I was watching the series Heroes.  It talked about human beings having super natural prowess due to their genetic combinations.  Within the series, there was a girl who could magically change her appearance and surroundings.  Sometimes, she could be a really hot chick while the next moment she can transform to a maternal grandmother.  I call her – The Shape Shifter (Heroes Style).

Recently, I had the honor to meet another Shape Shifter (Pakistan Style).  And yes.. you are right… he is that person on the left…. Mr Faisal Shah from Pakistan.

Also, if you notice, I have purposefully highlighted Faisal Shah and Pakistan and refrained from using a generic term like he, a person, etc…  This is my most carefully Search Engine Optimized article on Mr Faisal Shah from Pakistan.  Even the image tags have alt text pointing to Mr Faisal Shah.

Any readers of this blog, feel free to link to this article with important keywords like Faisal Shah and Pakistan to further boost its ranking.

It all started when Mr Faisal Shah came for his interview and showed us a very impressive flash.  I was outside rushing off some coding for some of my clients and didn’t really have time to entertain Faisal Shah.  All the same, Denise liked his animation and insisted that I had to take a look.

I took a look at Mr Faisal Shah’s work.  It was good.  However, I confided in Denise that I did not feel comfortable about Faisal Shah as his portfolio was too small.  Generally, a designer who has reached a certain level of expertise has a large portfolio.  Faisal only showed 2 .. .really impressive works.

Above is one of the works.  Click on the image to view it in detail.

All the same, Denise did not want to miss out on any hidden talents.. and we decided to engage him in 1 mockup.  Well, the mockup he produced practically knocked me off my feet.  It was excellent.  Top designer quality.  I was on heat.  Like a bitch with raging hormones… I had to get a piece of Faisal Shah.  (If you are in the services sector as long as I am, you will know that the best people generate a lot more worth then the second best.  A lot, lot more…)

We called him… and he suggested coming down to our office to touch up on the mockup.  Needless to say he go the job – Faisal Shah became our Lead Designer.

Then came Friday.  Faisal Shah produced one mockup after another in record speed.  Denise was pissed because she felt that the mockups did not take in account the theme of the event.  I was pleasantly surprised.  I was thinking… finally someone like Wahidin Bee.  Mockups in 2 hours flat… and the best part of it… Faisal was not even sweating.  He had time to boss around and idle chat.  Hmm… this will teach our young designer, Mr Hamza, something….

4 mockups in 1 day.  No sweat for Mr Faisal Shah.  Images of dollar notes raining from the sky started to conjure in my head….

A strange thought came to my head:

One good designer can probably do the work equivalent of ten lousy ones…  just like programmers….

… or so I thought…

Thankfully, I was so impressed with the work of Mr Faisal Shah that I had to send off the design to a few of my Singapore designer friends.  And the unfortunate thing for Mr Faisal Shah is that Singapore designer friends are extremely familiar with all sorts of Web Template Sites.

Before I knew it, I had 2 links to template sites… pointing to designs that looked exactly like what I had received from Mr Faisal Shah.  Man… I was angry.  This man obviously had talent.  Why did he just rip us off with some templates!

Denise was convinced.  She felt that there were more missing pieces to the puzzle.  Being a reporter, she started googling and digging into his materials… and that is where we discovered his other hidden talents:

Shape Shifting

Yes… you see.. Mr Faisal Shah is a very interesting person.   He has a couple of resumes each showing different job records and timings.  In one resume, he was working steadily to become the manager of a call center.  In another, he progressed to becoming a lead designer in a Graphics Design firm.  Hmmm… maybe Mr Faisal Shah had 2 jobs at the same time?  Surely one cannot fault a person for working as a graphics designer during the day and getting a manager position at a call center at night?

But what truly amazed me was that he could study at both the Multimedia University of Malaysia and University of Texas Dallas at about the same time.  Boy.. his air fare must have costs a bomb.

Please click on the image to have a closer view of Mr Faisal H. Shah’s resume as a Call center manager.  (Darn… why did he have to add a H in the middle of his name… screws up my SEO efforts…)

Please click on the image to have a closer view of Mr Faisal Shah’s resume as a designer.

I was furious.

Denise told me to just give him a call and tell him that he was fired… but no, no, no, no…. I had already paid him for 1 copy and paste operation and I was determined to get some entertainment value out of this.  Faisal Shah had to come.  I wanted to get back my money worth and if Faisal is unable to give it to me through his designs, he had to compensate me in other ways….

Faisal was confidently seated at his desk on Monday before I approached him.  I requested for his ID to draft out the employment contract.

Click on image to get a close view of his ID.

After that, it was lesson time.  I told Hamza that he had to learn from the expert Mr Faisal Shah and immediately got Hamza to fetch both of us a cup of tea.  Mr Faisal was clicking through pictures, pretending to be looking for ideas, while i was seated behind him.

I saw an image… and told Mr Faisal that I needed it.

James:  Faisal… stop… u see that image… it is so beautiful.   I really need it for my brochure, can you please outline it out for me in illustrator?

Faisal Shah:  Oh sure… but let me complete the brochure first…

James:  No, no, no… I have to get it right now.. and it is really easy… you know my girls in Singapore, they trace it out in 3 minutes (This is completely true… Marsha does it in minutes)

Faisal Shah:  Okay… will do it… (and he starts tracing it in photoshop..)

James:  Faisal.. I need it in illustrator… ‘cos it has to be a vector graphic.. that is scaleable.  (yes… illustrator is not a tool con-men usually use…because photoshop is sufficient for most con jobs)

Faisal Shah:  (Showed great difficulty in tracing out the drawing…)

James:  Faisal, hmmm… what’s taking so long.. is it the mouse that is giving you problems?

Hamza:  (Could not help.. but kept smiling at Faisal… who was still struggling to trace…)

Faisal Shah:  Its because the table is shaking… because Zahid is typing at his computer

James:  (Man.. I nearly burst out laughing…)  Zahid… please stop typing so that Mr Faisal Shah can teach us how to trace in Illustrator.

(Zahid promptly stopped typing.  The whole office was silent with only Faisal Shah struggling with his illustrator drawing)

James:  Hmmm.. .what is wrong Faisal… it must the be the aircon… maybe it is also causing the table to shake?  Denise, please off the air-con.

(Denise was smiling and switched the air-con off promptly…)

James: Mr Faisal.. you know… I was telling me friends that you were so good that strangers were copying your designs…

Faisal Shah:  Which designs, you show me I can ascertain..

Hamza:  Oh.. her name was M******

Faisal Shah:  Oh yes.. she took the header….

James:  But Mr Faisal, I tell you.. in fact you are so good that even Template Monster copies your design!  You see the design you originally created for us last friday?  It is already listed on Template Monster!  Wow.. that is really something.  Even template monster copies your design!  I am impressed!

Faisal Shah:  Actually, we always refer to sample sites to get ideas…

James:  Faisal, get out of my office.

Faisal Shah:  Wait let me delete my stuff.. but here is the project folder, i will leave it intact.

James:  Faisal, get the hell out of my office and you can delete that project folder.  We will not be using any of your shit.

(I gave Faisal a hug and showed him to the door)

He was a first class con-man.  He deserved a first class sacking.

In the end, we decided to fore-go the property, even though we have paid the deposit and started some preliminary renovation works.

After a lot of hunting around, finally found another property.  This is definitely a superior option.  It is in a better location, looks a lot newer… and goes for only 22k Rupee per month.  Ya… its a steal…. until I realize that another business owner just opposite me pays only 15k Rupee a month.  Darn….

Funny Thing 1

The funny thing in Pakistan is that house prices are artificially high.  If you walk into any building, you will see a lot of empty offices… waiting for tenant.  Theoretically, based on our efficient market economy, these business owners will lower their rent till their properties could be rented out.  However, due to the rocketing annual inflation rate of over 15% yearly, these owners also expect the prices of their property to appreciate accordingly.  The people here are mainly using property as a store of value.  In fact, contractually, all rental agreements are signed with an understanding of increasing 10% year-to-year.

As such, even those properties which are not rented… are demanding higher and higher rental rates… (or so I think…)

Funny Thing 2

Another very wierd thing about Pakistan is… they have super low interests rates for savings, i.e. <1%, but exceptionally high rates for loans, i.e. 13% for mortgage loans (backed by property).  This is really strange.  In a capital starved nation like Pakistan, the banks should pay higher interests rates to encourage more savings so that they have cheaper money to loan out… why such a high margin?

Anyway, this does not concern me.  I just hope that the Pakistan Rupee will continue to depreciate by more than 10% year-on.  Hehe.. this will mean that my rental will stay stationery…

Funny Thing 3

Today after getting my Wi-max internet connection, I realise yet another strange phenomena.  By checking the internet speed at http://speedtest.net/

I realise that the bandwidth is very skewed at night for my Wimax account.

During the day, the bandwidth is about 1200kbps upload, 500kbps download… but at night… it turns really weird.  I believe.. this has to do with the role of Pakistan as the offshore call center.  During the night, when call center operations peak, there is a much higher requirement for uploads…. resulting in such a weird distribution of bandwidth.

I sincerely hope this is temporal… as there is no way I can make any Internet Phone calls with such bandwidths…

Just tried the bandwidth again at 12pm.  How to support VOIP with only 42 kb/s?

Just realised the Wateen connection is really unstable.  Sometimes, it works real well, i.e.

At such speeds not only is internet connection a lot faster… but it is also fast enough to support VOIP connections.  Yeah… cheap calls to Singapore.

Yeah!  Pakistan is back to the Commonwealth countries.  Well, I guess this means that Pakistanis can enter Singapore without applying for Visas!  This is really good news

A real estate agent called us today and volunteered to take us to look at a few offices.  So we got on our tu-tu car again… and went to 2 more new places.  The first place we go to was Al-Hafeez Suites.  It is located near to Al-Hafeez Towers, on MM Alam road.

It was pretty nice with good furnishings.  Only problem is… it did not quite have a big enough room, or rather.. the big room costs a premium.  At 670 sq feet, it goes for 18k Rupee.  However, for the 1200 sq feet, it goes for 45k rupee.  But for the furnishing is good.

After that, we moved on to Eden Towers.  At Eden Towers, there were rooms available from level 2, 4, 5.  Prices for level 2, 700 sq feet, goes for 35k rupee, level 4 goes for 30k rupee.  Pretty nice location.  Good thing about the location is that it has 5 lifts… so getting up to the office should be easier.

Hmmm.. our real estate agent still has not called us yet.  So we decided to go to the banks and check out the mortgage.  After being directed to a few places, we are convinced of 2 things:

• The banks were pretty comparative and offered similar rates across the board
• Interest rates for bank loans are ridiculously high, i.e. 14%

Denise commented about their ridiculous profit margins, i.e. giving only 1% for savings deposit and charging over 14% for loans…  The loan officers only smiled at us and said that Pakistan was a risky country… and businesses often go bust.  The rewards had to be there to commensurate the risks…

After that, we just hanged out at Mac Donalds to wait for our agent…. we baked there, ‘cos despite the air-conditioning, it was unbearably hot.  Towards evening, the agent finally called and we adjourned to the office.  Along the way, we stopped over at LandMark Building.  Heard that they had cheap offices there… so I couldn’t resist taking a peak.

Hmmm…  seems like these aren’t exactly offices but run down apartment.  But still, it goes at a dirt cheap price, i.e. 1600 square feet at 25k Rupee.  Reminded me of the Avenues Nepal who run their business in a house.

After taking a peak at the LandMark Building we popped over to Hafeez Center to change some money.  Whoops …. SGD appreciating against PKR.  Hope it stays this way!  Got 48.5 PKR for my SGD.  Yippee!

Human Camels at Hafeez Center

From there, we adjourned to Hafeez Shopping Mall to meet our real estate agent.  I was utterly disappointed with him.  It seems that he had the news of our offer not going through and did not inform us… in the end we had to make a trip down to his shop for no good reason.  He should have just informed us over the phone and let us make the decision.

There are a few other reasons that I am not happy about:

• Showed us only 2 locations in 2 days.  Did not give us a lot of choice.
• Did not take any initiative to show us more properties today.  Waited until 5pm when the deal did not go through… before letting us know.

This is doubly frustrating as we do not really have much time in Pakistan.  I am the best man for my friends’ wedding in early June… and I definitely need to be back by month end… We still have the renovation and HR matters to go through…

Anyway, he showed us one more property which was pretty cool.  It was going for 35k.  I am okay with the price, but Denise wanted to think it through.  Anyway, the other agent called us to follow up with us… and promised to show us even more properties tomorrow when we get the rented car.

Will settle everything tomorrow. Definite.. and move on to other matters….

After that, we adjourned to his office and got a listing of his charges.

Basically his charges were the cheapest so far and being a cheapskate … just got it.  Recurring costs of 2500 Rupees monthly sounds reasonable for someone to handle all my tax returns, etc…. so … tada… settled for a deposit of 20k Rupee.

After finishing up with the accountant, we tried to figure what we needed to do next.  I suggested going down to Land Mark Building to look around a potential office space.  However, Denise reminded me that we have an appointment with the real estate agent, Rizwan at 3pm.  So we ended up at Holiday Inn drinking Lassi. 

Called Hamza, but as usual, its really difficult to get him.  By the time he made it to Holiday Inn, Denise and I were at Ziafat having our buffet lunch. 

Anyway, finally they came…

After a sumptuous lunch, we dragged them with us to Rizwan’s office to visit some more offices.  We tried Al-Hafeez Towers.  Rizwan showed us a 630 square feet room at level 4 going for 25000 Rupee monthly.  It looked a bit too small for Denise home-office concept.  He showed us a few more places at Al-Hafeez towers going for 45000 Rupee.  Whoops… beyond our budget…

In the end, we went back to the good old Al-Hafeez Shopping Mall.  However at level 8, Al-Hafeez Shopping Mall is too high.  Hamza is not very pleased with it, esp. when the electricity goes down.  So in the end, we are trying to settle for a lower one at 5th floor at 30000 Rupees with a floor area of 1150 square feet. 

Just cross our fingers that this can go through…..

We were walking back.. when we saw a really cool service apartment.. .that we can get for approximately 100 SGD per night.

Wanted to watch a movie, Iron Man, today. Went round to 2 cinemas and realise that they only show movies in Urdu (A native Pakistan language). After some asking around, realised that the only place they show English movies were in the DHA zone.

Ok.. no choice.. .got to get to the DHA… so we got on an auto-rickshaw and tried to make our way to DHA. Only then did I understand why those agents keep asking us to rent a car. DHA is really, really far away. A ride in took 30 mins. A ride out… took so long that I fell asleep while in the vehicle… and woke up to realise that we still had another 5 minutes to go before reaching the hotel.

Boy am I glad that we made the ride. It really does not make sense for us to have the office in DHA. Everybody will be so exhausted after getting into DHA… that they will have no energy left to work…

The Only Cinema in Lahore – DHA that shows English Movies

My Cha Bo talking to the driver to get directions

A high class cafe in DHA

After a period of recuperation from our hotel, moved off to Pearl Continental Hotel (5 star) for a nice dinner. And the dinner only costs 10 Singapore Dollars!

Then Denise got bored and tried the auto smile detection feature of my camera…

How did that become a smile?

Rs450b real estate scam leaves MQM red-faced

When I saw the owner of the hotel, just thought of clarifying it with him.  Wanted to clarify:

3,281 eligibility certificates for government properties and accommodations in Karachi

What were these eligibility certificates?  Did it had anything to do with the DHA properties?  If so, this will definitely have an adverse impact on the DHA properties in the future. 

Anyway to cut the story short, these housings are of a different type.  I think it will dampen investor sentiments for the Pakistan housing market, but it will not be isolated at the DHA.  Hmmm.. so no urgent need to invest so fast. 

Anyway, just realised that the owner of the hotel is Dr Tariq Malik.  He holds a PHD.  That certainly came as a surprise to me.  Thought PHDs belong to the universities.  Did not really expect to see them owning hotels, etc…. Anyway Dr Tariq Malik has a PHD in urban planning… and after explaining to me the news started to elaborate more on the DHA scheme.

For the DHA, the government actually takes undeveloped land from the owners and return them a quarter of the land after development.  For the remaining part of the land, a portion is set aside for military housing and another portion is set aside for the private commercial market.

I was debating hard on whether to rent a place at DHA or at a central office in Gulberg.  Dr Malik feels that DHA will be a bad choice as it takes an hour to get there for the normal employees.  He once stayed at DHA, but gave up his property after it consumed an hour of traveling time for him to get to his hotel.  I guess this settles it.  If a car owner finds it toublesome to get to work from DHA, I can imagine how my poor employees will feel.  This means that my office will be in Gulberg Main Boulevard!

Took another picture with Rehan – Dr Malik’s son

Then, it was time to meet the computer guys. They were 15 minutes late… so we just told them our requirements for:

• 5 computers
• IP Telephony
• External Hard Disk Storage (IP-based)
• Reliable Broadband
• Not Original Softwares
• Norton Ghost for fast set-up of computers

Finally got our masks! Yes.. the pollution in Lahore is quite upsetting at time. The main reason I believe is the tu-tu cars. Check out their exhaust! No wonder Singapore has COEs…

With intentions to invest in the real estate market of Pakistan, we decided to arm ourselves with a map. Went over to a bookstore… and tried to find one… However, it seemed that none was as handy as the lonely planet maps that we had in our guide book.

Real Estate Agent that made me wait and wait. Yes… this man was supposed to be at my hotel after his meeting in the morning. We waited for quite a long while until we got really tired and went out to have our lunch. Next thing I know, he directed our tu-tu driver until we got really lost. Just jumped out of the car at the Subway Sandwich station to have a bite and got him to go there.

At Subway Sandwich station, Denise discovered a worm in her sandwich!!! She told the manager about it and they offered to replace the sandwich. However, as my GF was not really that hungry, she just asked the staff to share it amongst themselves….

Before we knew it, this guy below asked for the Sandwich from the Subway people… Hmmm……

Anyway, after that, he brought us around to see the prime Defense Housing Authority (DHA) housing of Lahore. Must really say that it is a high class and posh place. It feels like our Singapore’s high end residential places, i.e. sixth avenue, bukit timah areas…

Below are some pictures… I believe all their floorings are using homogeneous tiles! Not bad coming from Lahore.

The toilet fixtures might not be first class, but definitely one of the better ones we have seen. Even better than the one at our hotel.

My GF posing at an empty DHA office

DHA Masterplan

My GF scaling the last flight of stairs to the top

View from the Rooftop of DHA

Another very friendly chap who is an expert in DHA house prices. Apparently, the price came down 50% from 2 years ago. I believe he must be talking about the DHA area, as it did not really affect the Al-Hafeez Shopping Mail.

Now this guys is really cool. His name is Rizwan and he used to play in a band before the mundane need for bread and butter caused him to join the real estate profession. He is very patient and went through with us many properties at Al-Hafeez Shopping Mall.

Booking prices for Al-Hafeez started 4 years ago at 5000 Rupees per square feet. It was completed 3-4 months ago and owners now are asking for 6000 – 6500 Rupees per square feet. Sounds pretty reasonable.

Rental Prices are:

554 square feet – 420 (with 3 windows)
4th floor – 22,000 Rupees
5th floor – 20,000 Rupees
8th floor – 15,000 Rupees

514 square feet – 409
4th floor – 20,000 Rupees
5th floor – 14,000 – 15,000 Rupees

1100 square feet – 418
4th floor – 40,000 Rupees
8th floor – 27,000 Rupees

750 square feet
3rd floor – 30,000

737 square feet
4th floor – 25,000

First Ride of the Day

The really unfortunate thing is… the lonely planet guide (even though it was like the latest copy) was pretty outdated.  Most of the places were no longer in business.  If anybody is following our footsteps and want to come to Pakistan, please just go online and look through TravelPedia.  The online version of Wikipedia.  It is definitely more up-to-date then Lonely Planet.

Anyway, after going all around Lahore, we finally ended up at Lahore, Mac Donalds.

Calling through all the auditors at Lahore Mac Donalds

As you notice in the picture above, only 1 person is working.  Yes… we had a problem as we only had 1 mobile phone.  After 30 minutes of unfair work, we decided we needed a second line… so off we went to the good old Hafiz center to get another mobile line.

After getting the mobile line, we decided to hive off at a chic cafe called Cloud Nine at Pace Shopping center and then we got to work again.. this time, with 2 mobile phones.

Here, we got to meet 3 fellows.  2 Auditors and 1 Recruitment Company.  We kind of like 1 of the auditor and the other guy from the recruitment company. 

Shafiq Ahmad (Manzoor Hussain Mir & Co)
Auditor
+92-42-7323617
+92-42-7324839

Salnam the Recruitment Guy

After talking to Salnam, it seems that the most important thing about employees when they choose their employers are:

• Who they work for
• Where will they work
• What will they do to add value to themselves

Salman Munir (rHire)
salman@radicalhire.com
+92-333-4239200

I guess remuneration is also important.. but that is something which goes without saying.  So we decided to go for an office location first.  Salnam immediately pointed us to a real estate agent… and only then did we realise that the Property Market in Pakistan is booming at a faster rate than Singapore…

Denise Talking to a Freaking Rich Real Estate Agent

7000 psf (3rd Floor)

6500 psf – Rent: 25000 PKR (4th Floor)

Al-Hafeez Shopping Mall

We looked at an office complex with a reasonably good location.  Below are some of the prices. 

Nameless Agent
0300-9421231
0322-8482861
0300-8004546

425 sq feet – 12000 Rupee (7th floor)
510 sq feet – 17850 Rupee (4th floor)
800 sq feet – 25000 Rupee (8th floor)
1150 sq feet – 45000 Rupee (4th floor)

Was looking through Zameen and found something interesting.

At about 4-5k Rupee psf it sounds like a good deal.

At night, we decided to go for a nice meal at