My 2 cents April 2014

Hello peeps!

Do you guys speculate? No? Yes? Maybe? … J Something that I chose to write in this month Bulletin.

Speculate is something that we, people tend to do or love to do. As it has been part of our daily life we sometimes failed to differentiate between doing it intentionally or unintentionally.

A good example of speculating is narrating a story that we heard from someone, perhaps our colleague on something. Of coz, we won’t realize if we have unintentionally or intentionally add more flavors in the story via our face expressions, hand and body gestures and even husky or high pitchy voices. So the original story has been added with herbs and spices to make it even tastier !!!

Let’s talk about what has been happening in the Bank. The latest issue was on the options given to all staff i.e. Bonus or Gratuity. Before the bank wide exercise was implemented to opt our preference, people have been speculating that the Bank’s decisive option would be on ‘Bonus’. It has been well spread via FBs, word of mouth, etc before the Bank/management come to the conclusion. See how speculation can become viral and suppress the truth.

[Being fair to all parties, I would like to think that the chain letter that exists and has been in practice in the Bank for quite some time is not another form of speculating BUT perhaps another communication medium to relay/narrate dissatisfaction. But this dissatisfaction should be done in a proper manner and whoever involved should face it with an open mind for the benefit of all parties; be it the staff and the management].

In a wider aspect, closer to home, no doubt everyone has been speculating on the missing of MH370. Social media (as a borderless platform of information as it qualified!) has been playing a main role play in this crisis. With all the online info which accuracy is easily compromised with, some of us speculate based on indefinite stories and information. Yes… we all can see all sorts of stories available online but are all these the truth or merely speculation??? We speculate like nobody business; putting aside the feelings of the victims/the relatives of the victims. Aren’t we selfish for that matter? Well… this is not about we Malaysians but it happens across the globe.

Being human, we cannot run way from not speculating. Even in tradable market shares such as stocks, bonds, currencies, commodity futures etc there is an element of speculation. But in this context speculation ( as per quoted in Wikipedia) is totally different as it involves attempts to  profit from short or medium term fluctuations in the market value of tradable good rather than attempting to profit from the underlying financial attributes embodied in the instrument such as capital gains, interest, or dividends.

The role of speculators is to absorb excess risk that other participants do not want, and to provide liquidity in the marketplace by buying or selling when no participants from the other categories are available. Successful speculation entails collecting an adequate level of monetary compensation in return for providing immediate liquidity and assuming additional risk so that, over time, the inevitable losses are offset by larger profits.

Now banking on the above definition, how is that to be at par with what we have been speculating internally in the Bank? Who gains the profit? None of us right?

So peeps, my 2 cents worth, let’s unite. I truly understand that this cannot be happened in a day like a saying Rome wasn’t built in a day! (Yes I think I am being too perfectionist) but hey… give it a try peeps. Civil Unity and Religious integrity will keep us as ONE and will not leave us DIVIDED. A challenge for us  though….