rant on incompetence

For the love of god, why the hell are there no competent people in this world. If I smoked cigarettes, I'd be  downstairs chain-smoking until I had no more cash in my wallet to buy more cigarettes.

First I get an asshole cab driver who asks me which way to go. I say take 8th up and 59th over. He says, okay. We hit traffic going crosstown on 59th and then he proceeds to lecture me about how we should have taken 6th up and then across 56th. Listen dude: you're the f*en cab driver. You pick the route. How the hell am I supposed to know which streets have traffic. If I knew, then I'd drive the damn car. Why I still gave him a tip, I do not know.

And then, there are the incompetent fools at Bloomberg. For those of you who have used the "help help" function which allows you to chat live with a Bloomberg Tech person... you know that those idiots are clueless. I just want the last price of a damn stock. Honestly, it's not hard. And Bloomberg is giving me a 0 price. The tech person insists it's correct. No. The thing did not trade at 0 when it traded at 50.40 yesterday!!! Of course they try to make me look like the idiot who is not tech-embracing. I'm about as embracing as they come, ok? So how dare you equate me with the average bear. Of course they still haven't fixed it. All they do is open a ticket. Stupid corporate burearcracy.

It's month end here. Looks like I'll be here till 10 or 11. Great. Just great. And of course the IT people are also incompetent. And speak some English would you.

PS - Xanga has the worst spell-checking function ever. How is "idiot" not in the dictionary? And how does it not have any suggestions for burearcracy. I cannot spell that in my anger right now.

Rant over.

Currently Reading Buffett : The Making of an American Capitalist By Roger Lowenstein see related

Lollies, Lads, and Flakes (oh my!)

I'm nearing the end of my workweek here in London. Been here for a whole week now. And so, a few excerpts of Adventures with Linda (London chapter)...

I trotted about town last weekend - hopped on the tube (which I noticed is not tall or fat people friendly), cafe-ed at Covent Garden people watching, and saw all of the touristy sights (the likes of Tower Bridge, Parliament, Westminster, Trafalgar Sq). I had a delicious soft serve cone w/ a Cadbury Flake for the first time while boating down the Thames.

The work week was pretty quiet. There's something nice about not having to wake up till 7:30 and then going downstairs for a full English breakfast. I'm enjoying the routine of reading the morning paper over a cup of tea before walking across the street to the office. Every morning, the breakfast club always changes faces. The business folk all have their blackberries and are balding, the French families are impeccably dressed, and the Americans generally ask for coffee (not tea). I live by the "when in Rome..." philosophy (or I guess more appropately here, "when in London") - so bring on the tea and biscuits for this American lass.

Tuesday evening, I decided to try the ever popular Wagamama Asian noodle house fast food chain for dinner. In New York, it'd be somewhat similar to Republic (the noodle place down in Union Sq) - except Wagamama is slightly less chic (no mango mojitos) and more organic. As I'm waiting to be seated, a guy also waiting alone is standing behind me in line. So the host seats me, and then promptly seats the guy behind me caddy corner at  the cafeteria style tables. He smiles (and has quite a nice smile, mind you) and breaks out his book to read while we're waiting for our food. I, lacking proper dining out alone reading material, break out my map of London to figure out where I should go exploring after dinner. We sit in silence until the food comes and then he asks me where I'm from. We start talking. And lo and behold, he's a fellow American. Doing a summer in London program before he decides to potentially pursue a English Lit masters degree here in London. He knew what a hedge fund was - impressive for a literary guy, I must say.

The weather has been amazingly beautiful - 70s and sunny all week. So last night, I walked from St. Peter's across the Millennium Bridge, down South Bank to Oxo Tower and to the BA London Eye (the largest ferris wheel in the world). I had stopped a guy on the bridge to ask him to take a picture of me. He was a BIG guy with long curly red hair guy - reminded me of someone from Monsters, Inc (in the gentle giant kind of way). And after he snapped my picture, he asked me where I was going. I told him that I was just going to wander along the Thames and if the line wasn't too long for the London Eye, that I might go for a ride. He asked if he could come with. And so, the Southhampton country lad (who, self-proclaimed, looked uncannily like a Viking minus the horned hat) accompanied me for a strange, but pleasant, evening along the Thames. Ian (turns out the lad had a name) was just starting a job in London after finishing University. His family has a cottage and a stray cow (he wasn't kidding about the country lad thing) and it turned out that I knew more about his own country's capital than he did. So, I ended up giving a Brit a tour of his own capital. He was pleasant company though - very nice. And we ended up getting a nice view of Parliament and Big Ben after sunset.

And so I end my tales with this photo:

In other words, nowhere does love exist in a vacuum. It must constantly confront new problems, freedoms and expectations.

Currently Reading You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation By Deborah Tannen see related

From Deborah Tannen's book (I just discovered it, a few years late)

The impact of linguistics on society, especially between males and females fascinates me. Tannen's book allows us to stand in the other person's shoes and knowing where the other person is coming from thus minimizing miscommunication. It would be interesting to research why men and women have such distinct differences in experiencing the world and then communicating those experiences. Can we biologically pinpoint what causes this difference? Is it possible to raise a boy as a girl or a girl as a boy and have them experience the world like the opposite sex stereotypically experiences it? And do these gender differences exist across all cultures? Perhaps some societies reinforce or magnify these traits.

I also wonder how a male would synthesize the types of findings that Tannen discusses in her books. Because she is a female, the reflexivity problem kicks in (she is both an input and output of this case study). A woman's analysis, as she notes, would be different than a man's. It would be interesting to see a male interprets and expresses his interactions with females and why those differences exist. For him, maybe it is not an issue that those differences exist and would not feel the desire for females to understand where he's coming from.

From her book:

One of the subtlest yet deepest sources of frustration and puzzlement arises from the different ways that women and men approach the world. We feel we know how the world is, and we look to others to reinforce that conviction. When we see others acting as if the world were an entirely different place from the one we inhabit, we are shaken. We look to our closest relationships as a source of confirmation and reassurance. When those closest to us resound to events differently than we do, when they seem to see the same scene as part of a different play, when they say things that we could not imagine saying in the same circumstances, the ground on which we stand seems to tremble and our footing is suddenly unsure. Being able to understand why this happens - why and how our partners and friends, though like us in many ways, are not us, and different in other ways - is a crucial step toward feeling that our feet are planted on firm ground.

To women, talk is for interaction. Telling things is a way to show involvement, and listening is a way to show interest and caring. It is not an odd coincidence that she always thinks of things to tell him when he is reading. She feels the need for verbal interaction most keenly when he is (unaccountably, from her point of view) buried in the newspaper instead of talking to her.

She realized that, unlike her, he did not feel the need for talk to reinforce their intimacy. The companionability of her presence was all he needed, and that did not mean that he didn't cherish her presence.

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She has a new book about Mothers/Daughters called "You're Wearing That".

Playing Hard to Get.

Hate to say it boys, but it works.

Backtrack with me a couple months. My roommate and I order from this decent sushi in our 'hood called Hakata because they sent us a $10 coupon. We order the very filling, very delicious sushi combos and spend a mere $12 dollars for dinner. Each time we do this, the delivery guy comes and never does he, ever, ask for the physical coupon itself. Great, we think. And being the stellar business students we are, we decide to arbitrage the system. Yes, yes. Hey, if he never actually collects the coupon - we can just call the place, order food, claim we have a coupon and reap the benefits of cheap, good food. What's there to lose?

Until one night when they asked for the coupon. Dammit, we've been caught. Anita and I place two separate orders but only have one coupon. We manage to convince the delivery boy not to collect the coupon upon his first delivery. But the manager then called us demanding that we give the delivery boy two coupons when he came back with the second delivery. After a (polite) argument with the manager, we get our food and give the man one coupon. This would be the last time we'd ever get coupons from Hakata, we thought.

Days pass. Weeks pass. I order sushi from other places. We missed those $10 coupons though. But Anita and I don't budge. We don't order from Hakata. Its menu sat at the bottom of our take out menu pile. But, today, I come home, open the mailbox... only to find... a NEW coupon from Hakata! Yes! They want us back. They caved and sent us some lovin. Perhaps I shall order from Hakata once more, and try to arbitrage the system again. I hope they don't have our telephone number blacklisted on their "must collect coupon from this customer" list.

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thursday feb 9: addendum. jing and i ordered from Hakata tonight. And the delivery guy did NOT ask for a coupon. muahaha.