The slow decay of a Public Company

Public companies are like a big tree whose roots are slowly rotting. 

Decades ago, companies had their founders, who had a vision and style of managing their business.  These principles are instilled into all the employees with the hope that those values are realised.  In some companies, like the one I work for, on every other week, we used to have to repeat the good principles of being a company, that we have a purpose of serving the community, about being honest and fair and having integrity.  

Alas with the company being a Public company and those hiring practices - these values have gone down the drain by now - we don't even recite them anymore.  I guess because deep down they know they don't want to follow it anymore.  Now it's all about the money.  Honesty, fairness and integrity has taken the back seat - or are they even still on this journey?

We hear about the same thing in every corporate world - because the situation is similar. Those memes you see on social medias about dumb management and corporate talk - they are true stories.  

Two main reasons : 

1. Failure in the Far Western style education system, employment and HR practices.

In the Far Western education system, people are encouraged to further their studies as much as possible, with no exposure to the real world from when we are young until mid twenties.  You are promised that when you complete the education, with a high qualification, it will a proof that you are that smart enough to come into the working world in a high position and with better salary.  The higher the qualifications, the higher the position you can hold.  Regardless the candidate have no intellect (memorising theories does not mean intellect and having the know-hows) or have no verifiable track records.   

Instead of moving natural leaders, who has experience and potential within the company, they prefer hiring highly qualified people.   Companies hire people on an interview whim, just as long as they can talk in interviews, backed by their papers.

Therefore, there are a lot of clueless people running the company with a flair for talking, to report all the wonderful things to the higher management.    (But I also must say, there are some really smart and rational people, but their numbers are countable with my fingers among the hundreds.)

Even if this is proving to be not working, nobody is really seeing it, or even if they did, no one has any real say or interest or energy, to control or change this hiring method.   It's how the corporate world is.

2. Material wealth and/or sense of power as the driving factors.

When I resigned from the company years ago because i know I was not paid fairly for the contribution and work I do for the company,  I was immediately hired back, after negotiating the salary.

During one of the interviews, the interviewee asked - why do you agree or want to work for the company?  At this point - I have lost the admiration for the company values that the founder promoted because it has long disappeared from the company.   So I answered honestly, that at this point - it's for the money. And I want my work-life balance. I will come in to do the work to the best of my ability within the hours, to be rewarded monetarily.

Personally, as a Muslim, we have a duty to do the best we can for what is within our control.  Also, as per Islamic values - I will try to alleviate the work difficulties of the colleagues or counterparts around me, for what is within my control, insyaaAllaah, to not make things purposely difficult for others.  But I will not necessarily go beyond working hours and days. I will avoid if I feel like it's to the point of being taken advantage of.   Being nice does not mean allowing oneself to be swarmed with other people's work.   

Also, I have learned that caring for the company in a bigger picture, only pains me and stress me out, because it is not something I can control.   I am not in the position that allows me to make decisions for the betterment of the company.   I can only provide facts and advice to my immediate superior or the one above them - and that is all I can do.  

I've digressed.  The point is, basically I'm working for the company, for money.   Don't ask me to give fake answers like I value whatnot. 

Most employees (whether they are the Cs  (CEO CIO C.....) or Directors and General Managers all the way to the workers - are basically in it for the sense of power and money.

Their biggest task is to try as much as possible to report good things to their superiors, who in turn report to their superiors and so on, and finally for someone to give good news to the shareholders and press with the main purpose of making... more money. Nobody is truly concerned about the company per se.  

Almost nobody in the company has concerns about company values - those values have gone with the founder.   What's left now is only power and money as the main driver.  

The Decay

The above mentioned has a rolling effect.   Those people like me, who were hired from ground up, growing up and older with the company are slowly disappearing.  The people who know what is really happening with the REAL WORK are disappearing.  They are replaced by these people with high qualifications whose main objective is to give good reports.   

The ones currently suffering are the ones at the lower levels of the organisation - the one who has to feed this management messengers with facts and figures which messengers massage to look desirable or hide painful facts as much as possible.  

More and more things break at the bottom, because the higher managements do not want to be accountable for difficult decisions or even any decisions.  They try to push decisions to the lower ones, so that the blame has a direction.  They give vague instructions because they don't really know what on earth is going on - they just need to seem like they know.  Strategic ambiguity is a common tool for those people.

Even now, the cracks are beginning to show.  We have reached the peak before, and now we are on the downhill, decaying.  I often thought about it, if it was something reversible?  

I have come to conclude that it is not reversible for a public company - because their ultimate boss is money.  No one person can make a dramatic course changing decision and not face consequences. As such no one is going to do so.  Everyone is just saving themselves for the time being, for as long as this work exists.  Illa masyaaAllaah. 

We see it in the news, some public companies losing money or suddenly closing or filing for bankruptcy. Those things did not happen suddenly.  It is the rotting roots that has made the tree fall, by God's will.

p.s. Ultimately everything happens by God's will for a purpose best known to Him alone.  There is no power other than His, and in Him we put our trust.

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz - Malcolm X

Although I had skipped 2 chapters of the autobiography ( cause i cannot bear to read about violence and crime), still I have come to admire, emphasize, root for him, and make doa for him. 

I somewhat felt a fraction of the huge heartbreak, disappointment and lost, when he discovered the truth about the man he trusted most, served and would even die for, the last 12 years! 

It gives me an insight to the question, how can some smart people follow a cult leader so obviously weird to others outside the cult.   For him, it was because at the lowest point of his life, he was looking for something or someone to hold on to for meaning and purpose - and this person happens to be the one looking for followers. 

The leader was easily believable because he combined the concept of goodness from Islam and promoted it, example to believe in One God, no drinking, gambling, stealing, fornication and forbidden to eat pork.  But this person also says, he is the messenger of God.    that person also stirred the emotions of the black facing racism, to gather followers.  

Since Malcolm has never been introduced or exposed to the true Islam at that point of time - this is the 'best' he has heard and believed him wholeheartedly.

I cried when after he was backstabbed by the man he trusted most, and finally meeting real Muslims and discovering the true Islam when he performed his Hajj. 

And now I have come towards the end of the book in the last chapter 1965.  I find myself delaying to finish it because somehow I wanted to feel him still alive.  

Isn't it amazing that he wrote about his whole life, and completed just before he was matyred in Feb 1965. Allaah's plans.   He had the intuition that he was not going to live for long after death threats and attempts on his life instigated by the man he trusted before.

May Allaah forgive his soul and reward him abundantly. 

Recommendation of poetry book for Muslim women

 Hello,

I'd like to recommend Madame Blossom's Book of Poems  as one of poetry book a muslimah should possess. 

The idea of the book was triggered when Madame Blossom was at a bookstore in Wheelock Place, Orchard Road Singapore - more or less 15 years ago.   

Browsing for a non-fiction book to read, she passed by the poetry section, and was attracted to book with an illustration of a woman in a red dress and high heels.    She picked it up and browsed the contents.  They were simple and somewhat relatable poems about daily life as a woman.   The author was American.  I pondered.

Just as how some historians read books by authors in the past, or us reading books by authors from other countries, they give us some idea or plant an image of the society where the author was or is from. 

As a minority group in this side of Asia - and during these times when Islam is often misunderstood, I felt that we need to have a representation of ourselves too, in English.   No, we are not strange, mostly, we live like other people, however how we face life or the challenges in life is or should be different as a Muslim, who believes in what God has planned for us.

I believe any inputs that goes into our systems, whether it be through sight, sound, emotions or ideas do have some impact on us or our thoughts.    So I want to inject some ideas, that hopefully have some positive influence from the Asian Muslim angle. 

So if you're a Muslim woman, and you want something relatable, this is the book.   Or even if you're not Muslims, and you want to understand how Muslim women more or less are, this is also the book.   Or, if you're a man and you want to understand the perspective of a woman - this is also the book. 

This is a book for women and men who respects women.  

Dearest Ma'an (my Christian sister)

Dearest Ma'an,

Thank you for sharing. I know you mean well. Wanting to save a fellow sister from hellfire with what you believe is right. I pray the same for you, that we all be guided to the right path to God.

Coincidentally I am in the midst of learning  the chapter brought up in the  video you shared, this is from the Chapter (surah) Mary.   What he said (that the Quran states everyone will go to Hell) is not accurate and taken out of context. We don't all go to hell. We will all pass, but only the wicked and disbelivers go into hell.  Believers with good deeds will go to Heaven. Where we don't feel any sadness or pain, no negativities and only good words and good vibes. Aamiin.

Have you ever thought about all the religions from a much bigger picture?  From a universal, out of this earth perspective.   All these people are trying to worship God in ways they think is right.  With all their perceptions of how God is, as they were taught by their parents or priests or religious heads.   But we are all just trying to worship the One God, that is the  Creator.

The biggest enemy for humankind is Satan who is always trying to misguide people and making us betray God and create havoc among family friends and generally on earth.

It does not make sense that there should be more than one God or Creator based on the different religious beliefs. There is our universe, one earth and One Creator.

As for Jesus Christ and Mary, they are also God's servants or children like us physically but unlike us in that they are much more blessed and Jesus Christ given the duty of prophethood, teaching his people about God and how to worship God.  Jesus Christ said, He is my God. And your God, so worship Him. That is the right way.  These words are mentioned in The Quran. (19:36)

Similarly, mentioned in the bible John 20:17
Don’t cling to me,” Jesus told her, “since I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

Muslims also believe in the ascension, Jeaus Christ was saved by God and ascended to God, they did not crucify him
Jesus is safe with God, and will return to earth when it's time.

Ma'an, I believe you are a good person, a good servant of God, wanting to do good and to worship God the right way.

Which do you think is a safer belief? That GOD the Creator is One? That I only worship God alone.  Or to believe God has a human child (God forbid) who eat and breathe and go to the market like us? From the same chapter Mary (19:88-91), God says :
"And they say, God Most Gracious has taken unto Himself a son! Indeed you have  a monstrous statement. The Heavens may almost tear apart, the earth cleave asunder and the mountains fall to pieces, that they ascribed a son to God the Beneficent."

The Quran addresses all humankind, not just Muslims. And logically so, because there is only one God.

Do you want me to bring you to a session on Islam, and you can ask any questions.

Again, thanks for sharing - where I learnt all the different misconceptions and lies, others spread about God and God's Book.

poem of peace

May you be always be embraced by
the gentle breeze
Shaded by clouds and canopies of trees
Soothed by songs of birds in zikr and rustling leaves
And your heart and mind are in peace.

MADAME BLOSSOM 2026