakatan yang bernama Nusa Kambangan disitu, disana awalnya ada sembilan Lapas, antara lain Lapas Batu, Lapas Besi, Lapas Nirbaya, dll. Nama Nusa Kambangan berasal dari kata “kembangan” karena disana banyak ditumbuhi bunga, salah satunya bunga Wijaya Kusuma. Di pulau itu juga menjadi cagar alam karena terdapat beberapa pohon langka seperti pohon Plahar. Bahkan kadang pulau ini juga sering disebut sebagai pulau ritual, karena sering digunakan penerus kerajaan mataram untuk melakukan ritual.
Pagi itu, matahari masih enggan menampakan cahayanya, burung-burung dipantai baru mulai mencari sarapan pagi, Jono sudah duduk di pinggir pantai. Setiap hari libur Jono selalu datang ke pantai itu pagi-pagi, kebiasaan itu sudah dilakukanya bertahun-tahun. Ia duduk sambil menyanyikan lagu dari The Script - The Man Who Can’t Be Moved. Ia duduk bersama beberapa pemancing yang sedang menunggu ikan kelaparan memakan umpanya. Jono disitu bukan untuk menunggu ikan, Ia selalu pergi ke pantai pagi hari untuk menunggu seseorang, yang sebenarnya entah datang atau tidak, bukan karena tidak menepati janji, tapi karena memang tidak pernah ada janji untuk bertemu di tempat itu, di waktu itu.
Jono hanya tahu kalau orang yang ia tunggu menyukai pantai di pagi hari, begitu juga Jono. Memang banyak yang bilang kalau udara pagi di pantai bisa menurunkan tekanan darah tinggi dan menyembuhkan asma, tapi sebenarnya itu baru sebatas kepercayaan masyarakat karena belum ada penelitian yang menyebutkan hal itu. Sejak dulu Jono memang menyukai pantai di pagi hari, bahkan ketika kerja praktek semasa kuliah Jono juga memilih tempat yang dekat dengan pantai. Sampai sekarang Ia masih ingat ketika pagi buta anak-anak di desa tempat Jono kerja praktek menghampirinya di pondokan untuk mengajaknya mencari jingking di pinggir laut. Bersama anak-anak itu Jono berburu kepiting kecil yang hidup di pantai berpasir
Sambil memandang pantai dan menghirup nafas panjang-panjang Jono teringat banyak hal yang selama ini tidak seharusnya Ia lakukan, Ia teringat banyak kata yang tak sepantasnya terucap, tapi Ia sadar bahwa itu sudah terjadi, memang ingin rasanya Jono kembali ke masa lalu dan mengulangi semua kejadian yang Ia Ingat, kemudian dia pun akan melakukan hal yang berbeda. Namun Ia juga sadar tak seharusnya Ia terlalu larut dalam perasaan itu, Jono memikirkan apa yang harus Ia lakukan untuk menggerakan tulang-tulang mudanya.
Jono terus duduk dengan tenang menghadap arah laut dan pulau Nusa Kambangan, kemudian dari handphone-nya berdering lagu I Can’t Be With You dari Cranberries yang menjadi nada dering handphone-nya, Jono pun melihat ke handphone-nya dan ternyata Rika teman Jono semasa kuliah yang menghubungi-nya. Tapi Jono enggan mengangkatnya, saat itu Ia masih tidak ingin diganggu, kecuali oleh seseorang dan orang itu bukanlah Rika. Memang akhir-akhir ini Rika sering menghubungi Jono, Ia bilang kalau mau berkunjung ketempat Jono saat liburan, tapi Jono bilang kalau akhir-akhir ini Ia baru sibuk, sibuk melamun jawabnya dalam hati.
Tak terasa rintik-rintik gerimis mulai turun di pagi itu, terlihat titik-titik air terbentuk di hamparan air laut. Satu-persatu pemancing disekitar Jono pergi untuk berteduh, tapi Jono masih enggan untuk meninggalkan tempat itu, Ia masih berharap orang yang Ia tunggu muncul. Terus dijatuhi air dari langit tidak membuat Jono bergerak, karena Jono juga suka hujan, Ia selalu ingat ketika seseorang pernah mengatakan pada Jono bahwa hujan adalah rahmat. Ia juga pernah menedengar ada tiga keadaan dimana doa banyak dikabulkan, yaitu saat sedang azan, saat perang berkecamuk, dan saat sedang turun hujan. Karena itu Jono pun berdoa, ada tiga permohonanya yaitu agar selalu dijauhkan dari perilaku negatif, agar diberi kemampuan untuk memaknai peristiwa-peristiwa yang telah terjadi dalam hidupnya dan agar selalu bisa berfikir jernih dalam mengambil keputusan.
Tiba-tiba lagu I Can’t Be With You kembali terdengar dari handpone Jono, Ia juga masih malas mengangkatnya, tapi Ia pikir lebih baik kalau dia lihat dulu siapa tahu orang yang ia tunggu menghubunginya, siapa tahu tiba-tiba angin menyampaikan kerinduanya. Ia pun melihat nama orang yang menghubungi-nya, kemudian sangat kaget dan langsung mengangkat telp-nya.
“Assalamu’alaikum” sapa Jono
“Wa’alaikumsalam, Mas Jono sekarang posisi dimana?” jawab si penelpon
“Saya di pantai, ada apa ya?” Tanya Jono
“Ini Mas Jono, saya minta bantuan anda, ada tugas dari kantor pusat” jawab si penelpon
......(percakapan sampai selesai)…..
Ternyata panggilan atasan lah yang bisa menggerakan Jono. Segera setelah itu Jono langsung move on, pulang untuk mengerjakan tugas, berhentilah lamunan hari itu.

Moral Of The Story:
There is no simple love stories. If it's simple, it's not love. If it's love, it'll get complicated. True love never runs smooth.

Cilacap, 25 February 2012

Why We Hate HR

By: Keith H. Hammonds August 1, 2005
In a knowledge economy, companies with the best talent win. And finding, nurturing, and developing that talent should be one of the most important tasks in a corporation. So why does human resources do such a bad job -- and how can we fix it?

Well, here's a rockin' party: a gathering of several hundred midlevel human-resources executives in Las Vegas. (Yo, Wayne Newton! How's the 401(k)?) They are here, ensconced for two days at faux-glam Caesars Palace, to confer on "strategic HR leadership," a conceit that sounds, to the lay observer, at once frightening and self-contradictory. If not plain laughable.
Because let's face it: After close to 20 years of hopeful rhetoric about becoming "strategic partners" with a "seat at the table" where the business decisions that matter are made, most human-resources professionals aren't nearly there. They have no seat, and the table is locked inside a conference room to which they have no key. HR people are, for most practical purposes, neither strategic nor leaders.
I don't care for Las Vegas. And if it's not clear already, I don't like HR, either, which is why I'm here. The human-resources trade long ago proved itself, at best, a necessary evil -- and at worst, a dark bureaucratic force that blindly enforces nonsensical rules, resists creativity, and impedes constructive change. HR is the corporate function with the greatest potential -- the key driver, in theory, of business performance -- and also the one that most consistently underdelivers. And I am here to find out why.
Why are annual performance appraisals so time-consuming -- and so routinely useless? Why is HR so often a henchman for the chief financial officer, finding ever-more ingenious ways to cut benefits and hack at payroll? Why do its communications -- when we can understand them at all -- so often flout reality? Why are so many people processes duplicative and wasteful, creating a forest of paperwork for every minor transaction? And why does HR insist on sameness as a proxy for equity?
It's no wonder that we hate HR. In a 2005 survey by consultancy Hay Group, just 40% of employees commended their companies for retaining high-quality workers. Just 41% agreed that performance evaluations were fair. Only 58% rated their job training as favorable. Most said they had few opportunities for advancement -- and that they didn't know, in any case, what was required to move up. Most telling, only about half of workers below the manager level believed their companies took a genuine interest in their well-being.
None of this is explained immediately in Vegas. These HR folks, from employers across the nation, are neither evil courtiers nor thoughtless automatons. They are mostly smart, engaging people who seem genuinely interested in doing their jobs better. They speak convincingly about employee development and cultural transformation. And, over drinks, they spin some pretty funny yarns of employee weirdness. (Like the one about the guy who threatened to sue his wife's company for "enabling" her affair with a coworker. Then there was the mentally disabled worker and the hooker -- well, no, never mind. . . .)
But then the facade cracks. It happens at an afternoon presentation called "From Technicians to Consultants: How to Transform Your HR Staff into Strategic Business Partners." The speaker, Julie Muckler, is senior vice president of human resources at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. She is an enthusiastic woman with a broad smile and 20 years of experience at companies such as Johnson & Johnson and General Tire. She has degrees in consumer economics and human resources and organizational development.
And I have no idea what she's talking about. There is mention of "internal action learning" and "being more planful in my approach." PowerPoint slides outline Wells Fargo Home Mortgage's initiatives in performance management, organization design, and horizontal-solutions teams. Muckler describes leveraging internal resources and involving external resources -- and she leaves her audience dazed. That evening, even the human-resources pros confide they didn't understand much of it, either.
This, friends, is the trouble with HR. In a knowledge economy, companies that have the best talent win. We all know that. Human resources execs should be making the most of our, well, human resources -- finding the best hires, nurturing the stars, fostering a productive work environment -- just as IT runs the computers and finance minds the capital. HR should be joined to business strategy at the hip.
Instead, most HR organizations have ghettoized themselves literally to the brink of obsolescence. They are competent at the administrivia of pay, benefits, and retirement, but companies increasingly are farming those functions out to contractors who can handle such routine tasks at lower expense. What's left is the more important strategic role of raising the reputational and intellectual capital of the company -- but HR is, it turns out, uniquely unsuited for that.
Here's why.
1. HR people aren't the sharpest tacks in the box. We'll be blunt: If you are an ambitious young thing newly graduated from a top college or B-school with your eye on a rewarding career in business, your first instinct is not to join the human-resources dance. (At the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, which arguably boasts the nation's top faculty for organizational issues, just 1.2% of 2004 grads did so.) Says a management professor at one leading school: "The best and the brightest don't go into HR."
Who does? Intelligent people, sometimes -- but not businesspeople. "HR doesn't tend to hire a lot of independent thinkers or people who stand up as moral compasses," says Garold L. Markle, a longtime human-resources executive at Exxon and Shell Offshore who now runs his own consultancy. Some are exiles from the corporate mainstream: They've fared poorly in meatier roles -- but not poorly enough to be fired. For them, and for their employers, HR represents a relatively low-risk parking spot.
Others enter the field by choice and with the best of intentions, but for the wrong reasons. They like working with people, and they want to be helpful -- noble motives that thoroughly tick off some HR thinkers. "When people have come to me and said, 'I want to work with people,' I say, 'Good, go be a social worker,' " says Arnold Kanarick, who has headed human resources at the Limited and, until recently, at Bear Stearns. "HR isn't about being a do-gooder. It's about how do you get the best and brightest people and raise the value of the firm."
The really scary news is that the gulf between capabilities and job requirements appears to be widening. As business and legal demands on the function intensify, staffers' educational qualifications haven't kept pace. In fact, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), a considerably smaller proportion of HR professionals today have some education beyond a bachelor's degree than in 1990.
And here's one more slice of telling SHRM data: When HR professionals were asked about the worth of various academic courses toward a "successful career in HR," 83% said that classes in interpersonal communications skills had "extremely high value." Employment law and business ethics followed, at 71% and 66%, respectively. Where was change management? At 35%. Strategic management? 32%. Finance? Um, that was just 2%.
The truth? Most human-resources managers aren't particularly interested in, or equipped for, doing business. And in a business, that's sort of a problem. As guardians of a company's talent, HR has to understand how people serve corporate objectives. Instead, "business acumen is the single biggest factor that HR professionals in the U.S. lack today," says Anthony J. Rucci, executive vice president at Cardinal Health Inc., a big health-care supply distributor.
Rucci is consistently mentioned by academics, consultants, and other HR leaders as an executive who actually does know business. At Baxter International, he ran both HR and corporate strategy. Before that, at Sears, he led a study of results at 800 stores over five years to assess the connection between employee commitment, customer loyalty, and profitability.
As far as Rucci is concerned, there are three questions that any decent HR person in the world should be able to answer. First, who is your company's core customer? "Have you talked to one lately? Do you know what challenges they face?" Second, who is the competition? "What do they do well and not well?" And most important, who are we? "What is a realistic assessment of what we do well and not so well vis a vis the customer and the competition?"
Does your HR pro know the answers?
2. HR pursues efficiency in lieu of value. Why? Because it's easier -- and easier to measure. Dave Ulrich, a professor at the University of Michigan, recalls meeting with the chairman and top HR people from a big bank. "The training person said that 80% of employees have done at least 40 hours in classes. The chairman said, 'Congratulations.' I said, 'You're talking about the activities you're doing. The question is, What are you delivering?' "
That sort of stuff drives Ulrich nuts. Over 20 years, he has become the HR trade's best-known guru (see "The Once and Future Consultant," page 48) and a leading proponent of the push to take on more-strategic roles within corporations. But human-resources managers, he acknowledges, typically undermine that effort by investing more importance in activities than in outcomes. "You're only effective if you add value," Ulrich says. "That means you're not measured by what you do but by what you deliver." By that, he refers not just to the value delivered to employees and line managers, but the benefits that accrue to investors and customers, as well.
So here's a true story: A talented young marketing exec accepts a job offer with Time Warner out of business school. She interviews for openings in several departments -- then is told by HR that only one is interested in her. In fact, she learns later, they all had been. She had been railroaded into the job, under the supervision of a widely reviled manager, because no one inside the company would take it.
You make the call: Did HR do its job? On the one hand, it filled the empty slot. "It did what was organizationally expedient," says the woman now. "Getting someone who wouldn't kick and scream about this role probably made sense to them. But I just felt angry." She left Time Warner after just a year. (A Time Warner spokesperson declined to comment on the incident.)
Part of the problem is that Time Warner's metrics likely will never catch the real cost of its HR department's action. Human resources can readily provide the number of people it hired, the percentage of performance evaluations completed, and the extent to which employees are satisfied or not with their benefits. But only rarely does it link any of those metrics to business performance.
John W. Boudreau, a professor at the University of Southern California's Center for Effective Organizations, likens the failing to shortcomings of the finance function before DuPont figured out how to calculate return on investment in 1912. In HR, he says, "we don't have anywhere near that kind of logical sophistication in the way of people or talent. So the decisions that get made about that resource are far less sophisticated, reliable, and consistent."
Cardinal Health's Rucci is trying to fix that. Cardinal regularly asks its employees 12 questions designed to measure engagement. Among them: Do they understand the company's strategy? Do they see the connection between that and their jobs? Are they proud to tell people where they work? Rucci correlates the results to those of a survey of 2,000 customers, as well as monthly sales data and brand-awareness scores.
"So I don't know if our HR processes are having an impact" per se, Rucci says. "But I know absolutely that employee-engagement scores have an impact on our business," accounting for between 1% and 10% of earnings, depending on the business and the employee's role. "Cardinal may not anytime soon get invited by the Conference Board to explain our world-class best practices in any area of HR -- and I couldn't care less. The real question is, Is the business effective and successful?"
3. HR isn't working for you. Want to know why you go through that asinine performance appraisal every year, really? Markle, who admits to having administered countless numbers of them over the years, is pleased to confirm your suspicions. Companies, he says "are doing it to protect themselves against their own employees," he says. "They put a piece of paper between you and employees, so if you ever have a confrontation, you can go to the file and say, 'Here, I've documented this problem.' "
There's a good reason for this defensive stance, of course. In the last two generations, government has created an immense thicket of labor regulations. Equal Employment Opportunity; Fair Labor Standards; Occupational Safety and Health; Family and Medical Leave; and the ever-popular ERISA. These are complex, serious issues requiring technical expertise, and HR has to apply reasonable caution.
But "it's easy to get sucked down into that," says Mark Royal, a senior consultant with Hay Group. "There's a tension created by HR's role as protector of corporate assets -- making sure it doesn't run afoul of the rules. That puts you in the position of saying no a lot, of playing the bad cop. You have to step out of that, see the broad possibilities, and take a more open-minded approach. You need to understand where the exceptions to broad policies can be made."
Typically, HR people can't, or won't. Instead, they pursue standardization and uniformity in the face of a workforce that is heterogeneous and complex. A manager at a large capital leasing company complains that corporate HR is trying to eliminate most vice-president titles there -- even though veeps are a dime a dozen in the finance industry. Why? Because in the company's commercial business, vice president is a rank reserved for the top officers. In its drive for bureaucratic "fairness," HR is actually threatening the reputation, and so the effectiveness, of the company's finance professionals.
The urge for one-size-fits-all, says one professor who studies the field, "is partly about compliance, but mostly because it's just easier." Bureaucrats everywhere abhor exceptions -- not just because they open up the company to charges of bias but because they require more than rote solutions. They're time-consuming and expensive to manage. Make one exception, HR fears, and the floodgates will open.
There's a contradiction here, of course: Making exceptions should be exactly what human resources does, all the time -- not because it's nice for employees, but because it drives the business. Employers keep their best people by acknowledging and rewarding their distinctive performance, not by treating them the same as everyone else. "If I'm running a business, I can tell you who's really helping to drive the business forward," says Dennis Ackley, an employee communication consultant. "HR should have the same view. We should send the message that we value our high-performing employees and we're focused on rewarding and retaining them."
Instead, human-resources departments benchmark salaries, function by function and job by job, against industry standards, keeping pay -- even that of the stars -- within a narrow band determined by competitors. They bounce performance appraisals back to managers who rate their employees too highly, unwilling to acknowledge accomplishments that would merit much more than the 4% companywide increase.
Human resources, in other words, forfeits long-term value for short-term cost efficiency. A simple test: Who does your company's vice president of human resources report to? If it's the CFO -- and chances are good it is -- then HR is headed in the wrong direction. "That's a model that cannot work," says one top HR exec who has been there. "A financial person is concerned with taking money out of the organization. HR should be concerned with putting investments in."
4. The corner office doesn't get HR (and vice versa). I'm at another rockin' party: a few dozen midlevel human-resources managers at a hotel restaurant in Mahwah, New Jersey. It is not glam in any way. (I've got to get a better travel agent.) But it is telling, in a hopeful way. Hunter Douglas, a $2.1 billion manufacturer of window coverings, has brought its HR staff here from across the United States to celebrate their accomplishments.
The company's top brass is on hand. Marvin B. Hopkins, president and CEO of North American operations, lays on the praise: "I feel fantastic about your achievements," he says. "Our business is about people. Hiring, training, and empathizing with employees is extremely important. When someone is fired or leaves, we've failed in some way. People have to feel they have a place at the company, a sense of ownership."
So, yeah, it's corporate-speak in a drab exurban office park. But you know what? The human-resources managers from Tupelo and Dallas are totally pumped up. They've been flown into headquarters, they've had their picture taken with the boss, and they're seeing Mamma Mia on Broadway that afternoon on the company's dime.
Can your HR department say it has the ear of top management? Probably not. "Sometimes," says Ulrich, "line managers just have this legacy of HR in their minds, and they can't get rid of it. I felt really badly for one HR guy. The chairman wanted someone to plan company picnics and manage the union, and every time this guy tried to be strategic, he got shot down."
Say what? Execs don't think HR matters? What about all that happy talk about employees being their most important asset? Well, that turns out to have been a small misunderstanding. In the 1990s, a group of British academics examined the relationship between what companies (among them, the UK units of Hewlett-Packard and Citibank) said about their human assets and how they actually behaved. The results were, perhaps, inevitable.
In their rhetoric, human-resources organizations embraced the language of a "soft" approach, speaking of training, development, and commitment. But "the underlying principle was invariably restricted to the improvements of bottom-line performance," the authors wrote in the resulting book, Strategic Human Resource Management (Oxford University Press, 1999). "Even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always 'hard,' with the interests of the organization prevailing over those of the individual."
In the best of worlds, says London Business School professor Lynda Gratton, one of the study's authors, "the reality should be some combination of hard and soft." That's what's going on at Hunter Douglas. Human resources can address the needs of employees because it has proven its business mettle -- and vice versa. Betty Lou Smith, the company's vice president of corporate HR, began investigating the connection between employee turnover and product quality. Divisions with the highest turnover rates, she found, were also those with damaged-goods rates of 5% or higher. And extraordinarily, 70% of employees were leaving the company within six months of being hired.
Smith's staffers learned that new employees were leaving for a variety of reasons: They didn't feel respected, they didn't have input in decisions, but mostly, they felt a lack of connection when they were first hired. "We gave them a 10-minute orientation, then they were out on the floor," Smith says. She addressed the weakness by creating a mentoring program that matched new hires with experienced workers. The latter were suspicious at first, but eventually, the mentor positions (with spiffy shirts and caps) came to be seen as prestigious. The six-month turnover rate dropped dramatically, to 16%. Attendance and productivity -- and the damaged-goods rate -- improved.
"We don't wait to hear from top management," Smith says. "You can't just sit in the corner and look at benefits. We have to know what the issues in our business are. HR has to step up and assume responsibility, not wait for management to knock on our door."
But most HR people do.
Hunter Douglas gives us a glimmer of hope -- of the possibility that HR can be done right. And surely, even within ineffective human-resources organizations, there are great individual HR managers -- trustworthy, caring people with their ears to the ground, who are sensitive to cultural nuance yet also understand the business and how people fit in. Professionals who move voluntarily into HR from line positions can prove especially adroit, bringing a profit-and-loss sensibility and strong management skills.
At Yahoo, Libby Sartain, chief people officer, is building a group that may prove to be the truly effective human-resources department that employees and executives imagine. In this, Sartain enjoys two advantages. First, she arrived with a reputation as a creative maverick, won in her 13 years running HR at Southwest Airlines. And second, she had license from the top to do whatever it took to create a world-class organization.
Sartain doesn't just have a "seat at the table" at Yahoo; she actually helped build the table, instituting a weekly operations meeting that she coordinates with COO Dan Rosensweig. Talent is always at the top of the agenda -- and at the end of each meeting, the executive team mulls individual development decisions on key staffers.
That meeting, Sartain says, "sends a strong message to everyone at Yahoo that we can't do anything without HR." It also signals to HR staffers that they're responsible for more than shuffling papers and getting in the way. "We view human resources as the caretaker of the largest investment of the company," Sartain says. "If you're not nurturing that investment and watching it grow, you're not doing your job."
Yahoo, say some experts and peers at other organizations, is among a few companies -- among them Cardinal Health, Procter & Gamble, Pitney Bowes, Goldman Sachs, and General Electric -- that truly are bringing human resources into the realm of business strategy. But they are indeed the few. USC professor Edward E. Lawler III says that last year HR professionals reported spending 23% of their time "being a strategic business partner" -- no more than they reported in 1995. And line managers, he found, said HR is far less involved in strategy than HR thinks it is. "Despite great huffing and puffing about strategy," Lawler says, "there's still a long way to go." (Indeed. When I asked one midlevel HR person exactly how she was involved in business strategy for her division, she excitedly described organizing a monthly lunch for her vice president with employees.)
What's driving the strategy disconnect? London Business School's Gratton spends a lot of time training human-resources professionals to create more impact. She sees two problems: Many HR people, she says, bring strong technical expertise to the party but no "point of view about the future and how organizations are going to change." And second, "it's very difficult to align HR strategy to business strategy, because business strategy changes very fast, and it's hard to fiddle around with a compensation strategy or benefits to keep up." More than simply understanding strategy, Gratton says, truly effective executives "need to be operating out of a set of principles and personal values." And few actually do.
In the meantime, economic natural selection is, in a way, taking care of the problem for us. Some 94% of large employers surveyed this year by Hewitt Associates reported they were outsourcing at least one human-resources activity. By 2008, according to the survey, many plan to expand outsourcing to include activities such as learning and development, payroll, recruiting, health and welfare, and global mobility.
Which is to say, they will farm out pretty much everything HR does. The happy rhetoric from the HR world says this is all for the best: Outsourcing the administrative minutiae, after all, would allow human-resources professionals to focus on more important stuff that's central to the business. You know, being strategic partners.
The problem, if you're an HR person, is this: The tasks companies are outsourcing -- the administrivia -- tend to be what you're good at. And what's left isn't exactly your strong suit. Human resources is crippled by what Jay Jamrog, executive director of the Human Resource Institute, calls "educated incapacity: You're smart, and you know the way you're working today isn't going to hold 10 years from now. But you can't move to that level. You're stuck."
That's where human resources is today. Stuck. "This is a unique organization in the company," says USC's Boudreau. "It discovers things about the business through the lens of people and talent. That's an opportunity for competitive advantage." In most companies, that opportunity is utterly wasted.
And that's why I don't like HR.
Keith H. Hammonds is Fast Company's deputy editor.

copy from: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/97/open_hr.html

There Is No Day Without A Holy Quran

Did you already finish recite all the content of Holy Quran?
Did you recite including the tafseer?
Did you understanding whole the content?
Too bad, until this day, I’m already 24 years old, I’m not yet finish recite all the tafseer of Holy Quran, so how I can Implement my religion in my life.
Implement doctrine of Islam is duty of every Muslims as well to promote the knowledge of Islam. Except they accept to be called as “Islam KTP” in Indonesia. Yes, many people that admit as a Muslim, but they never put into practice the order of their religion. They believe by doing good to the other is enough, but how come they doing good if they have no motive to doing good, they have no spirit doing good. The only reason they doing good is just to make other people treat them like what they have done. But how they would treat people that they don’t recognize if they don’t have motive.
How we can understanding what our responsibility and our rights as a human. In relation between people and company we usually use what to be called mutual agreement or “perjanjian kerja bersama” in Indonesia to know the obligation and rights from the employee. But how we know our responsibility in relation we as a creature of God?
When I was participating recitation in Indramayu my Ustad give the message “There is No Day Without a Holy Quran” reading and reciting Quran is the duty of a true Muslims, not just pray five times in a day. Many Moslem assume that reciting Holy Quran is not an obligation, and that is totally wrong. My Ustad in Indramayu says that reciting Holy Quran is our duty, the different with Shalat is the time, if time for doing Shalat is already determined, the time for reciting Holy Quran is more flexible.
How we can understand our responsibility if we never learn the content of a Holy Quran as our life guidance. Holy Quran has remedy to many human afflictions. Quran Education guides all the people in the matters of life and also helps in synchronizing yourself with the true guidance of Allah. By studying the Holy Quran you can better understand the religion of Islam and can also get to know about the accurate way of living life.
Until this moment I also not recite Quran everyday, so I write this note to remind my self and also to suggest the other, the important of us to understand the content of Quran. It’s still not late for us to start new habit “There is no day without a Holy Quran”. Or maybe if you feel already late it’s better late than never. Just let’s start.
Cilacap, February 16, 2012

You Live, You Learn

Tembang andalan kali ini dari Alanis Morisette, salah satu penyanyi wanita asal Kanada yang sangat terkenal, selain Celinedion dan Avril Lavigne tentunya. Kalau Celinedion kebanyakan temanya tentang cinta, Avril tentang "feeling rejected", Alanis Morisette mempunyai aliran yang berbeda, karena kebanyakan lagunya tentang kritik sosial, itu juga yang membuat gw senang dengan lagu-lagunya. Lagu yang dinyanyikan Alanis termasuk beraliran Alternative Rock.

Ada banyak lagunya yang gw senangi selain You Live, You Learn antara lain Thank You, Ironic, Hands Clean, One Hand In My Pocket, Crazy , What If God One Of Us, Head Over Feet. Lagu-lagu ini gw senangi sejak masa awal kuliah dulu.

Silahkan diresapi lirik lagu berikut, yang merupakan hasil copas dari lyricsbox.com:


You Learn
by Alanis Morissette
album: Jagged Little Pill (1995),
MTV Unplugged (1999),
The Collection (2005)


I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

[Chorus]
You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

I recommend biting off more that you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears

[Repeat Chorus]

Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you´re gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend

[Repeat Chorus]

You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn

Truly Discovery

I always runaway from everything, from my fear, from my enemy, from challenge, and even from my goal. When I feel uncomforted or there is nothing right of certain place I always think where I can find a better place. When I study in university, I’m not satisfied from what I have done and what I have get, so I prefer run away and looking for other place, as well when I’m working, I’m “escape” from my previous company because not suitable with my passion. Than now I’m in new place again, and I found something not right here, there something that distract my mind, so I think I should run away again.
Oh my god, my life full of escaping from reality. But now its different, I realize if I should not run from my place, but from my uncomforted feeling. I have to find something bright in my place. What is it? How I can find it? Nobody say it was easy to find something different from the one thing.
The other eyes
That’s the answer, the key of all my anxiety. I have to see one thing with the other eyes, so I would get some perspective. I call that with “Truly Discovery”. Than I can find something new from one thing, I can get insight. Like what wise man say: there are always possibilities in every difficulties.
Truly Discovery is Not Consist of Finding a New Land, But When Seeing the Same Place With Other Eyes (Unknown). So lets seeing our place with other eyes, than you will just feel wonderful (hahahaha, sok…maklum kejar setoran ra due kegiatan).

Aku Tidak Ingin Jadi Pahlawan

Aku ingin menjadi orang yang bertepuk tangan di tepi jalan

Di kelasnya ada 50 orang murid, setiap kali ujian, anak perempuanku tetap mendapat ranking ke-23. Lambat laun membuat dia mendapatkan nama panggilan dengan nomor ini, dia juga menjadi murid kualitas menengah yang sesungguhnya. Sebagai orangtua, kami merasa nama panggilan ini kurang enak didengar, namun anak kami ternyata menerimanya dengan senang hati. Suamiku mengeluhkan ke padaku, setiap kali ada kegiatan di perusahaannya atau pertemuan alumni sekolahnya, setiap orang selalu memuji-muji "Superman cilik" di rumah masing-masing, sedangkan dia hanya bisa menjadi pendengar saja.

Anak keluarga orang, bukan saja memiliki nilai sekolah yang menonjol, juga memiliki banyak keahlian khusus. Sedangkan anak nomor 23 di keluarga kami tidak memiliki sesuatu pun untuk ditonjolkan. Dari itu, setiap kali suamiku menonton penampilan anak-anak berbakat luar biasa dalam acara televisi, timbul keirian dalam hatinya sampai matanya bersinar-sinar. Kemudian ketika dia membaca sebuah berita tentang seorang anak berusia 9 tahun yang masuk perguruan tinggi, dia bertanya dengan hati pilu kepada anak kami: Anakku, kenapa kamu tidak terlahir sebagai anak dengan kepandaian luar biasa? Anak kami menjawab: Itu karena ayah juga bukan seorang ayah dengan kepandaian luar biasa. Suamiku menjadi tidak bisa berkata apa-apa lagi, saya tanpa tertahankan tertawa sendiri.

Pada pertengahan musim gugur, semua sanak keluarga berkumpul bersama untuk merayakannya, sehingga memenuhi satu ruangan besar di restoran. Topik pembicaraan semua orang perlahan-lahan mulai beralih kepada anak masing-masing. Dalam kemeriahan suasana, anak-anak ditanyakan apakah cita-cita mereka di masa mendatang? Ada yang menjawab akan menjadi pemain piano, bintang film atau politikus, tiada seorang pun yang terlihat takut mengutarakannya di depan orang banyak, bahkan anak perempuan berusia 4½ tahun juga menyatakan kelak akan menjadi seorang pembawa acara di televisi, semua orang bertepuk tangan mendengarnya. Anak perempuan kami yang berusia 15 tahun terlihat sibuk sekali sedang membantu anak-anak kecil lainnya makan. Semua orang mendadak teringat kalau hanya dia yang belum mengutarakan cita-citanya kelak. Di bawah desakan orang banyak, akhirnya dia menjawab dengan sungguh-sungguh: Kelak ketika aku dewasa, cita-cita pertamaku adalah menjadi seorang guru TK, memandu anak-anak menyanyi, menari dan bermain-main. Demi menunjukkan kesopanan, semua orang tetap memberikan pujian, kemudian menanyakan akan cita-cita keduanya. Dia menjawab dengan besar hati: Saya ingin menjadi seorang ibu, mengenakan kain celemek bergambar Doraemon dan memasak di dapur, kemudian membacakan cerita untuk anak-anakku dan membawa mereka ke teras rumah untuk melihat bintang-bintang. Semua sanak keluarga tertegun dibuatnya, saling pandang tanpa tahu akan berkata apa lagi. Raut muka suamiku menjadi canggung sekali.

Sepulangnya ke rumah, suamiku mengeluhkan ke padaku, apakah aku akan membiarkan anak perempuan kami kelak menjadi guru TK? Apakah kami tetap akan membiarkannya menjadi murid kualitas menengah? Sebetulnya, kami juga telah berusaha banyak. Demi meningkatkan nilai sekolahnya, kami pernah mencarikan guru les pribadi dan mendaftarkannya di tempat bimbingan belajar, juga membelikan berbagai materi belajar untuknya. Anak kami juga sangat penurut, dia tidak membaca komik lagi, tidak ikut kelas origami lagi, tidur bermalas-malasan di akhir minggu juga tidak dilakukan lagi. Bagai seekor burung kecil yang kelelahan, dia ikut les belajar sambung menyambung, buku pelajaran dan buku latihan dikerjakan tanpa henti. Namun biar bagaimana pun dia tetap seorang anak-anak, tubuhnya tidak bisa bertahan lagi dan terserang flu berat. Biar sedang diinfus dan terbaring di ranjang, dia tetap bersikeras mengerjakan tugas pelajaran, akhirnya dia terserang radang paru-paru. Setelah sembuh, wajahnya terlihat kurus banyak. Akan tetapi ternyata hasil ujian semesternya membuat kami tidak tahu mau tertawa atau menangis, tetap saja nomor 23.

Kemudian, kami juga mencoba untuk memberikan penambah gizi dan rangsangan hadiah, setelah berulang-ulang menjalaninya, ternyata wajah anak perempuanku semakin pucat saja. Apalagi, setiap kali akan ujian, dia mulai tidak bisa makan dan tidak bisa tidur, terus mencucurkan keringat dingin, terakhir hasil ujiannya malah menjadi nomor 33 yang mengejutkan kami. Aku dan suamiku secara diam-diam melepaskan aksi menarik bibit ke atas demi membantunya tumbuh ini. Dia kembali pada jam belajar dan istirahatnya yang normal, kami mengembalikan haknya untuk membaca komik, mengijinkannya untuk berlangganan majalah "Humor anak-anak" dan sejenisnya, sehingga rumah kami menjadi tenteram kembali. Kami memang sangat sayang pada anak kami ini, namun kami sungguh tidak mengerti akan nilai sekolahnya.

Pada akhir minggu, teman-teman sekerja pergi rekreasi bersama. Semua orang mempersiapkan lauk terbaik dari masing-masing, dengan membawa serta suami dan anak untuk piknik. Sepanjang perjalanan penuh dengan tawa dan guyonan, ada anak yang bernyanyi, ada juga yang memperagakan karya seni pendek. Anak kami tiada keahlian khusus, hanya terus bertepuk tangan dengan gembira. Dia sering kali lari ke belakang untuk menjaga bahan makanan. Merapikan kembali kotak makanan yang terlihat agak miring, mengetatkan tutup botol yang longgar atau mengelap jus sayuran yang bocor ke luar. Dia sibuk sekali bagaikan seorang pengurus rumah tangga cilik.

Ketika makan terjadi satu kejadian di luar dugaan. Ada dua orang anak lelaki, satunya adalah bakat matematika, satunya lagi adalah ahli bahasa Inggeris. Kedua anak ini secara bersamaan menjepit sebuah kue beras ketan di atas piring, tiada seorang pun yang mau melepaskannya, juga tidak mau membaginya. Walau banyak makanan enak terus dihidangkan, mereka sama sekali tidak mau peduli. Orang dewasa terus membujuk mereka, namun tidak ada hasilnya. Terakhir anak kami yang menyelesaikan masalah sulit ini dengan cara sederhana yaitu lempar koin untuk menentukan siapa yang menang.

Ketika pulang, jalanan macat dan anak-anak mulai terlihat gelisah. Anakku terus membuat guyonan dan membuat orang-orang semobil tertawa tanpa henti. Tangannya juga tidak pernah berhenti, dia mengguntingkan banyak bentuk binatang kecil dari kotak bekas tempat makanan, membuat anak-anak ini terus memberi pujian. Sampai ketika turun dari mobil bus, setiap orang mendapatkan guntingan kertas hewan shio masing-masing. Ketika mendengar anak-anak terus berterima kasih, tanpa tertahankan pada wajah suamiku timbul senyum bangga.

Sehabis ujian semester, aku menerima telpon dari wali kelas anakku. Pertama-tama mendapatkan kabar kalau nilai sekolah anakku tetap kualitas menengah. Namun dia mengatakan ada satu hal aneh yang hendak diberitahukannya, hal yang pertama kali ditemukannya selama 30 tahun mengajar. Dalam ujian bahasa ada sebuah soal tambahan, yaitu siapa teman sekelas yang paling kamu kagumi dan alasannya. Selain anakku, semua teman sekelasnya menuliskan nama anakku.

Alasannya sangat banyak: antusias membantu orang, sangat memegang janji, tidak mudah marah, enak berteman, dan lain-lain, paling banyak ditulis adalah optimis dan humoris. Wali kelasnya mengatakan banyak usul agar dia dijadikan ketua kelas saja. Dia memberi pujian: Anak anda ini, walau nilai sekolahnya biasa-biasa saja, namun kalau bertingkah laku terhadap orang, benar-benar nomor satu.

Saya berguyon pada anakku, kamu sudah mau jadi pahlawan. Anakku yang sedang merajut selendang leher terlebih menundukkan kepalanya dan berpikir sebentar, dia lalu menjawab dengan sungguh-sungguh: “Guru pernah mengatakan sebuah pepatah, ketika pahlawan lewat, harus ada orang yang bertepuk tangan di tepi jalan.” Dia pelan-pelan melanjutkan: “Ibu, aku tidak mau jadi pahlawan, aku ingin jadi orang yang bertepuk tangan di tepi jalan.” Aku terkejut mendengarnya dan mengamatinya dengan seksama.

Dia tetap diam sambil merajut benang wolnya, benang warna merah muda dipilinnya bolak balik di jarum bambu, sepertinya waktu yang berjalan di tangannya mengeluarkan kuncup bunga. Dalam hatiku terasa hangat seketika. Pada ketika itu, hatiku tergugah oleh anak perempuan yang tidak ingin menjadi pahlawan ini. Di dunia ini ada berapa banyak orang yang bercita-cita ingin menjadi pahlawan, namun akhirnya menjadi seorang biasa di dunia fana ini. Jika berada dalam kondisi sehat, jika hidup dengan bahagia, jika tidak ada rasa bersalah dalam hati, mengapa anak-anak kita tidak boleh menjadi seorang biasa yang baik hati dan jujur.

Jika anakku besar nanti, dia pasti akan menjadi seorang isteri yang berbudi luhur, seorang ibu yang lemah lembut, bahkan menjadi seorang teman kerja yang suka membantu, tetangga yang ramah dan baik. Apalagi dia mendapatkan ranking 23 dari 50 orang murid di kelasnya, kenapa kami masih tidak merasa senang dan tidak merasa puas? Masih ingin dirinya lebih hebat dari orang lain dan lebih menonjol lagi? Lalu bagaimana dengan sisa 27 orang anak-anak di belakang anakku? Jika kami adalah orangtua mereka, bagaimana perasaan kami?


originally from: http://www.dailyavocado.net/avocado-world/avocado-soul/809-aku-tidak-ingin-jadi-pahlawan.html

Lose Weight All Day Long

Follow this hour-by-hour slim-down schedule to control hunger hormones, banish cravings, and get trim and toned—fast!
Drop Around the Clock
It's not just what you eat or how much you exercise that matters; it's the timing of each component that is the true secret to weight loss success. Research shows that our bodies' inner eat-and-sleep clocks have been thrown completely out of whack, thanks to all-day food cues and too much nighttime artificial light. The result: You're caught in a "fat cycle": a constant flow of hunger hormones that makes you prone to cravings. By tuning in to your body's natural eat/sleep schedule, you can finally say good-bye to your belly. The nine readers who followed this plan lost a total of 106 pounds in 5 weeks. Even better: With the 3-day reset diet you can drop up to 8 pounds in just 72 hours!
6 to 8 AM: Get Moving
Within a half hour of rising and before you eat breakfast, do 20 minutes of cardio. Research has found that exercising before breakfast may help you burn fat more efficiently. If you can get outside, even better. Early morning sunlight helps your body naturally reset itself to a healthier sleep/wake cycle (regular indoor lights don't have the same effect)
6:55 to 8:55 AM: Drink Up
Before every meal, drink two 8-ounce glasses of water. Research shows that people who drank this amount lost 5 pounds more than nonguzzlers.
7 to 9 AM: Eat Breakfast
The alarm clock also wakes up ghrelin, the "feed me" hormone made in your stomach. Ignore ghrelin and your body will produce even more, eventually making you ravenous. To suppress ghrelin's effect, eat a mix of complex carbs and protein, such as eggs and whole grain toast, within an hour of waking.
10 to 11 AM: Munch Midmorning
Ghrelin begins to rise again a couple of hours before lunch. It turns off when you chow down, particularly on carbs and protein, so have a small combo snack, like blueberries and Greek-style yogurt.
12 to 1 PM: Have Your Midday Meal
Galanin, another hunger hormone that makes you crave fat, rises around lunchtime. However, dietary fat causes you to produce more galanin, which then tells you to eat more fat. Instead, fill up with complex carbs and protein, such as chicken-vegetable soup or black bean chili.
2 to 3 PM: Take a Nap
Instead of hitting the vending machines, find a quiet place to grab a few Zzzs. (Hint: Your parked car is the perfect impromptu sleep pod!) Just set an alarm—15 to 20 minutes will energize your body without affecting your ability to sleep at night.
3:30 PM: Get Buzzed
Need a boost? This is your last chance to have a cup of joe. Drinking coffee after 4 PM disturbs circadian rhythms and can keep you from falling asleep at night
4 to 8 PM: Trim and Tone
Now's the time to do your strength training, plus any additional cardio. This is when your body temperature is highest, so you're primed for peak performance. In one study, subjects who worked out in the late afternoon or early evening built 22% more muscle than morning exercisers.
5 to 7 PM: Time to Dine
To ensure you don't wake up hungry in the middle of the night, add a serving of healthy fats, such as flaxseed or fish oil, to your meal. If you're a wine drinker, pour a glass now. Drinking later can delay dream (REM) sleep, waking you frequently during the night.
9 to 10 PM: Have a Presleep Snack
Enjoy a carb-based bedtime snack, such as a serving of low-fat frozen yogurt. Nighttime carbs create tryptophan, which helps your brain produce serotonin. This feel-good chemical triggers your body to make melatonin, the sleep hormone.
9 to 10:30 PM: Power Down
Step away from digital devices, including the TV. They emit a blue spectrum of light that's even more disruptive to sleep than regular bulbs. Do something calming—read, take a bath—in dim light so you're ready to nod off when you hit the sheets.
9:30 to 11 PM: Go to Sleep
Crawl under the covers at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning, even on weekends. Having a regular sleep-and-wake schedule helps you fall asleep faster over time.

originally from : http://fitbie.msn.com/slideshow/body-clock-reset-diet/slide/2

Pokoke kudu nabung

Wis tau utang durung koe? Mesti wis tau yo, utang kui werno-werno maceme, ono utang duit, utang budi, utang nraktir, utang totoan (loh), utang janji, lan sak laine. Nak cah kuliah utang karo laine kui wajar, soyo meneh sing kos, tak maklumi wong aku sing ra kos ae mbiyen yo sok utang karo kancaku kok. Nek cah kuliah ki paling utang yo piro to, limangatus ewu yo wis akeh, pantes lah, mesti mbayar kos, tuku mangan, buku sih ra perlu, tapi kan durung due penghasilan. Meh njaluk wong tuo tapi pingen mandiri.
Lah, nek sing utang kui wong kerjo wangun po ora?
Tergantung alasane, nak due tanggungan nyekolahke anake, mbangun apartemen, kredit bis, atau usaha kui yo pantes-pantes wae. Saiki kepiye nek sing utang kui, wong kerjo, bayare lumayan (ndas limo), rung keluarga, ra ndue usaha. Woh parah banget kui.
Saiki aku pingin bagi-bagi pengalaman karo koe kabeh, sekalian evaluasi diri. Aku ki wis ket semester 2 wis kerjo, part time, dodolan, rewang-rewang, berburu beasiswa, opo ae lah, biar urip mandiri. Setelah lulus aku wis kerjo neng perusahaan sing gede, bayare yowis ndas limo, ra ndue tanggungan opo-opo, urip ku yo ra boros, mangan opo-opo aku kelek, numpak sepur ekonomi biasa, dadi seharuse tabunganku ki yowis lumayan jumlahe, keno nggo tuku cbr lah. Tapi aku kan saiki nembe mulai karir neng perusahaan laen, dadi bayare yo terbatas, mesti pindah kota meneh, seko ibukota neng daerah, biaya pindahan, mulai urip neng tempat anyar yo ora setitik. Tebak opo sing terjadi! Aku utang! jalan cerita lengkape ngene ki :
Ki pertama kali aku utang karo kancaku sing buntut enem (ongko yuto), bayangke cah, aku sing jih 24 tahun utange wis akeh, senajan kemarin yowis tak saur. Tapi tetep wae ono sing perlu dipertanyakan, nengdi wae bayarku mbiyen? Saiki tak ceritakne, dadi ket umurku durung 23 tahun ki (tepate setelah yudisium) kurang luwih sebulan sebelum wisuda aku ki wis ra njaluk duit karo wong tuaku, aku urip seko utang karo kerjo opo wae sing penting halal. Dadi ket rampung kuliah ki sebenere utangku yowis akeh, tapi kan wajar wong aku durung due gawean. Setelah aku entuk kerjo, umurku pas 23 tahun, bayare tak nggo nyaur utang, setelah utangku kesaur tak silehne sedulurku nggo modal urip kro usaha, jumlahe yo akeh. Kerjo enem bulan aku pingin nyobo kerjo neng tempat laen, nah pas kui aku due nazar nek aku keterimo neng perusahaan gede dewe sak indonesia utange kui bakal tak putihke, bul tenanan, aku keterimo neng perusahaan kui, dadi aku urip mulai seko nol meneh, ra due tabungan(padahal pas pindah kui aku wis gajian ping sepuluh plus THR), penghasilan minim, Alhamdulillah. Trus aku dipindah neng daerah, mesti pindahan, ngirim kendaraan seko jakarta, tuku perabotan, mangan, mbayar sewo omah, entek okeh, atm ilang, kentekan modal, akhire utang.

Opo sebape, aku ra tau nabung, padahal wis ket kuliah kerjo karo entuk beasiswa, senajan uripku ki ra boros banget, tapi terlalu cal-cul, nyumbang, dll. Dumeh rumongso ra butuh opo-opo, akhire pas butuh mesti utang. Pelajaran seko kejadian iki nggo koe podo, terutama sing wis bayaran, rung ndue tanggungan, nabung lah! Minimal 20% seko penghasilanmu ojo digunake nggo konsumsi, nyumbang, kabeh, tapi nggo simpenan karo investasi, tur yo nek zakat karo utang kui tetep sing pertama. Yakin mengko simpenan ki akeh manfaate, koyo pepatah jowo: “the reward for saving your money is being able to pay something without borrowing”. Dadi koe ra perlu utang karo uwong lio, syukur malah ngutangi. Kan tangan neng nduwur luwih apik katimbang tangan neng ngisor.
Trus makna sing keloro nak koe meh tuku barang-barang ning modalmu setitik, dipikir dhisik, koe bener-bener butuh barang kui opo mung nggo seneng-seneng ae, koyo sing disampekne kang Addison: “before borrowing money from friends, decide which you need more.” Kui koyo sing tak alami saiki, dadi aku pingen tuku inline skate, terinspirasi halaman komplek sing jembar lan alus, mesti manteb nek nggo main inline. Tapi modal ku ki terbatas, aku kudu mbayar kos, mangan, mudik, nabung, bensin, tuku hadiah, zakat. Nek ra nabung sih yo kuat-kuat wae aku tuku, tapi wis tak niati, komitmen mulai wulan ngarep aku bakal nabung minimal 20 persen. Memang aku ket kuliah wis ra tau njaluk duit wong tuo ku, tapi nek ra due tabungan atau usaha podo ae aku durung mandiri. Salah satu syarat nek koe pingin dadi jomblo high quality ki koe kudu due modal, due tabungan nggo berkeluarga.
Pisan meneh tak elingke, ojo lali nabung, ojo mengikuti jejaku mbiyen, ojo nunggu kere lagi kelingan nabung, nek ra penting rasah tuku.
Cilacap, 14 Rabiulawal 1433 H