Painting!

management advice overheard in chinese restaurant

Six or seven years ago, I was eating in a chinese restaurant.  I overheard a conversation that struck me to this day.

The speaker was a woman in her late 30s, eating at another table with a companion.  They seemed to know the owner.

She said, "Ping used to be a waiter here at this restaurant.  The owner really takes care of his employees. He gives them good food to eat for the meals.  When they're sick, he visits them at home with medicine.  Then Ping was offered 10% higher salary by another restaurant, and he quit and went to work there instead."

"The other restaurant didn't treat him well.  They wouldn't let the employees eat the nicer food.  When he's sick, they didn't check in on him at all."

"After a month, Ping called up this restaurant owner and asked to come back.  The owner declined.  He said, 'I treated you like a human being, but you don't treat yourself like one.  Don't come back.'"

...

I was struck by how much we undervalue feeling loved in our job.  All those gestures of caring clearly mattered a lot more to Ping than the 10% salary, but he didn't consciously value them until they were gone.

I also was surprised that the owner is so relentless.  Ping is sorry!  If you take him back, he'll probably be extra loyal, now that he knows the grass is browner on the other side.  Why shut him out?

Maybe the owner already hired replacements and now has no open headcount for Ping.

easter eggs at Minted!

Glittery princess egg!  The owner refused to use this egg in the egg cracking contest.


SF Giants egg.


I asked our admin to buy some dye kits and eggs.  She hardboiled 60 eggs two nights in advance.  Then she bought all these treats, dyes, decorations and set up the entire table.

It is very amazing when you can give a one-sentence description, and the person executes it beyond your best dreams.


Homer Simpson egg!  This was creative.


Coloring the egg with a sharpie.

I also officiated the egg cracking contest, an ancient Greek game where you pair off, and tap your opponent's egg with your own egg.  One egg will crack.  I officiated and I also won the game, which was a bit suspicious.

Church in Mexico City

Photos from a nice church in Mexico City. My parents had low expectations of Mexico City -- they expected rampant poverty and no tourist attractions. Actually there are many palaces and museums! Also churches.

Mexico City: good on culture, bad at marketing.

Pi Day!

Homemade chocolate pie from our Tech Ops manager at 3/14 1:59!

The Minted engineering team is so fun! Today I wondered aloud whether the team is objectively hilarious or whether I find them funnier because I am so fond of them. My theory is 80% objectively, 20% due to bias!

fruity drinks in Shanghai

Watermelon / mango juice with sago!  We ate at a cafe called Bellagio.  They insist that all of their waitresses must cut their hand into a pixie haircut.  It looks very androgynous to me.  What an extreme request to make of your waitstaff!

fresh air

While doing strength exercises in a buddy personal training session.

Nam: "Do you want to take a spinning class with me?"

Me: "No."

Nam: "But I thought you like biking."

Me: "Biking outside is fun.  Biking indoors in a class is painful.  It's like how I always want to go jogging at Crissy Field with you.  But have you seen me on a treadmill?"

Nam: "No."

Me: "If you see me on a treadmill...  it's not me.  It's some other Asian person, and you're being racist."

in shanghai

Having a drink on the 87th floor of Jingmao building!

Kitchen on Fire! cooking class

I started a 12-week cooking class at Kitchen on Fire in Berkeley.

The space is light-filled, and there are about 25 students in the class.  The teacher MikeC is hilarious!  At one point, he talked about how if you don't do the mis en place (preparation) properly, you will end up making a big mess in the kitchen. Then you will look around and say, "Who the hell did this?"

He paused significantly, and then said solemnly, "It was you!"

I laughed so much.

In our first class, I learned how to hold the knife properly, and how to chop vegetables into consistent thickness.  After the class, I went home and cut two potatoes for stir fry.  It actually went much faster.  I remember asking my friend to slice two potatoes during college, and it took 30 minutes.

We chopped all of these vegetables.  My next class will be Searing, Frying, and Confit.  Excited!!

If you feel inspired, the school regularly runs 12-week cooking classes. If you are my friend and also enjoy cooking, let's cook together sometime!

I'm deciding whether to also get the Kitchen on Fire book. I usually get all my recipes online, but this book also has a lot of step-by-step photos.

I'm looking forward to learning to make stews, quick breads, and roasting.  I already do these things, but not very expertly.

regular customers are good

Our QA Automation Engineer Tarum's favorite television show is the Kardashian reality program.

Tarum: "I want Kim Kardashian to shop on Minted."

JP: "She can be a regular shopper for our wedding items."

traveling pants

I just watched "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants".

 I got it from netflix weeks ago, but procrastinated watching it because I thought it would be a teen flick about the high school heartbreak of 17-year-olds. I didn't think I would identify at all with the characters. They'd probably be crying because they had the wrong color prom dress, and thank God for the pants to cheer them up from their first-world problems.
 

 I was so wrong. In the very first scene, one of the girls is 8 years old, and watches her dad move out of the house at night with suitcases. She calls her friend Lena, crying, and her friend comforts her, saying "It'll be okay. I'll come over first thing in the morning."

OMG! Why didn't I have friends like that when I was 8 years old!!!

The movie was about teenager heartbreak, yes. But it was the heartbreak of not seeing your dad often enough and not being able to tell this to him, because that would be unpleasant and he might pull away even more. Or the heartbreak of denying your sadness over the loss of a loved one because it would be overwhelming, and finally being forced to confront it.

Success = results - expectations, and this movie has greatly surpassed my expectations!

It does seem really unbelievable that the same jeans would fit Blake Lively and America Ferrara. One of them is 7 inches taller than the other!



Just ordered the sequel on netflix.

Rise and fall

Watching startups can be intriguing because fortunes change so quickly. Last year's mega hotness is this year's passé memento. Cocky founders of yesteryear, who smugly lorded it over all, are today's nervous ones who maintain that everything is just fine, really it is.

It is amazing how different the landscape can be after a year. I wonder what will have changed a year from now, which current kings will be dethroned and forgotten, and which newcomers lifted to the skies in worship.

Jogging

All my life, I detested jogging. I would see people out running along the Embarcadero, and it boggled my mind. How can they do this painful thing every day?

Then Nike would have advertisements implying that people weren't just gritting their teeth forcing one foot after the other, but they actually ENJOYED it.

I figured it is a strange inexplicable phenomenon. "Runners high" was an oxymoron to me.

But then Nm (work colleague) explained that it is like getting into the flow state, like how programmers enter the Zone. Music helps, she explained.

Suddenly it was in language I could understand! I thought back to the only two times I have ever enjoyed running: the Palo Alto Moonlight Run. Nm helped me decipher the critical components:

- one clear running path with no confusion where to go, no stopping for red lights or cars

- beautiful natural scenery

- listening to good music

So we put those three components together, and jogged along Crissy Field.

OMG it is a different world.

I got home and immediately texted her asking when we could go again. As soon as she responded, I set up calendar requests for the next two Sundays. I was actually counting down the days to it.

Today she is sick, and it is pouring rain outside, and I am still debating whether to go do a short jog myself.

Thank you Apple, MOG, and Sam Francisco for making the 3 elements feasible.

I wish they taught in school how to make jogging enjoyable.

I am going to buy nice running shoes next, and fancy jogging clothes instead of using free t-shirts. Excited! Power over 9000!

Pie!

Cooking is surprisingly enjoyable. I am shocked at how happy it makes me.

Is it because I feel more in-control of what I eat, and people feel happier when they have more control? Or do I enter a flow state when cooking? Is it because I am in the steep part of the learning curve and am improving noticeably?

Tonight I rolled my own pie dough and baked a sweet potato pie. I am delighted with how it turned out, though a true baker would likely find my crust too grainy. I made it a half whole wheat crust.

This time I followed the recipe and it tastes very sugary to me. I can't wait to make it again and use just a bit of organic maple syrup in place of sugar.

The crust has 8 tablespoons of butter. Wonder how I could make that healthier.

Gratitude day 30

I have been procrastinating writing the last day of gratitude because I have enjoyed the process and don't want to end it.

Today I went for a mini-hike with a group to the Dipsea Trail. I am grateful at how beautiful San Francisco is, with the nearby ocean and trees. You can do hikes in January in a T-shirt, surrounded by breathtaking views.

Korean culture

I really like Korean culture. I could imagine living in Korea. There are a couple things I especially liked: 1. There is emphasis around family, rather than individual glory and materialism. We watched a Korean movie that happened to be playing on television:

We could not actually understand any of the dialogue, but still watched it in rapt attention. It is about five athletes who attempt to qualify the Korean team for Olympic ski jumping.

One is doing it to win an apartment for his biological mother who gave him up for adoption as a child. Another is doing it to support his new baby. A third is doing it to get out of mandatory military service, so that he can stay home to take care of his grandmother and autistic brother. The fourth is doing it to win the heart of a girl.

2.

There is no tradition of tipping in Korea, for cabs, waiters, or service people. Yet the service was far superior to what I experience in the US. We took cabs three times, and twice, the cab driver got out of his car at the end and walked several minutes with us to find our destination. The third time, the cab driver pointed and made sure that we knew where we were going.

Similarly, waitresses were attentive, and came over to refill our kimchi continually. There is no tip, but they wanted to do it, because they actually care about doing a good job.

ass water

I started drinking tap water again, after survival school. Once I got used to drinking cloudy water where flies had been landing, tap water seems perfectly fine.

I am excited about the solo & sheep parts of survival school, but am concerned that this year's survival school will have almost exclusively men, who will not want to talk about their feelings. I will want to talk about my feelings, and I'm afraid I will be thwarted if the others don't.

Gratitude day 29

I am not in a grateful mood right now. In fact I am in a rather uncomplacent mood because I read some news that makes me envious. But I guess that is the benefit of this exercise -- to force me to write this.

Today I am grateful that my brother rode the Caltrain for over an hour to come to my work holiday party. He got to the Caltrain station early and walked a mile to buy a white elephant gift for the party. He bought gourmet chocolates and as a joke, put them into a giant Victoria's Secret box to embarrass the person who picked the gift. He also bought me a gift card when he was there.

(Ok this is already working. I feel more appreciative and happier, and slightly sheepish for being grumpy over my first world pains.)

Then Tom walked a mile back and sat at the Caltrain station waiting for me to pick him up. It took me longer than expected to walk home and drive over, and he waited patiently. When I got there, he had been sitting outdoors in the cold, holding a giant Victoria's Secret box, for an hour. I was super stressed because my top New Year's resolution is to be more considerate in everyday things. I could barely meet his gaze. But he was super empathetic and said it was okay and that he knew I would be stressed for this exact reason and it was fine.

I always say that I have the best brother in the world, and now you know 0.0000000001% of the reason why.

Wow, this exercise really works.

Gratitude day 28

I had a heart to heart conversation with my brother on the flight home. I apologized for giving him a fear of heights by teasing him that I would throw him over a railing at Carlsbad Caverns when I was 10 and he was 2, and for tickling him a lot. He gave me thoughtful replies that were kind.

I also read a good book from Gandhi's relative who learned from him: "Nonviolent Communication". It describes with many examples how to talk about emotional topics without making the other party defensive.

gratitude day 27

In Seoul, we ate twice at mall food courts. My brother chose them because they have plastic molds of the food dishes with clearly displayed prices.

We took a boat to Jeju Island.

On the ferry return trip, we shared a small room with bunk beds. There was a bare section of the room where you could sit on the floor and watch television.

My dad took out a few oranges and bread rolls that we purchased at a convenience store, and set them on the windowsill of the room. Then he said, "This is our food court."

We sat on the floor and watched a korean reality tv show about an extreme makeover that took 53 weeks and included a bunch of plastic surgery. My brother claims that over 50% of young Korean women have had some form of plastic surgery!

My mom said, "This room is nice! Here's our living room. [gesturing toward tiny space where we all sat on the floor] And our bedroom. [gesturing toward bunk beds]"

I was very grateful that my parents enjoyed the trip and made it fun.