Personalities at work #2 - Perspectives goggles

I was just thinking today how convenient it would be to have a pair of perspectives goggles. Peek through it, and immediately you get a glimpse of your colleague's perspective.

Sometimes we get ensnared in a silly internal squabble, and at the end of the day it's always "person A thought this, person B thought it would be better done that way, person C barges in half way" then too many cooks spoil the broth so to speak. Happened to me bright and early this past Monday morning - without warning a colleague decided to drop a politely nasty email looping in tom dick and harry.

Now, if only we had that perspectives goggles! Everyone takes a turn to peek through it, and suddenly the other person's rationale for doing what he/she does crystallises in an instant. No miscommunication, more efficient cooperation, more work done, everybody goes off early for a quick beer at the pub downstairs. If only life was that easy huh.

My (our?) song

Cram my ears with music, fill my head with a million thoughts, do crazy bad dance moves, if only to shut out the deafening loneliness.



City that never stops eating

Awesome awesome awesome!!! I like this name better than City of Angels. As the guy says (in what seems to be super fluent Thai, no less), this nickname is probably more fitting. So looking forward to stuffing my face in the City that never stops eating.

I know lots of people go to BKK almost exclusively for shopping, and I totally understand that. It must be such a high to get the same stuff at a fraction of the price one pays for them here. Im abit greedier though. When I go travelling I hope to immerse myself totally in the environment, Like the Chinese say, the environment makes the individual. Im curious to probe further, what exactly in this environment makes up the people of this country? Could be food, culture, religion, lifestyle choices, fashion....whatever. I want to explore them all. I think it is this curiousity that fires up my excitement every time I travel somewhere. Suddenly there are so many potential opportunities to explore.

For the religion bit, Im definitely visiting the palace of the emerald buddha - the Grand Palace. Food can be found everywhere, so not too hung up about exact restaurants to visit, leaving it up to Lady Chance. There is this floating market with "boat stalls", vendors who sell food from their boats along the river. Seems really interesting, will make it a point to visit. Not like Im going to abandon shopping totally, am going to zero in on as many vintage fashion stalls/ shops as possible. Besides the obvious answer of Chatuchak Market, the recently opened Rod Fai railway night market seems promising. Looking at all the random Google images I just get more hyped up, hope I wont be let down, fingers x-ed.

xxxxxxxx

There are days when I feel really lucky to be in my current job. Yesterday was one of them. We meet many new people all the time in this industry, so you know a really interesting person when you talk to one. Met this guy who's asia-pac director of a new service we'are testing out, basically he's an IT start-up entrepreneur. He was telling us about the HK IT bubble, when a whole flood of new IT start-ups got ridiculously successful and rich. Snazzy 2-storey penthouse office, complete with huge plasma TVs. But really, it's not about the huge office or TVs. When you talk to some of these guys, their genuine and total enthusiasm in whatever they do is infectious. It makes you realise that there is a much bigger world of opportunities out there than you can imagine, and if you believe in something strongly enough, and are willing to put in 200% or more effort, your vision just might come true. But yes there is always a caveat. Sheer hard work, and vision.