I had a drink with a friend coming back from Toronto tonight. He moved to Toronto a few years ago when his company closed down the Vancouver office, outsource all the work to China. He told me that his company is going to close the research and developement center in Toronto and move the operation to Poland. He is working in software, which hit badly by the latest oursoucing trend. It is hard to competite with programmers and engineers in the third world countries who only cost 1/3 of your salary. Althought I am relatively safe working as a hardware engineer where the tools cost much more than my salary, I can feel effect of out sourcing to the high tech industry. I am not a protectionist, I don’t think we can resist the force of the invisible hand. The only job security we have is to be more productive to justify our salary, reduce the salary to stay in competition or move up the food chain to a position that can’t be outsourced. The good thing is the total supply of qualified engineers in the world is limited. The pool of engineers in Indian or China will eventually exhuasted and the global job market will reach an equalibium state, where they no longer have the cost advantage. I read an article from the Economist that it will only take 10 years from here to there. The key is not seeing them as your competitors, instead you should put yourself in the position be their superior. You can only move up if the primard grows bigger. If there is a in flow many less qualified engineers, shouldn’t you able to floated up the ladder with the influx putting them underneath yourself?

Today I had a taco salad for lunch in the cafeteria. The taco salad is freshly made in front of me. I saw the chef put a spoon of some kind of paste on the plate before putting on the taco shell. I wonder what he is doing, so I asked him. He explained to me it is just some bean paste used to glue the taco shell on the plate. He even demostrate the power of the bean paste by turning the plate upside down, the taco shell is not falling! It stops the taco shell from sliding off the plate on our way to have a seat. I am quite impress by this small invention. Innovation can happen anywhere. Even the chef in the cafeteria can come up with something new and useful. As an trained engineer, I should have come up with lots of creative ideas. Can’t lose to a chef.

Don’t want to sound like I am whinning, but in short it is a pretty rough day for me. I have told my story quite a few times already, in short here is the summary. Woke up early in the morning, went throught 3 hours of stressful P.Eng exam. Back home to pick up my car, found someone tried to break into my car. The lock at the driver’s door is broken, have to get into the car from the passenager seat. Went to work, file insurance claims, work till 10p.m. to make up the hours I took off in the morning. On my way home, got a call from Pat and I walked Charlie with her. I feel like I had just spoken all thing things in one long breath of air.

I suppose to feel free since the P.Eng exam is now done, although I still have to wait 8 weeks for the result. I may pass, I may fail, but that’s outside of my control. Just like the time when I finish my thesis defense and my ski instructor license, I suppose to feel free and relax, but I found myself already engaged into the next goal. Life seems to be so busy, but if I take a step back and look, it seems I havn’t done much really. In buddism wisdom, a man is trouble free when he wants nothing. My troubles is that there are too many things I want. Not just material things, which in some sense is not a real problem. Since it can be simplified into one single problem, money. The non-material things I search for is much harder to satisfy. In fact, I think it can’t be fully satisfy in theory. Should I just be a mindless hippy, so I don’t have to strive to be a great person? Maybe I can find a way to repackage sloppiness with buddist mind and become a hippy monk.

It is the first time I heard about this website. I read it from the newspaper today. This site started last year and it is the fastest growing social connection site. It number of users has surpassed friendster and xanaga, only behind myspace. The most interesting story about this website is that it is started by two brother and sister still studying in highschool. I wonder how can two highschool students create a website support traffic of several million users. I read the press articles on the website trying to trace the flow of money. It turn out two highschooler indeed came up with the idea but they are merely the marketing face of the company. The company is actually run by their elder brother who is a dot-com millionare. The most scary thing about this website is that it is created by an army of cheap Indian programmers. This is the new dot-com era. Anyone with a brillant idea, some working capital can still create an internet megahit. They don’t even have to be tech-savy, the dirty work can outsource to Indian.

Today, PMC has the annual summer picnic in Confederation Park, games for the kids, free lunch and icecream. I met the family of many of my colleagues there. Those little kids are so cute and I pinched so many little faces today. I only stayed for an hour or so because I have to study for my exam. I found the picnic is quite enjoyable, relaxing and chat with friends while having over cooked burger. Plus no time is wasted since I spent the afternoon studying in the library right next to the park. Going to the pinic is way better than the alternative, go to Pat’s friend’s wedding. The company just gave me the perfect excuse to skip yet another boring wedding of someone I have no interest. Most of my friends in the Cantonese speaking lunch group are not interested in the pinic, except those children. On the other hand, most of my friends in the CBC group shown up today. Those who don’t come to the pinic think that it is a waste of time. I think not going to the annual company event with this excuse is just anti-social. How can enjoy a few hours under the sun with friends be a waste of time. Moreover, it is one of rare occasions you got to know the families of your colleagues.