After the events of my company were made public last week, I feel that I can now be a bit more open about it.
It’s odd. At work we have to make sure that we’re constantly wearing our badges to make sure we are people that are supposed to be there, and we have to remember to take our badges off when we go out in public lest we get inundated with with questions or “comments”. I do have to admit, reading the blogs about everything, you would think that the world is ending and all such non such. All of it couldn’t be further from the truth; and while I won’t go into specifics here, a simple search on the company, and how the investment deal is structured would give a clearer picture as to what the state of the company is, and that all I have to do is put up with fourteen more weeks of this.
The good news is that as far as I can tell, my 2009 budget seems to be acceptable, and more importantly I’m still on it. It’s a bit comforting to see that I am controlling my own fate; and I am continuing to shop my resume around. I think however, that things will be pretty dead until the beginning of the next year.
One thing that has really affected in regards to all of this is that I’ve placed my personal reputation on the line with my vendors to get this project done. I’ve spoken with two of my closest vendors and while it is good to know that they understand the circumstances of the situation, I still feel a sense of personal responsibility (even though I know that I don’t in any actual sense) to the situation and a sense of failure by association.
Another is the loss of the Italian Job. That hit me really hard because that means that I am the last of three that made a pact to stay together and to watch each other’s backs. It was because of him, I was able to work on my “working well with others” skills; and it was something that I was getting better at. I already know that I’m going to go back to my inner nature of being solitary. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I need to balance it to make sure I don’t alienate myself and my ducks from the rest of the company.
While all of this is going on, I have other drama going on in my life as well. My sister has this notorious habit to make me look like a lazy sod when it comes to being a workaholic. To the point where it causes health issues, and she was admitted into the hospital mid-week last week. If all goes well, she’ll be released on Tuesday (Gotta love the fact that it’s the same hospital that the President goes to). But I’ve been “volunteered” to go up there mid week this week to tend to her. So this adds just another layer on things.
What is it they say? “Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.”
In order to deal with the stress of the past month I’ve been burying myself in quite esoteric activities. Right now for instance, I’m becoming quite familiar with the Soviet Order of Battle for the units assigned to the western front during the height of the Cold War. At the moment specifically, it’s the units consisting of the 3rd Shock Army. You should see all of the Excel spreadsheets and Visio diagrams of information that has more than likely been created over twenty years ago that I have decided to do, from scratch, just for the heck of it. Though in doing this “research” it helps me understand the psychology of why the Russians moved into Georgia a couple of months ago (or atleast I delude myself into thinking it).
I really need a vacation.
This is absolutely just a bunch of hot air blowing around. Since I’ve landed, we’ve gotten between .25″ ~ .5″ of rain, and looking at the latest radar, we’re missing most of the storm, *and* it’s about to make landfall about 40 miles north of me.
Bah. I wanted something.
I made it back, and I can now say that I’ve officially flown into a tropical storm (albeit it was in one of the outer bands).
The park is all locked down and secured, and as usual, the IT department and my ducks were ahead of the curve by finishing our preparedness days ago, so when Raider Duck gave me an update today, he was uncharacteristicaly calm and took some delight in saying that the rest of the people were doing their thing, today. Now granted, there has always been a plan in place, but the IT department is pretty flexible and rapid-reaction compared to most other lines of business.
I’ve noticed that the national media is here in Myrtle Beach, and I’ve been trying to figure out where they are basing themselves. I may go visit them tonight. We’ll see. If I do, I’m taking my camera.
When you have two different time zones constantly stare at you, time means absolutely nothing and everything.
I decided to answer the growlings of my stomach and didn’t want to spend $35 for a hamburger, so I decided to take a bit of a walk to do some urban foraging.
I think that it finally hit me then when I walked out of the hotel. San Francisco is like what the world would be, if the Chinese Dynasties had invented the concept of Manifest Destiny. Now please don’t think that I’m saying this in some jingoistic manner. Quite the opposite. The absolute melding of cultures makes for an interesting mirror world, and while I wasn’t scared of it by any means, it was just…odd.
Perhaps because my soul hasn’t caught back up to me.
The mirror world McDonalds was what I settled on. Fashioned to fit in a metropolitan environ, it was cramped, darkened, and dirty. But in that, the product remains the same. And in that I find some comfort.
I’m back on a plane in 8 hours, and my body doesn’t know where it is. I just hope that I can find my soul at the airport tomorrow, or that the hotel express mails it back to me when I get back.
That was how the Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, John T. Chambers introduced himself to me tonight.
Yeah, go ahead and re-read all of that again.
I met the CEO of Cisco tonight. Out on the patio of some hotel overlooking the San Francisco bay. We talked some about the park and the technology that is in it. Then he asked me “What do you think we need to do better?”
Wha?! Me?
Now to be fair, I was up there with about 30 other people, the circle of conversation was just six of us, and he was asking the question to all of us.
But this is me. People are looking at me now. And one of them runs a 130 Billion dollar business.
Hand to God, I actually heard myself say to myself “He took a duck to the face at two hundred and fifty knots”
Of all the people there on that patio, I was in the unique position of coming from the Cisco organization from a supplier role (in my previous life, I worked for one of Cisco’s suppliers and that company took on a lot of the business practices) so I got to know how the sausage got made and I was able to learn a lot from that. So I told Mr. Chambers that, and that one of the things that I learned personally was the importance of the ethic that is taught to the sales force. Without getting too much into detail, what they teach the sales force is to sell solutions, not boxes. They are taught to understand the needs of the customer’s business and to now understand it from the perspective of different functional groups, not just the IT department’s view and then to provide the right thing, the right way, and in the right time.
I learned a lot of those fundamentals while at Jabil, and I took them to heart here at the park. To the point where the concept was completely foreign to the rest of my coworkers.
And I told him, that he needs to continue to push to his people. This type of ethic is important not only in his company, but in the companies of his customers.
He moved onto someone else.
He seemed to listen to it all. I don’t know. He could have just been placating all of us, maybe not. After all, he knew who I was, and he gave me his business card with his direct phone line.
This whole trip is surreal.
A lot happened on that patio tonight. And in time, I hope to share it.
This is what is on the little towel that is over the edge of the tub, THAT IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FRAKIN’ ROOM.
This is what I have been surrounded by for the previous 24 hours.
This is the view from my seat in 3C as I take the first leg of my flight to SFO today, and it got me to thinking.
There are times in my life that I feel absolutely embarrassed at the level of moving of the earth people seem to do for me. While at the onset, it can be quite cool. I find that that feeling is fleeting and quickly replaced with an utter sense of discomfiture that this should be something that a mere mortal such as myself should be allowed to attain, let alone imagine or let the experience cross my lips.
Even more so, this is hard for me to explain or even admit to, if I want to stay in the foundation of being an Objectivist. Can there indeed be “too much”?
As much as I hate “people” and big masses of humanity in a wholesale form (funny considering where I am going, and why), and how much I want to sit back from the lime colored, scorching spotlight of attention grabbing, I find that in some very rare occasions, I do enjoy being made the center of the world (even if it is a fake act by people who are supposed to do that), or made to feel important.
It does feel good to have someone come up to me and say “Mr. Montoya would you like a beverage before we take off?” or “Mr. Montoya, are you going to San Francisco for business?” It’s corny, yes I know. But how I am being treated is exactly how I like to treat everyone that I know of both professionally, or who enter my place of business. People come to where I work, to expect some sort of fun - that’s a given. But deep down, people come to escape and have a moment where *they* are important; where *they* deserve that rock star lifestyle. That way of thinking is even more apparent in the ducks who work for me. There is an aire of mystique to be in the industry that I and my ducks are in, and its compounded with the fact that we work for Rock & Roll.
In fact, I am sure, that this is the exact reason why I am being flown to SFO on an a first class flight to be paraded in front of sales people at their yearly RAH-RAH spectacle (I’m not being fair, I have no idea what I’m walking into in specifics, but it is a “Global Sales Meeting” and I have a good imagination).
The point of all of this is that it is the simple things that we do that pay off in exponential ways. it’s corny and passe to say but it really works. And this is me - the guy who hates people saying it!!!! That is what the crazy thing is. Don’t believe me? Wait until you see pics from the hotel that I’m staying at.
So, I guess in some karmatic way of thinking, that which is being lavashed upon me is based only because of the work that I, myself have done to achieve it - there’s your Rand popping back up. Does it make me feel any better about it? Not quite. But, what it does do is cement the knowledge in me that by my actions, I am making other peoples lives better, and if rewards come my way, so be it; but I won’t swim around in them.
I’ve been really wanting to do some blogging for a few weeks, but things have been just too busy at times and then I realize that time has passed up.
So, what has been going on? Well, a lot.
I found a way to have HP come out to the park to film the park and IT staff for their website and some viral video stuff. If all goes well, it should come out in October. I spent two days with the HP people and it was quite fun, even though stepping into that world of marketing and filming was quite trepidatious.
I also got to meet KC from KC and the Sunshine Band fame Friday night. The show itself was a fun diversion, and I stuck out like a big sore thumb wearing a Bauhaus T-Shirt. During the after party KC kept looking at me and seemed a bit scared of me. Afterwards when I was hanging out with The Italian Job, I had to explain to him that it wasn’t too surprising that KC was a republican (Italian Job was shocked that KC said something about hoping McCain wins), because of where KC lives in Florida, and that just because he did drugs in the 70’s doesn’t make him a democrat.
Hell, I had to remind him, Johnny Ramone voted for Nixon…twice.
I am heading to San Francisco tomorrow afternoon and will return on Friday afternoon. I’ve been invited by Cisco to join them to be interviewed as a customer who has implemented their physical security product during their Global Sales Meeting. Basically, I’m going to be treated like a piece of meat in a convention center, getting passed around to all of these sales people so that they can find out why I, as a customer make my technology decisicions the way I do.
Heh, that will be funny. One of my demands was that I go to In-N-Out Burger.
These hurricanes are a mess. I get back from SFO when Hanna is supposed to make landfall in or near Charleston, which is about 100 miles south of me. Yippie.
Then we have Ike, which scares me. That one has the potential to hit the house in Tampa.
And then now, Josephine.
I’m driving into a hurricane.
Ξ August 16th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Work |
I was informed this afternoon that Guitar Hero duck, the one from yesterday, will be leaving in the morning. I’m not really surprised, to be honest; and this is part of the overall plan. I guess the thing that really irks me is that there is a lot of drama on the back end going on in his life that I don’t think that he wanted to let others in, and I think there are a few decisions deep down he doesn’t like that he made but feels responsibility to them because he doesn’t understand fully that he has choices in his life.
Plus, he’s only 20.
I see a lot of me in him, both good and bad. In five years, he’ll have the potential of being something extraordinary - whether or not he will admit it to himself and do something about it is something that only time will reveal to us all.
Farewell Mr. Wells. I hope that in life, you find the potential within yourself that we know that you have. My offer still stands, I’ll take you around the world with me.
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