Those who have worked with me know I love paper documents.  Everytime I transfer to a new project, I will tax the printer heavily by printing every document I may need.  My friends say that I am killing too many tree, and question me why can’t I just read the document on screen.  First of all, I use recycle paper, and the document will go back to the recycling bin when the project is done, so no tree is killed in the process.  Moreover, trees are just like vegetable, you grow them, cut them and then grow them back again.  Using more paper is good for BC economy, which is hugh in the forrestry sector.  Reading on screen can never compare with the convinience reading on paper.  Your eye is much more comfortable reading something real, you highlight the text, mark the paper and comment the document.  You can flip through the pages quickly without waiting the for the screen to reload.  You can carry the paper document around easily and it looks good.  In case you disagree on some certain thing in the document with someone else, you can simply point to the page and settle the dispute.   Paper document carries a mysterious authority that people tends to listen.  It is much harder to convince someone open a document, search for the information to prove them wrong.  Let alone it save you the embrassment if they are actually right.

Switching to a new department means ramping up on new technology and new product line.  However, I don’t expect the ramp up would be this steep.  Some one in the Santa Clara office is leaving the company in a month and I am assigned to take over his work.  This means another brain dump trip to the Bay Area.  I will be flying down to Santa Clara for two weeks only after joining the new project team for a week.  I only have next week to get myself familiar on whatever the guy is working on, so that I can ask some more intelligent questions when I am down there the week after.  I can foresee many hours of intensive reading in the next few days.  Actually, I already shoveled the 600 pages SATA standard into my brain in one day.  I wonder how many more pages I can take before my brain explode.

Things gets even more interesting that my cousin is getting marry in 2 weeks.  So during my two weeks stays in Santa Clara, I will fly back to Vancouver on Friday night, go to the wedding, then fly back down on Sunday evening.  If the weekend is not conflict with the wedding, I would rather stay down there and hang out with my old friends.  My boss seems to have no trouble giving me approval to come back for the weekend.  I guess it is cheaper to buy me the ticket than paying me for the hotel, car rental and meals for two extra days.

I will on loan to another department for 6 month starting next week.  My old department does not have any new project for the time being, so can’t really complain being on loan to the other department where has lots of work and short on staff.  Today we have the welcome meeting with the new project team.  The new department seems to have a bright future, the product line is ramping up and expect to have exceed 100 million revenue per year if the project I will work on ships on time.  Somehow I picked an interesting straw in task assignment.  I will be working on the SATA and SAS protocol, which half of the products in the new department are built upon on.  I will take over some work from some engineers who are leaving the company.  It will be a steep ramp up for me to learn the new standards in a short period of time.  No kidding, it is a tough and demanding assignment.

On the bright side, every crisis is also an opportunity.  If I step forward and did a good job, the result should will be rewarding.  This is mostly technical work, I can just do my best and not having to worry about stepping on someone’s toe.  It would be quite difficult to shine on leadership skill like I have done in my previous project being a loaner.  That would involve some politics and not familiar with the technology is definitely a handicap for me.  Strive to be the technical expert gives me more control on my own destiny.  I have acquire the domain knowledge so valuable to the new department, I will have the option to transfer to the new department after the on loan period.  It is better for me to be in high demand﹐ since I don’t see any future in my old department right now, at least not in the current ruin state.

The new department seems a nice place to work at, challenging work, good growth potential, everything sounds alright except one thing, the manager.  He is one of the worst manager in the company, well known for slaving his sub-ordinary without giving fair compensation.  On a second thought, maybe a permanent transfer is not such a good idea.  I would rather take my chance in the old department then working for a heartless manager.

There are two ways to use jargons, one way is to pretend being intelligent and the other way is really being intelligent. Jargon is just a short cut to express some complicated concepts using a few words.  Jargons originate from various sources, such as science, psychology, economics, military, literature, etc.,  Then the original meaning of the word expands and they are borrowed to use in different context.  If you use a jargon without any explanation and your audience have no clue idea what the jargon is about, then you are just an inefficient communicator.  If  you don’t even know the meaning of the jargon yourself, then you are just bluffing nonsense.  However when the jargon is used right, it is a very powerful rhetorical tool.  You can instantly grabbed the audience’s attention with a short phrase.  After you take control of the conversation, you can then go on with explanation of the jargon and relate the jargon to the context.  Express your position with the help of jargons adds authorities, which makes your speech more persuasive.  Most people won’t question the concept behind the jargon, they will simply swallow whatever idea represented by the jargon, as long as it makes sense on the first glance.  In order to make my speech more vivid and intelligent, I compile a small but growing list of useful jargons.  Please check it out at here

After 12 hour of driving, 1000km of distance, I went from Vancouver to Portland and came back on the same day.  I think I have broken my record of traveling the most distance by car in one single day.  The road trip is not as tough as I thought.  I had a good sleep last night, woke up early today.  I start around 8a.m. and arrived in 2p.m, which is pretty close to the schedule estimated by Google map.  I turned around right away, stopped by Redmond to have dinner with my cousin around 6p.m., then another 2.5 hours to get home.  I stopped over at McDonald’s or gas stations almost every hour to stretch my legs and go to washroom.  My legs are not that tired, not as bad as skiing in Whistler for the whole day.  Driving only by myself is not too that bored, and it is quite productive.  I finished 1 audio book and half way through another today.  Listening to audio books gave me the intellectual stimulus that substitutes talking with the passengers to keep myself awake.  However, a person’s attention span last only about an hour, so I switched listening to music whenever my brain is overloaded, took the time to absorb the new knowledge until the next washroom break.  Then after I am refreshed from the rest, I can resume listening to audio books.  Now, it is time for me to take a good rest.  It is a really long day for me, but definitely worth it.