Note taking

May 19th, 2010 atwork

This conversation (on yahmdallah’s blog) could easily take place in my office.

…I came across this idea using Microsoft’s wonderful OneNote application and fell in love with the paradigm of being able to rearrange notes taken on the fly into a more cogent form later. With a pad of notebook-like post-its, you can do the almost the same thing. And if a page is meaningless, you can discard it.

Well, that was apparently the offense I gave with my note-taking style: I was observed (again, creepy creepy creepy) throwing away some of the pages from amongst my notes right after a meeting. This (as reported) gave the impression that my notes were “too ephemeral”, “too disposable”.

*nod* *nod* I would be told I’m wasting post it notes.

Oh, and one of the reasons I use paper notes at all is I used to use my blackberry, because I’m a decent miniature keyboard typist (though most teens type circles around me), and I’d use the note feature to take my notes. However, this prompted the first unsolicited commentary on my note-taking, which was: it gave the impression (and that phrase was used both times: “gave the impression”) that I was texting and not listening, so bring a pencil and paper next time. Which means I have to spend cycles transcribing paper notes into electronic form.

*nod* *nod* I would be asked to pay attention.

NearFar on Overcoming Bias

May 18th, 2010 atwork

I’ve been reading NearFar am fascinated by it. It makes sense – distancing (and not just time) requires more abstraction. With that different level of details, a problem now has a different frame and a different solution. In a discussion, I can’t see your point of view and I discount it immediately because I have more detailed ‘near’ information of my own point of view. Plus, both parties in the discussion assume that we have accurately assessed ‘far’ information when we usually haven’t.

I was reading this and thinking about happiness at work.

You hear this sort of thing in a lot of articles. I remember Gabe Sherman’s New York magazine piece that quoted a banker saying, basically, I deserve this money — I’m answering my BlackBerry at 2 a.m.

The question is what’s the answer? Can you cut everyone’s pay and hours in half so people are happier and you have more reasonable salaries? That’s tough. Certain people really are crucial. But it’s a bit odd when someone says they deserve to get paid so much because they answer their BlackBerry at 2 a.m. and the guy at my convenience store doesn’t get to go home until his shift ends at 3:30 a.m. People on Wall Street work very hard and they feel they chose this path because there was a reward promised to them. And now, when it’s being taken away from them, they get very angry. If the reward hadn’t been offered to them, they feel they would’ve followed their passion and become a journalist or something.

Happiness is a far goal – it requires a little abstraction and self-control to discount present desires.  If people working in a place is not miserable (by taking certain actions to provide the place with a minimal level of happiness), and perhaps won’t demand as much money as a substitute of them being less than happy, and IT might actually fix your PC instead of asking you to reboot until it works.  The problem with trying to persuade everyone to think far is the presence of near thinking incentives: yearly bonuses, uncertain job/economic conditions, half yearly appraisals, dynasty changes. I can’t come up with any far thinking incentives at all.   Does this mean misery in the workplace is inevitable? (I remember reading that woman have become as unhappy as men after they have entered the workforce.) That this misery is actually self-control to achieve a happiness of the individual (family, hobbies/indulgences)?

ECAs

March 3rd, 2010 atwork, screen

How’s your video, texted my aunt yesterday.
In the middle of it. Ssssh, filming now.

My colleague B in the scene was a disgruntled worker and we were filming his victory dance sequence. The practice didn’t go well. He got the moves but didn’t look the part. He read the lines without effort.  I had no idea what to do. I can’t teach him how to do act when I can’t do it myself – I am a terrible mimic.

“Action!”

I’m not certain what happened. When the camera began rolling, the chap in front of it was not B.  He delivered the dance, the lines, the scowls, the  crying, everything and a thousand times more than what I wrote.  He did what was in my head. We just left the camera on and stuffed our mouths with hankies throughout the filming because he was incredibly funny and we were laughing too much. I love watching live acting done well. And to watch it in front of my face, was amazing.  He makes me want to write more lines, better lines for this brilliant actor.

~

Would I do a film again? There were a few seconds of incredible stuff happening on screen. There were also a lot of incredibly tedious stuff happening onscreen. I don’t enjoy filming, the camera angles, visualising the scene in my head. I prefer writing. I like coming up with jokes more than doing the whole directing, producing and editing stuff.  I will try harder if the jokes are not funny but I get easily discouraged when people can’t do the lines properly,  or they start being human.

Against The Gods by Peter Bernstein

August 20th, 2009 atwork, books

Thanks, Phil for the two books!

The book began with a lot of mathematical history tracing the developments of mathematical concepts in the application to the management of chance. It was fun at first but I found the fun difficult to sustain. These math greats are often discussed on In Our Time so it wasn’t because of unfamiliarity but that brief bios and accomplishment listings become quite boring after a while.

Closer to the end of the book, I got interested again when Bernstein talked about Prospect Theory. It’s not a new theory (part of behavioral economics) but I’ve not thought about it from a risk perspective. What Prospect Theory says is that how a person chooses depends on how the choices are framed and from this, the person selects the option that gives the highest utility, which we could think about it as the least pain/regret.

This leads me to re-think about Index funds. Since indices are baseline measures to rate fund manager’s performance, perhaps to rate equity index funds as for clients with high risk appetite is not quite accurate since the risk is approximately market beta and the return for that risk is approximately market return and it might frame the fund as high pain/regret and therefore shift investments into greater proportions of bonds/money market funds that earn much lower returns.

Insurance

August 17th, 2009 atwork

From Against the Gods (Peter Bernstein):

Underwriters were willing to write insurance policies against almost any kind of risk, including, and according to one history, house-breaking, highway robbery, death by gin-drinking, the death of horses, and “assurance of female chastity” – of which all but the last are still insurable.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Phone’s ringing – what do you do?

April 25th, 2009 atwork

Syaffolee says “I think it has finally sunk into people’s heads that I hate answering the phone if it’s for a Certain Post-Doc in the lab next door” .

Not answering phones is a wide-spread disease at my workplace, more prevalent in particular units than others. In some instances, people don’t even answer their own desk lines even when they are there! They could be, of course, working on some stuff and can’t be disturbed at time of calling. The other alternative is to send emails. They don’t read emails. However there is a loophole to this. If the call hails from a HOD phone line, their occupation miraculously fades away andcall gets answered and problems are resolved, clarifications are given. Sometimes I ask if the HOD could try to see if they are screening calls (she’s a really decent sort) and whatever the problem is, it is resolved, clarifications given.

ROD Mode

August 30th, 2008 atwork

From Michael Blowhards

Have you heard of the expression “short-timer”? A “short-timer” is someone who’s still at work even though he has already made other arrangements. [...] Being a short-timer is, in any case, a fun if exasperating experience. It’s fun because — although you’re still employed, still getting paid, and still showing up — you don’t really give a damn any longer. Why should you? Practically speaking, you’re just wiling away the time until your scheduled day of departure arrives. It’s exasperating because you still have to show up.[...]I found it completely bizarre that my bosses expected me not just to show up but to continue to perform. Had no one ever told them about the short-timer effect? I’d attend meetings, listen to plans, take note of orders — and think, “They have got to be kidding. They can’t expect me to care about any of this, can they?”

The term used locally is ‘ROD mode’ – also a military term. Although I’ve had a couple job changes, I’ve never experienced ROD mode (in fact, I would usually have to return after work hours to pack my box). I do remember, wondering aloud if I should be left out of meetings so that I don’t have to hand over too many things.

HODs or Team Leads do feel that they have to bend the exiting staffer to their will, yet is always grateful when the staffer exiting is still performing. Perhaps male TLs and HODs feel differently. When I was a TL, when a good staffer shows the white envelope, there is a little corner that is upset by the act of rejection, regardless of the thousands of compelling reasons for the person to join someplace else – did I do something wrong? As a staffer, I do feel some inexplicable guilt, as though I have betrayed someone or something. Concepts of loyalty and betrayal is at odds with a highly mobile workplace because first, this is not the army where you live and die with your TL and the other troops, second, business decisions don’t typically take into human sentiments into account. As staff would leave companies for better companies, companies would leave staff for better staff. Yet anyone who has to make these decisions feel guilt. ROD mode, which is the logical part of yourself, steps in to deal these feelings.

On the meaning of passion

August 13th, 2008 atwork

“Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn’t really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office – unless things have gone very wrong indeed. And yet passion is something that every employee must attest to in order to get through any selection process. Every one of the candidates in the final rounds of interview on the Apprentice solemnly declared that they were passionate about being Sir Alan’s Apprentice.”

Tee hee.

How To Become A Genius

May 7th, 2008 atwork

You must clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition, preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption, and never resist sleep when tired. This should lead to radically improved intelligence and creativity. The only cost: turning your back on every convention of social life.

Found here.

Dinner with friends

January 19th, 2008 atwork

Strangely, we have moved from talking about our purchases, colleagues, our holidays – our indulgences, in short – to work and family life. On work, assessing opportunities, considering career moves and on family life, more specifically the lack of a complete family life at this age. Z brought it up first. Her mother observed that many friends our age are single or even if attached, not knotted, or even if knotted, childless. We didn’t moan, we merely touched on the observation as though a puzzle. Is it our year? Because, said V., my sister’s friends always come with their husbands and babies during Chinese New Year.

Remember Stanley Tucci who is Nigel in Devil Wears Prada? He said, “Let me know when your whole life goes up in smoke. Means it’s time for a promotion.”

I’ve always thought that working hard is always an excuse for single women who are not very pretty or have horrid personalities. My point of view has completely turned when a friend of mine began working hard. Her dating life from a line of chaps longer than the queue at Lim Hock Guan before Chinese New Year become nothing, almost overnight. This is not for the lack of meeting the right people – she’s in front line. I simply cannot understand. I also cannot understand those who have gotten promotion after promotion yet have the right accessories: the 3 caret ring, the landed property, the post-grad on the wall, the fashionably dressed baby on size zero hip and husband’s lightly to moderately hairy arm slung over the shoulder. How did they do it without performance enhancing drug? Perhaps they are truly the abnormalies.

Reading Jolene’s post ‘Less Than‘ – actually, the commentaries – I wondered at first, if wanting to have the above described accessories is the result of me (or my friends) being measured against the standards of the previous generation or us wanting to conform to some norms. I think it is more like this. In the pursuit of happiness, I conclude that certain outcomes result in happiness and therefore want to work towards this imagined utopia. How did I conclude? Not through new age advanced to intermediate soul searching techniques but admiring what some other is having and wanting it for myself. If I am not continually ecstatic in our existing circumstance, a better circumstance will result in me being ecstatic all the time.