Before I get into the “meat” of today’s update.. I’ll give you guys some more background on this SAP implementation project.. basically, a “team” of people was sent from a closely “related” company in Southern California to come to this company here in Taiwan to implement SAP 4.7. The US team is composed of 1 project manager (aka Dickhead), 4 long term people who are contracted to stay for 2 years to provide support (aka the idiots, which includes me), and about 5 short term people who fly home every 2-4 weeks and then come back. The short term people are experienced SAP people. The reason they fly back and forth is because they support the “home” company and their SAP system. So I guess you could say they’re doing double duty. Anyhow, today my partner/mentor came over to my apartment after dinner.. we were just shootin’ the shit and talking about what we did today and how it sucks here, blah blah blah.. after a few minutes of that, he told me he had to tell me something and that I couldn’t repeat it to anyone..

Me: “sure, I can keep a secret”
Guy: “ok.. well, I’m resigning tomorrow..”
Me: “holy shit! we’re screwed!”

He got an offer he couldn’t refuse.. which is great.. I’m happy for him.. at the same time, it’ll be sad to see him go.. he, being a white, all-American guy, was one of the only people here that actually enjoyed going to McDonald’s or TGIFriday with me. He’s also the guy that was supposed to teach me everything about Sales and Distribution. And he is just a generally cool guy. Both of us “dislike” living in Taiwan and I knew he was fed up with travelling back and forth.. he’s really involved with his two kids and their extracirricular activities (sports) and its pretty tough on him not to be around to see his kid score 40 points in an 85 point basketball game. So naturally, I just figured he was fed up with the current situation and just wanted out.. but he said the story goes back a couple of years.. way before we even came out here.. he asked me..

Guy: “do you feel comfortable with your old boss back home?”
Me: “uh.. yeah, I guess.. what do you mean? I ain’t gay if that’s what you’re saying..”
Guy: “I mean.. like, you get a feeling that he’ll take care of you.. like he wouldn’t just hang you out to dry.. like he would care if you left..”
Me: “yeah, I think so..
Guy: “I haven’t felt that way for 2 years..”

And I think that is one of the biggest things about being a good manager of people.. lots of times I hear people say, “managers don’t know shit..” or “managers don’t do shit”.. and sure, I can probably name a bunch of managers that I know that don’t do shit and don’t know shit.. but.. what do we expect from a manager? we, being the “working class”.. do you expect your manager to always be in the trenches with you, getting his hands dirty with whatever you and your fellow employees are working on? Ok, maybe some do.. but this is MY blog.. so I’ll tell you what I expect.. I don’t expect a manager to get his hands dirty.. not unless the job or project requires that he do the work.. what I really expect from a manager is to be able to use his resources to get the job done.. keep his people busy.. but most of all, keep his people motivated and happy. Because, and I’m sure most people will agree, that a happy worker is a good worker. Here’s a scenario for you.. pretend we got a project due on Friday.. we were given the task on Monday.. there are 2 guys on the team and one manager. From past experience (just follow me, here), we know that if the workers are happy, they will put in 12 hours a day without revolt, death threats or bomb threats.. if they are unhappy, they’ll put in the minimum, which we will assume to be 8, but any good slacker will know that it’s really much less. Now lets say this project, due Friday, requires 100 person hours (politically correct). Here are your choices as the manager:

a) Tell them that if they don’t have it done by Friday, heads will roll
b) Get your hands dirty and help the 2 workers with the project
c) Make them happy so that they will put in the extra effort to complete the job on time

If you chose ‘a’ or ‘b’, you’re an idiot.. not because I think you’d be a bad manager, but you already know that this is MY scenario and I gave you the damn answer above.. so yeah, ‘c’ is the correct answer. If you motivate your people, keep them happy, they will work for you. At that point, they’re not doing it for the company.. the company doesn’t exist for all they care, they only know that you are good to them, you motivate them, and they want to succeed for you. Sure, you can be a dick and tell them that heads will roll come Friday if the job’s not done.. but then, they’d only be doing it out of fear, which would eventually lead to some sort of hatred.. and eventually perhaps the worker would hate his boss so much, that’d he’d spend his own personal time on his ONLY DAY OF THE WEEK THAT HE HAS OFF to write about how his boss is a dick.. but I digress.. so, you keep your people happy.. they work hard, they like you, the job gets done.. everyone wins. Now, I bet some of you managerial types reading this are thinking.. “what a dumbass.. just how does he intend on making the employees happy? who’s going to pay for this happiness?”.. typical manager.. a typical manager is always thinking dollars and cents.. a typical manager has been a manager for so long that he’s forgotten what its like to be a regular employee.. not everyone is motivated soley by money.. some are happy with responsibility, some are happy with free lunches or dinners, some are happy with new PCs, new company-issued cell phones, or a laptop to take home when they need to VPN into work.. and yet, there are even some that are happy with just plain old recognition.. a simple pat on the back and an attempt at being sincere.. think about it, you know I’m right.. which brings me back to my story.. my partner has gone for 2 years without feeling like his manager even gave a shit that he was coming to work or that he would spend extra time supporting 2 systems or that he had to make a huge personal sacrifice of missing his kids play sports.. nothing, not even a pat on the back.. I wish I could be there when he tells them he’s resigning.. sad to say, I think it might improve the situation for the rest of us, especially the long term idiots.. its just sad that my partner had to be the “suicide bomber”, if you will, to show them that we’re fed up with all the bullshit..

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I saw the news article on Yahoo News.. one of my main sources of news on the internet.. reading the article, I was ready to hop on the next flight back home so I could start clearing supermarket shelves of canned food and bottled water.. today, I scoured the net looking for follow up articles to either confirm or deny that climate change would be such a threat to man-kind.. I still didnt find it.. but what I did find was the website of a self-procalimed left-wing liberal.. I read his take on the Pentagon document but he didnt seem that left-wing to me :???:.. anyhow, below his blog, he had a comments section.. I read all of them.. the comments could be categorized like this:

-”Hell yeah, its about time someone brought up the issue of climate change”
-”That dumbass GW Bush..”
-”This document confirms the conspiracy theory.. governments are poisoning their people”
-”What the hell is wrong with you freaks?”

It was the last comment that caught my attention.. the “what the hell is wrong with you freaks”.. the person said that the newspapers and news agencies were blowing the report out of proportion and suggested that people go read the whole document themselves.. so I did.. here’s the intro to the report:

We have interviewed leading climate change scientists, conducted additional research, and reviewed several iterations of the scenario with these experts. The scientists support this project, but caution that the scenario depicted is extreme in two fundamental ways. First, they suggest the occurrences we outline would most likely happen in a few regions, rather than on globally. Second, they say the magnitude of the event may be considerably smaller.

We have created a climate change scenario that although not the most likely, is plausible, and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately.

So, its kind of like a worst case scenario report.. like “what if..” and “if so, we need to..”.. geez, and to think I was about to raid my neighbors for their canned goods and potable water.. it does really make you think though.. I mean, what if Mulder was right all along? What if the government was working with aliens so that the aliens could harvest humans? Maybe the deal went bad when the aliens realized that the government couldn’t do anything about the aliens.. the “so what if I do? waddaya gonna do about it?” attitude. It would then be conceivable that the government introduce disease, illness, famine, and drought to the people so that the aliens would no longer want to harvest humans..

But seriously, I mean.. climate change is really something we all need to think about.. I’ll be sure to give it a lot of thought as I cruise down the highway in my twin T67 turbo Supra with no catalytic convertors running 6 1000cc injectors and getting 6 miles to the gallon.. just kidding :lol:.. I only need one T67 turbo and I’d probably only need like 880cc injectors :smile:…

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So I decided to do some investigating.. see if I could find a new article about how China counterfeited Harry Potter books.. I found a few from July 2002 that made mention of a counterfeit 5th book called something like ‘Harry and the Dragon Walk On’.. it was actually something really weird like that.. I’m sure it just sounded weird in English due to the translation.. also, before I start getting hate mail, I guess the 5th book is officially out because I read another article that said the publishers of the real book released it in China 10 days early to beat counterfeiters to market.. something like that.. anyhow, while I was browsing for articles.. I found this site (link removed because the website is just too full of shit.. see below).. this page basically lists a bunch of unscrupulous things that Chinese businesses have pulled on other European or American companies.. it mentioned a few nasty things.. like how China stole technology from Volkswagen or how they sell counterfeit Yamaha, Suzuki, and Honda motorcycles in China :lol:.. check it out.. those crazy mainlanders.. they need to learn to play fair before the US decides that China needs to be cleansed of WMDs, cleansed of its oil, and the 1.1 billion Chinese need to be freed from an evil communist party.. after reading a few of these, it wasnt painting a very good picture of China.. I mean, I know China is screwed up n’ all.. but this page seemed like it was inciting fear in people who read it.. so I scrolled to the top of the page.. “Fight back against anti-competitive corporate mergers, unfettered free trade, downsizing, declining wages and corporate greed!”.. hmmm.. one of those sites..

Coincindentally, I sent an email reply to a friend today that was asking me what I thought about outsourcing.. he included an article from Fortune magazine.. I read it.. apparently, it was a follow-up to an original piece written by the same author.. I guess he got a good amount of hate mail so he wanted to clarify and apologize, whatever.. but he still “kinda” stuck his ground.. before reading this article, I didn’t really have much of an opinion on outsourcing.. to me, it just seemed like something that was a little out of my league.. but after reading it, I formed an opinion (yeah, call Ripley’s.. I couldn’t believe it myself)..and that is:

On the surface, yeah.. it sucks.. outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries sucks.. no one can argue that.. no one in their right mind would ever say “outsourcing is good for American workers”.. but what a rational, profit generating individual can never deny is that outsourcing has almost become necessary for American companies to compete in a global economy..

Now before you start calling up your homies to form a lynch mob, let’s look at it in more simple terms:

Fictitious Example:
2 software companies, both produce one product which are pure substitutes for each other (the consumer does not gain any more by using product A as he does by using product B and vice versa). Both companies employ only 1 software developer each. Both companies are in the US . US Company #1 relies on Indian developers. US Company #2 relies on US developers. Each US developer makes $50k per year. The Indian developers make $25k per year. In very simplistic terms, let’s say this is the only cost (nevermind packaging, marketing, support, whatever.. because whatever you can think of, its cheaper in India.. besides, this is my fictitious example.. go get your own). Each company will produce 50,000 copies.

US Company #2 sells 50,000 copies @ $1.00 and breaks even. US Company #1 sells 50,000 copies at $1.00 (perfect substitutes, remember?) and generates a profit of $25,000. Which company would you rather invest in? Which company is going to survive? If you worked for US Company #2 (US developers), would you be willing to accept a 50% pay cut so that the company can stay competitive?:roll: Now think what happens if US Company #1 decides to sell 50,000 copies at $0.50 to break even and price US Company #2 out of the market..:idea:

No one, me included, likes the idea of their job being outsourced. But can you blame any rational, profit generating enterprise to not outsource as a means to cut costs and increase profit and/or remain competitive in an increasingly competitive world economy? Does this whole post sound like some bullshit a guy with only 2 years worth of an MBA education from a bottom-of-the-1st tier business school would spew because he mistakenly accepted an offer to work in Taiwan missing his 3rd year with the hope he’ll be able to return back home to California to finish his 3rd year in the Fall of 2005? Got daam you’re smart! (that’s ‘God Damn’ with a, ahem, Southeast Asian accent.. go on, say it again, you’ll see what I mean)

UPDATE:
I had nothing to do on this Saturday night, so I checked out that page I mentioned above.. I have an idea of the type of person that wrote this stuff.. but I’ll keep that opinion to myself.. the website is gnp.org (you can type it in your browser if you REALLY want to go check it out).. but I dunno.. the author makes a big deal out of this statement (its highlighted on the front page.. hmm):

When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make or provide it domestically.

Apparently it was taken from page 229 from the Economic Report of the President, 2004.. call me stupid, but that statement seems to make prefect sense to me.. if its cheaper for you to buy the parts rather than build them, then it would be economically wise to just buy it.. “let’s see.. I can buy a coffee table at Ikea for $20.. or, shit!, I can go to Home Depot, buy all the parts for about $100, spend another $200 for proper tools and machinery, and then spend 124 hours of my life to build it.. what should I do?”.. again, outsourcing, moving jobs/industries overseas sucks.. but what do people expect of profit maximizing companies? (profit maximizing.. you like that one, huh? I heard that a lot in Strategy)

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