Nothing To Do At Work

Some years back, I worked in this stuffy, serious office right in the middle of the city. It wasn’t any of those offices where the bosses were liberal and every day is Casual Day, this was one of those stuffy, dreary offices where the lighting is dim and everyone was dead boring. Except me la.

There the bosses worked from 9am to 7pm everyday, and if you told them a joke, they’d probably take 24 seconds to get it, then think you just insulted his mother.

The secretaries are all dry, old ladies who still wear fashion from the 70’s.

Anyway, one day this young executive joined the firm. He was all excited about the new job, came in the first day wearing his best new long-sleeved shirt (with classy fake ivory cufflinks) and a dark blue tie.

Except that no one told him nobody dresses like that there. Short sleeve shirts (but no polo tees) were standard issue uniform. Why? By 11am he found out why. Damn air-conditioning is so old it makes the office stuffy.

By 3pm, he was chugging down water every 5 minutes and trying to hide the underarms sweat patches. The next day, voila! He’s dressed in short sleeves like the rest of us! No tie.

Anyway, being the old fashioned office this was, they hardly gave him much work for the first 1 month, just "let him familiarize himself with the files first". So day one, he read all the files. Same for day two. By day three he starts reading the files again.

Day four, I see him studying the phone directory. By the end of the day I think he can memorize all our telephone extensions already.

Over the next few days, he does all of the following – study his table calendar, looks out of the window, drinks his cup of coffee r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y, read files again, tries to stay awake, checks his watch… you get the drift.

Anyway, I left the company soon after. I heard his left after month three. I wonder why.

Family Financial Concerns and Gold

My friends, this couple with a 2 year old son, just had another bouncing baby girl. Well, the baby wasn't entirely planned, but they are really happy for the kid. Naturally they are also a little concerned with the financial situation, because they had just bought a new home and a new car prior to the birth.

The husband was asking me about investments to get some return on their money recently, and I introduced them to investing in gold. Why gold, they asked. Well, its simple. Its one of the most important commodities out there, and it has been the most treasured and precious metal since the time of the ancients.

A tiny investment is all you need to get started, and you can increase your returns by adding to your investment. One way to get started is simply to buy gold coins and you can rest assure your money will be working hard for you.

Investment Then And Now

You know how your grandparents always tell you "a penny earned is a penny saved" right? Well, my grandparents used to keep their money under their mattress when they were young, and things have changed quite a bit.

Now we have many different investment instruments to keep our money busy while we are not looking. But what is the best option to invest your money in? Most people keep it in CDs or fixed deposits, if you have more money you can go for stocks or real estate and property.

But there's one solid investment that doesn't need a lot to start one - buy gold bullion. Gold is the cherished mineral that people have treasured since the time of the ancients. Gold, or even silver, now can be easily bought, and even the US government is also a huge investor.