In other words, lay people off as cheaply as possible before your company goes bust.

The heads of Human Resources, Employee Relations, Employee Development, Personnel Training and Development, Planning, Planning and Selection and Payroll are invited to learn how to: 'Align reward strategies with corporate objectives in full view of the current economic climate.'

And if that was not incentive enough, IQPC offers free entry to a sailing course for those who sign up.

'The course will enable attendees to rig and helm a boat and will include hands-on in a real ocean-going sail boat,' it says.

And Lai See thought the rats were supposed to leave the sinking ship, not learn how to sail it.

Fever pitch: The mainland subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed China Travel International Investment has 10,000 tickets to this summer's football World Cup Finals in Japan and South Korea.

The travel agent has tickets for the Chinese national team's matches against Costa Rica, Brazil and Turkey in Korea. The company is organising tours in conjunction with a state-owned travel agent for Chinese football supporters wanting to watch their national team.

The tickets will be sold as part of the package tours.

According to one Chinese historian we spoke to, 'that's the largest representation of Chinese in that country since the Korean war.'

Paper trail: Do you remember the good old days when people communicated by writing things down on paper or, better still, by speaking to them?

Technology was supposed to make our lives easier, faster and more efficient.

So, can somebody please explain the following.

Lai See is off on hols for a few days.

In ye olde days, we would have written a note for the milkman, paper boy and the woman upstairs who was feeding the plants and watering the cat.

Yesterday, we called the subscriptions department of the Asian edition of the daily newspaper we have delivered to our home and asked them to cancel it for a week.

The individual on the other end of the phone said it would take three working days to cancel, as this was 'how long it takes the computer to process it'.

We pointed out that we had never been told this before and besides: 'Can't you just call the paper boy and tell him not to deliver it?'

The response was: 'I could do it manually but please give us more notice next time.'

Body count: The Customs and Excise Department yesterday arrested a 36-year-old man at the Man Kam To control point for attempting to bring 'one head of live Barking Deer' into Hong Kong.

So, where is the rest of this live Barking Deer?

Dr Feel Good: Our kind of job - chief executive of DrHo.com as featured in the Post magazine.

Current incumbent, Peter Kjaer, is the son-in-law of the online gambling company's owner, Stanley Ho Hung-sun.

Mr Kjaer manages the company and its 60 young mainland croupiers from the comfort of a deckchair on the island paradise of Antigua.

We can't believe we missed that job advertisement.

Graphic: whee05gbz