The Japanese, yet again, have it right.

The CEO of Japan Air Lines has cut his own perks and salary for the past 3 years running. And when I say perks, I’m not saying he decided to fly First Class instead of having a private jet, a la Big Three Automakers.

No, I mean he takes the bus to work, sits in the common bullpen for doing his job, stands in line for lunch with everyone else at the cafeteria, and yes, even makes LESS than his own pilots. His pay? $90,000 US dollars.

I think it’s imperative that this video and the message get out. If someone else has a blog, I’d recommend linking to it as well.

Tags: Business, Economy

Interesting post about outsourcing

Personally, I have to constantly explain to people who roll their eyes when I tell them that I used to work for a call center in India that the people who worked there weren’t stupid or didn’t understand the English language. It’s just that there was a lack of training from the top-down so that the company could get the most money possible instead of worrying about ‘customer service.’

This article also brings up other timely and important issues which I think are valuable to the debate, especially this one: “When people have a bad experience with a domestic firm, they rightly blame the firm, but if they have a had experience with an offshore firm, people are always quick to blame the country first. This is both irrational and unfair.”

Enjoy the read.

Tags: Business, India

Purty computers

I know I know, it’s very nerdy. But you really should check out these laptops. They are so thin, so streamlined, so.. dare I say… sexy? Or maybe it’s just me, knowing also that they use stable-state disks instead of the regular platter spinners that are in all computers right now.

Tags: Business, Computers, Neat

No, your cell phone isn’t going to crash the airplane.

“We can put a man on the moon — and let him chat with his friends in Houston for the whole trip. Surely, we can solve the problems associated with in-flight cell calls.”

Such ends a great article about the real reasons that cell phones are banned on airplanes. The last page especially makes some very good points that should be considered.

Curiouser and curiouser…

Tags: Business, Headline, Neat

Unprofessionalism in India

I am seething mad right now. I just got told a few moments ago, “Don’t think that just because I am lady I can not say something. Your God will punish you. You are thinking ‘I am very smart because I saved 200 rupees.’ But God will very much punish you…..–click– (phone dies)”

Let me back up a bit.

I made this video tape that I wanted to convert to a digital format. Basically, I just wanted it to get on my hard drive so I could send it to a director as an audition, and it was just 10 minutes of footage. Unfortunately, the cable that came with the camera was really old and wouldn’t fit on my computer. So last Thursday, I went to a local photography store and asked if they do video conversion. She replied, “Yes I can do that.” Okay then. That was that. I gave her the video and asked how long it would take. “Two days.” I could live with that (even though I knew that it’d just take 10 minutes to actually do it). “I’ll call you,” she said. Sure, I can live with that too.

Well two days came and went. But I gave it the benefit of the doubt and thought, maybe she doesn’t do weekends. So I waited for a phone call. No phone call. By Thursday it was already a week and I decided it’s time to drop by.

“Where’s my tape,” I asked. She smiled, looked at me a bit confused and said, “Is there rush?” I politely smiled and said, “Yes. There’s a rush.” “Okay… they gave me camayra for it. Now you just call me tomaawrow and remind me. Then I vill not forget; you vant by ewening?” “Yes, that’ll be fine. I’ll call you tomorrow at 5.” I thought to myself later, if I had said that there’s no rush, then would it mean that the tape would be there indefinitely? When is it exactly that a customer doesn’t need something back EVER and just drops it off for the photo shop to keep?

So Friday evening (yesterday) I call her to remind her. She says it’ll be ready by 7, and that she’ll call me. (Once again with the calling me.) At 8ish I call her, and she says, “Okay today it vill not be ready, but tomorrow 8 am sharp I will bring it your house myself.” I sigh, and say, “Fine,” my anger simmering under my breath.

This morning, 8 am comes. No call. I call at 9ish, and she doesn’t pick up the call even after 10 rings. I wait until 9:40ish, and head to the store. Some guy’s there and has no clue. I am *clearly* pissed by now and tell him to talk to ‘madam’. So he calls from my phone and she wants to talk to me. She says, “Yes you called earlier but hung up before I could pick up.” (Notice how she shifts the blame.) “Well,” I start, “I rang 10 times and you didn’t pick up. You could’ve easily called me back because you had my number then, didn’t you?” “What,” she questioned, and acted confused. “You had my number,” I stated louder, “and you didn’t call me this morning either.” “Oh that I am yeah sorry yeah, I did not get it done in the morning some confusion waz there.” So I persist: “In that case shouldn’t you call me and notify me??” She’s stuck and she knows it. “No I did not do it.” “Alright, so how long until I get this?” “He vill be there in 1 hour only. In one hour he will be at the studio.” (Alright, so finally at 10:40 I’ll have my video.) “Fine.”

I called her at 11 to make sure it was there. “He has left now only, vill be there in 20 minutes.” Heavy sigh. At 11:20 I show up. And of course, there’s no CD/tape. I wait around until 11:46 and call her. “He did not come ‘et? Then I vill call him and call you back.” “No he has not come yet, and it’s been almost an hour now since he left.” “Okay okay, I will call him and call you.” She calls back to tell me that he’ll be there in 10 minutes.

Now just a side note, I want you to know that it is BLAZING hot in Bangalore right now. And I mean BLAZING. I’m standing there at this little shop on the side, outdoors, and I’m sweating my ass off for some guy who may have decided to have an early lunch for all I know.

I wait until 12:01, then turn to the guy at the counter and give him my address. I tell him that the delivery guy can come to my apartment; I’m not waiting any longer.

FINALLY AT 12:15, the doorbell rings. The guy gives me the tape and cd, and I ask how much. “300 Rupees.” Did I hear that right?? 300 RUPEES?? For 10 minutes of footage that takes less than 10 minutes to copy to a CD that costs 40 rupees, and that’s more than a week late with all this mess??

“I’ll pay 100. That’s it. No more.” I hold firm in my ground.

The delivery guy goes on about how it’s not possible, I have to pay 300 rupees, and so forth. I say that it’s not, and you can call ‘madam’ for all I care, and I’ll talk to her. He starts off, but his English is clearly not strong, and he says stuff about how he had to drive 30 km and the camera was this and that and the other thing. I tell him I don’t care because that’s not my problem. That’s something that could’ve been told me earlier and I would’ve gone elsewhere. He continues, and then calls the lady. She tells me that please I have to pay the amount, I can’t do this to her, etc. I tell her, “You did this to yourself. You could have told me last week about this and you didn’t. This happened because of your own unprofessionalism.” We go on for a bit more, and then I tell her I’m holding my ground. I open the door and go to the guy (I had closed the door on him), tell him I’m giving him 100 and nothing more. If he wants more, I’m closing the door
and giving him nothing. He starts up again and I go, “Fine. I’m calling security.” “Okay, okay,” he says and takes the hundred.

He leaves.

And then I get a phone call from the lady with the quote from the beginning of this post.

See what peeves me off the most about this is that she feels that I did this to her to save 200 rupees but I did nothing of the sort. I sent her a text message afterwards telling her that if she noted, I didn’t curse her and say that her God will punish her or anything, and it’s not about the 200 rupees. I told her it’s about respect, keeping your word, and professionalism.. I told her “God bless you, and take care, but please learn a lesson about this kind of behavior in your business.” She hasn’t replied back, and I doubt she will.

Who knows, I may have to pay the 200 rupees. I don’t care really, because I made my point. It’s not a matter of the money, it’s that a lot of people think they can take you for a ride and still have everything work right for them. If you make a mistake in your business with your customer, you immediately confess, offer an apology, and a reimbursement for their troubles. All I can hope is that maybe, just maybe she’ll think twice about making this mistake again with another poor sap.

I’m out.

Tags: Business, Happenings

And the job search begins…and a hilarious prank on John McCain

So most people, right as they’re leaving college, go, “I need to get me a job!” (Well at least if they have incorrect grammar and talk like morons.) They spend their last semester or year frantically searching anywhere for a job, so that someone- ANYONE- will take them. After all, “I so totally just did this AWESOME project in Field Project and this other thing in my Capstone class that was totally perfect for your company, sir!”

Right.

I’ve been lucky enough to waft through that intense job search for a few years now, because I’ve been in India. I’ve been lucky enough to get a job as soon as I walked into the first office here in Bangalore, and then through contacts, have one way or another of making money. And no I’m not talking about doing that for money thank you very much.

But no more. The dream ends now. I’ve begun applying for jobs in the US, particularly in California. I figure if I can get a job in the real Silicon Valley with actual Web companies, the better. So that’s what’s up in my world. But here’s a little note for all you kids out there who are planning to apply for a job: Don’t apply at 4 am. Here’s what I wrote a recruiter (who will most likely *not* be contacting me).

McCain Gets Punk’d
So apparently the guy who did John McCain’s MySpace page stole a graphic from another guy’s web server, which is taboo in web design. (Make it yourself, or at least give credit to the other guy.) So the original designer decided to change the “borrowed” graphic to say– ah hell, read it yourself.

Tags: Business, Funny, Happenings

Business talk.

Alright I don’t usually put much business minded material on the site, but I think this letter from Brad Garlington, one of Yahoo!’s head honchos out to the rest of the company, is amazingly effective and talks about what happens when companies begin to lose their edge, and how to ‘clean house’, so to speak.

(If/)As you read, finish off with this quote, which I’m making my Quote of the Day for today:

“When Toyota chairman Hiroshi Okuda was asked why GM is losing, he said: ‘GM hires the best MBA’s, but Toyota hires the best engineers.’”
-explaining the difference between American companies and their more successful Japanese counterparts

Tags: Business, Neat, Quote of the Day