I’ve been on a non-fiction reading kick lately, buying a lot of books that I heard were interesting or looked fun on bookstore shelves. It has been a good mix of serious and mature material (The Art of War and The Wealth of Nations for starters…) and, well, more entertaining stuff (consider books like The Alphabet of Manliness).
I had a ton of fun reading Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People, though, since it made a ton of sense to me and I can relate to many of his points just via common sense. It’s nothing earth-shattering, to be sure, but it’s nice to be reminded, once in a while, how small changes in behavior and attitude can make a difference. As such, his advice basically boils down to “be nice, lay the praise on thick, avoid criticism, be sincere in your dealings”.
Of course, after going through The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit, I have a certain cynicism for some of Carnegie’s supposedly timeless words of wisdom, especially on how it applies to the workplace. It certainly seems like a lot of business interactions follow his advice – brainstorming sessions that “don’t judge”, employee motivation via praises and pretty pens, business civility and use of euphemisms for everything good or bad, etc. As a matter of fact, the only thing the business world hasn’t mastered is the ability to be truly sincere on the above points.
For some reason, people I know chose to go back to their Asian mother countries this year; maybe it’s a good time to get reacquainted with what they left behind years ago, and getting in touch with one’s roots is never a bad thing.
Personally, I don’t care too much for most of Asia – I probably left Hong Kong too long ago to reminiscence about the city and to have kept any of my friends from long, long back. Like most of Asia, Hong Kong is an overcrowded, hyperurbanized, dirty place with a large percentage of its populace barely scraping by attending low-paying jobs so that tourists like me can go back and exclaim how far an American dollar goes.
I’ve been continuously making small updates to my site since I got back from my east coast conference. Believe it or not, I actually keep a list of enhancements and bug fixes myself and others have found and spend time implementing those items; the last two weeks, I revamped my journal search interface and added navigational arrows to journal entry pages as well as fixed up a few display bugs. If you have suggestions or find anything wrong, lemme know via comments, thanks.
Lately I’ve been trying to get myself more energetic and less…well, sleepy, at work and at home as well. I don’t get that many hours of sleep on weekdays (and as it turns out, I’m usually more tired than not the next day regardless of how many hours I get), and staring at thousands of lines of written code for hours on end doesn’t make things better.
Just spent the better part of the day helping my uncle and grandparents move from their recently sold, 250% appreciated value house of 5 years to a nearby apartment complex of much smaller size. I personally dread moving, so having to drive 2 hours back home just so I could assist in wrecking my fingers while other family are relaxing on their Spring Break vacations irks me a little.
This latest event has reaffirmed my suspicion that the wealthier a person is, the stingier they are when it comes time to spend money to get something done easier or faster. These are the people you see driving Mercedes’s on the street and go to expensive dinners with friends, but would not hire professional help (thinking they could always do it themselves) and would squeeze you for your last penny if you’re unfortunate enough to be under their position of power. My former Berkeley landlord was such an individual; and I’m sad to say that my uncle confirms to the mold.
