Expectations...

So I was talking to a friend concerning human relationship, one of the topic that popped up was the act of being shallow. Its true, everyone wants something that's nice, a friend once said "2 car side by side, one being a beat up junk, one is a Ferrari, I am sure everyone will choose the Ferrari". Sad, but true. Everyone is shallow, and yes its nice to have pretty and nice thing. But, the question is can you afford it?

A lot of people seem to have overlooked affordability and expectation. Plenty of people out there wants a Ferrari but can only afford a Civic (yes I love picking on the Civic). But they don't actually just "WANT" it, they think that they can actually GET it for that price.

Second example, a real story: A friend of mine (Lets call him Tom) was in the market looking for a house. I didn't know at first, he came back telling us this story. I still can't wrap my head around what he was thinking. He started looking around, found an open house around the Post road area, one of those three garages home. Walk in, talk to the sales agent, looked around. The house was listed for $700K. He made an offer of $350K, obviously, they turned down that offer, the sales agent was pretty upset with him for wasting their time. Tom called us out complaining and said "I was being serious, I don't think the house worth 700K". Ok, so it doesn't worth 700K, but I would imagine it worth at least 600K then? Dude, you are offering half of what they wanted of course they won't sell it to you! Tom won't stop complaining and said he can only afford 350K. Well HELLO? Were you smoking something good to even have the guts to step inside the house with only 350K? You have courage man..... Unrealistic? Seem so

Yet another example: My friend's brother (Ken - Alias only) graduated college 2 years ago. Found a job as a junior programmer after, still a Junior programmer. Got upset with the company for not promoting him after 2 years. Started applying outside of the organization, he was applying for Team Leader and Manager roles. Didn't get a single phone call. An agent contacted him, presented an opportunities for a Programmer (Not junior, just Programmer), he got upset and was half yelling at the other side. Let see, you have 2 years of work experience (in the IT field, it take at least 3 to move up each level), and you want to jump at least 3 level while you yell at people who is helping you to find a job.. you are lucky you actually HAVE a job now with that attitude. Do you even know what you have and what the outside world is asking for? You might as well apply to be the CEO of IBM, I don't think you need a lot of brain to fulfill that task anyways, so you may qualify... c'mon, start thinking with 1/4 of your brain and you will know that

I somewhat think that human relation is almost the same way. How we treat people and how much we can offer others around us is a direct reflection of what to expect from others. The act of being shallow is not just shallow, its also selfish. The "overly high" expectation is pretty much - I will give you this much, but you have to give me THIS MUCH.

Now when I say "Shallow" and "Expectation", its not just the appearance I am referring to, but it can be bit and pieces of another human - Appearance, character, personality, wealth, health etc. I am not suggesting that relationship needs to be a fair trade, but your expectation needs to be realistic.

Ask not what others will look like, or what others can do for you... but what you have to offer and willing to offer, then you will know what you should be asking for......

Bride's Maid and the Maid of Honor

Ok, so the sad reality is that no matter how hot and gorgeous the bride maybe, she is not going to marry the best man. We have established that in my previous post. What about her maids? There is nothing better than talking about the Best Man's counter part. The Maid of honor and the Brides Maid.

One piece of advice I have for all would be Brides - Before deciding on your bridal party, stand everyone, including yourself, infront of a mirror first, anyone that is prettier than you, or have the potential to look better than you after Make Up, these people, OUT.

Since turning 25, the Wedding invitations just PILE my mail box. Being a man with good memory, I still remember every detail to MOST of the Weddings I've attended. And trust me I've seen a lot of things. I still remember one wedding in particular. I am a good friend of the groom, but I wasn't part of the bridal party because I am the MC for the night. Anyways, I've known him since he was dating this girl (His wife now), but nobody really knows the girl too well. She is the controlling type, and as far as she is concern, hanging out with us is a waste of her time. In fact, she think that its a waste of HIS time. I think we met up and hang out with the groom twice for the three years that they were dating.

See here is another thing Ladies, if you are with someone that you think you want to get Married to, its not a good idea to isolate yourself from his friends, or isolate him from his friend. It would suck if you have to get your other ladies friend to dress up as the groom's man and the best man because the poor bastard lost all his friend on your account. It just doesn't work.

So anyways, since I don't know the Bride too well (again, met her twice before their wedding), I don't know any of her friends, and since I wasn't part of the bridal party, I wasn't invited to any meeting. The only thing I was invited to are one on one meeting with the groom to talk about the run down. So, I NEVER met anyone that is part of the Bridal party until the wedding day. What a disaster, had I met everyone before hand, I would have suggested against her choice for her Maid of Honor. The Maid of Honor was a runner up in the 2005 Asian Pageant of Montreal. See, this is not an issue if the bride was the WINNER of the same year, but she wasn't.. far from it. And here is the interesting thing, they decided that EVERYONE will have a white gown.

Here is the problem, it wouldn't be such a big deal we only have one of the two ingredient (A super hot Maid or Honor and the white gown), but when both of them goes together, you are pretty much putting up a comedy show. Imagine this, aside from the people who knows who the Bride truly is, others that walk in to the church saw 5 pretty girl dressed in white, they will assume (pretty good guess I'd have to say) the bride is one of them, and it has to be the prettiest one. So, one after another, walk up to the maid of honor and congratulate her and give her a hug. Can I congratulate you too so that I can tell everyone I hugged a hot gorgeous girl?

With a blushing face, she point to the bride with half her hair and makeup done and said "Sorry, but she is the bride". Good job guys!

Another interesting thing is that, people from the Peagent received professional training on posing, and its not difficult for other photographers and people to notice such great beauty and posing talent, the wedding become the Maid of Honor's personal fashion show! I am willing to bet money that there were more pics of her than the bride herself

So here you go, think before you choose your lineup for your party....

Best man

Not too long ago (well almost 2 years) I was asked to be the best man for a friend's wedding. Check this out, the bride asked me if I can be the best man for her would be husband (at the time), since the dude has no friends here in Toronto (he is from Hong Kong). I've known this girl for ages, she is a decent girl, though the momentary craziness, but nevertheless, a decent girl.

Being the best man is not an easy task, there are only a million and a half things you have to take care of on their behalf: Wedding planning, wedding day run down, restaurant services, photography services, floral arrangements etc etc. Oh wait, was I the one getting married? How come I am doing all this. Now I know why she asked me to do it, its not because he has no friend, but I am the best man alright, the man best for this kind of things.

Its fun and all planning a wedding on someone's behalf. You will find it fun too if all you got was "You have 40K to play with", heck its not my own money, of course its fun. The down side is that your efforts are usually NOT appreciated. Picture this, they told you "You have 40K to play with", so you choose a restaurant, and its not easy, for some odd reason, no matter which restaurant you choose (Chinese of course), its always 1088.88 for a table with similar food. Do you guys have the same owner or soemthing? Or the same supplier? Or is there some underground operation that set out a fix price for these things? Anyways, you go back and tell them "Hey its 1088.88 a table", the first reaction is always "WHAT? Thats expensive!". Exepensive? Didn't you tell me I have 40K to work with? 20 table will cost you 21777.6, and I don't think you have enough friends to occupy 20 tables anyways. So you go back to the restaurant, now they present you something that is 888.88, you go back to the couple, they will now say "The food sucks! 888.88 is too much for this kind of food". Hello, you don't want to pay, but you want good food, you want my mom to cook for you? It will be a lot cheaper for sure. You realize that regardless of how much it is, they will always think its expensive.

Another intersting request is always "Do you know someone that can do this for free". I remeber this couple, they want to get married in a fancy european car. I got them a hook up for a nice Bently, all I said was "I know someone by GTA Limo rental that can get you a Bently..". You are not even done, you see a bright light shooting out of their eyes, so bright that you need a sunglasses, they both asked "Is it for free?" Of course it is, thats why I have 6 of them parked on my driveway... whats wrong with you people? Is it for free, its a Bently, we are not asking for a Civic here, even a Civic cost you 10 bucks a day at Enterprise. Take my 21 speed mountain bike, that will be free...... And check this out, they actually get upset when you burst their bubble "I am afraid not, but he will give you a 50% discount".. "Oh, why are you telling us its a hook up then?".. hmm.. ok, I suppose you want to pay full price. And let me guess, for floral arrangements, I am to bring the bridal party and just pick it from a park, sure thing, anything you want, afterall, I am the best man, will do as requested master! Ok, so I was asked to be the MC as well, there you go, you get something for free.. be happy that I am not charging you for my photography service rate :P

So back to my friend, she always have this Japanese doll type cutenes going on, so you really can't say no to that face. The make up artist (which charge them almost pennies since they bargained her down so much.. er... I was sent to do the bargaining) did a great job to bring the cuteness out even more.. then I start to think "I am the best man, but you are marrying him". Its true, I mean think about it, if I am so good to carry a title as a best man, where are my WIVEs? Then the party begins, she drink, she dance, she drink more.. now she is totally wasted, she laugh, she is tripping and stepping on everyone's toe on the dance floor.. THANK GOD you are marrying him and not me. See, scene like this give you a relief down your back "Oh great, I don't have to deal with this train wrack for the next 40 years"

Office Politics and invisible competition

I would assume that everyone, some point in their life, was accused of doing something that they never did. But have you ever been involved in a competition without knowing it? I have.

When I first started doing leadership/management work years ago, I had a colleague - Joseph. There were 6 people (including myself) reporting to my manager, and each of us manage a small team of people, about 20 people. Both Joseph and myself were new to this whole leadership/management role, but I had the advantage of doing minor project coordination and project management from previous opportunities.

I can't say for sure I was doing any better than Joseph, but my year-end review suggest that I was a bit better than Joseph. How did I know this? Well, the man came to me and told me "I got Meet Expectation, what did you get?" I didn't tell him, but I got "Exceed Expectation"

Anyways the poor dude eventually find out that the other five of us all got a better rating. He wasn't very happy at first. We all know what happened. But here is where the nightmare starts.

Our manager LOVEs to delegate his task to us. He is only good at drinking beer and munching on those KFC. But since this incident, he doesn't need to delegate anything to Joseph anymore. The dude would volunteer to absolutely anything that the manager brings up. There were tasks that was assigned to me, Joseph would tell the manager that "Godwine is busy as is, I can take on that for him" Eventually, its to a point where i have to defend myself and say "I am not that busy, I can manage it." There are tasks that we are suppose to work on together, but he refuse to even let me take part in it.

The competition is not just against me, it was against other people as well. The six lead used to be really close to each other, we would join for lunch and coffee together, but since the review, Joseph start to isolate himself from us. He tends to take any opportunity to put down others. He once told Wendy that "Your work is nothing, you don't have much to do"

Why, oh WHY am I surrounded by people who only like to act intelligent? Its really strange how some people want to feel important and better than everyone else. See, there is one cool thing about the human race - we could never accept the fact that everyone have different skill sets, or someone is just better in some specific area.

This have somewhat led to the discussion of "right" and "wrong". If you think about it, who set the rules to what is right and what is wrong? HUMAN.. yes.. WE... and how did we do that? Its almost a case of majority rules. Ok, the law aside, which is (you'd like to think) well analyzed and planned out. But in general. People tend to judge what is acceptable and unacceptable in society, this judgement is based on what is the general view of the public. You are consider wrong because you are doing things out of the norm or out of what the society think is acceptable.... ok, so this should clarify the concept of "Perspective" and "Point of view"

Back to our topic of Mr "I am the best" Joseph. You see, if someone is really far superior and better than everyone else, their behavior, action, mentality should also be more superior than everyone else right? Hence different. But wouldn't this make them deviate from the rest of the population and make you an outcast?

The one thing that we LOVE about Joseph is his ability to act. I am telling you, if anyone is to get nominated for the Oscar for office behavior, it will have to be him. Words like "I love my job" and "I love this company" is pretty much the forever famous Joseph quote, BUT at the same time, every now and then, he will bring up the topic of job search and its easy for him to find a job, and he don't planned on staying for a long time, and the fact that he has a million degrees under his sleeve (ok, I am exaggerating, he has 2.... ).. blah blah blah.. the list go on and on.

At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own action and the choices we make, this include the responsibilities to handle enemies we built for ourselves. Good luck Joseph, I am just going to play the modest nice guy role. I have a lot of friends, but I do want more.. you never know when others will be ahead of you, and what they can do to you.....

Planning/building/sustaining your career...

I recently met a new "friend" on the GO train. We started talking almost a week ago when he first started at RBC, he asked me direction and I told him "I work there, I will walk you". So anyways, he is about 50 years old, migrated from Iran 7 years ago, a Chemical Engineer who ended up in the IT field. He has a son and a daughter. The daughter is 23, the son is 25. Both in their second year of university. He was telling me that he keep asking his son to "Finish up school and find a job". I remember a conversation with someone else not long ago, it was along the line of the same thing. It slowly occurs to me that the 18-25 group are extremely laid back. Being oblivious and naive seems to be the latest greatest trend. The idea of self enhancement, knowledge or reading a damn book seems so foreign to them. Half of these people, have a dream, a dream of being someone, being rich, but they don't do anything that will help them achieve this dream

I have a friend - Marvin, who is somewhat similar. Marvin lived a good life, rich and capable parents. Never have to worry about anything. If he has no money, he goes home and ask for more. He is 24, has a job. A job that pays fairly well, but definitely not a job you want to keep for life. There are opportunities to move up in his field, but he never did anything about it. He complain a lot about his job. He also have big dream, and unrealistic expectation. Why unrealistic.. well just say, he keep looking for opportunities that he does not qualify for.

Heck, Marvin doesn't even know if he want his career or not. Every time any of his friend talk about getting some kind of professional certification (not in his field), he will always say "Yeah maybe I should do that too". "Maybe"? How about MAYBE you should concentrate at what you are doing and be good at it and climb up? You didn't even finish college, be happy that you are in an engineering firm doing entry level work.

But the sad truth is that, he is not the only person that exhibit this behavior. MANY people of that age group shows this. I was talking to a couple of fresh graduate engineers when I was working in the high tech sector. 90% of them didn't want to be an engineer, 100% of them didn't know what they were getting in to or if they are want to do engineering work. It was "Whatever accept me and sound cool in university". This thought is especially dangerous in the Engineering and Medical field. Imagine an engineer designing an elevator who said "Whatever works the easiest" or a surgeon telling you that "I don't know, but whatever is the easiest way to do your bypass".

Looking back 5 years ago - When I was 25, the people my age group and around me did NOT think this way. Everyone had an established career and know what they want in life, 80% of us try to go back to school to enrich ourselves.

Notes to married couple, if you are going to bring your kid up to be a parasite to the society, stop... we have plenty of these people now, and its absolutely disgusting....

Support/service call....

My manager came in to the office this morning complaining about her Internet services at home, for some strange reason they disconnected her completely. Anyways, she tried calling Bell's technical support hot line, the automated self serve system ask for user input "Please use the touch tone pad on your phone to key in your phone number so that we can pull up your file". She did that, waited 10 minutes because "We are experiencing higher than normal call volume" go figure. Forced to listen to those nasty off tuned music while she wait, someone finally pickup the phone after 10 minutes of ear torture by the static radio station, the operator asked her "Can I have you phone number and area code so that I can pull up your file?" She snapped! I mean wouldn't you snap?

This remind me of a recent incident at work. It was just last Wednesday I believe. I came back from lunch to attend a not so important meeting, but it kills time, especially after lunch. Discovered that I could no longer open up my mail client, it died as soon as I launch it because of a connectivity issue. I called the corporate help desk. The support personnel said "We are experiencing some problems with a server, so everyone on that server will experience this. Can you tell me which server you are on?" So I open up the mail account profile and gave him the information. He said "Oh, yes, you are in fact on that particular server. This is a known issue, it is being investigated. We will send you a email as soon as this issue is fixed". Well well well... Let see, you will send me a email to tell me that my email is fixed, because right now I cannot check my email. Hmm...

Its incredible isn't it? Did you even listen to me? Stop making me repeat myself, I look like an idiot. Wait, or was I an idiot because I decided to CALL?

I am in the field of quality management in the hardware/software side of the IT world. One way to gauge quality is to think more like the client/customer/user. I keep telling my staff that "If you are the one to use this system on a daily basis, will you accept the system's behavior as is? If not, that will mean we have a quality issue". Well, not quite, there are other metrics and quantification, but this is a simple basis of "Quality". Service quality should also be gauge in the same manner, after all, its the user experience that matter most. And with service calls, these are people you are dealing with, not machines. Has anyone, any of these so call "Call Center Experts" ever gauge to look at the incovenience that was brought upon us?

And talking of services, I am sure everyone had this experience before. You ordered something to be shipped to you via courier. You missed the parcel on the day of delivery, simply because they love to drop by while you are out, somehow I have a feeling that the delivery guy camp down the street to make sure you are out when he rings on the bell. They will leave a note saying "I was here but you were out, I will come again tomorrow between 9:00am and 4:00pm". This is incredible! I am hiring your service, so that you can make me sit home and wait. That explain why I won't hire you anymore, I can't afford it if I keep missing work like this! Ok, anyways, next day come around. You are in the washroom when the delivery boy is here, he rings the bell. You jump out of the washroom, run downstairs, took down 4 stairway pillar when you trip and fell. Open the door. GONE. Another note - I was here for the second time, you were not here again, so you come by to pick up the parcel at 8 tonight. So, its perfectly fine if you make me wait 7 hours, and you can't even wait for me for 5 bloody minutes. You call that service? So your time is valid, while my time is meaningless?

I am right, otherwise I'd look stupid.

Loads of things happend the last two day, kept me in this thinking mode, so if you have time to read through this, great! You will see multiple topics being covered in this one post. If you don't have time.. hmm.. oh well.. too damn bad, not my problem, or I could write a shorter article, but, for those who knows me, knows that i like to write long to act intelligent.. keyword to "ACT"Again, for the sake of privacy, all names mentioned are an alias only, guess all you want who these people are.

So lets talk about my "subject line" first. I was talking to a friend recelty - Michael. Michael is in his Mid 20s, have a half decent career, but a rich family, never have to work too hard to get what he wants. I notice a very poor (I think its bad) but typical behavior with Michael - He could be talking to you about anything, he would cliam expertise in that area, and its always "I've been doing it for a while now". When pointed out wrong, its always "well, it was a while ago, I don't do that anymore, so I forgot". One of the more recent discussion revolves around digital photography. I have a strong interest in photography, just like everyone else that do, I own two DSLR camera. Michael claim that he did some photography work in the past, so he is also intersted in getting a DSLR. We had a discussion, and I pointed out a few things wrong, and he basically told me "Thats how its done when you have a film camera" I do agree, back in the days, things were not as complicated, there are only so many settings, and the digital does offer a few more settings, it was also a steep learning curve for me at first. But he keep telling me that "You can't take night shots with a digital, there are too much noise". Ah, hello, what are ISO settings for? How is that any different with ASA 800 film? Its funny why people tends to (I probably do it too without knowing it) find excuses to cover up their stupidity or lack of knowledge. Why is it so hard to ask "I am sorry, I don't know, please educate me?"

Not long ago, I helped a friend - Caleb landing a job offer with a local company. This was through my other contacts in this company, Caleb know a few people there too, but somehow (wonder why) none of them were too enthusiast about the 2K referral bonus, so instead an external (ME) referred him into the organization. Little less than a year ago, Caleb would call me up every now and then, asking "How are you? Do you know anyone thats hiring?"(Earlier post, HOW ARE YOU really wans't the context, but the job search is), he sounded so eagar a couple of times, asking if i am looking for a business partner in ANY business. First I find it strange that someone would want to jump in "Any Business", I mean, why would anyone in sane have interest in investing in "any" business? I definitely would only be interested in something that I am familiar with. So anyways, since Caleb joined to others in this organization, I have had numerous conversation with them. Caleb won't stop complaining about his salary, and he always tells me that "You know when I got this offer, there are so many other offers waiting for me, I took this one because you referred me and I have all these friends working there already".. Well sorry to burst your bubble buddy, but none of these "Friends" really enjoy working with you, or if you ahve so many offers already, why do you keep asking me to find you a job?

Not so surprise, Caleb seems to be having an issue with self esteem. He is one of those odd balls that put you down so that he looks better infront of others. One of the more signficant issues, from what I heard, is that, he tends to compete with others. He started a non existing competition with the others: One of the guys that we knew, got an amazing review at work, while Caleb got an "Acceptable" review. He said "Anyone can get the amazing review, I didn't get it because I am new". It is true, but is it necessary to tell the world WHY? Nobody said anything about it, nobody is implying that you are incompetent. Their manager tends to assign more high level work to the others, Caleb always have to tell them that "I did that before, i used to do that on a daily basis, its so simple, anyone that can read can do it"

Wasn't a very good day for me yesterday. GO transit, again, with an excuse (A valid one this time), cancelled GO service for my subway line. BLAH. Damn it, I will take the TTC. Got on the TTC, there are 2 routes I can take: Kennedy, Bus to Steeles. From Steeles, bus to 407, walk to the station to get my car. Neah, not in the mood to walk, ok all the way to Scarborough Town Centre, will call someone to give me a lift to the station to get my car. Half way through, I realize that there is a much faster route: TTC>Finch, VIVA to Univonville! Damn it, oh well, Frank, save me please.. Frank did what best friend would do, he came! He rescued me... Got my car,just about 1KM from home, a lady slam on the brake on the first sign of a yellow light, LITERALLY JUST TURN YELLOW, she slams on the brake, turn the steering wheel all the way to the right, damn, missed it, clipped out her bumper... did about 1K worth of damage on her car, and about 2K damage on mine. All these after I got the camera and 2 weeks before I am going to Japan. Just fabulous