ASW III continues

Note: ASW III is the nickname a classmate came up with for Mod IV of this school year. None of us wanted to do any work and we all acted like it was the summer ASW I and II sessions all over again.

 

As I was driving back to Chapel Hill this past weekend, it dawned on me that I spent the first week since graduation preparing for/doing interviews in Atlanta and the second one with my parents. So now that I am back in Chapel Hill, for the first time since graduation – make that first time since I can ever recall, I am able to enjoy my life as a free man with no obligations.

 

After spending the morning grabbing breakfast with a classmate who is leaving tomorrow and sending out some emails updating a couple of recruiters and professors on my job search, I spent a good part of the remainder of the day at the pool doing some extracurricular reading. It feels good to have nothing to do for a change. I spent tonight the way I spent last night, hanging out at the pool with a bunch of classmates. One was generous enough to serve as our bartender and kept refreshing our cups of magaritas and pina coladas. At one point he said, “hey (my first name), how about a strip tease?” Although I was drunk enough to jump up and stand onto the edge of a nearby flowerbed, I clearly was not drunk enough to actually proceed with it. As they all looked on thinking – fearing – that I might actually go ahead with the act, I jokingly kicked off my sandals and returned to my seat.

 

He said he wanted a “tease,” didn’t he?

Buckyhoo-HD

I apologize to all my readers who have refreshed the page this week and were disappointed to find no new post from me. After the meetings on Friday at the internet company (which I will blog about more next week when I return to Chapel Hill), I hightailed out of Atlanta and drove up to New York for a former co-worker’s wedding on Sunday. After the wedding, I drove down to my parents’ house where I have been ever since.

My parents got a new high definition television that I have been watching non-stop. I am amazed at how much clearer everything looks. Monday’s episode of 24 was spectacular because for the first time, I could finally see Jack Bauer in action on high definition. I will say, however, that this year’s show should have been rename 23:40 because the last 20 minutes were a total waste of bandwidth (for those receiving the show on cable) and FCC spectrum (for those receiving via antenna or satellite dish). After Jack had saved the day once again and showed up in Heller’s living room, I was expecting another plot twist. But instead of seeing Heller turn into a space alien, he just sat there and witnessed Jack’s mid life crisis.

Last night’s season finale of Lost was the exact opposite of 24, a total stunner. When I (oh by the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, this may be a good point to stop reading) saw the last “flashback” and saw the maps of Pacific Ocean on Jacks’ desk, I immediately realized it was not a flashback but a flashforward. I am guessing that next season will take place with the flashforward as the present and the flashback will be of the group on the island.

One thing about high definition is that contrary to what most think, it doesn’t make everyone look better. Rather, it only accentuates the characteristics you already know is there. I was watching the View on Tuesday and Elisabeth Hasselbeck looks like a real cutie. Meanwhile, Rosie O’Donnell still comes across like a ……

Becoming a road warrior

Yesterday I blogged that I was driving back to Chapel Hill after my informational interview at the internet company. That didn’t quite work out. Or you could say that it did work out, depending on your perspective.

I met with the college recruiter this morning and after talking to her for about ten minutes she listed five people she wanted me to meet with. These include the vice president whom I looked up on the alumni database who referred me to the recruiter, the interim CEO who is also a Kenan-Flagler grad, and three managers who may possibly be able to create a position for me. Unfortunately none of these people were in the office today because of an off site meeting but she was able to get me onto the schedule of two of these folks for tomorrow. So I am going to be staying one more day for tomorrow’s meetings and may have to come back late next week to meet with the other three.

For the past two nights I have used Priceline to book hotel rooms. The first night I offered $50 (all prices non inclusive of taxes and fees) and got a room at Homestead. The second night I lowered my bid to $44 and ended up at Extended Stay America. Both these hotels are substandard. This afternoon when I went to Priceline again I once again lowered my offer to $39 and was blown away but what I was given. I was assigned a $145 suite at the Hyatt. I am not entire sure why I bid lower today but ended up with a much better room but I am beginning to understand how Priceline works. I suspect it may be programmed to match you to the lowest grade room possible. That explains why I got Homestead and Extended Stay America the previous nights but by lowering my bid to $39, I must have priced myself below these hotels’ price minimums. The next time I use Priceline, instead of setting specifications to “two stars or above” (both Homestead and Extended Stay America are two stars) which is what I normally do, I am going to “start high” with three or four stars and if I don’t get a match lower the specifications.

I am glad I am beginning to learn these little tricks about how to best take care of myself when I am on the road. Especially since I know I will be traveling quite a bit between now and the time I start my new job.

A cautiously optimistic forecast

Greetings from my hotel room in outside of the “Atlanta beltway” in Marietta, Georgia. I left Chapel Hill much later than anticipated yesterday and barely got into the hotel room on time to watch the Republican presidential debate on the Fox News Channel. Of what little I saw, I thought the best line was from Congressman Tom Tancredo. He was responding to Brit Hume’s question about how as president he would react to a hypothetical terrorist attack on American soil and he said “instead of asking X (I don’t remember what X was), I would ask ‘where’s Jack Bauer?’” That line drew a laugh from the audience of one in my hotel room and from the live audience at the Kroger Center. After the debate I was watching Hannity and Colmes broadcasting live from the spin room at the debate site and spotted a Kenan-Flagler first year (actually, he’s a second year now) in the background.

I thought this afternoon’s interview for the product analyst position at the internet division of a cable television network went very well. I arrived early and waited in the reception area. While waiting, I overheard the receptionist taking a call from a viewer who was upset because he recently switched to satellite television and the new provider was unable to supply a particular channel he’s been used to watching. She politely explained that this was the fault of the provider and that in the five years she’s worked there, she’s received countless of such calls from viewers who were getting “the run around” from the satellite providers. I also had the chance to check out a giant flat panel television on the wall showing what’s currently shown on the television network and what’s on the internet web site.

The first interview went well. The interviewer was a data analyst and asked me questions about my experience with Excel and comfort with using and manipulating data. I asked a lot of questions about the company’s web site, which is one of the most visited internet destination in the country. Asking questions is tough because you want to show that you have thought about the position but you don’t want to ask questions as to make your interviewer think that you don’t have a clear idea of what the position is about. In this case, the interviewer’s answers made me realize that the division was mainly focused on desktop products and I made a mental note to not ask anything related to the web site. The second interviewer was a product manager and he began by asking me what I see myself doing three years from now. He then gave me a case question about how I would estimate the amount of gratuities given on a day in Las Vegas knowing that there are 300,000 hotel rooms in that city. The third interviewer was the director I interviewed with on the phone last week. We made small talk about my trip, talked about the four computers she had in her office, she showed me the diagrams on the wall showing the designs for what the next version of the software will look like. She asked me about the three things I wanted in my next job, a behavioral question about a time when I worked with difficult people (when I heard this question I had to momentarily suppress the red warning light that lit up on my mental dashboard), and I believe she also asked about my familiarity with the Microsoft Office suite and about where I see myself down the line.

After the interview, I went to the hotel, changed, and drove out to Buckhead for dinner. I changed into business casual clothes instead of shorts and a T-shirt because I wanted to mentally keep myself in a professional mindset. And I am glad I did this because judging by the number of Mercedes Benz I saw along the way, Buckhead is a pretty ritzy place. I think the interviews went very well. But I don’t want to become too optimistic because I have been disappointed by this company before and getting your hopes up (or down) will have no influence on the decision.

I have an informational interview tomorrow morning with a recruiter at an internet company and after that I will make the six hour drive back to Chapel Hill. I look particularly forward to driving through South Carolina again but this time, I will remember to slow down a bit. When I drove through it yesterday, I had to dodge more road debris in the first hour than I did in all the driving that I have done this year so far. Between these road hazards and the billboards advertising sex shops, cigarettes, and fireworks, there are enough distractions to make me wonder if I am carrying enough auto insurance.

Atlanta career trek

I am writing this at the Starbucks on Franklin Street where I am waiting for my car to finish getting an oil change. I will be traveling to Georgia later today for two interviews that I have lined up in Atlanta. Tomorrow afternoon I have an interview for the product analyst position that I mentioned last week. This is at the internet division of a cable television network. There is also an internet company (nowadays the term “internet company” can mean many different things) based in Atlanta that I am very interested in. Last week I emailed a couple of Kenan-Flagler alums (the interim CEO is an MBA alum) and expressed my interest and availability for an interview. I got an email from the recruiting department telling me that while it has not been able to match me with a manager who wishes to interview me for a specific position, it wants me to stop by for an informational interview (this is the term that I have heard students use when referring to an interview where you are there only to express your interest in the company) with someone in the recruiting department. That informational interview will be Thursday morning.

 

So the plan is to drive there today, look around a bit, and do some preparation work. When I drive into South Carolina this afternoon it will be, depending on how legalistic you want to be, my first time ever in the Palmetto State. The only other time I have been in South Carolina was on a high school trip when our tour bus stopped at South of the Border briefly at around midnight. Even though my feet have technically touched the ground in South Carolina, I don’t count myself as having been there just yet. Depending on how adventurous I am, I may stop by Columbia (which is about an hour out of the way) where tonight the Republican candidates for President will be debating at the University of South Carolina. I received an email form the UNC College Republicans group inviting me to Neal Boortz’s Fair Tax Rally and to hear a certain presidential candidate that I particularly like speak. I was originally planning to go but it’s beginning to look unlikely that I will be able to make it.

 

That’s all for now from Chapel Hill. In the time that it’s taken me to write this, I have seen two, possibly three, of my classmates come into the Starbucks. By the time I return from Atlanta on Thursday or Friday, hopefully I will still be able to count on running into as many of them.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it …”

My family members came into town this past weekend to celebrate my graduation from the MBA program. And what a weekend it has been. We had a graduation party at Spice Street on Friday night. As I walked around the room talking to classmates and professors, it dawned on me that I did not send out nearly enough “thank you card” to all the people I wish to express my gratitude to. The highlight of the evening was when one professor who has had a bit too much to drink started dancing provocatively with a total stranger at the entrance lobby of the restaurant and everyone started gathering around watching, pointing, and laughing. It was hilarious for us to watch the spectacle unfold and the only thing that would have made it more entertaining was if we had been at Lucy’s and she would have had the ceiling heating pipes to swing from.

Saturday was pretty boring. There was a party at He’s Not Here, which I went but didn’t stay very long because not too many people were there. I ended up going to Top of the Hill where a friend of mine from college was hanging out with his sisters and her classmates, who were all celebrating their graduation from another graduate program at UNC.

I did not end up going to the morning “big” graduation ceremony yesterday but went to church instead. Last night’s MBA graduation at the Dean Dome was good. The guest speaker managed to spend only 23 minutes talking about himself. We then gave out awards to selected students in the class who have made extraordinary accomplishments. Then it was time for the graduates to line up to walk onto the stage and be officially announced, in alphabetical order. There was a bit of unexpected drama when it was my turn to approach the stage. I waited by the steps as the students ahead of me cleared out. This gave me the chance to thank one of the staffers in theMBA program office for her work over the past couple of years. She said “go ahead” and I walked up the steps and handed my name card over to the director of the MBA program so he could read my name onto the microphone. The director then waited for what felt like an eternity before reading out my name. During the next four seconds I imagined him turning around and saying “you’re not graduating today, get the heck out of here!” But instead he just turned around, looked at me, and said “dramatic pause” as he waited for the students ahead of me on the stage to clear out before calling my name.

After the ceremony, we had a reception outside of McColl and I had the chance to say goodbye to some classmates and also hello to a couple of their family members. Starting today members of the Class of 2007 will begin to clear out of Chapel Hill. It’s sad because as May becomes June more and more of the people that I am used to regularly running into will be gone. For many of us this is the end of the world as we know it. But because a significant (maybe even a majority) number of the people I am friends and acquaintances with are not in the MBA program, life for me in Chapel Hill will remain relatively unchanged. And because of that, I feel fine.

"All the best,"

There is something that I have been planning to do since more than a year ago but have not gotten around to it until last night. I began writing thank you cards to some of the people who have helped me out over the past two years. Over the past year I have been compiling a mental list of people whom I wish to express my gratitude to for where I am today. This list is made up mostly of fellow second years, two professors from UVA, and maybe a couple of professors from Kenan-Flagler.

Fans of this blog probably already know that I like to express myself verbally. What they may not know is that I have always been a big fan of handwritten correspondence. I think this age of email, instant messages, and blogs has given mankind something of great convenience but at the same time, something valuable is lost when everything is typed into a standard keyboard and read over an impersonal electronic screen.

Unfortunately in the little time I have until my parents arrive tomorrow for graduation weekend I won’t be able to write to as many people as I wish to. I only hope that between students moving out of their Chapel Hill domiciles and some of these cards being sent to their parents’ addresses (because in some cases, I have to rely on the Kenan-Flagler alumni database for addresses and many of these addresses are the students' "permanent addresses"), it won’t be too long before these cards get read.

Chinese names and Western journalists who don’t understand them

I read an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about the Securities Exchange Commission investigating a couple in Hong Kong over allegations of having made $8 million by purchasing and selling Dow Jones stock using inside information. In addition to doing a good job at illustrating how inside trading takes place, it also sheds light on something I have noticed very frequently, that the Western press does not understand the correct “grammar” on Chinese names.

 

The thing to keep in mind is that Chinese names are structured differently than those of Westerners. The biggest difference is that the last name comes first. For example, if Bill Clinton were Chinese, his name would be Clinton Bill. He would then go to Tsinghua University where on one fateful afternoon he would have the chance to meet Rodham Hillary in the law library. After years of clerking for the local Communist Party chief, the couple gets married and the wife’s name becomes Clinton Rodham Hillary. In many ways it’s almost the exact opposite of the customs in the Western world.

 

“Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Kan King Wong and his wife, Charlotte Ka On Wong Leung, in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, charging them with insider trading in connection with their purchases of 415,000 Dow Jones shares. That's the equivalent of about 3% of the Dow Jones shares traded during the period when the couple were buying.” (Emphasis my own)

 

Let’s take a look at the paragraph above. The couple’s last name is Wong and the writers westernized their names by placing the last name at the end. The husband’s name is Kan King and the wife’s name is Ka On.. The wife’s English name is Charlotte, her maiden name is Leung, and if this article were written in Chinese, she would be referred to as Wong Leung Ka On, reflecting the Chinese custom of displaying the husband’s last name, wife’s maiden name, followed by wife’s first name.

 

The problem arises when writers westernize Chinese names and yet the westernization is not consistent across the entire article.

 

“In yesterday's complaint, the SEC detailed a "highly unusual" pattern of trading by the Wongs from April 13 through April 30, the day before the details of the offer for Dow Jones became public. On April 18, $3.1 million was transferred to Ms. Wong's account from her father, Hong Kong businessman Michael Leung Kai Hung, according to court papers. The SEC alleges that money was used to buy some of the Dow Jones stock in question.” (Emphasis my own)

 

See something funny here? The father’s last name is Leung and his English name is Michael. In Chinese, his name would be Leung Kai Hung but in accordance with the using the westernized formatting, he should have been introduced as Michael Kai Hung Leung.

Near miss on 24

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS OF LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE OF 24.

Is it my imagination or is 24 getting a bit predictable? As I was watching last night’s episode and saw Agent Doyle and his team getting ready to raid the warehouse, I couldn’t help thinking that Chang was really somewhere else and his mercenaries were preparing to hit CTU. The only part that I was wrong about was I thought the goal was to kidnap Morris and use him to repair the chip. Instead they were going after that Bauer kid and using him to as payment to Phil Bauer for getting the chip working.

Either I am getting better at predicting plot twists or the writers are getting worse at coming up with new stuff. I am guessing it’s more the latter. Since CTU has already been attacked twice in the series and most recently it happened in the last season, most veteran 24 watchers probably predicted the same thing as well. My prediction is that Agent Doyle realizes from the phone call that something was going on at CTU and returns to engage the mercenaries.

But the more I think about what I saw, the more I realize that television is an extremely dicey business and last night’s episode could have been a major disaster for the broadcast network. Let’s say hypothetically speaking that Fox decided to start the new season three weeks earlier than it actually did. In that scenario, last night’s episode would have aired on April 16. So less than 12 hours after the Virginia Tech shooting, Fox would have aired an episode showing a group of Chinese guys running into a building, locking all the exits, and started shooting while everyone else dived underneath their desks. What a dilemma that would have been? What would Fox have done in such a situation – air the episode as scheduled, air a clip show and delay its schedule by one more week, or air a disclaimer giving away the plot twists and telling viewers to not watch if they were sensitized to the events of that morning?

I wonder if even Joe Surnow and the people who work for him realize how they really dodged the bullet with last night’s episode, no pun intended.

Slip sliding away

Listen carefully. You hear that? That is the sound of my MBA career coming to a close. I became more keenly aware of this on Thursday night when I went out to Franklin Street and found very few people to hang out with. Most of my classmates have left town either for the beach or to visit loved ones before coming back for graduation. It’s a bit frustrating that so many people in my class have solidified their plans for post graduation and I still haven’t found anything yet.

 

My phone interview on Thursday with the internet division of a cable television network went well. We began with the casual small talk and I mentioned in passing an item I saw on that company’s web page. The interviewer asked if I am a long time user and I told a story about how I lost an umbrella last month and used that company’s web page to find out when it rained last to help me figure out where I could have left it. I then mentioned having recently installed a software product made by that company and told her what I like and don’t like about it and how it compares to that product’s main competitor. She said what I told her reflected what the consumer focus groups have been telling her over the years.

 

She then told me that while she really liked what I had to say, she unfortunately had to tell me that the product manager position for which I was applying for had already been filled. This didn’t come as a total surprise because about 20 minutes before the interview, I had gone onto the web page to take a look at the job description and saw that it had disappeared. She then told me about a product analyst position that was still available, gave me a brief description of how it compares to the product manager position, and told me to look it over and give her a decision by Friday as to whether I was interested. I thanked her for her time and promised her a reply by the next day.

 

I am actually quite familiar with the product analystposition. I saw it in the previous week when I looked on the web page. I remember thinking that the job description made it sound a bit too technical and it reminded me of many of the topics I had encountered in the more math-oriented classes that I didn’t like. I thought about it over the next 24 hours. I realized that the position may require me to use some of the more difficult and harder (hard skills, as opposed to soft skills) skills I have encountered in the MBA program but the entire point of me going to business school is to do things I wasn’t able to do before. Being able to succeed in this position will certainly be a powerful way of illustrating that I came out of the MBA program more prepared than when I entered it. Besides, if I am unable to do something like use a time series illustration to help push forward a business, not only do I deserve to get fired but Kenan-Flagler should revoke my MBA.

 

On Friday morning, I emailed the interviewer and told her I am interested in the product analyst position. I feel like I wouldn’t be telling you the whole story if I were to self-censor this post and refrain from telling you I was a bit disappointed that the product manager position had already been taken. One of the thoughts I had after I got off the phone was that perhaps I should have looked at the web site earlier. Or perhaps I should not have waited two days after seeing the job posting before contacting my contact at the company whom I interviewed with last year for the summer internship. Or perhaps I should have scheduled the phone interview earlier instead of waiting all the way until Thursday (I was given multiple dates to choose from and chose the latest one). But one of the things I have learned from this process is to not cry over spilled milk and to trust God almighty and His timing.

Turning the tables on the interviewer

I keep hearing about how employers are now using Google to seek information about job applicants. So I figured I might as well use that to my advantage by doing an internet search for the interviewer whom I will be talking to later today. I found her entry on LinkedIn, learned she is a UVA grad, what extracurricular activities she was involved with in college, where she went to grad school, and what positions and companies she has worked at previously. I then found out her maiden name on Hoosonline and using both her maiden and current names found a couple of articles where she talked about some of the new products that she launched for the company.

 

The only thing the internet search did not tell me is whether I should begin the conversation by saying “Wahoowa.” It’s funny how everytime I interview with this company, it’s with a UVA grad.

Houston, we (possibly) have a problem

I emailed my professor yesterday my final assignment for acquiring proprietary technology class. At around 8pm last night I checked my email and saw his reply.

 

“I only got the executive summary of your paper. Could you please cut-n-paste the other parts (and make any corrections you want) and send me one final document to print?”

 

That’s funny because I did email him the entire paper, not just the executive summary. I figure either one of two things happened. Either he saw the words “executive summary” at the top of the paper, saw that it was only four pages, did not realized my paper was single spaced, and assumed I only gave him the executive summary portion (executive summary was only suppose to be two pages). Or he looked at it, thought it was lacking, and his email was his way of telling me to add more work onto it.

 

I really didn’t have time to continue writing the paper but wanted to get at least a P (pass). So I went from erring on the side of brevity to doing so on the side of length and threw in everything but the kitchen sink.

That’s a wrap

I just emailed the acquiring proprietary technology final assignment to my professor a few moments ago. Going to the rest of the week relaxing and then prepare for my interview on Thursday. Not a bad way to start off the month of May.