Yes I *am* special, but tell me why.

A lot of my job involves managing vendors. Like many parts of my day at work, it’s often drudgery. This is a lot like poker, where you must work through the same situation over and over again, looking for something unusual.

I ask the same questions of every vendor. “Are you profitable? Cash flow positive? Who are your investors?”

But I do it because I am invested in my vendors. They form a piece of the infrastructure of my company. And I think you get better results when you treat your vendors well. When they do me a big favor, I send them a box of chocolates. I call them and tell them what they’re doing right, so they don’t only hear from me when something’s going wrong. I visit them (some people never do this) and take them out to eat. And I communicate problems through disappointment, not anger, since the productive arc of a conversation without anger gets me so much better results.

One time I remember I was reporting a serious problem with a vendor’s billing system. It had the potential to make all our bills to our clients inaccurate. I carefully measured my tone of voice through the conversation, which I know my vendor noticed, and then I hit her with the hammer, “You understand that inside I’m freaking out, but that by not screaming, I’m hoping you are the epitome of speed and customer service in solving this problem.” Of course she understood, and I’ve always gotten excellent customer service from her ever since.

It’s good to be a vendor of Mindshare. However becoming one is sometimes a challenge, especially if you don’t do your homework. Over time my ego has shrunk and I’ve developed a finely tuned radar for people that are pitching me. “Why are they pitching me?” I wonder. How did they decide I’m special? Telling me my company has an impressive track record isn’t good enough, what about our track record impressed you? Tell me facts, not platitudes.

And so it was that a prospective vendor called me the other day with an otherwise reasonable pitch poorly executed…

Read More

Final Pakistan diaries

The last three entries of my Pakistan Diaries are up. I’ve also added a number of photos to the album that cover these additional days. Week 3: Karachi Weddings Conclusion: The trip home

Read More

Yes, you should buy an iPod Shuffle.

So the iPod Shuffle came out yesterday. It’s a small 512MB/1GB flash MP3 player. That means you can cram it full of 150 or so songs and listen to it. When I saw the price ($99 for 512MB and $150 for 1GB) I thought, “Hm, that’s cheap”. Well, it is cheap, And also small. Real…

Read More

Pakistan Diaries: Introduction

Badshai mosqueIt had been twenty-five years since I was last in Pakistan and fifteen years since I had spoken to my father.  In between then and now had been almost a lifetime of events.

My father had divorced, remarried, divorced again, and again remarried.  Surprisingly, I love both of my stepmothers (and my mother) very much, though that experience had been hard on all of us kids.  In late 2003 I reached out to him to reconcile our 15 year silence.  As we continued to talk, at the end of 2004 he offered to show Pakistan to Sarah and I.  I couldn’t imagine declining.

All kids of immigrants who aren’t close to their foreign families feel a hole where others trace their lineage.  I certainly felt like I was missing something.  Now my father was handing me a chance to fill that vacuum.  So in the second week of December, Sarah and I jetted off to Pakistan, my ancestral homeland (or one of them, at least) to seek adventure and answers.

Read More

How to relax your Democratic friends at parties and other loose ends

A couple of things so you don’t think I’m entirely neglecting you. My October poker results are up; I took a bath. Sarah and I just returned from a week in Portugal, which was her semi-surpise birthday present. Note to self, never surprise a woman with a trip to another climate without giving her enough…

Read More

Mustard-crusted rack of lamb

(Say this with a French accent) It is beautiful, like a naked woman...
My friend Eric recently blew through town on his way to the field for the Kerry campaign. We got a rare few days with him and in celebration of his presence I cooked a rack of lamb. Here’s my cooking diary from those days.

Read More

“On the nature of self and memory” film festival

Warning: I’m going to include spoilers to the movies Marnie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Butterfly Effect in this entry.

“Our ‘mistakes’ become our crucial parts, sometimes our best parts, of the lives we have made.”
-Ellen Goodman

Without really trying, Sarah and I had the above-named film festival for the past week. “Marnie” had been sitting in our Netfix pile on our tv for months, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” was brought over by my sister after she rented it from Blockbuster, and “Butterfly Effect” was bought off the satellite dish when I realized I had missed it in theaters.

In all three movies the main characters experience a trauma in their past and are unable to come to terms with it. Believing their lives would be better without these experiences, they each relate to their past in flawed ways and ultimately realize that your past, including mistakes and accidents, are a key part of who you are, and can’t be edited for improvement even if you wanted to.

Read More

September Poker Totals

I’m pleased with my results for September. Despite my adventures in Atlantic City, I made money this month again. And my other wins at live poker games around the area gave me enough buffer to offset my losses in AC.

Read More

Atlantic City Day Three: You have a very short memory, don’t you?

bob.jpg

The Borgata, Noon
Sunday is a day of renewed cockiness. We eat the Vegas-quality buffett at the Borgata and head to the tables for our last poker session of the trip. After my success yesterday I sign up for a $3/$6 game. I sit down with $295 and play for about 2 ½ hours. I sit next to a guy who looks a lot like Kevin Smith (“Clerks”). In case you don’t know, Smith plays “Silent Bob” in his own movies.

Read More