Sunday, February 25, 2007

Cellphones and Toilet Paper??

I was at a meeting recently where everyone there had some awesome cell phone ( oh, excuse me they call them Mobiles). About 15 countries represented at the meeting and the Asian guys had the best ones of all.

My phone just rings. Just a plain old ring. No fancy ringtones or whatever. In fact, I lump cellphones into the same category as toilet paper. Cheap and disposable.

Ok, I do lust after the iPhone though. I saw on some website you can print out some fold-up pattern that looks like an iPhone when your done. Just to play tricks on people I guess....

30 Pages Down & 1 Week to go!

OK, getting caught up now after a big paper due in class this week. One more week to go in this class and then on to the next.

That puts me at 19 weeks left. Oh that feels so, so close!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Extreme Jobs

I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago ( the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review) on the "danderous allure " of extreme jobs. It was an interesting podcast and I went and read the entire article ( I can't remember the issue but within the last 6 months).

It sure was interesting and described how some jobs are just so extreme that some employees ( who have these jobs) wear their dedication like a badge of honor. I certainly see their point about having some job that is so tremendously exciting ( not rock stars here) but demanding. They described the concept as jobs that demand 24/7 access, high pressure jobs like full commission sales or investment banking, consultancy work and jobs that require someone to spread out over APAC, EMEA and Americas region time zones.

It was a very interesting article and I would expect these workers receive above-average salaries. Unfortunately you can't have much of a life when you work 90 hours every week for 20 years. In fact, I would expect a family life would suffer dramatically as would your health.

I believe in working hard but there has to be some payback in the end ( family time and your sanity)!

Back In the USA

Ok, I'm back catching up on things after a business trip overseas. Things do pile up after a while! I was struck by the whole concept that work / life balance seems to be very blurred by my European colleagues during this trip. Certainly business dinners going til midnight aren't the norm every night but it does cause the family to get short-changed. I was suprised that many of them felt like it just "goes with the territitory" and that us Americans need a thicker skin.

I think things haven't gone far enough in this country to help employees balance everything. Happy employees are productive employees and I firmly believe that.

To celebrate that I slept in til 6:45 this morning! ( I know, life on the edge...)

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Learning Teams Rock!

I'm very happy after a busy several days that my current learning team in this MBA class is really working out great. Usually you find out pretty quick who the slackers are. This is a pretty motivated bunch and we plowed through this week's assignment early. Nice to enjoy some time off with the family.

I can see the finish line - 22 weeks to go!