Daily Scribble

How much are you worth?

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How much are you worth? That is the question you should ask yourself when you are interviewing for a new job. Today I attended the APEG Salary Seminar in UBC. The main presentation in the seminar is on how to negotiate your salary. The seminar’s target audience is engineering students graduating this year, but the insight in the seminar applies anytime anywhere, especially when you are looking for a new job. I wish I had attend a seminar like this when I was in school.

The rule of thumb in salary negotiation is don’t sell yourself short. Your starting salary will affect your future pay raise and your value in the company. Contrary to common misunderstanding, salary negotiation won’t affect the hiring decision. By the time you negotiate your salary with HR, you are already hired. It is important to research the market salary of your job before the interview. Here are some useful links:
APEGBC Compensation Survey
hitechsalary.com
payscale.com

In negotiation, whoever names the number first loses. If the HR ask how much you are expecting, DON’T give a figure. You should answer with questions, asking what is the salary range for the same position in the company or how is the compensation compare to industry average or the APEG salary survey. Don’t get cornered into naming a number, that’s the job of the HR to give you a number. When you receive your contract, carefully review all the details. You can blackout and initial things that you can’t agree with. You don’t have to sign the boiler plate employment contract. You should understand the performance review process and get your first review within 6 months. You can only get a raise or promotion if your performance is evaluated.

Don’t forget to act professionally in the salary negotiation. Don’t play off the offers from two companies to fish for higher pay, the HR have their own circle and you will be black-listed. Don’t directly discuss other offers in the negotiation. You should join the company because you like the job and feel fairly compensated, you don’t work for whoever give the highest pay. Talk about other offers directly will usually cause backfire.

The last bit of tips in presentation really apply to me. You should re-evaluate your salary every year. The largest increase in your salary occur when you move to a new job. Always keep your resume up to date and ready to go. If your qualification or experience level change, it is a good idea give the new resume to your employer so the company can re-evaluate your value.

Daily Scribble

20 things I can think of within 5 minutes using my first name’s initial.

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Rules:
It’s harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag twenty people.
Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real…nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can’t use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name : Horace

2. A four Letter Word : Hose

3. A boy’s Name : Howard

4. A girl’s Name : Helen

5. An occupation : Helicopter Pilot

6. A color : Honeydew (believe it or not, there are only two color start with H)

7. Something you’ll wear : Hat

8. Something you’ll do : House cleaning

9. A food : Honey

10. Something found in the bathroom : Hanger

11. A place : Hamburg

12. A reason for being late : Hijacked

13. Something you’d shout : Holy Cow!

14. A movie title : Halloween

15. Something you drink : Heineken

16. A musical group : Hotcha

17. An animal : Hippo

18. A street name : Hawthorne Terrace.

19. A type of car : Hummer

20. The title of a song : How much I Love You

Daily Scribble

Greener grass

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My colleague sit next to me just resign. He quits his job to start his own business. My first response is congratulate him getting out of this hell. The executives find new ways to lower the employees’ morale every week, it’s just a matter of time before someone said that’s enough. The current economy downturn and the lack of opportunities in Vancouver hi-tech industry in may silence some complaints, we are all realist after all. The colleague who quit is the one whom the VP asked his where about last weekend when I am working overtime. I would be really funny if I know he is quitting last weekend, so that I can tell the VP why he is not working overtime on weekend. I really want to see the look of the VP upon he hear the response.

I wonder is it just the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I envy my colleague who have the guts to make such a bold decision. As we know feeling is unreliable, decisions should be made with rational proofs. Six Signs It’s Time to Move On is a good article with useful guidelines to examine my career growth in the company. Here is the six guidelines:

1. You’re treading water, not swimming forward.
2. You’re not learning anymore.
3. You find yourself watching your back.
4. The future is fuzzy.
5. Your boss isn’t boss material.
6. The intern fits in better than you.

Daily Scribble

Sabbath

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There are many interesting rules for the Jews on Sabbath days. Today I went to Whistler with a colleague from Israel. The drive on the Sea to Sky highway is long and boring. To keep myself awake, I chat with him about the Jews culture and one of the topics we talked about is Sabbath. When we read the Bible, it always mentions the Jews can’t do this or can’t do that on a Sabbath day. It turns out the Sabbath rules are still followed by religious Jews after 2000 years.

Sabbath begins on Friday evening until Saturday evening. According to Jews religion rules, people are not allow to work on Sabbath. Not allow to work does not mean only not going back to the office, it means you cannot do anything that produce anything nor any action that has any consequence. In Sabbath day, religious Jews cannot cook because use of fire is forbidden. They can’t turn on the lights, because generation of light is consider as work. Taking evaluator is not allowed because your action of pushing a button causes something to move. It’s quite obvious driving is also banned.They can only stay home and have cold food on Sabbath. That sounds pretty boring.

However, the Jews have some few clever ways to work around Sabbath rules. Their fringe has a Sabbath mode, so opening the fringe door on Sabbath will not turn on the small light bulb inside the fringe or otherwise it violates the Sabbath rules. Their evaluator stops on every floor on Sabbath day, so no work is done as a consequence of anyone’s action. Suddenly, I see a huge market of automated robots for the religious Jews. They can do whatever they like on Sabbath as long as they don’t really do anything on Sabbath. The robot can act on their behave, so they do not violate any Jews rules. Unfortunately, my idea is rejected by my friends at once. There is already a solution in the market and is much cheaper than my AI robot. It is called non-Jews servants.

Daily Scribble

Seiko Spring Drive

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Seiko Spring Drive

I always fantasy about mechanical watch. I think mechanical watch is a more true art form than many other so-called arts, such as meaningless fine arts. Watch making originate from the quest of making an accurate time piece to calculate the longitude in high seas. Today, we can find a better accuracy in quartz watch or even atomic watch, but they can never replace the unique charm of the craftsmanship and clever design in mechanical watch.

The basic design of mechanical watch did not change for the past 500 years. The main spring store the power and push the gears train. The movement of the hands is regulated by the escapement and balance wheel. In 1960s, engineers in Seiko dream up a revolutionary design. But this new design was so advance that the technology is not ready until 21st century. The spring drive mechanism use electromagnetic energy to regulate how fast the spring can unwind. This result of this ground breaking design is second hand not longer jumps from one second to the next second or in a fraction of a second, instead the second hand has a smooth continuous analog gliding motion.

The spring drive design is very clear, but it is really a quartz watch in disguise. The watch steal nano-watts current from the glide wheel to drive an ultra low power quartz control circuit that generate the electromagnetic force to regulate the glide wheel. The watch took half a century from idea to become reality is the wait of a ultra low power silicon design that make this design possible. On the surface, the spring drive seems like an useless idea simply combining a mechanical watch with a quartz. However deep down inside, I really admire this genius solution for the gliding second hand problem. It’s a classic engineering challenge. The ultimate answer to why the second hand of a watch always jumps.