jurutera awam j41 interview overview

if i get an offer to attend a job interview, the first thing i would do is google it up. not sure if it applies to everyone, but it applies to me.. and i am very thankful to those people who manage to write and discuss about their experience going through their job interview for a specific post at a specific company. so this blog post is lebih kurang like giving back lah to the people who are googling a day or two before their job interview for the jurutera awam j41 post. ;)

quite recently, i went for an interview for jurutera awam j41. i went berpakaian formal (suit). no baju kurung. the reason was because kali ni it was my second time getting interviewed for the post. the 1st time i got interviewed, orang spa tu tegur kenapa pakai baju kurung? tak nampak macam orang yang capable of going to construction site. point taken.

the interview went on for about 20 minutes and i was interviewed by two officers - a jabatan kerja raya (jkr) representative and a kementerian kerja raya (kkr) representative. usually you would get interviewed by a representative from suruhanjaya perkhidmatan awam (spa) but i guess the spa representative couldn't make it on that day.

anyway, the questions were more or less like:
1. apa yang mencabar bila jadi a female engineer and how do you handle it?
2. kalau kontraktor tak dengar cakap kita kat site, what would you do?
3. the terengganu stadium roof collapse. whose fault was it? why?
4. rasuah. how would you face it? if someone offers you a bribe, what would you do? what if it was just a festive hamper?
5. what do you take into account when you want to design a building foundation? how do you design a building foundation?
6. name the types of pavement you know?
7. why do you want this job? why should i hire you?
8. do you plan on furthering your studies?
9. how often do you go to your construction site?

yup, that's all that i can remember. i'm not going to blab about how you should talk, sit and communicate though. the preparing-for-a-job-interview sites has covered all that. hehe. good luck! :)

certificate of completion and compliance (ccc)

basically, kalau buat projek kerajaan, we don't have ccc in our contract. ada cpc je yang dikeluarkan oleh s.o. tapi i have this one project di mana client dia insist nak ccc so apa nak buat kan? the client is always right. buat ajelah prosedur nak dapatkan ccc tu walaupun macam tak perlu. disebabkan my project is categorized as konvensional perunding, the architect consultant is in charge with the liaison dengan mpsp. what i've learnt today is the process of obtaining the ccc:

step 1

complete kan borang g1 - g21 and send it to mpsp for comments/kelulusan.

step 2

do step 1 sampai mpsp tak komen apa-apa and proceed to step 3.

step 3

the architect kena beli borang f (borang perakuan siap dan pematuhan) yang ada serial number lembaga arkitek malaysia and thus kena complete that borang and seterusnya address it to the so with salinan kepada mpsp

step 4

mpsp akan keluarkan the ccc kepada architect untuk edarkan kepada stakeholders.

bandung escapade

okay, first impression of bandung? i really dislike the taxi drivers. they are mostly rude, ok. but despite of that, i find bandung a very interesting place to visit. it is definitely an eye opening experience for me. here's my itinerary for the short trip:

day 1

• flight departs from penang to bandung.
• arrived around midnight local time (i think).

bandara husein sastranegara bandung airport

• took the cab to the hotel (rp.40,000.00) and after paying the taxi driver, boleh pulak dia kata tak ada change untuk rp.100,000.00? i mean, come on la.. we were like the very last customer.. takkan tak ada change kan. you have been working since this morning, dude. so lepas i did a very mean looking face, tiba-tiba boleh pulak keluar the change from his pockets? arghh. tension.

 day 2

• breakfast at the hotel. by the way, we stayed at amaris hotel cihampelas. the hotel was pleasant enough and the food was okay.
• walked through the streets of bandung to pasar baru. prior to our trip, i did some research and printed out maps from google maps. oh, how i love google to pieces!

 we found a railway station on the way to pasar baru

 a train passing by

children walking on railway tracks - very dangerous indeed!

• shopped at pasar baru. the main reason for our trip was apparently shopping for textiles untuk the upcoming raya. haha.
• took a cab back to the hotel. tak jadi nak walk back sebab shopping and borong banyak sangat. got cheated by the taxi driver yang refuse to turn on the cab meter. malas nak bergaduh, so kitorang bayar je lah rp.40,000.00 kat dia.
• good thing that bila kitorang sampai hotel, we saw a bluebird cab. apa lagi.. cepat-cepat booking for our next trip.
• lepas tinggalkan hasil barangan shopping at our hotel room, we took off with the bluebird cab (yang apparently jujur menggunakan meter) to saung angklung udjo to catch a cultural angklung performance. memang berbaloi ok. way off berbaloi than the tangkuban perahu, i tell you.

 

a man making ends meet, i guess

the bluebird cab meter

toilet cubicles at the saung angklung udjo - architectural awesomeness!

the admission ticket and brochure for the angklung performance show

• after the show ended, we asked the receptionist at the ticket counter if she could please call us a cab yang menggunakan meter. the staff at saung angklung udjo - very helpful and friendly.. kudos!
• then we headed to our next stop, paris van java. nice place but definitely has changed since my last visit. we ate at katjapiring. the food was not something i'm used to tapi boleh la tahan.

 katjapiring

 the meal we had at katjapiring

• lepas habis ronda-ronda kat paris van java, we headed back to our hotel by foot. experiencing bandung through the streets is way better walking than taking a cab. we stopped by at the shops/stalls along jl.cihampelas and bought some souvenirs t-shirts. 

hollow steel grating - very different from the normal steel gratings in malaysia

they use bamboo scaffolds, we use steel

food stalls like these were very typical in bandung

 

• kepenatan yang amat, sampai hotel terus tertido and accidentally skipped dinner. we were planning to go to sierra cafe and lounge. shucks!

day 3

• hotel check out time was at 12.00pm but our flight wasn't until 5.00pm so we extended our stay and headed to the famously known rumah mode factory outlet. i love this place. setiap kali dapat gaji bulanan, kalau boleh nak shopping kat sini je. hehe.

 

rumah mode factory outlet

• lepas spending quite some time kat rumah mode, we headed to jl.cihampelas shopping area and lagi sekali stopped by the stalls/shops to buy souvenir t-shirts.
• bila sampai hotel, cepat-cepat pack barang and check out. we asked the receptionist at the hotel to call us a cab yang pakai meter. the cab yang arrive to pick us up apparently tak nak pakai meter. he wanted to charge us rp.50,000.00 and we decided to get out and ask for another taxi tapi tiba-tiba taxi driver tu naik angin and membebel and tak bagi kitorang keluar. lepas tu we told him that dari airport ke hotel pun rp.40,000.00, how come he's charging us more? then dengan muka tak puas hati, dia pun setuju rp.40,000.00. personally i think we could have gotten rp.20,000.00 sebab bukannya jauh sangat airport tu. saung angklung lagi jauh and we were only charged rp.30,000.00 pakai meter. you could tell the taxi driver memang tak puas hati tak dapat rp.50,000.00 because he was revving his car up and bawak laju-laju and rapat-rapat dengan the vehicles in front. frankly, i don't care. kalau accident pun, he'll be the one to pay for the damages. and we'll get to the airport lagi cepat anyway bila you drive macamtu. haha. padan muka. bodoh.

so anyway, to wrap my bandung escapade, i love the fact that i can shop there till i drop. but i really do dislike most of the taxi drivers. bad attitude and very dishonest.

countdown to my bandung trip

i've been to bandung before during my university days under sife but sadly i don't really remember the trip. maybe it's due to the fact that masa tu tak ada camera untuk tangkap pictures kot. so anyway, i will be going to bandung again - yay! i will be boarding the air asia on the night of the 26th via penang international airport. happy holidays! :)

ptd exams overview

well i did post about going to the ptd examinations a couple of days back (click here). so today i will write about on how it went. this post is not intended to give any soalan bocor whatsoever but more like a reminder on how i should prepare next time when going for the ptd exams. not that i am losing faith already thinking that i did not pass the exams.. but i don't really like hoping and berharap gila-gila. after all, it's not an easy set of exams. many of my friends tried and failed already.

the exams consisted of five sections. section a-e. here's what got me confused. at the back of the surat panggilan, it says ada penaksiran personaliti. okay.. i am not sure about other pusat peperiksaan but i didn't do the penaksiran personaliti at all. err.. did the pengawas forget to edar the question paper? hm..

anyways, here's what i make of the sections yang kena jawab masa exam tu:

1. seksyen a - pengetahuan am mengenai malaysia dan alam sekeliling. ok this section really tests you on whether you have been reading the newspapers and watching the news. it is mostly about malaysia. so kalau rasa-rasa macam tak boleh jawab tu, nampak sangat tak berapa nak patriotik terhadap negara. hehe. soalan dia meliputi dari dasar-dasar pembangunan negara dan peranan kerajaan to the names of alatan muzik used by the bumiputeras in sabah and sarawak. dia even ada tanya pasal past nobel prize winners. some of the questions yang still linger in my head ialah siapa yang berhak menggubal parlimen malaysia? apa jenis nobel prize yang anwar sadat berjaya perolehi? apa peranan risda dan mardi? masa kejatuhan ekonomi amerika syarikat tahun 2008, negara mana muflis? apa tugas bank negara? fuiyoo.. gempak kan soalan dia? :)
2. seksyen b - daya menyelesaikan masalah. section ni macam ok jugaklah. prior to taking this paper, you have to make sure dah buat latihan tubi kuiz matematik and iq test ok. this paper was like war in your brain. rasa macam a few of my dead brain cells popped and triggered the kesan berdenyut-denyut kat kepala. i wished i could have used my calculator. it would have been more easier daripada conteng-conteng kertas buat kira-kira. if you're a graduate of kumon, rasanya boleh pass dengan flying colours kot. it's basically simple maths which you have to solve in 1 minute per question.
3. seksyen c - pengertian dan kefahaman terhadap esei-esei. this was yang paling simple for me. two malay language essays and two english essays. jawab soalan berdasarkan isi dalam essays tu. macam kacang saje. what a breeze after a brain cracking session for section b!
4. seksyen d - esei bahasa melayu. soalan dia revolve around isu semasa yang hangat diperkatakan in malaysia. again, this section pun tests you on whether you have been reading the newspapers and watching the news. dia bagi tiga pilihan tajuk to write about and you only need to write about one topic. i only remember two of the topic options though. the first one, pemimpin muda yang berfikiran positif dan proaktif adalah penting bagi tujuan pembangunan negara. bincangkan. and the other question was about pengurangan pemberian subsidi kerajaan kepada rakyat. bincangkan. i was stunned with the topic options when i first read the question paper. i actually spent about 15 minutes deciding on which topic to bincangkan about. what a bummer.. because truthfully, i couldn't care less if i miss the day's news. teruk kan? i need to ambil tahu more next time though. maybe i can list that as one of my new year's resolutions for next year. hmm. :P
5. seksyen e - esei bahasa inggeris. finally.. more like my turf!truthfully speaking, i dread writing in full malay language more than writing in full english. i have no idea why considering that i am a malaysian. maybe it's because i was brought up in england during my childhood days? i talk in malay language most of the time but when i am disturbed or in a not-so-good-mood, i suddenly rave in english - in writing mostly. okay, back to the main topic of discussion, section e is very similar to section d except that it's in english. same three topic options to choose from where you choose one to discuss on. the questions were about consumer rights, social networking and a smile is worth a thousand words. i chose the last topic as it was a very general topic and there's lots to write about.

all in all, it was a tiring day for my brain. the last time i took a full day exam was during my final year exam in uni. my saluran darah kat otak tu dah berdenyut-denyut pun by the time i finished the ptd exams. what an experience. 

*** tips to take note: (a) read the newspapers and watch the news to be able to answer section a, d and e. whilst for section b, (b) make sure you only spend a maximum of 1 minute for each question. latihan tubi matematik is a must.

*** other misc. tips: (a) calculators are not allowed, (b) make sure to bring along 2b pencils, pens and erasers with you, (c) masa isi borang omr tu, isi cepat-cepat sebab the allocated time yang dia bagi untuk isi memang sangat singkat. takut makan masa nak jawab soalan exam pulak nanti.

wang peruntukan sementara

apa tu wang peruntukan sementara (wps)?

wang peruntukan sementara tu ialah value of uncertained works yang dimasukkan dalam dokumen tender kontrak. take note that nilai keseluruhan kerja wps ni tak boleh melebihi 30% dari nilai anggaran kos projek.

kontraktor utama boleh tak mohon nak buat kerja wps?

bila tender dah award and kerja pun dah jalan.. kontraktor utama boleh mohon dengan pegawai penguasa (pp) untuk jalankan kerja-kerja wps ni - dengan syarat: kontraktor utama ada kepala dan sub-kepala yang sesuai and of course, prestasi kontraktor tu bagus and on schedule.

kalau kontraktor lain yang dipilih buat kerja wps macamana?

kalau kontraktor utama tak mohon dari pp untuk jalankan kerja wps, pp boleh proceed perolehan kerja wps ni sama ada secara runcit, sebutharga atau pun tender depending on the wps amount dalam tender. lepas pp dah pilih kontraktor mana yang nak digunapakai untuk jalankan kerja wps tu, pp kena maklum kontraktor utama dan arahkan kontraktor lantik subkontraktor atau pembekal tersebut. pp jugak kena maklum kontraktor utama bahawa mereka bertanggungjawab ke atas subkontraktor atau pembekal tersebut. kira macam kahwin paksa dalam kontrak la ni. hehe. tapi main contractor pun boleh masuk fight harga dengan kontraktor-kontraktor lain. no restraints there. lepas kontraktor utama dah buat lantikan kepada subkontraktor yang dipilih, kontraktor utama kena sediakan dokumen subkontrak dan memperuntukkan bayaran terus dibuat kepada subkontraktor melalui penyerahan hak. untuk lantikan wps lebih dari rm 500k je yang memerlukan kelulusan lembaga perolehan/jawatankuasa sebutharga.

kontraktor utama dapat tak nilai keuntungan dan layanan?

kalau let's say kontraktor utama dapat buat kerja wps, kontraktor utama tidak berhak untuk dibayar nilai keuntungan dan layanan sepertimana yang diperuntukkan dalam kontrak. kalau kontraktor lain yang buat wps, kontraktor utama boleh dibayar nilai tersebut. kadar % macam kat bawah ni:

1. rm 500k ke bawah - 7.5%
2. rm 500k - rm 1 juta - 5%
3. rm 1 juta - rm 5 juta - 4%
4. rm 5 juta - rm 10 juta - 3%
5. rm 10 juta ke atas - < 3%

kalau main contractor tak setuju dengan subkontraktor yang dipilih oleh pp macamana?

kalau main contractor tak setuju, dia boleh lantik subkontraktor yang lain dengan syarat subkontraktor tu adalah di kalangan kontraktor yang fight harga masa tender/sebutharga wps tu. - dengan syarat mendapat kelulusan lembaga perolehan/jawatankuasa sebutharga berkenaan harga dan tempoh penyiapan kerja wps tu.

hair fall control

a few days ago i went to this hair salon at sunway carnival mall to get my hair treated. it's called infinity hair design & beauty image. for your information, i usually go to a nearby hair salon at parit buntar called aim max hair saloon but it was closed that day and i felt like going to a different hair salon anyway.

so anyways, as i got my hair treated, i asked the hairdresser why my hair falls more often nowadays and what i should do about it. i feel like i'm balding and who can be happy about that?! so here's what i learnt:

1. normal shampoo (as in cheap shampoo) that you get at the supermarkets are actually 2 in 1. meaning: they already cover conditioning shampoo so it's not necessary for you to condition your hair after you shampoo.
2. normal shampoo are difficult to wash off than high end shampoo thus resulting in leftover shampoo still on your head even after you've rinsed it off. so take note that you have to rinse off much longer when you are using normal shampoo.
3. when you use hair oil or serum, make sure they are applied only halfway through your hair to the tips. make sure not to put any on your scalp. because they might get stuck into your hair pores and prevent hair growth. - i actually saw this scenario when the hairdresser scanned my scalp and located grease blockage in my pores. euw.
4. if your scalp is yellow-ish, that's a sign that your scalp is greasy and need to be cleaned/treated. the colour of your scalp should be the lighter shade of your skin.

in two weeks time, i will go back to that hair salon and get my scalp treated. i don't want to be bald just yet. actually, i don't think i ever want to! :D

how to detect if someone is sucking up on you?

have you ever been puzzled why someone who is on a not-so-friendly terms with you tiba-tiba bermulut manis? ha! that's one of the signs that person is sucking up on you. senang je kan nak detect? tapi kalau tak dapat nak detect because you are in a different situation, it's okay. here's a few tips you can look out for:

1. when the person calls atau masa mula-mula dia nak start cakap tu, he/she sounds weirdly composed. as if dia dah susun ayat on what to say to you.
2. the person greets you in a way that gets you flattered all over. though keep note that not all flattery bertujuan untuk suck you up negatively. sometimes it can be harmless.
3. the person suddenly offers to run errands for you. okay.. maybe you're thinking that this is a good thing but bear in mind, it can also get nasty especially if memang ada udang di sebalik batu. be cautious.
4. the person offers to treat you to lunch or a game of golf or anything else that would win your attention. 

actually it all comes down to anything happening out of the norm. and you self conciousness. don't let yourself be fooled by this kind of people.

ptd exams - 12.5.12

guess what? on the 12th this month i will be sitting for the ptd examinations. termasuk panggilan ni, dah tiga kali kena panggil. ni baru nak try sit for the exams. agaknya apa ye dia nak tanya? not betting on easy questions though. 9 days to go.. aja-aja!

contract administration for superintending officer

wow. jangan tak tahu. berat jugak tanggungjawab s.o. (superintending officer) ni. dapat kemudahan-kemudahan yang kontraktor bagi bawah preliminaries tu bukan all play and no work, ok. silap langkah, free-free je kena naik court to testify disputes cases. a few key points to take note sebagai seorang s.o. are:

• notices kena ingat to deliver through a.r. registered. why you ask me? sebab bila kita hantar any important notices macam let's say notis penamatan kontraktor, the contractor can dispute and say that they did not receive it. a.r. registered kan ada kad penerimaan.. so ada evidence lah penerimaan notis tu. kalau hantar courier mana ada kad penerimaan. even kalau nak hantar by hand pun, pastikan ada cop terima.
• specifications and dokumen kontrak tu bukan saje nak tebalkan dokumen tender/kontrak ok. read it. iqra'. and understand it. follow it. it should be your key guideline bila nak jaga projek.jangan main sign aje jkr 66 tu. check dulu lejer kontrak. check tally tak dengan jkr 66. it involves money. and in the world we live in, money makes the world go round (figuratively speaking, of course).
• make sure your technician tulis dalam site diary tu everyday. tulis sendiri ok. bukan suruh kontraktor yang tuliskan. berlaku apa-apa, at the end of the day, site diary tu lah yang mungkin boleh bantu kita when we are stuck in a rut. write as per works being carried on kat site.
• bila dah bagi eot kat kontraktor, make sure insurans and performance bond dia di-renew kan. in case anything happens during the contract - let's say ada defects ke, accidents ke, at least we have something to fall back to. don't take it lightly. ada projek, dalam defect period, kontraktor tak baiki kecacatan. degil sangat agaknya. bila kita nak rampas bon pun takde maknanya if diorang tak renew sampai berakhirnya tempoh defect.

ok lah.. cukup lah tu. you get the picture. in the end, buat lah kerja tu dengan penuh rasa tanggungjawab. nama pun government servant. serve lah rakyat - honourably. thanks for reading!