I was reading BusinessWeek last saturday and this phrase caught my attention: "Say what you mean and do what you say." Unfortunately, not many people live by this creed. That article points out two types of trust-killers. First, there are those who aren't candid with one another. These people often use baloney to sugar coat their talk while making things look more obscure and themselves less accountable. Second, there are the people more often than not say one thing and do another (or worse the opposite).

I recently encountered both types of people. I hate to dwell on negativity on this blog; but my recent experience with these people have less than desirable. First, I have still yet to receive the money (quite substantial may I add) that I lent to an individual despite all the empty promises that he had made. Then, there are those who say that they will make it to events that require their presence; but ended up as no-shows when the day came. If one can't make it to an event, just indicate no or maybe (I always treat maybe as not a yes, so I'll understand if you say maybe). Even if you don't plan on showing up at the event, just send me an email telling me that you can't make it. When I say something, I will almost always back it up with action. That's why I don't like to commit to something unless I know I can do it. So it really breaks my heart to see this happening.

8/7/2006 11:29:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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This woman who is sitting next to me is driving me nuts with her typing. Her typing is really loud and distracting. I have no problems with people using their computer in class but keep it down.

3/9/2006 7:22:50 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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What is so happy about birthday anyway? Wishing someone "Happy Birthday" is for kids. I say "Happy Birthday" is only appropriate for someone who is under the minimum voting age of 18. Remember when you are young, there is always something to look forward to and getting a year closer to the milestone is something to celebrate. But wait, what about the legal drinking age of 21? Turning 25 is also significant as auto-insurance premium is substantially reduced. Perhaps 25 is the cutoff age for wishing someone "Happy Birthday."

From now on, I don't want to wish anyone who is over the age of 25 a "Happy Birthday" on his/her birthday. At the same time, stop wishing me "Happy Birthday" from here on. Why? A birthday does nothing but to remind someone that he/she is getting year older and there is no joy to it. As one gets a year older, one surely recognizes that through injury and sickness it hurts more than it did a year ago. When you are sliding downhill, the last thing you want to hear is to be reminded that people are celebrating this so-called joyous occasion. It makes no sense.

2/6/2006 12:17:41 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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So upset I was with the Sloan picture book that I went to talk to Ted about my dissatisfaction. From my conversation with Ted, I found out that I was wrong about my assumptions in my previous rant. Sorry, I was wrong. It wasn't Sloan's fault that SDM wasn't included in the picture book. It was us, the SDM students, who are to be blamed. A majority of us had failed to update our profile description on Sloanspace (a website) despite 2 earlier emails notifying us to do so. Due to the lack of information, the administration decided at the last minute to pull the SDM section off the picture book.

I even more upset by this new revelation. What a disgrace that we can't even get our act together to follow simple instructions to update our profile on the website.

9/1/2005 12:45:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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While visiting the LFM-SDM office to check on my mail after TPP orientation, I discovered the freshly minted Sloan picture book of 2005. But when I opened the book, I couldn't find a single picture of anyone from my SDM cohort. I flipped the book multiple times but I only found pictures of students from the MBA, Sloan Fellows, Undergraduate, and Doctoral programs. I know this may sound trivial to some people, but I am really upset by this lack of representation of SDM in the Sloan picture book. Isn't the SDM program a part of Sloan? This is yet another incident that confirms the bigger pattern of the SDM program as being a second class citizen at Sloan. We often have to operate in "guerilla" mode to get around the limited Sloan elective that every SDM students are constrained with. Not to mention that we get ZERO assistance from Sloan career placement office. I can continue ranting but I am going to restrain myself for now.

In closing, I have this personal observation to share. The SDM program is a joint degree program between Sloan and ESD. So all SDM students are technically part of both Sloan and ESD. I have observed that even with the lack of goodwill and respect from Sloan, most SDM students will more likely identify themselves as students from Sloan than from ESD. All this despite that the fact that ESD holds the SDM program on a higher pedestal, hosts the SDM office in its building, and provides administrative and logistical services to SDM students. I guess the Sloan brand name is hard to beat, huh.

9/1/2005 12:49:13 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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I have just learned from Ilana's blog that one of my favorite bars in Boston, the Littlest Bar, is wrapping up its business by December to make way for condominium development. I have many fond memories at the Littlest. After all, this is the bar where I met Liam, Siobhan, and most of my Irish friends, many who still remain as my good friends. Liam once said that the Littlest is one of the most authentic Irish bar in Boston while Siobhan celebrated her 21st birthday - a day of legalized drinking in America - at the Littlest. Aptly named, the Littlest is indeed Boston's littlest bar. Imagine putting about 35 people into an area of a 150 sq ft. In spite of the confined space, they still manage to get a band of Irish folk musicians to play at a corner, a bartender to serve a pint of good guinness, and a bouncer to stay guard at the door. Their space management is impeccable. But all this doesn't matter anymore, the bar will be gone by December. It's really sad to see this landmark go. Damn you condo developer...

8/5/2005 2:58:05 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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I went back to my old place to clear the weeds that have been growing at the front of my condo so that the front will look nice for the coming open house. Before long, my old neighbor came by to where I was weeding and started instructing where I should weed. She then made a remark that her perennial plant that was growing at that spot in the garden is now gone and that someone must have stolen it. She then alluded that other neightbors may have come and stole the plant. I always avoid communicating with my old neighbor as much as possible but I felt compelled to come back with a strong and logical rebuttal to her statement. And I said: "Why would someone come and steal your plant that is firmly planted on the ground?" She tried to refute my response, but each time I gave that logical, unwavering, and stern sounding rebuttal: "Why would someone come and steal your plant that is firmly planted on the ground?" She finally gave up and went back to her house. At last, some peace and quiet. In the back of my mind, somehow I am not surprised if I was once an unsuspected victim of such pejorative remark.

8/1/2005 7:06:04 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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3 weeks ago, I briefly wrote about the poor social dynamics at the Harvard Extension School in this blog entry. I thought that the social dynamics at the SDM program at MIT would be different from that of Harvard Extension, but I am now having my doubts. A minority of the SDM students have been organizing events outside of school since our inception to the program. The earlier social events like dim sum and sushi were met with success. But those were the epitome of the last good social gatherings, which happened 6 months ago. Since then, IMHO almost every social event has been met with little success and even failure. For example, I was utterly disappointed with the turn out at last night's poker game at Rachael's, only Yoav, Jeff, John, and I showed up. I was hoping that poker nights would be a great opportunity for me to hang out with fellow students that I don't know well. For me, there are still people that I don't know very well despite being in the same class. Maybe I have not been reaching out to them? A possibility. But I digress, is the priority of social interaction ranked low among the majority of the students? Or is there is a general lack of interpersonal skills among us with me included? I don't know but I have been advocating the need for camaraderie for a long time. We need goodwill and lighthearted rapport among friends. I hope this will change with the next poker night, which location is still undetermined at this time, and the 4th of July cook-out at my place. To Rachael, thanks for hosting last night. It was fun for me to win with a few straights and flushes for a change.

6/26/2005 10:31:33 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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This is really sad. Boston has been hit by days of continuous downpour and unseasonably cold weather. The weather is so bad that a cloudy day with occasional drizzle is now considered a nice day. In addition, the weatherman said yesterday's highest temperature is the coldest high temperature on record for May 24th.

5/25/2005 9:55:34 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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For three weeks in a row, we have been having rain and abnormal cold temperature on the weekends. This has really ruined the weekend for me.

5/8/2005 6:01:55 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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I am going to start today's blog with a rant. I have been a faithful user of TaxCut since 1997; but I have been having sore experience with their rebate system. I have not received my well-deserved rebate from H&R Block, the makers of TaxCut, in the last 3 years because somehow, in the eyes of H&R Block, I managed to screw up my rebate application every time.

What a contradiction, when it comes to advertising their mail-in rebate, H&R Block didn't hesitate a bit to print the words, "Mail-in Rebate" in large boldface to entice your attention to buy the most expensive version of their software. However, when it comes to the rebate filing process, that's a whole different story. Not only was the rebate coupon buried in a stack of other similar sized coupons, the printed instructions for filing the rebate were vague and in fine print. Worse, I have just received a letter from H&R Block informing me that I didn't follow the instructions and so my rebate application was disqualified. Well, they say "three times a charm" or "three strikes and you out". Based on this, TaxCut is certainly out. I am switching over to TurboTax when I do my tax return next year.

In closing, let me offer a food for thought. If a company is serious about passing the savings to its customers, why not offer us an instant rebate?

5/5/2005 11:47:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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I was shocked when I looked out of the window 5 minutes ago. It was friggin' snowing outside!!! On April 12th. Geez...

4/12/2005 5:48:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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More rant from a former patient guy. This time, it's Product Design & Development or PDD. It is difficult to stay attentive to today's team presentation in PDD when 4 out of 5 presenters were rambling on and on about their product development process in a monotonous voice.

When you are making a presentation, what are you trying to achieve? You are presenting your ideas to the audience and so that they will stay interested. This means that the presenter is selling to the audience. If so, why are people still speaking in monotonous tone and reading from the slides? Also, the presentation slide is not a written documentation, so keep the content on the slide terse. If you need to explain the context, do it verbally. No slide should contain more than 50 words!!! Last but not least, always present the presentation within the allocated time slot.

3/29/2005 11:17:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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I am usually a very patient person but I was about to pull all my hairs off at Professor Katz's class this afternoon when certain individual relentlessly kept interrupting the professor. I simply find it rude, disruptive, and counter-productive when someone starts babbling away without even raising one's hand. I know you have a lot of experience to share with the class but other people, especially the professor, have their opinions as well.

3/28/2005 6:26:29 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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I remember seeing this creature in a TV commercial during the Super Bowl 2 weeks ago. It is a bison-like robot that you can ride on. The commercial didn't catch my attention then since I didn't know what it was trying to convey. I saw the ad again earlier today and I still don't know what it was trying to convey. However, this time it did manage to spark my curiosity. From the commercial, it looks like people are getting into a rodeo ring to ride this mechanical beast as they would a bucking bronco. The ad ends with the narrator saying"Anybody can ride an Esuvee, but not everybody rides it right." For a moment, I honestly thought the narrator was asking me to test drive a mechanical wooly beast that I can ride on the road. So I went to the website to find out more about this new product. I was struggling to understand what the website is about. There is neither any product information in sight even nor background information about the Esuvee. Everything on the website is about SUV safety. It took me 20 minutes before I realize what the Esuvee is about. To my chagrin, Esuvee is pronounced as "SUV." The website is nothing more than a campaigning tool that is paid for by Ford Motor Company to educate SUV owners how to drive their vehicle safely. But I think behind all the fluff, it is also a good marketing campaign to convince people that they are not invulnerable when they get behind the wheel of a SUV. Alright to be fair, I think educating the public about car safety is a good service but I really think that the marketing strategy of featuring a product-like mascot is not only misleading but ineffective. People don't change their behavior just through education from an ad. What a waste of my 20 minutes? Can you say ASS-U-V?

2/21/2005 3:04:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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First of all, it's official the New England Patriots is officially a dynasty for winning 3 superbowls in 4 years. Go Pats! But then again, isnt it a little premature to call the team a dynasty now? Don't get me wrong, the Patriots is a team to beat and they have proven with its impeccable record. However, shouldn't dynasty be used in a historical context?

Anyway, other than seeing the Patriots win, I thought the Superbowl last night was the worst Superbowl that I have ever watched. First of all, the half-time show was the lamest I have ever seen. I have always held high esteem for Paul McCartney, but I think we need more extravagance in the half-time show. I will tell you why Janet Jacksons show last year was the best Superbowl half-time show of all time. No, it wasnt her bare breast, but rather if you think about people are still talking about the half-time show a year later. From a marketing point of view, thats success. Speaking of marketing, the Superbowl commercials were the worst I have ever seen. With the exception of the Budweiser: "Salute to soldiers", Budweiser: "Designated Driver featuring Cedric", Tabasco sauce, and Toyota Primus commercials, the other commercials didnt really leave an impression on me. Honorary mention for the worst commercial I have seen goes to the Frito Lay commercial featuring M.C. Hammer. It's simply awful.

2/7/2005 2:05:55 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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