Category Archives: Daily Scribble

My random thoughts of the day.

Daily Scribble

My Olympic Experience

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I did not welcome the Olympic Games in the beginning. I worried about the tourist flooding the city and curse the Olympics cuts my ski season shorts. I never watch much Olympic Games, not even the 2008 Beijing Olympic. Before February 16, it seems Olympics is none of my business.

It turns out the Olympic Games is a huge success and somehow I caught the Olympic fever. I was glued to TV every night watching events highlights, cheering for Canadian (and Chinese) athletes. All those winter sports seems so boring in the past to watch suddenly becomes interesting. When a Canadian is fighting for a place in the podium, tense atmosphere got me and I shared the excitement. I watched Olympics with colleagues in the cafeteria at work during lunch. For some high stake events, I slack off a bit and watched the CTV online broadcast in the afternoon using my laptop while trying to get some work done at the background. We even book a meeting room to watch preliminary hockey games together when the Canadian team is playing.

The city is full of Olympic spirit and the Games indeed brings people closer with each other. I went to downtown twice to experience the Olympic events. I lined up for 5 hours just to hold the gold medal. Everyone in the city becomes more friendly and open. Strangers whom don’t look at each other in normal days now talks to each other. The Olympic seems universal catalyst to begin a conversation. Everyone has something to say about the Games.

I watched the hockey semi-final and final at a local pub. I wanted to watch it in downtown with the crowd in front of the big TV but I am turned off by the traffic and long line up. The hockey game connects everyone in the pub together. People smile at each others’ Canada goodies and we make waves during game. When there are a full room of people cheering for the same team with me, I really feel like Canada is where I belong. The mood of the whole pub is controlled by what is happening in the TV. When Canada is leading 2-0, we are all yelling and cheering. When the US tie Canada 20 seconds before the end of game, everyone is dead silence. When Crosby score the golden goal, everyone gets loud and give high fives to anyone. It’s a weird scene that the whole pub sing O Canada after we won the game full of enjoyment.

We have spent $1.67 billion to host the Olympic Games, we won’t know whether we can will break even or not. However, Canada won 13 gold medals and 25 medals in total and we gave the world a really good show. I don’t the Economical return of the Games, but it definitely raise the morale of the country and united the Canadian identity. Regardless of your background, your colour, everyone in Canada is together with Team Canada striving to win the hockey game. This is the most watched hockey game ever in Canada history, probably in the world too.

Daily Scribble

Olympic gold medal

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How far is an Olympic gold medal? To the athletes, it’s thousands of hours of training and many years of hard work. To me, it’s 6 hours standing in line. In the past, normal people can only see the medal on TV or behind display cases unless you happen to know a medalist. For the first time in the Olympic history, the public are allow to touch and hold an Olympic medal. The Royal Mint of Canada pavilion is probably the best free attraction in this Olympic game and always have the longest line up. Other pavilions are either tourist show case from other countries or advertisement in disguise of the corporate sponsors. The Mint gives you a once in a life chance to hold the Olympic medals, so it is a must see.

The line up is very very long. The pavilion opens at 9:00a, but when we arrive at 8:30a the line up is already one block away. I was told the person at the head of line was waiting there since 6:00a. The line is moving very slow because they only let 20 people into the medal room every 10 minutes. Since everyone in line has the Olympic mood and start chatting with each other. For the next 5 hours, I talked with two grannies, two young guys living on the West side, a mother with 2 teenage kids, a couple from HK and a lady with her dad. It is pretty interesting to hear different perspectives about the Olympic and Vancouver. It is the longest wait I ever have. I never know I can be this patient. Luckily, we can take turns go to the washroom and get coffee from the near by Starbucks. To my surprise, all the strangers I talked to are local Vancouver folks, except one family from White Rock, which is only 2 hours drive away. I wonder where all the tourist is. Maybe they are too busy watching the games and don’t bother lining up for the free shows.

The medals definitely worth the long wait. We are allow to pick up the medals, see it up close and take as many photos as we like. They give out white gloves and can only touch it with our glove hand. But we are not allow to pose any V sign nor allow to bite the medal like the athletes. There is an engineers from the Mint today to give us a brief talk about the making of the medals and answer all the weird questions. The Olympic medal is round in shape and the Paralympic medal is slightly square. The Paralympic medal has braille dots on the back for the blind athletes. The medal is heavier than I expected, each piece weight about 0.5kg. I am not going to repeat the information about the medals here. To know more about the medal, please visit mint.ca.

Other than the Olympic medals, the Mint pavilion has other cool stuff to see. There is a $1 million dollar coin made in pure gold in display. It looks like a giant loonie except the face value has 6 more zeros after the one. We can also lift up 400oz gold bar. It is exactly like the gold bars I always see in those bank robbery movies. I can feel how much half million dollars worth of pure gold weight. It’s very heavy. I had never hold something such valuable with my hand. Too bad that the gold bar is chained and guarded by armed policemen. I really want to take it home.

My legs and back is soared when we left the Mint pavilion. Originally I planned to visit three different pavilions today, but after the Mint, I have to call it a day. I am sure I will have a sweet dream about golds in my hand tonight.

Daily Scribble

How to build a small table (part 1)

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I am half way into my wood working class. My small table slowly comes into shape. I finally caught up with my mistakes and rebuild the two pieces that are too short. I am the fastest student in the class with everything ready to go. Since I am leading the class, the instructor usually uses my pieces and me for demonstration. He inspected all my pieces and I have got one on one teaching time. I bought my camera the class tonight and here is a step by step photo guide on how to a small table.

1. Here is a piece of raw lumber bought from wood suppliers. All the edges are rough and unfinished.

2. Use the radiant saw cut the lumber to rough length plus 1/2″ margin.

3. Use the jointer and joint two flat surface width a 90 degree edge.

4. Use the table saw to cut the piece to rough width plus 1/2″ margin

5. Use the planner to plan the piece to the exact width and height

6. Use the miter saw to cut the piece to the exact length

7. Drill dowel holes

8. Dry fit the pieces

9. Glue the table top together and hold it tight with cramps
ps

10. Sand the pieces to remove burn marks, pencil marks and smooth the surface

11. Before and after sanding

I have done 5 classes and there are 3 more to go. I am not too worry about my progress. I have confidence I can finish my table in class. The remaining tasks are assemble the legs with the table top, build the drawers, more sanding and paint the table to give it a finishing touch.

Daily Scribble

PMP Exam

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After 200 MC questions, 4 hours exam, I got the PMP credential.

Seeing how my department is run compare to the other department downstairs, I definitely support the value of project management. Everyone can tells the difference between a smooth sailing project apart from a badly ran project. But many people choose to ignore the up front planning and on going monitoring work due to their focus on short term gain. The most common excuse I heard is we don’t have time. Project management is not a waste of time, it’s provide a framework to save time in a long run, although you may have to invest in the extra work up front.

Most of the concepts and knowledge in the PMP exam are just common sense repackaged in fancy language. Passing the PMP exam won’t make you instantly a good project manager, but at least you can speak like one. The exam is more difficult than I expected. The definition and calculation questions are easy, you just have to study and know the exam materials. The long answer questions are tricky. Each question has four answers, two are totally non-sense but the other two are vague. I can only make a 50-50 guess and hope I got the right answer.

I got good marks on all sections except social responsibility and ethics, which I thought should be the easiest section. It is not that I am not ethical, rather I would blame my poor performance on the exam questions. The questions are have no black or white answers and the most intuitive answer that you would normally choose in real life is probably the wrong answer. You have to guess which of other dumb answers meet PMP’s retarded ethical standard. As a philosophy student major in ethics and moral theory, I am pretty sure I always have the most ethical answer, since I cannot be wrong in moral sense. The only conclusion is whoever set the PMP exam questions are not ethical, so he is blinded to picked the immorally answer as the required answer.

My study plan works well. I would say a month of time is more than enough to prepare the PMP exam. I finished reading all materials in first three weeks, didn’t do any study on the forth week and worked on 3 full length practice exams over the last weekend. I pretty much run out of stuff to study on the night before exam so I only flip through chapter 3 quickly as my final revision. My PREP book “The PMP Exam, How to Pass on Your First Try” by Andy Crowe is really good, highly recommended. The structure and layout of the book is easy to follow and the practice questions are relevant. On the other hand, the official PMBOK is totally useless, it is a complete waste of money.

Daily Scribble

Performance review

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I had my own performance review every year, but it is the first time I give performance review to my team. Just like giving interview, sitting on the other side of the table is a total difference experience. I am still a supervisor in training, so my boss is with me when I am giving the performance reviews. It makes me more nervous than my team member. Performance review is a formal communication between the team and supervisor. The performance rating, any bonus or salary raise should not be the focus. The focus of the performance review is how to make your team perform better in the coming year. I think at the end, it is all about managing expectation. Your team will be motivated if they have the right expectation and their expectation is within their reach.

Over time I will develop my performance review style, just I have developed my interview style. For now, my performance review follows the template I read from some coaching manual I found online. First I start the review with some chit-chat, try to loose up the atmosphere. Ask open end questions how the team member feel about their work in the past evaluation period. Then I will bring out the performance report and go over it together. I will highlight their strength, encourage them to further develop strength. I will highlight their problems and come up with objectives to address the problems. One key question I ask is how we (or the upper management) can help them do their job better. I expect some whining with some useful feedback. Then we set the job objectives for the next evaluation period. Ask them what they would like to work on and try to align their interest with the task on hand. It is important to give them a sense of control over their job. Ask them what area they would like to develop since growth opportunity is also a important motivating factor. I will save the letter for last. Giving them the number too early would only distract the communication.

It is easy to give performance reviewer to an average or above team member. They meet their objectives, I can give them a pad on the back (metaphorically) for the good work they have done and they are pretty much on cruise-mode in self-development. Everyone have some weakness, so they don’t bad at all to be told that they have something to work on. On the other hand, the performance reviewer of below average team member is quite trick. I have to handle it with great care. I need to communicate the facts across and at the same time without hurting his feeling or demoralizing him. I try to phase it positively when giving him challenges to work on, but I suspect his is not too happy about the feedback.

Now, I understand why the management always reluctant to give out the ranking or letter grade rating. The average plus workers has no problem accepting their rating. It is the below average workers that is trick. I feel bad telling him in face that he is below average and probably he also feel bad being told that he is below average as well. Without the letter grade written in black and white, at least I can smooth the feedback and make it sounds less harsh. I guess I will feel differently if I don’t have to care about his motivation. If he is a contractor and I can reject him on any future contract. Maybe I will get some pleasure from making him feel bad by crushing his self image with the below average review. Nay, what the heck, if I am not going to work with him in the future, why should I waste my time and energy giving feedback to him?