Outsourced?

Just the other day, there was a campaign commercial telling me why I shouldn't vote for a particular candidate- an apparent fear of job outsourcing to places like China. I am never big on Americanism, given I, like most consumers, buy just anything that's cheaper. For an advertisement such as this one, I wasn't swayed just yet.

Going global suddenly became a black curse among job seekers, regardless of how well multinational companies, like IBM, Microsoft, or Apple, are doing. Rest assure that these companies continue to employ many on the American land. They simply figured out a way to cut back in places that they aren't efficient at. You may think I am writing in favor of globalism, I am not. I am simply writing to rationalize my emotions. Back in 2000, when I was a junior in high school, everyone wanted to be a computer science major, including myself. After the dot-com bust, computer science wasn't cool anymore. Emerged from a business background, I developed a deep appreciation for delicate business processes. But over the years, I held a post in technology field and kept my business background as a backup. With a combination of these two, I have become a master of efficiency, with Internet technology as my tool and business intuition as my logic.

True, in the recent years there has been an exponential increase in technology and many jobs are diminishing. American companies have access to high quality labor at a low cost and better technologies; when efficiency is gained, jobs are sometimes impacted. A new resentment soon rises towards globalization and the dollar value return on a technology job rises to new skepticism. Politicians have raced to accelerate this fear and voters are encouraged to act on it.

But let's get a bit creative here. When a dollar is invested aboard, the margin of profit increases and the salary for the American workers becomes more generous. We take this salary to purchase goods- actually affording more goods made aboard, benefiting from the already low-cost structure there.

I am not worried but I recognize the pressures placed on technology jobs. Even so, technology workers aren't the only ones susceptible to the outsourcing trend. I emphasize on the concept of efficiency. When a company realizes how to do more for less, any one in any field is affected. For example, the primary function of my old job was to create a more efficient production line. And reducing headcount by far yields to high cost-avoidance. Then there are ways to reduce headcount- eliminating processes, combining processes, or introducing technology. These jobs are vanishing, not outsourced, not replaced with foreign workers. Whether this process improvement yields more productivity is irrelevant, the company in the end saves money to achieve at least the same result. Increased productivity does not necessarily mean higher profit for company- as you may learn from the theory of constraint, you're just producing waste.

Some people propose that a better education in science and technology will help America regain its competitiveness. I do not think this as a smart solution. As more students are studying science here, so are the students aboard, and education out there is just as good as over here. And producing talents excessively without parallel demand gives inventory and it is costly to maintain it (I am reluctant to call it waste, but it might as well in manufacturing's term). The work ahead involves equipping one with more than one skill and often considering both hard(technical) and soft(creative) skill. I see my business background as my emotional side- this is part of me that gives me creativity, expanding my perspectives; next my technical skill as my rational side- allowing me to judge the worthiness of my perspectives.

Now, revealing the true intention of this post. I hesitated to make one decision recently because of the term "outsourced". The position I applied for was to be outsourced to a global company for budget reason. I debated if I should partake in the outsourcing nature, but eventually I accepted it. It is for the greater of these two companies, and myself of course. If you look at globalization as a whole, the free flow of knowledge across regions should icon the free flow of goods worldwide. I am happy with the decision I made and truly embrace it.

Boeing Job Hunt Timeline

I even have time to plot this timeline chart... I know I am being impatient since this is a big company. But we all know the agony of a waiting game.

I am only doing this to see if my wait is justified and how silly I am to be waiting by the phone and email, that 425 area code telephone call. I don't really know the complete process of hiring and I am trying really hard to recollect my past experience. And times like this, your brain just seems to be blank.

I am guessing it will take longer than one month this time.

Certainty

Our brain cells do tricky things to our mind. Most of us are gifted with imagination and with that, we can form many plausible scenarios right inside our head. It's like paying one movie ticket but watching many different movies. All are played within the same short time frame. Then, our mind is able to draw conclusion based upon these different movies; we create the sound, fulfil the plots, and make our own ending. If it doesn't please us, we rewind everything and repeat this process again.

As imagination goes, we love certainty too. I don't know if I should call it "the wishful thinking" since some imagination is not what we desire to be... but we like doing it so for where else permits you to do and redo events- and all happening this fast. Soon after these rehearsal, we may find ourselves losing factual bits. We try to recall what was done or said- and all desperately trying to differentiate our imagination from reality. We grabbed onto some words leftover from memory; it seemed maybe that was the important piece after all.

So I refuse to imagine at times. The dreamy, daring scenes are risky and heartening. Quite frankly, my imagination is tilted towards a dramatic loud ending (some call extreme?). I assure you this does nothing good to my well-being. The truth is in front of us; we may ask and we shall receive. For once, I disregarded my imagination and I ran for clarity. The path wasn't stretched long and the theatre inside my mind is gracefully put to rest for good... for now

Rain Love 寄雨

The road not taken

Yesterday, I was asked why I blogged when I could just write my feelings in my journal? I do both actually. While blogging keeps an optimist perspective on my thoughts, writing in my journal reveals my "after-thoughts". I write about my feelings mostly in my journal, you know, the thing about love, relationship, my desires- things ought not to shared with the world yet. Where on blog I use it as my platform to evaluate, mainly to make, my decision.

I keep these decisions open to the public because someone out there may find them valuable. Perhaps, they may have the same doubts, or they may have wise advice for me. The web is neutral; I won't be judged for making a decision and I listen to everyone's say. It helped me get through my days when I know these postings will reach to a certain population one day.

Anyway, it has been a week since I "dropped" out of law school. I am reluctant to speak in this manner since how do you drop out when you are never enrolled? You see, back at my old job, we had a fellow who dropped out of law school- he finished his 1L at Seattle U and figured that road was not for him. I asked him then why he even went if he was clueless initially? He gave me an answer that may be common for most people in law school today- he didn't know what he could do after college that pays decent money. That statement there truly sounded like a drop out to me. Unfortunately, this young man took his own life after a year at the job. My prayer goes out to him.

I used to think I could adapt my love for writing to love for law. Not likely so. I just can't write about something I don't believe in; and I can't be convincing if I can't believe. So with all, this is what I love:

Promise

Before the first sight, before the first night
Before the arcs of many moons a Promise I had known
From the solitude of my walls echoed a soft whisper
“I am falling in love with you”

Fall bloomed red with desire; Winter longed with her sorrowed swoon
Lashed by the snow stream thawed by spring wind
We heaved with shivers of joy, anticipation and loss
The stuff of life; the stuff of love!

Love, the chariot of Apollo, knew of no reasons, knew of no seasons
Faith, ever fragile a mistress, danced her terrible fate
A Promise, not lived, is not believed
A dream, not believed , easily caved

I choose to Live that Promise
Not as a soft whisper in the dark
Not as a painting, a page or a frame
But as a day and everyday in the light of the sun

Superwoman Returns? Part III

I've learned one thing as a child witnessing these fast-moving events/emotions in the past ten years. Family becomes my first priority. I hold this principle dear to my heart and swear to not let this happen to my own family in the future.

Then there is Principle: "a fundamental proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning". At times, we may be excused to lose sights at what matters the most to ourselves. Some bystanders defend their actions, arguing that we make up principles at different phase of life and sitting on one may be extremely difficult. I've noted that Positive Principle created rules governing one's personal behavior. At the heart of the debate is the issue about how principles are discovered and noted. Many may never display the principles they actually have. Who can blame them? We love to distort the events in our favor, measure righteousness with monetary currency. I can give many examples of how Positive Principle means in making decision, not just in a business sense, but in everyday life. That said, my mother's company could maybe be spared of a litigation only had my brother recognized his Positive Principle, if there's even any.

A few days ago, I withdrew from law school. At the very last minute, I could not phantom the term "client advocacy". People told me that I focused too much on that silly term. And there is always the question of what I plan to do if I leave school now (before school starts)? Still, compared with the challenges facing my core principles of advocating for clients who I must fight regardless of any empathy for the defending party, and vice versa, leaving law school is unlikely to cause much more than a hiccup. I have written many posts advocating for the cause, which essentially means the Principle on which our intent to law school was founded. Mine is for Just, for the ideology to move the society forward. Not the money or the prestige.

I want to tell my mother to look deeper into her Principles, and not let any distraction misalign her values. I wish I could pass the message to her and to all of us children to really care for family and to stop interrupting our principles with the prospective prestige and profit. We are not fighting to become any super woman; look at the incentive for receiving what we want if only we know what matter the most to us.

Superwoman Returns? Part II

She grew up poor. She was the second oldest of the ten children and my oldest aunt passed away at her youth year. To support her family, my mother dropped out of high school; she fought hard to provide care for her five nieces left without a mother, then provided guidance to her eight siblings. This was a harsh reality for her. It was the year of 1984. By then, my mother had two of her own children, and a third one was on her way to the world. Lest you consider her being a single mother, life without any substantive skills wasn't going to spark any major change to her own family's fate. She made the decision to leave her work (the companies in Taiwan at that time didn't appreciate a working mom) and started her own company. She concluded that she must be an entrepreneur to allow her to see her children grow. A company was founded with that principle in mind.

Her hard work paid off. She lavished her children with the kind of luxury that she was left incomplete during her teenager years. Each of us learned literature, piano, abacus. We were so much drowned in love and care. And my brother and I, the only ones in the family who found a passion for business, were looked upon to inherit her business.

Let's fast forward to my college year, where I was educated about business and was excited about the prospect of contributing my skills to the company that nurtured me all this time. But my brother, ten years senior of me, was an ambitious sort. He was one of those speculators who watched the company gaining prosperity without sharing the stress and tears behind that mask. During his tenure as a manager for my mother's company in China, he made devastating decision in the name of bringing more business; his reasoning and attitude led him, and the company, at the brink of bankruptcy. Things didn't get better since. The employees lost morale and respect for the company that once shared its glory in China. Left with a cripple management, my mother sank deeper into depression. Where were her children at the time of her desperation? She was not a super woman; she was just a mother who wished to sit down to have a warm dinner with her children. Her now grown-up children lived in a separate places. I assumed, this must not what she had in mind ten years ago, fighting so hard for a broken family.

Superwoman Returns? Part I

When I was young, I would sit in my mother's "CEO's" seat and pretended that I was managing the accounting for her firm. This was the pre-computer, pre-Internet era where the only piece of technology you had to manage a company's account was well, a calculator.

Often now, my mom would reminisced back to this time where I "worked" along side with her- whether to balance company book or to test the conductivity of computer wires (this was her business). Her work fascinated me, so did her persistence and diligence.

A few many years passed by and a few million dollars made, she was left with a dysfunctional family. This was not meant as disparaging, for that the children had enjoyed fruits of my mother's success. The children lived in the life she could only dream of; she had no high school degree but we attained our education in America, one of the us is even on her path to reach a PhD degree. My mother emphasized greatly on education so much that she sent her three daughters to a "better place" for education when they were only 14 years old. Some of us are grateful for her sacrifices- most of her life was without her children but with her company; some took them for granted. They rationalized that: Isn't it natural for parents to foot the kids' bill? My mother's wealth came at a huge expense- a bill that I probably couldn't make sense with any calculator.

My mother is almost 60 years old and one of her children is still a sophomore in college. Her fortune amounts to nothing but the diploma we hold (or will hold), the pride of a kid's Doctorate degree, and a reality of a broken family. Oh, and our grand house that is currently a collateral to an ongoing litigation. To make sense of all these events in the past ten years, one must understand of the struggles and ambitions she experienced.