A Life Less Ordinary

Drinking Water

by Irene

Everywhere we go here in the Dominican Republic we ask for bottled water, and if we get a glass of ice, we don't pour the water into it. The hotel has a little sign in the restrooms which indicates you shouldn't drink the water, and when you ask for 'water' at a restaurant or anywhere (ie the supplier we were visiting) there is no doubt they will bring us bottled water.

Why can I drink water out of my tap for "free" (nothing is free - someone is maintaining the massive distribution logistics of the water) in San Francisco, but can't in the Dominican Republic, developing countries, and even in some places in the US? Why do I typically spend close to $0.00 for drinking water per day in SF whereas here I "spend" (well, expense) about $3-$4/day (assuming $1 per water bottle, which I don't think is even the price of a water bottle anymore)?

I don't have the answer, and I know it would be a complex one -- for example, I haven't studied Dominican Republic's geography/geology, watersheds, or policies surrounding water management. I also don't know whether people here do drink tap water, but being a 'guest' and from a 'big company' we are not offered tap water as a sign of respect (and knowledge that our bowel systems can't handle any pathogens we aren't typically exposed to on our own). But why is that? Why is "success" or "prestige" measured by being able to afford to provide us with bottled water, rather than being able to afford to provide worry-free drink water from the tap?

Obviously, you and I live in areas where the tap water is especially good because it is snow-melt, and this is unique in the US and Europe. Not everyone's tap water will taste as good as ours, but at least it should be contaminant-free. But is access to safe drinking water the responsability of the government? Should it be a top-priority to fix the problem for governments where this is not the case? I think yes.

Instead, bottled water companies come in, make significant investments in factories that process locally withdrawn water through reverse osmosis or whatever necessary chemical/biological treatment, put it into plastic bottles and sells it to the local people and abroad. But why isn't the government of this place doing that instead, so that access to clean drinking water is available out of people's taps in their homes? What were people doing before Coca Cola came in and started bottling their water? The people who are dying from cholera and other water-born infectious diseases are still dying, because they're not the ones who are buying Dasani. In fact, its THOSE peopel who should be buying bottled water, not us here in the United States, but I imagine they can't afford it/have access to it.

It is clear that big companies - sure including mine though disclaimer I do believe we have been one of the most ethical - moved to developing countries during globalization in the 80s and 90s and were able to get away with a lot more stuff than they could have in the United States or Europe, which already had complex and rigorous environmental laws  including the Clean Water Act, for example. By coming to places like the DR, China, India, Vietnam, Mexico -- it was possible to start pumping out and then discharging out whatever they wanted to. There was no government to say "no you can't do that' and in fact, I'm sure the governments were often happy to have them come in and start manufacturing because it brought jobs and knowledge.

I'm not saying that if multinational companies didn't come into remote places in the world and start manufacturing there, that those places would have figured out everything and would have been better off. We don't know that. I'm saying it is difficult for these places to back track now when the infrastructure to extract water from the good water sources are tapped into by water-bottling companies, and it will be hard for governments to gain that space back .

So this goes back to the original question - who should be responsible for providing clean water to people: is it companies or government? It is case specific?  Why are companies so much better at this than governments? Is water a typical commodity, so rules of economics apply? There are places in the United States where people's water sources have been contaminated due to fracking (getting natural gas deep underground). These people don't turn on their taps, showers, laundry machines: they buy their water from Wal-Marts or other water distributors. Doesn't that seem bizarre to you? Doesn't it seem like we are a bit removed about how important water is in our daily lives, and it is difficult for us to imagine what it would be like without it?

Prioritization

by Irene

I had my first real interview for a "real" job after college at the beginning of my last semester there. It was with a local city's transportation office developing their various transportation programs (car sharing, green fleet, educating building occupants about altnerative modes of transportation to the office).This was the interview I bought my first suit pants and professional shirt, as well as heels (the heels was much too high, can't believe I wore them to the interview). It's really true what they say: you definitely don't want your very first serious interview in life to be for your dream job....cause you're probably going to blow it. 

Which is precisely what I did. The interview was going as OK as it could've, until I was asked how I deal with prioritizing my time. If I recall correctly, this was due to the position reporting to two bosses and needing to push through numerous initiatives at once. I had no idea how to answer this question - I think I said something about...just figuring out a way to get it all done based on timelines...and gave an example of all the multi-tasking I was doing on campus. Cause, in college, that's what you did: you pulled all nighters, you crammed, you ran from point A to point B....and it was all perfectly normal. So I wasn't really understanding what they were asking me, and it's taken me a while to figure out since starting and working at my job for over a year now.

So, prioritization is not actually , as my boyfriend pointed out, the same as balancing things. And, in fact, it's the exact opposite: it's giving some things more weight than others, eliminating other things completely from your list of To Do's, and having to make decisions on what is truly worthwhile, what actually needs to be done now, and what can wait, and what you should just say "no" to. On this topic, my co-worker recently sent around a really interesting article, here it is.This is a skill that has been very hard for me to work on. I don't want to feel like I'm compromising on anything either in my professional life or in my personal life. But that approach is unsustainable: there actually are only 24 hours in a day, and I have to learn how to ensure that I absolutely 100% include the non-negotiable things into that time, no matter what else has to drop.

I wish I could go back in time and answer that question now. It think it'd something like this:

"In order to correctly prioritize projects and timelines, I'd need proper information about  expectations and deadlines of the initiatives, so that I could outline a plan of action which enables me to meet the targets within a workable timeframe. In the case of two bosses, it will be crucial that both know the full list of projects on my plate, when each projects' key milestones are, and crucial time periods where I should focus on one projects vs. one that might be able to wait."

Writing the above, I think at work that we should play a drinking game. Everytime someone says, "milestone" "outline" "target" "timeframe" "KPI" ...we take a shot.

 

 

 

 

 

Tidbits

By Helen

Today I had an all hands meeting at work. All-hands basically means your extended team meeting. I got to hear my manager’s manager basically wax philosophically about life and lead the group in a
discussion of how our work is going and what to expect in the next year.

I knew when he interviewed me that he was an inspiring person and today proved it more to me. He
is young, motivated, and a rising star. The way I really know that I respect this person is because I’m always worried that I don’t sound as great as I could in front of him and he wouldn’t take me seriously. Anyway, that was a digression.

I did hear some good nuggets that I thought I’d capture:

-Simplifying things is actually really hard. That seems so counter intuitive but I think so true. Though something seems obvious in retrospect, it’s actually harder to simply than it is to have a complicated process.

-Just because you did something one way last time, doesn’t mean it has to be done again next time.
It’s amazing how hard it is to convince people of that when you are trying to push for something new.

-Don’t suffer in silence. This actually came from my manager (who is also someone I admire). If you need something changed or fixed, find
the parts that you can control and fix them.

Anyway, it was great to get this perspective today.

Starting a New Job - Again

by Helen

I think I should document the beginning of my professional life after business school. It’s easy
to forget that I once upon a time was in the working world already and am now back to it after a two year break. Having said that, it is hard to remember the feeling of being lost and overwhelmed that comes with starting a new job. It is humbling and exciting and traumatizing all at the same time.

For context, I am working at a “small” software company in Redmond. The last company I worked for grew from 10 to 30 people while I was there and many of us weren’t sure if it would survive the cultural shift (it did). I don’t remember how long it took me to ramp up, but it definitely
wasn’t immediate and the game changed with every client and project. While there I always felt that my work was important: it was helping somebody get elected to do good things for his/her country, district, and people.

So here are the top 10 things that are interesting/weird about the place I work:

1. Every Monday is a new employee orientation. While the company is mature, on the day when
   I started, 124 other people started with me.
2. When you get an email from anyone you don’t know, the first thing you do is look them up in the org chart.
3. You think of revenues and costs in at least millions.
4. 15 minutes is the minimum amount of time you need to travel across campus to get to a meeting, it could take up to 40 minutes on the shuttle.
5. During the month of October, the company focuses on employee giving with lots of events that happen during that month to encourage participation. I ran the 5k…with 2000 other people who work for the same company.

Left brain right brain

By Irene

As part of a team building process, everyone on our team took one of those personality tests. There are a bunch out there, but we took one called HBDI. This particular method divides the brain into right and left brain and cerebral and limbic. As in typical psychology parlance, left brain is more analytical/logical/fact-based, and right brain is more artistic, symbolic, intuitive-based. Cerebral (front of brain) is more calculating and limbic (back of brain) is more feeling. At least, this is how we were talking about the brain during a facilited session to discuss our test results. I'm sure that there are plenty of studies that show that it is more complicated than that. Our session was facilitated by a well versed professional in the field, this woman with like 2 PhDs and oodles of experience facilitating these conversations at large companies. Interestingly, a lot of her experience is working with large tech companies (Dell, Motorola, etc.)

Anyway, so we all took these surveys before this facilitated session. And the day of the session we got a profile folder assigning basically which "quadrant" of the brain we fall into. More interesting than seeing the results of your own profile, we guessed the profile breakdown for each other. This basically allowed us to see how other people perceive us and how other people perceive others on the team, and also of course how someone sees themselves. This exercise was particularly helpful because it ended up meaning we gave each other feedback on better ways to work with each other.

For me in particular it was interesting because my work involves a lot of data collection and excel spreadsheet stuff, but I enjoy the bigger picture/planning/creative thinking/managing stuff as well. But I am not really given that type of work because I'm perceived as being very data-driven/oriented. Which I actually am - and I have a hard time seeing the bigger picture without getting a really solid understanding of the paper clips and minutia. But I think I was trying to highlight this other aspect of me as well, which was often being over looked. So it was interesting, because during this discussion people were like...Irene...you're really right brained, but you're doing all this left brain stuff....?!? And I was like well yea...but I infuse the data intensive work you give me with creativity, and a more human element. Which is true...I like doing trainings, and I end up always pushing for more interaction with our field folks and getting their input/feedback. 

Anyway, I hope I didn't overplay my right brained-ness, but that I get some other type work passed my way as a result of this.

Change and Moral Compasses

By Irene

Today I officially accepted the Environmental Sustainabilty Analyst position at Levi's.

I asked to speak to my boss's boss briefly, who I am very very scared of, to say thank you for the opportunity, etc, and also asked her for any words of advice she has for me, as I'm starting out on my first job. She's now the director of our team, and has been with the company for over 20 years. She also started as an analyst, and has seen the company go through a lot of changes. She's been incredibly successful in driving Levi to be a sustainability leader in the apparel industry through truly creative and outside the box thinking.

Her two pieces of advice:

1. Be able to accept and adapt to change: recognize when it's happening, don't work against it, be able to move forward. In the context of Levi's I'm sure this meant both in terms of the company within itself changing numerous times, including going from private to public back to private, and also, how the team itself has changed and its role in the company has changed, as well as sustainbility in the broader context is always changing as well.

2. Stick with positive people: she said that there will always be negative people who will not like this or that, but, as long as what you are doing is in line with your values, she said she has stayed away from those circles of negative energy to keep that sort of subconscious background chatter at a minimum. Of course, she clarified, it's important to tune in so as not to be blind sited, you can't be a complete lone soldier, but, at the end of the day, you follow your own moral compass. I thought this was general good life adivce.

All in all, I thought these were two really great insights, and I was thankful that she took the time to share them with me (I often feel she is way too busy to talk to anyone, let alone me), and, I'm glad I asked to speak with her alone in a little conference room, even though it was scary.

 

 

wake up, wake up, you're late, you're late, wake up....

Ask anyone who's lived with me: don't talk to me in the morning. I am just not a morning person. It is not correlated to how much sleep I get, it could be 10 hours of 5.

This, however, is pretty much bad news bears for the rest of my career life. Ideally I should get into the office by 8am every day, though the earlier I get in the better. My boss is on the east coast, and a bunch of people are in Europe and Asia, who I have a greater chance of catching the earlier I get in.

The problem with getting in supremely early? EVEN if I get to the office early (i.e. by my contractor standards before 9:30am) I am not truly awake until at least 10, maybe 11. One of my boss's is a sassy fellow and has joked that he doesn't ask me to do things until after lunch. This is an accute observation, as about 2-9pm is my prime. In fact, I really enjoy working 6pm-9pm in the office. I am SUPER productive for 3 solid hours, going home feeling extremely accomplished, brain fried. Which, inevitably, means the next morning is hard again.

So, the question is -- how do I not only wake up on time but also actually be mentally awake in time to start an 8am day? And it's not like I don't know the answer. In order to get into the office mentally awake, I need to be awake for a couple hours before I get into the office. So, for example, when I took the Dailey Method at 6am, I was pretty damn awake by the time I got into the office, ditto to when I did early morning runs. And even now, I'm drinking my second cup of coffee and writing this, putting some space between mad rush to get ready and running out the door, which will help once I'm behind my desk staring at excel (or heavens forbid TALKING to people).

But here's the thing -- waking up at 5:30am (did not do that today, though I sure did try) just isn't my thing, though IF I CAN get out of bed, I LOVE being awake that early, having those extra morning hours, seeing the street below wake up. I just physically can't do it. I can do it like 2 times, when it is a novelty, but after the newness and the excitement of doing something unusual wears off, I am back to snoozing. And, even waking up at a more godly hour like 6:3o or 7:00 or 7:30 or sometimes 8. (I know, embarassing) gets hard, even though the night before I set my alarm clock and am all psychologically ready to wake up at a reasonable hour, so I'm not in a big rush in the morning.

So, the REAL question is how do I trick myself to get out of bed when I actually intended to get out of it, rather than the ABSOLUTE last minute. I need a personal "get out of bed" PERSON. Do you think someone is in that business?

 

 

 

 

Work-Life Balance

By Helen

Over however many years I've been working and now going to school, the conversation about work life balance comes up a lot. I've had different managers with difference perspectives on what that means and have shown it in different ways.

My first long term boss was very available to me at most times of day and night. However, he was only that way when he was on the road. If he was at home with his family, that was family time and he was present with them. My next boss, here in Washington, was much more balanced. He traveled less, he prioritized his family on a daily basis more but as a result he wasn't as cause driven as my first boss was. Two very different approaches that taught me different things.

While in business school, I've spent a lot of time talking to working people – especially women – about what work-life balance means. Most say there is no such thing, but there is a necessity to be present and engaged with whatever you are doing and trying to in a sense be more focused on each individual thing. For example, when one of my mentors is at work, she doesn't think about her kids and what's going on at home and when she crosses a certain threshold on her way home (a road sign), she switches her mind to be at home and focused on her kids, her husband, etc. So her lesson there was to always be present with whatever you are doing.

This weekend in Leavenworth, we had a long discussion one night about priorities in life and what it means to be passionate about your work but also be passionate about your family, your friends and your free time. I think Adam and I are very lucky in that we both need an exciting professional challenge to keep us motivated and enthusiastic about work and that usually results in working long hours in pursuit of success. However, we also intend to have a family and it will be interesting to be able to balance that out so that each part of our life gets the attention it needs.

However, to me, work-life balance also includes things like working out, vacationing, doing regular maintenance things (like manicures, hair, massages, etc.) as well as getting time with friends. I know I can't have it all, but in my perfect world, I will be able to work hard to earn enough money at a job I am passionate about so that money can help my family achieve some of these things. I am not sure if having a family dinner every night at 7pm is a manageable goal for example, but giving the family what it needs and when it needs it is what we will strive for.

As I start work this fall, I want to make sure that I get on the right track as far as personal care is concerned and time for my to be husband (still sounds weird to say that) and that to me will be a semblance of balance that will adjust over time as new circumstances arrive.

Graduation Time

By Helen

Dear Irene,

I've been trying to think of what I should tell you on the topic of graduating and what great words of wisdom and reflection I could possibly have for someone as smart, accomplished, charismatic, funny and down to earth as you. I think when I look back on graduating from UCLA 6 years ago, I remember feeling that I could conquer the world. I had my State Senate fellowship all lined up where I was going to make meaningful policy that will change California. Shortly after I joined a campaign and worked for a candidate I believed in. I lived a full life of excitement right after college. I know you say that I get enthusiastic about everything and find so many ordinary things extraordinary and fascinating. To be honest, I think that's what gets me through life. Observing, talking, laughing, stressing out, worrying – all these things combined make my life good. But most importantly, doing things I love, always learning and being around people who inspire me – are aspects that truly make my world complete.

Here is my top 10 for life after college observations for you (I'm sure you've seen it all and heard it before but still):

10. You have something to learn from every person around you, the key is figuring out what it is.

9. Work on your strengths more than you work on your weaknesses – especially professionally.

8. Force yourself to go out and meet new people no matter how tired and exhausted you are. Meeting people after college is hard so don't pass up those opportunities.

7. Make mistakes. Make them often. Whoever said that smart people learn on other people's mistakes forgot to mention that you learn most and best on your own mistakes.

6. Figure out what your answer is to "what do you do for fun" – this seems to be a common topic of conversation after college and it is harder to answer than you think.

5. When you meet a new person, try to remember one thing about him – this is more important than their name because it will give you something to talk about next time you see him.

4. Own your mistakes. Admit to them, embrace them and never say "it's not my fault" (even if it isn't).

3. Always make the people above you and below you look good. Compliment them often. Tell them they are doing a good job.

2. Seek feedback and don't be afraid of it.

1. Whatever you do professionally, make sure you are excited about it at least 60% of the time. Otherwise find another job. I mean it.

P.S. Have a GREAT time in England.

 

Informational Interviews

by Helen

This week we had a small break in the stream of crazy assignments, classes, projects and tests.  Most of my classmates are out of town on Road Shows to the Bay Area as well as to the Net Impact Conference in Cornell.  

In order to make the most of our "time off," my classmate Allison and I made our own Seattle "study tour" and met with four very different "marketers" in the area. 

We began our meetings with a Sr. Manager of Media Management Services at Getty Images and learned about her role with the company, the team she manages and the products she markets.  Her role seemed to be very specific and a mix of a technical and a marketing role with a larger emphasis on the tech stuff.  I have loved Getty Images since my political days since that's where we bought most of our stock photography, so it was interesting to see the office, the space and the environment that company functions in.  It is also a company that went from being public to private, which gave a new perspective too.  Getty Image's business strategy is existence by acquisition.  It is not clear to me how the company will continue growing especially with the decline of the newspaper business that uses stock photography very heavily. 

Our second meeting was with an online media buyer for Nordstrom.  Having only met TV buyers before, it was fun to learn about various ways to buy and pay for online advertisement.  For example, a common strategy is to pick up left over advertisement that websites like AOL, MSN, etc. were not able to sell and be "filler" for those sites and in return, you only pay for the advertisement that results in a sale.  I am pretty sure that I don't want to be a media buyer, but it was another type of marketing that was interesting to learn about. 

Our other two meetings were with Microsoft Marketers.  First one was with a research guru who does what I would call opposition research for MSFT.  I always knew that major companies put in serious resources into tracking the industry progress but I've never meant a non-political opposition research person, so that was very interesting.  We also talked a lot about the culture at MSFT, the intensity of the hours, being surrounded by very smart people and being forward looking as a company. 

The last meeting was with a traditional "marketer" who works on the Sharepoint Microsoft team.  The people who work for her are MBAs with marketing concentrations who work on creating awareness for the product and support the field that is trying to sell the product.  It was great to see what this role looks like at MSFT and it did appeal to me and what I want to do.  

Both MSFT people talked about the company being driven by engineers and referencing the famous Steve Ballmer "developer" clip: 

So two full days, four very different marketers and a world of possibilities that I am trying to narrow down into fields of interest to me.  The problem is that so many things seem so interesting and intriguing right now and I wish I could try a little bit of everything.