Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Caught off-guard

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Caught off-guard

Read this article entitled being cuaght off-guard

7 comments:

Bongo said...: Take a look at http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

It may just have exposed a fatal flaw in modern society today, including our own.; June 27, 2010 10:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Rex comments as follows,

I think the term "caught off guard" has a military origin. If you do guard duty and you are caught off guard, and the enemy infiltrated, you could be court martialed and punnished.

However in the modern civilian world, caught off guard seems to have a sublimal message, a mitigating factor, as if, what happened was not entirely your fault. Rather strange how the context changes the connotations.

In the recent situations, i think it is unacceptable that the damning factors were not forcastable, in view of the numerous years of experience the planners have in dealing with similar issues.

Should they be punished? Does it do any good at all? I don't know.

rex; June 27, 2010 10:42 AM
C H Yak said...: @Rex "Should they be punished? Does it do any good at all? "

Forget about punishment, perhap just admit responsibility. It is being use as an excuse to avoid responsibility....like telling the layman "I am not an expert, so you cannot blame me" ... but then who is responsible? Nobody? If so then why create a so sophisticated bureaucracy which is expensive ... if these things are meant to be "caught-off-guard" then taxpayers need not bear the burden at all ... rather have no one at all to be responsible and pay nothing. Just let everybody knows that no one is responisble for these things...???

Punishment may not be necessary, but at least have the courage to admit the shortcoming and / or mistakes not to have looked at things in details ... and admit responsibility.

I remember when I was serving my NS, when no one admits a mistake, the whole platoon suffers...it trains leadership to take responsibility ... but political culture here is bad, unlike in Japan ... which could be an extreme as certain politicians went to the extent of commiting suicide for an error.; June 27, 2010 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: They should be punished !

But

wh are these they ?

The Ministers always blame those below them and those below the Ministers always blame those below them and at the end nature and some inanimate organizations got blamed. How ?

patriot; June 27, 2010 12:25 PM
Anonymous said...: And World Cup Football Leads the Way Forward for Singapore:

First we have England's goalkeeper stepping up and taking SOLE responsibility for allowing an easy goal to be scored by USA. No excuses about joint responsibility with team mates.

Next we have "FIFA concedes all's not well with Jabulani", Straits Times, 27 June, page 36, bottom of page.

"We are not DEAF," Fifa Secretary general Jerome Valcke said yesterday at a news conference. "Fifa is not unreceptive about what has been said about the ball"

Look like the deaf frog syndrome is a disease peculiar to Singapore.

Loss of hearing may be the first sign of a bigger problem ... a fish that has started rotting in the head.

Other signs of a rotting head may include an inability to accept sole responsibility for one's failures.

SMRT depots have been called "protected areas" in the newspapers. So how can the Singapore public be jointly responsible for such areas?; June 27, 2010 2:22 PM
Anonymous said...: If Wong Kan Seng can get away with letting a terrorist escape, what do you expect?; June 28, 2010 4:44 PM
Anonymous said...: 'Caught off guard'; haha, come to think of it, our leaders are hardly on guard except guarding their assets, incomes, positions and their own safeties.; July 01, 2010 11:33 AM