This video is brought to you in Japanese, Chinese, Cantonese and English. Also, my fish died… at the fins of the jumper fish.
Simple tasks are sometimes the hardest to do
December 15, 2011 By
Time slowed as her hair gently brushed against my face. I smelled the briefest of whispers of vanilla as she continued to twirl. I caught her to bring her revolution to a stop. I held her right hand with my left, and cupped my right hand ever so gently on her left shoulders. Just as she laid her left hand on my shoulders for support. We danced and danced …
And tried very hard not to step on each other’s toes. I was learning to dance the rumba.
Back in my previous employment, one of my colleagues then persuaded me to join a rumba dance class. He’s biased, since he could dance the cha cha, salsa, rumba and do ballroom dance (he won regional competitions). So after weeks of his persuasion, I decided to go for one of the rumba classes.
First thing I noted was that there were no “young” male dancers (“young” being relative, of course). The class welcomed any male participants, since they almost always lacked male dance partners (Dating advice? Dance classes typically starved for men. Consider salsa).
Second thing I noted was that I was the only first-timer there. Everyone had already taken classes in some other dance, such as salsa or cha cha. This meant I had a lot of catching up to do, since the instructor moved the pace of the class up.
Third thing I noted was my normal work clothes were really not designed for rumba dancing. While I’m not that buff, my pectorals and biceps and triceps fill out my long sleeved shirt enough to restrict freer movement. And although I have a 29 inch waist, I typically buy pants for 31 or 32 inch, because I have muscular thighs (oh, there goes my modesty…). And even then my pants were still fairly tight. Do you know the kinds of things you have to do with your waist in rumba?
Alright, alright, we’ll get back to my dance partner. Her name’s White Snow, translated directly from Chinese. Her family name’s White. What, you have Barry White and Snow White, but we can’t have White Snow? (that said, is Snow White the entire name? Or is there a family/last name?).
She’s pretty enough. I don’t know if she had a boyfriend. I didn’t ask. (Although everyone back at the office was like, “Hey Vincent, that girl there? What do you think?”) I much prefer Caucasian women.
[
Inner Critic: Is this really the platform to be telling everyone your dating preference?
Me: It's my blog. I can do whatever the hashbrown I want.
Inner Critic: Why are you using the word "hashbrown", which isn't even a wor...
Me: It's my flying fishball blog. I can use "hashbrown" whenever the hashbrown I want.
]
The dance instructor (who’s especially tall. And that’s saying something, since I’m 1.78 metres tall) taught a dance routine. We rotated dance partners as we went. Each lesson, he’d teach a new segment of the routine, and we’d practise it. Then we’d go from the beginning of the routine all the way to the new segment.
There were 10 lessons in all, and typically, the instructor would have taught the entire routine only at the 9th or even 10th lesson. For that particular class, I think he finished it on the 8th (or 7th) lesson. That meant the pace was very fast. He also told me I was quick to learn and catch up. For the first few lessons though, it was all I could do to remember what to do with my feet, let alone what to do with my arms.
Which brings us to the basic moves. At the start of each class, we’d go through some basic moves. They were all on the feet movement. However, your hands must be up in the default position. What’s the default position?
Stand up. Go on, I’ll wait. Hold your arms straight out to your sides, as though you’re a scarecrow. Then bend your arm at the elbow, keeping your upper arm still parallel to the ground. So now your upper arms point out to the side, and your forearms point in front of you. There. Now keep your arms in that position the whole time.
If during the dance, your hands are not either holding on to your partner, or twirling her, or doing some particular dance move, your arms go to that default position.
It’s a very simple position, yet it’s critical, because it makes the dancers look good. You’re supposed to be dancing in high energy, with grace and proper posture. My dancer colleague even told me he had to practise smiling even though he’s heaving from exhaustion. Did you know the male dancer is the one leading the entire dance? The female follows the male’s lead. When the female returns to your embrace from her twirling, you’ve got to catch her and hold her steady. And not fall out of balance (I mimed the *boing boing boing* of me hopping on one leg and my friend laughed).
For rumba, that’s the simple task. Hold your arms up. My arms were ready to drop after the first few lessons. It’s very tiring to keep them up the whole time.
It doesn’t matter what it is. Refactoring some code. Giving a good variable name. Taking the garbage out. Thinking or finding out a good algorithm. Replying “No” to that email.
Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy.
People buy what they value
December 2, 2011 By
“I don’t have money leh. After 15th?”
“Ok.”
2 freaking dollars. They don’t have 2 freaking dollars.
Side note: The “leh” is an affectation of Singaporean English speech. It’s appended to most sentences as a sort of finishing element. By itself, it doesn’t mean anything.
Collecting money can be tough
I was tasked to collect mess fees from non-specialists in my unit. I was a lance corporal in the military. I was 20 years old.
In case you’re not familiar with military terms (I know I’m not…), the “mess” refers to the place where soldiers eat. Specialists refer to sergeants and above, until you hit officer ranks. For the purpose of this article, non-specialists are recruits (just joined), privates, lance corporals and corporals (ranked in that order).
I can’t remember why mess fees were needed, but I was to collect them from non-specialists (in my unit only). The specialists have their own specialists mess. The whole military compound had a food hall, which was free. Then there’s the non-specialists mess (which we hardly visit, but maybe other units frequent). Then there’s the specialists mess. And then there’s the 1 stall just outside my unit (the men in my unit preferred this than trekking all the way to the non-specialists mess).
Anyway, I was sort of favoured by the S4. I type bloody fast and he gave me paper documents which I was to transform into digital Word documents and save into a floppy disk. (Haha! Floppy disks! It was 1997.)
Yes, some of those documents were sensitive. No, I can’t remember anything. Torturing me will be a waste of your time. Have I mentioned it was 1997?
As a reference point, the S4 was the officer in charge of logistics and was one of the highest ranking officers in the compound. He had his own personal clerk. When his clerk left (the clerk finished his mandatory period of service), his duties were somehow passed on to me. One of those duties was to collect mess fees.
Coincidentally, I was the treasurer when I was in the Chinese Orchestra in secondary school. My advice? Do not be directly responsible for other people’s money if you can help it. I couldn’t sleep when I found the money I had on hand was different from what the record books said. I was about 15 years old. Good grief…
So. Recruits and privates were to pay $1, lance corporals to pay $2, and corporals to pay $3. The men were good-natured enough, but getting them to cough up money was a pain…
Why the 15th? Well, I was to get the money to the mess hall by the 10th of the month (I can’t remember the exact payment date. Let’s go with the 10th). After several months of failed attempts to submit on time, I managed to persuade the mess hall people to let me pay after 15th. This was because the army pays everybody on the 15th.
Granted, we weren’t paid a lot. It’s about a couple of hundred dollars a month, depending on your rank and length of service. $2 was maybe 1% or less of your military salary. But in absolute terms, $2 is nothing. The men typically spend more than that at the canteen every day.
Recession? What recession?
People pay for what they value. The men didn’t value the mess that much. Hence the reluctance to pay.
People still buy the latest iPhone, even though they still own a perfectly working previous version. People still go on vacations. People still go to expensive restaurants. The price isn’t the issue. If people value something enough to overcome the price, they’ll pay for it.
Here’s an interesting observation. I had little trouble with the recruits, privates and corporals. The recruits and privates were new to the military, and as a lance corporal *ahem* I was able to get them to pay up. The corporals were people who were going to the university after they finish their military service. They’d pay up so that I’m out of their hair or they don’t want my life to be miserable or whatever.
The lance corporals were from the hardier sides of Singapore. Polytechnic students or with lower education status.
Now I’m not saying the education status was the cause. I’m saying the attitude is different. The lance corporals were negotiating the terms. (My own rank was a different story. I was eventually promoted to a full corporal).
Once it was after the 15th, the men didn’t give me any more excuses. They’d just pay up. They weren’t trying to make my life difficult in the first place.
Nobody hires a dodo hunter
November 26, 2011 By
My mom has a Vietnamese colleague with a law degree. Apparently, it’s more lucrative to sell cookware in Singapore than practise law in Vietnam. White collar jobs, welcome to 2011.
There’s an article on the Wall Street Journal, “China to Cancel College Majors That Don’t Pay“. China is tackling the problem of jobless graduates in her country. This is the start of the nightmare of something I wrote over a year ago on education:
They [the universities] might go create more graduates who make higher salaries. What might those be? Those academic fields where the economy pays well for, for example, medicine, law, accountancy, banking, biotechnology and computer science. The arts and philosophy majors are doomed, I tell ya. The education syllabus might well be skewed towards commercially profitable disciplines.
China is at least thinking about it.
A nation-wide purge of university majors that don’t pay means you’re essentially specialising. Individually, a university might use that as a hook, such as offering excellent biotechnology classes taught by world-renown people in those fields. Nationally, it will be a disaster.
How do you determine which majors don’t pay? The implicit assumption is you know which majors don’t pay now and in the future. The implicit assumption is that you know what’s going to happen next. You don’t.
When radio was invented, people thought nobody would pay for advertising, since it’s a broadcast medium to nobody in particular (anyone can listen in).
When the telephone was invented, people thought face-to-face communications would die. We still value face-to-face communications now. Never mind the teenage girl who texts 563 messages a day (though I’m sure she still wants to meet up with her friends. Those messages are probably “Meet where?”, “K” (the short form of OK), and “lol”).
When the television was invented, people thought it’s ugly. Black and white? Who’d watch?
When the Internet was invented, nobody thought it’d be a commercially viable medium. Look at all the online stores now.
When music could be digitised, people started sharing MP3s. Music labels sued their customers. They lost money. Apple iTunes is doing fine though.
When Amazon was started, it was to be an online bookstore. The major bookstores didn’t think it will work. They’re now in financial trouble.
It takes an average of 4 years to graduate with a degree. A lot can happen in 4 years. By the time you graduate with a PhD in ornithology specialising in dodos, nobody is hiring a dodo hunter. The job is no longer relevant…
… but it doesn’t mean you’re irrelevant. Adapt your skills. Become an exotic bird care specialist.
Let’s say China purges all non-manufacturing related majors. That means most of her graduates know only manufacturing related stuff. If the economy suddenly rewards creativity-based knowledge work, China will be struggling to move. Remember, it takes 4 years to churn out graduates. You’ll be 4 years behind.
Hmm? China’s too big? The dinosaurs thought they’d live forever too. A meteor wiped them out. Doesn’t matter how big you are. A big enough meteor will still wipe you out. You may quote me. Hey, let me help you:
Doesn’t matter how big you are. A big enough meteor will still wipe you out.
- Vincent
A university shouldn’t model against Amazon. You should not offer long-tail majors. You can’t afford to. The proliferation of majors is probably to attract as many students as possible.
Nobody hires a dodo hunter.
American hare, Asian tortoise
November 12, 2011 By
I’ve been meaning to get a drink from the cafe within the library for a while. It’s exam period, and all the seats were taken. But I finally got a chance to sit. I got myself a “Peach Dream”, a smoothie with peach flavour I think.
I quickly sat down at one of the tables that a lady graciously shared with me. Her friend soon returned with their drinks. I was just happily sipping my smoothie, watching a man on his laptop, one girl slumped on the table with her books, and listening to a mother reading a book to her daughter.
The two ladies at my table began talking.
“Did you know her son got 58 out of 60?”
“Really?”
“Her son is already so clever. But he’s still getting tuition.”
“But he’s so clever! He might get 50 even without tuition.”
“We don’t know if it’s because he has tuition, that’s why he got 58.”
That was a primary school science test. Hey I’m not eavesdropping. I just happen to overhear their overshared conversation.
Believing you can improve by putting in effort
There’s this study conducted dividing people on their perception on learning and intelligence. One group believed that intelligence is fixed, therefore if they don’t know something, they’re doomed to never learn how to do it properly. The other group believed that intelligence is malleable. If they put effort into learning, eventually they’ll get the hang of it.
The first group didn’t care what the answer was, only whether they’re correct or not. They didn’t care to learn how the answer came about. The second group cared more about why an answer was so.
When the 2 groups were tested again, the researchers found that the second group improved significantly. The first group didn’t do any better or worse.
I’m going to generalise here. Asians typically believe that if you put effort into something, you can improve. Be it maths, science, English, Chinese, whatever. That’s why here in Singapore, parents hire tuition teachers for their children, even if their children have phenomenal grades in school. (Also see PISA).
I didn’t have any tuition teachers after primary four (age 10). Not because I’m smart, but because my dad couldn’t afford it. Good thing I turned out alright…
Another general trait of Asians is that we save. Money that is. We’re brought up with the concept of saving money for a rainy day.
The hare and the tortoise
I read this book by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Beyond the Crash. He brought up some concepts I’ve learnt about the global economy and politics.
America and Europe lead the world in terms of consumption. It’s worked so far because they also produced as much (as in exports). Their production brought in enough money for them to consume. They’ve raced ahead and amassed much wealth.
Like the hare, they’ve grown comfortable and stopped (more or less).
Globalisation allowed the other countries to come to the fore. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), Indonesia, Philippines.
American (and European?) jobs flowed to other countries. First the Baby Boomer generation is slowly retiring, leaving a mass number of jobs for the smaller group of Generation X-ers who cannot fill them. Then globalisation killed those jobs, and the current Generation X-ers and Y-ers can’t find jobs.
The subprime housing situation created more turmoil. The recent bank crisis instilled fear and distrust. University tuition fees go up as people sought to get a Master’s degree in the tight job market. (Just for info, I’ve read there’s an “education bubble” going on).
America just averted a $14 trillion debt ceiling problem. Greece has a financial problem. Europe faces a sovereign debt problem. Their aging population doesn’t have enough people to take care of them, financially speaking (where do you think taxes go to?).
And the tortoises started to catch up.
Education
I’ve read an economist praising the education system of Singapore. I must admit, I was surprised. Then he (can’t remember whom or what book I was reading. Sorry…) pointed out that in America, teachers with average graduating scores are dumped to “second-rate” schools without training. In Singapore, the Ministry of Education chooses the best teachers, and provide them with training. I think it was 2 out of 10 applicants who get in. The Singapore government takes education very seriously.
Barack Obama has stated he’s taking America’s education seriously. As far as the future is concerned, I believe maths and science to be crucial. We’re going to need engineers, mathematicians, doctors, physicists, chemists, biologists and more to tackle the health care of our aging population, creating a sustainable Earth, and understand and make use of any future technologies.
Global commerce
Here’s something you should know. To get money, you have to sell something in exchange. I don’t care if it’s an apple, an iPad, television shows, movies, your body, real estate, knowledge (information). Even if it’s just a 250 by 250 pixel ad on your web page. You have to sell something.
America and Europe produced enough for domestic and international consumption. As a result, they grew. Then globalisation came. Their production dropped (because that production went to other countries as jobs). You produce less, but your consumption rate remain. You should see the problem, right? Then their domestic consumption even increased (think rampant credit card use).
Here’s the catch. China (seems to be the biggest blamee, though there are others) is exporting more stuff, and America (and Europe?) is buying. China buys up raw materials from other countries, manufactures products, and sells them.
What you should realise is that China has a small domestic consumption (remember Asians extol saving as a virtue, so we buy and consume less). Contrast that with China’s growing export business, you should see how China is growing in strength. But this depends on other countries buying their stuff *cough America cough*. China’s growth comes mainly from exports and China’s biggest worry is that people stop buying their exports.
The rebalancing
There was a time when the outsourcing/offshoring thing was a craze. Do you know how supply and demand works? As jobs went to India, China and Philippines because it’s cheaper, those jobs started becoming more expensive as the workers wanted better pay. It might still be cheaper to outsource/offshore, but it doesn’t always make a big financial impact to the bottom line.
You know this oil thing we need? It’s getting more expensive as it becomes scarcer. We need to find alternative energy solutions soon. See education above. Where are the people we need to solve this problem? (They aren’t motivated enough to learn, and they’re watching cat videos on YouTube).
You know what more expensive energy means? Transportation is going to get costlier. Getting a product to be manufactured in China, then assembled in Mexico, then shipped to America is going to be financially inadvisable.
You know what that means? Jobs are going to start flowing back (to wherever they came from).
You know what? There are millions of jobless young people who are willing to do those jobs.
But you need to be willing to train them. Specialisation cannot be your focus. Remember, these people just graduated from school. You won’t find a person who fits the job of a managerial post with an emphasis on information technology.
Get that graduate (who has a bundle of joyful energy) with the MBA. Train him/her on your business with information technology.
Get that programmer who did a bunch of software projects. Teach him/her about your special accounting software business.
Export more bits than atoms
I read that a Singapore minister (can’t remember who. You should know by now I have a terrible memory for these things…) who said that Singapore’s economic concern should still be to focus on manufacturing. I believe he’s referring to material goods.
I’m going to ask you a question. With the climate concern now, and that our landfills are starting to fill with our waste at a rate that’s slightly alarming, and that raw materials are getting costlier to shovel around, should you still export physical goods?
That’s still going to be a viable business. I mean, I still see people queuing up to buy the latest iPhone 4S, and texting on their perfectly working iPhone 4 (I still use an iPhone 3G, which Apple doesn’t even support anymore).
Remember the outsourcing/offshoring thing? There were 2 kinds of jobs: the physical creation of a product, and the intangible stuff. China does manufacturing. India does call centres.
As people become more aware of what they buy and consume, I see people having less material goods. The modern cell phone allows you to play games, organise your calendar, keep todo lists, take photos, capture videos, record audios, browse the Internet and make phone calls.
Even if that’s not the case, there’s a physical limit to how much you can export (and thus sell and thus make money). So sell your skills and knowledge. Teach people stuff. Offer something that’s not so easily replaceable by another person in another country.
Africa poised as untapped and trapped consumer base
Africa is like the poster child for a country in poverty. She has a large population but most of her people are struggling with where the next meal is coming from.
As China and India got more of their people out of poverty (due to globalisation in part), their people started buying stuff.
India is an interesting case. As her economy improved, so did her domestic consumption. In a sense, India is more “stable” than China in terms of growth.
The point is that Africa has a large population who most probably cannot and will not buy your products and services. They’re too busy dealing with AIDS, malaria and hunger. Not only that, it represents a huge number of people who cannot contribute to the world.
A human mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Finishing line
That was a lot to write.
So in case you skipped the whole shebang above, here’s the moral: Consume less (with more intelligence), raise education, and help other people.
Ebooks and publishing
November 9, 2011 By
I wrote a guest article at Website In A Weekend, run by Dave Doolin. It’s about ebooks and publishing and trust and credibility. I’m also described as “Vincent’s talents are manifold, as one would expect from a polymath.” That rocked. Go read that article.
Online business mentorship
November 2, 2011 By
In case you missed it, I’m offering to help you with starting your own small online business. You don’t have to pay for it, at least not with money.
Basically, you help me write a few articles, or in whatever form of contribution you can give (I’m flexible). And in return, I help you to get your own online business off the ground. You don’t have to pay me anything, and I don’t give you financial assistance.
And whatever profits your business generates, you get to keep it. All of it. I don’t get a single cent.
In terms of financial reward, that’s a terrible deal for me. Why the hashbrown would I do it? Because I want people to feel more in control of their lives, particularly in these rough economic times. Because I want to create more entrepreneurs and self-starters. A small online business on the side can generate enough cash flow to help with monthly food and/or bills. That’s immensely helpful.
Because my time is limited, I cannot help too many people. So the maximum will be 3. I’ve already had one person interested. If you’re interested in working with me, contact me.
Offering you a business mentorship opportunity
October 30, 2011 By
Times are hard. Students are treading water in a deep pool of student loan debt. The unemployment rate is high. Those without jobs wonder how they’re going to feed themselves. Those with jobs wonder if they can keep their jobs.
While the financial markets have caused much trouble, occupying some prominent financial street isn’t enough. Protesting only means you’re surrendering the solution of the problem to someone else, waiting for that someone who may or may not be able to help you.
It is said that total sum of all small businesses drive the majority of all businesses in the world. I’m offering to teach you how to start a small (online) business of your own. I run a small business, and though it has a modest return, it feeds me. And in my book, that’s successful enough for me.
Here’s the deal
I’m not providing financial aid to you. But I will answer any question you have on starting your online business. If you have an idea on what you want, we can work on that. If not, we can work to find something you’d be interested in. I will point out reference material you can read up on. I will suggest actions for you to take. But I won’t do those things for you. You still have to work for it.
In exchange, you have to write articles and do some research stuff for me. 1 article per week, either for the blog, or for my magazine, or for my email newsletters. Add in the research, you’re probably looking at 2 to 6 hours per week, depending on how fast you write/research. If you’re currently studying, that shouldn’t put too much of a dent into your week. If you’re still employed, I can help you with a side business that brings in a little bit of cash per month. If you’re unemployed, well, the time taken shouldn’t bother you too much.
I’m also open to other types of contributions. Maybe you can create and edit videos. Maybe you’re awesome at taking photographs and photojournalism. Suggest away, and we can balance out the stuff I might ask you to do.
As for that business of yours, I won’t take a single cent. All profits from your business will be yours. You did all the work, right?
The time frame is 2 months. For now. We can extend if it works out. Most people will be winding down for the end of the year. You, on the other hand, can learn and create something that puts you in a better position for next year.
You think 2 months isn’t long enough? I created a profitable business selling a programming guide within 6 weeks. It took that long because I was writing code and creating a PDF that explains all that code. You can probably create something that you can sell profitably (even if modest) within a month.
If you don’t want to work, then even a year isn’t enough.
Also, I’m not going to teach you how to create the next Facebook/Twitter/Whatever. I’m here to teach you how to build a profitable business (as opposed to business for equity), and not something that’s valued at 3.7 million dollars after 3 years. I don’t have 3 years. I need to eat right now. I’m assuming you share similar feelings.
“Why are you doing this?”
I want to help you. If I was still studying for my bachelor’s degree, I’d at least be interested in someone offering to teach me how to start a small business. It would help with paying off my student loan, and I would have started before I graduated (when the student loan interest starts to kick in and I had to start paying back). If I was out in the world, whether employed or unemployed, a couple of hundred dollars per month would help. I grew up in a family between poor and middle-class. Every single dollar helps.
There are probably a lot of stuff I should clarify, but I don’t know how many people will respond to this. I might be helping 1 or 2 people. At the most 3. There might be no one who’s interested. That’s fine too. But if you’re interested, contact me and we can work out the details.
Responsibility culture
October 26, 2011 By
Clearly yesterday’s article struck a nerve. I usually have zero comments on my articles. But for yesterday’s article, I had 2 people commenting! That’s like an increase of 2/0 = infinity percent! Marketing and business people will kill for this kind of return.
I want to thank James Carman and William Saunders for their comments. I’ll return to their comments in a bit, with a bit more clarification about that story. But first, let me tell you another story.
“Don’t say sorry.”
“Vincent, I just want you to know something.” I felt my stomach twisting a little. “This can’t be good,” I thought. She spoke in barely a whisper, like she was afraid other people might overhear her, and I suck at phone conversations, so it’s doubly worse. “You shouldn’t say sorry to those people. It makes you look weak, and they will take advantage of you.”
Those aren’t the exact words, but the essence is there.
This happened like 3 or 4 years ago (I think). I was working as a Systems Analyst, but for expediency’s sake, just take it as I’m responsible for anything tech-related, unless otherwise stated. I work in a small team, as in like me and my supervisor. I mention this because my supervisor gave me a lot of autonomy on how I work. Basically, she just told me “Vincent, I need you to do this.”, or asked for input “Can we do this?”, or “How long would it take?”, and then just let me do my thing. Because she had her own stuff to do.
I know there are people out there who say that managers (or people in managerial positions, say a supervisor) of programmers should be protecting programmers from being disturbed (for lack of a better word). People like Joel Spolsky or Michael Lopp. I support this in general. It’s just that sometimes, the situation doesn’t quite allow that. My supervisor already shielded me from a number of (unnecessary) meetings (for me) and does most of the documentation (for the design, not the code).
So what usually happened was that whenever tech-related problems came up, they email my supervisor. Typically, it’s so technical that she would route that email to me. Eventually, the users learnt that I’m the ultimate person to solve their problems, so they skipped my supervisor. If the task in the email was too big or involved, I will let my supervisor know and let her decide if I should proceed. Otherwise I just solved the problem, sent an email to the user(s) and CC my supervisor (just so she knew about it).
Well, some problem cropped up. I can’t remember if it affected customers or internal users. Ok, it probably affected paying customers, otherwise it wouldn’t have been that big a deal. It might have involved customers in that million dollar deal thing I worked on. I don’t think it was entirely a mistake on my part, but I don’t think that’s important. I felt the important thing was to solve the problem, and then move on.
I solved the problem, and sent an email telling the people involved that the problem’s solved. I also apologised that the problem cropped up. I treat myself as a business working within a business (my employer). If your customer had a problem with your products or services, would you make it right and apologise? I would. It really doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or not. The customer typically doesn’t want to blame you specifically. The customer just wants the problem to be fixed. At least that’s what I’ve learnt from reading business and marketing books.
Apparently, one of the users was concerned for me (thank you!). She called me up personally, and advised me to not apologise. It might make me easier for other people to pin the blame on me (whenever technical problems crop up).
Anyway, I believed that if a program or application was under my care, then I’m responsible for it. It didn’t matter that the source code was written by someone else. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have full control over where the program resided, or what it did, or why it sometimes had problems. I took responsibility for it. I think I read Seth Godin write something on it. Maybe this one.
In our current economic situation, it’s ever easier to blame other people than to take responsibility. Taking responsibility means putting yourself on the line. It’s frightening. Which reminds me of another story. I was once in charge of a task force to find out “why people are afraid to speak up”. I’ll tell you that story another time.
The point is that the corporate culture (back then. I don’t know about now since I left the company) had an in-built blame culture based on fear. I was trying to spread a culture of responsibility, hopefully by being an example. With that, I return to the comments left by James and William.
On blame culture
If you skipped all the way down here, this is the story I told. James said,
Your story is a key example of why I am willing to take a pay cut, rather than work for a business like that.
First off, that company I worked for wasn’t too bad. The department I worked in had very little office politics (such as it was). Maybe it was that my team worked in a different location than headquarters. I typically go to the office with the feeling that I’m making a difference to my users. Even if I don’t directly contribute to the bottom line, I think of it as helping my users, who do contribute to the bottom line (the sales staff particularly).
That said, William had this to say,
That situation would make me want to quit. Large scale operational inefficiency goes way above/beyond people in our position, yet can sometimes directly impede us getting our jobs done. [...] Really I think it should not be your concern how much the man-hours cost to get what you need done, especially since a whole team of people seemed to be fine with lobbing a bunch of blame your way.
The blame part happened because in the meeting, other departments were involved. Now that outsourcing project involved taking a bunch of the company’s work functions and bundling them together to be handled by the Cheng Du staff. Many other departments were involved. I got dragged along because the program I’m responsible for (see, see?) was involved (albeit a small part).
My supervisor was a nice person. It just so happened that she wasn’t around that day. My associate director and senior manager weren’t even involved in that program I’m in charge of. They might have gone along to the meeting just to see what the offshoring project was about, and my (program’s) involvement gave them an excuse to join (I don’t know about their intentions, so don’t quote me on this).
So when all eyes turned to me, I took the heat. I don’t remember feeling indignant about it. Just a kind of all-round-sucky feeling. I’m not saying this to protect my behind, or to not burn any bridges. My superiors were generally nice people. It just so happened that those people at the meeting wanted to point their blame cannon and fire at someone. I was the most dispensable. I was even the youngest at the meeting if I recall (have I mentioned my boyishly good looks? *smile*). Someone had to be responsible, and I decided stopping the blame game right then would move the meeting along the fastest. I even took notes on what I could do to improve the situation (that’s what the pen and notepad was for).
With regards to that $375 thing, it turns out to be some company policy. It’s an internal charges thing, and I charged at that rate too (or more specifically, my department charged that. Everyone charged at that rate). Even though opening up network ports and granting network access should be easily done (by a competent network administrator) within say, half an hour, the policy seemed to be that a minimum of 4 hours effort be charged. I’ve learnt to “bunch” up my requests when possible.
I’ve been “consulted” by my supervisor on how long a project would take. I’d give an estimate, say 5 days, and she would charge the department I’m to help. My department technically earned about 30 grand. I don’t get a single cent from that. It’s a “passing money from the right pocket to the left pocket” thing.
And yes, I’ve written such technical requests and viewed requests to my team/department before. That’s why I know the rates.
Dang, I should probably be a millionaire by now.
I'm a mathematician, programmer, writer, 
