Some essays, some thoughts

The Protest Against the Stomach

Once upon a time, there lived a farmer in the land of plenty, he toiled the land and enjoyed his harvest. His health was good with all parts of the body functioning perfectly and he was quite happy with life until one day when he had a dream, a funny dream¡K

His mouth suddenly realised that it was working hard eating food, and the food was fed to the stomach which did not seem to do a single thing but enjoy the fruit of the labour of the mouth. The hands agreed with the mouth, they took the food and fed the mouth. The legs agreed, they brought the body to the farm to find food. The eyes agreed, without the eyes the farmer would not be able to see and find the food. So they all agreed that they were very important parts of the body, without them the farmer would have nothing to eat, and would have died. All this while the stomach never made a noise.

What was the stomach doing?

Nothing, absolutely nothing! the mouth, the hands, the legs and the eyes all agreed that the stomach was a useless part of the body, doing nothing but enjoying the result of the labour of other parts of the body. So, they all decided to protest against the stomach. The eyes would not bother to look to find food, the legs would not bring the farmer to the farm, the hands refused to bring any food to the mouth and the mouth would not eat so that the stomach could not enjoy the food. Now the stomach was empty and made a little noise, but soon the noise from the stomach also faded away. For a while the parts of the body who protested against the stomach were happy to prove that the stomach was a useless part of the body, it was not important at all.

After one day, the protest seemed to work. The stomach was indeed a useless part of the body as the farmer could carry on as normal. After two, three days, the farmer grew a bit weaker, however after one week, the farmer was so weak that he couldnt even get out of bed. Now the mouth started to think twice, maybe it was wrong to assume that the stomach was useless, maybe the stomach was doing something after all, even though it could not see what the stomach was doing. The eyes, hands and legs began to think the same. If they carried on without food for longer time, not only the body would not work but the farmer would die of starvation! The parts of the body decided to give it a trial, the mouth ate something and waited. The body felt a bit stronger, indeed that stomach was not useless, but rather an important part of the body. The rest of the body cooperated, more food was eaten and the body recovered and functioned normally again ¡K And at this point, the farmer woke up to find that all parts of his body functioning perfectly. Ah! What a relief.

This story has been told in various forms over many centuries, we can even find a similar story in the Bible. What does the story tell us, what can we learn from the story? What has the story anything to do with Yung Kong? Team work and cooperation! Thats the moral of the story. Here at Yung Kong, we are all part of the great Yung Kong Team. Everyone has his or her function to perform, though some of our members output may not be so clearly defined, it does not mean that they are not important. Like the stomach, their functions may not be obvious outwardly, but they are an important part of the team, without their cooperation, the whole team will not be able to function smoothly and efficiently. On the other hand, those whose functions are important and obvious (such as the managers and team leaders) should understand and practise the concept of teamwork and cooperation: That the performance of the company is the outcome of a cooperative team with every member contributing their part.

At Yung Kong we subscribe to the concept that everybody is important but nobody is indispensable.

Why everyone is important? Because we have a slim structure. All posts are necessary and we run our organisation with a minimum number of people, thus no body is redundant here. Everyone works as he or she should, otherwise operations will be disrupted. If everyone is important, why then are they dispensable? This is to ensure continuity and better control. Imagine, if a staff is indispensable, then the fate and the future of the company will depend too much on a single person, should anything untoward happen, the operation of the company will be jeopardized. This is not what the owners of the company would like to see and should, therefore, be avoided. Thus a manager should always train a successor, to be ever ready to take over his job.

As to the degree of importance, some people will be doing more important job than others. The soldiers are important, however, the general who gives command in a battle is definitely more important than the soldiers. It is not possible to have an army full of generals or an army with only soldiers without a commander. To have a winning team, there must be leaders, and there must be cooperating members. To conclude, I would like to draw an analogy from the famous satire by English Novelist George Orwell entitled Animal Farm:-

All people are important but some people are more important than others.

- Ir Michael Hii, 1997

> ESSAY

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