Double Journey

There is something that I don’t think a lot of people get.  I see it every day at work and I see it in the way people behave when ti comes to their finances.  There is a cost of being.

What do I mean by that?  Let me give you an example.  We have a core piece of technology.  On top of that core piece of technology, we have added many small features.  At the time of inception, and without giving it full thought, these features may have made sense.  They were easy to implement and brought in incremental revenue.  This is revenue that is rather insignificant but nevertheless is revenue.  Since this is web based, the “cost” of running these features and services isn’t very much, it just means keeping a web server up and running.

However, there comes a time in any feature that something doesn’t work.  It may be the feature itself, or the feature may have some side effect that was unintended.  When that something doesn’t work, the impetus is always to fix it because you don’t want to have broken parts of your product.  So there is a cost that must be born to fix this almost pointless feature.  There is even additional cost when you factor in that you will now spend time worrying about if this feature will break again.   This feature can even go so far as to holding other features up because you can’t launch new product while the current product is broken.

The same goes with people in their everyday lives.  Just look around at the things you own that you probably never use.  I’ve complained before how, during my move, I found boxes of things I moved up to Seattle that I never even opened, and was now shipping right back to L.A.  This has a cost both in terms of the move and in terms of me storing it for years.  People have extra cars they don’t drive or gadgets that just sit on the shelf, only ever used once.  All these things have some cost associated with just “being”.  If we just got rid of all these small, incremental cost, the total sum of the savings would probably be quite significant.

What do you have like this?  What insignificant things do you just keep around that, if you think about it, really have a cost?

So today, as I returned from work from my one day hiatus, I was given a stark reminder about why I don’t like to take a day off of work.

When you have a job like mine, the work doesn’t just go away.  It just piles up.  There is always the same amount of work, you just have less time to do it.  This was especially acute for me today because I didn’t even get the chance to catch up from Friday.  Mondays and Tuesdays are my traditional worse days since everyone, myself included, tends to try and shove every meeting into the beginning of the week.

So don’t just take one day off of work.  If you are going to take time off, it better be a week.  Better yet, it probably needs to be two.

For no real reason, I’m taking today off.  When I told Jenny that I was doing this, she looked at me kind of funny and asked me, “What did you do with Terrence?”  Jenny has known me for a long time and knows it isn’t too often that I actually take time off.  It is especially rare when I decide to take a day off for no reason.

But there really is no reason.  It was true for a long time that I never took days off work, but that has lessened as I have gotten older and my time has become more valuable to me.  When I was young and single, work was everything.  While work is certainly still very important, I’m putting more emphasis on a work-life balance.  Not a lot more emphasis, but some

Even when I was at Microsoft, I took some days off.  I even went so far as to take three consecutive days off once to take a much needed trip with the girlfriend.   And now, when I probably need vacation even more than when I was at Microsoft, I am going to take some time off to go hang out at the beach.  This has me thinking about how much my life has changed over the years.  Back in the days I worked with Jenny at our previous employer, I didn’t even know what work life balance was.  It was all work.  I would work 70 or 80 hour weeks, go home, and then work some more.  I didn’t really have a life, so work kind of filled a void there.  That wasn’t to say I wasn’t happy, I was, but it’s amazing to me how much my priorities have shifted.  I probably work 50 hour weeks on average, and rarely go over that.  Only occasionally will I work more than an hour when I get home.

So I’m off to somewhere in the direction of a beach.  Don’t have a lot of plans, that would almost be too crazy for me, and knowing me I’ll still be checking work e-mail via my blackberry, but at least I won’t be in the office.

I get paid twice a month, on the 15th and on the last day of the month.  That would make today payday.  As I was sitting at my computer today, I said out loud, “Oh, today is payday.  I almost forgot”.

My coworker looked at me and said, “There is clearly a man that doesn’t live paycheck to paycheck.”  Of course, he is right.

I certainly understand this is a luxury that many might not have.  It’s hard enough in this day and age to save any money let alone enough where you can almost completely forget that it is payday.  However, I tend to think most people have a lot more fat in their budget than they realize.  So I tend to think that if more people tried, they could eventually not end up living paycheck to paycheck.  The key is to break it up.

To not live paycheck to paycheck, you probably have to have six months of living expenses.  This is the standard amount that almost any financial advisor would give you to say that you are financially sound.  It is a hard goal to manage, but it is very doable.  The key part of that is not the money you save, but it is the money you spend.

Six months of living expenses is much easier to manage if you cut down your living expenses.  If you can cut your living expenses from say $1500 a month to $1000 a month, that equates to $3000 less you have to save every month.  Now that’s a big difference.  I have helped others do this by simply making them list out what they spend in a month, and then asking them a simple question, “Would you rather continue to struggle and worry about your finances day in and day out and have that latte, or would you rather sleep better at night?” (both from being financially secure and having less caffeine)  The answer should be obvious.

For me, saving six months of living expenses has never been hard, and it isn’t because I made a lot of money or lived in a cheap area.  It’s becasue I controlled my cost.  At no time in my life have I spent more than 70% of my paycheck on my living expenses.  This means I’m saving 30% at a minimum.  Now that number runs closer to 50% as I make more money, and I keep my standard of living relatively flat.  Think its impossible?  It isn’t.  When I first graduated college, I made less than $50,000 a year.  While that may seem like a lot to some people, try living on that in New York City.  Now try saving money.  Not so easy.  My paycheck came out to roughly $1600.  I got this twice a month.  Keep in mind this is a NET number after taxes as well as whatever I put away in my 401K (which should never be considered as part of your pay. You should just do it and forget it.  Learn to budget without this money) My goal was then, and is now, to only have to spend one of these paychecks on my living expenses.

Out of college, I shared a two bedroom apartment with two other people.  Our apartment was $3400 a month.  My share of it came out to a little more than $1100.   So how the heck do you live on $500 a month in NYC?  Well to be fair, I did cheat a little.   I was a consultant so I travelled a lot which means I also got a small living stipend for each day I was gone.  This would more than cover any meal I had (I ate cheap) as well as any incidentals.  In fact, I got to save most of the money.  But even without this, I could have made it.  I had no car so no insurace or gas cost.  I limited my going out and my cab rides.  I didn’t go to a lot of shows or movies or buy things I didn’t need.

Before I left NYC, I had a nice little cushion.  More than enough to cover my move back to L.A, which I had to pay for myself, as well as all the other setup cost I had to incur like security deposits, setup fees, etc.  Not once did I have to go into debt despite the sudden large expenditures I had to make.  Why, because I told myself I would never have to be one of those people staring at the calendar wondering when the next Paycheck was going to come.

In this case ignorance really is bliss.

One of the most difficult things about my job is the fact that I have to manage people when I have no authority over them.  As a Program Manager, I have all the responsibility yet none of the authority.  If something goes wrong, I have to find a way to get it done despite the fact that I can’t in reality order anybody to do anything.  So how do I get this done?

Well it isn’t easy.  It’s something that I’ve learned to do over time but still don’t have quite right.   This can be the most frustrating thing about my job and without the right strategy and mindset, it probably will drive a person crazy.  But here is my approach to things.

• Be Confident - You would be surprised how far this will get you.  If you seem to know what you are talking about, a lot of other people will believe you and do what you say.  If you are unsure about what to do next, others will be to and they will find a reason
• Have your facts - It’s hard to argue facts.  So you have to know what you are talking about and you have to know it before the other guy does.  If you are trying to convince someone to do something, and you don’t have any facts to back up what you want them to do, good luck making a convincing argument
• Know what battles to fight - You only can fight so many battles.  Most of the time, you will discover that 80% of the time, it doesn’t really matter what decision gets made.  It only matters that one does get made.  Therefore, leave you big guns to the fights that need to be fought and don’t waste your ammo on things that just don’t matter
• Know when to ask for help - There are times that you just can’t get the right thing done.  That’s when you call in the cavalry.  You and the person you need to convince probably have someone above you who is in charge of both of you.  If you know the battle is worth fighting (and you should after #3) and you know you are right (and you should be after #2) then you need to escalate.  There is no shame in fighting the good fight and then calling for help when you need it.  Just don’t make it a habit.

I was having a conversation with a coworker today about “The Man”.  No not any man, “THE” man.  You know, the one we all work for and who is holding us all down.  We were discussing it, and both complaining about how hard we had to work today because of the man.  But then it got me thinking, would I be considered, “The Man”.

I’m not sure.  I certainly don’t feel like The Man.   I don’t feel like I’m opressing anybody or keeping anybody down.  So I searched wikipedia for an answer and this was their definition of The Man.

“The Man” refers to the someone or some group that has higher authority, such as, but not limited to, the government, leaders of large corporations, and other authority figures in general, such as the police. The Man is colloquially defined as the figurative person who controls our world. The Man is also often used as a symbol of racial oppression, as well as the boss of a blue-collar worker, and the enemy of any counterculture.

Given this definition, I think I’m running dangerously close to the line.  I definitely don’t feel in control of the world, but at work I’m definitely an authority figure.  And while my company isn’t a large corporation yet, it certainly isn’t small.  So I think for now, I’m probably safely out of The Man status.   While it is certainly hard to quantify, my whole life is trying to make sense out of the nonsensical so let me give it a try.  I am definitely not the man.  My company is a little small, slightly over 200 people, and I’m not quite important enough yet to be considered in this category.  I probably make enough to be close to Man status, and I wield influence over quite a few people, but I’m not quite there yet.

In my book, The Man is

• VP level or higher of a Fortune 1000 company
• Elected government official at the state or higher level
• Anybody with a net worth greater than $5 million

Where do you think the line is?  Do you have to work for a certain size company and be in charge of a certain number of people?  Do you have to make a certain amount of money?   Will you all still be my friend even if I do become The Man?

I often think that my generation is getting the very short end of the stick.  I’m sure lots of people feel that way about their respective lives, but it is an odd thing for me.  You see, I’ve always done very well, but I think I’ve done very well despite some pretty big obstacles put in front of people my age, 30.  Here is the quick list of what 30 year olds today have a right to gripe about

•  Tech Bust of 2000 -  Right before I graduated college and was about to enter the working world, the tech bubble was in full swing.  the Dot Coms of the world were producing millionaires for people with my exact skill set.  Of course, right when I graduated, tech mania subsided, the bubble burst, and lots of my peers lost their jobs.  I even technically lost my job.   So right when it was most important to have a job, since few, if any, of my peers had a safety net, we were losing our first jobs.  The jobs that would set a foundation for the things to come.
• 9/11 - One short year after I graduated, we had 9/11.  This changed the face of the United States and brought on an even wider economic slowdown than the tech bubble bursting.  Our lives became a little more frightening and a lot more inconvenient.  It brought changes to our government and our lifestyles which I frankly don’t really care for.  A few years down the road it even helped re-elect one of the biggest idiots we have ever had as President ….
• George Bush - Can you believe that this has been the man who has been President of the United States my entire adult life?  If that doesn’t show you how screwed my generation is, I don’t know what does
• The Housing Bubble - This one might just be the worse one of all.  My combined household income would, according to wikipedia, qualify me to easily be in the top 5% of households in the United States.  If we took into account how much I have in savings …  Well let’s just say I’m not doing half bad.  Yet I don’t own a home.  I don’t because ever since I was able to afford it, it hasn’t made any economic sense to buy.  Prices were just too high.  Most people my age probably could not even really afford it until about 2005, but by then housing prices had skyrocketed to unprecedented levels.  To make matters worse, many of my peers bought anyway!  So now, they are losing their shirts as home prices fall.  Since they just bought, they have no equity.  Many of them will be foreclosed on, ruining their credit for years to come.
• The end of Pensions and the Collapse of Social Security - Pensions as we know it are done.  My generation now faces the very daunting taks of an unsecure retirement.  Many of our parents have guaranteed income the rest of their life thanks to generous pension benefits.  My mom retired in her early 50’s and has a pension that will pay her 1/2 her salary for the rest of her life.  No such luck for me.  I’ll be saving for retirement by myself with no such guarantees.    To make mattes worse, my generation will be the one to have to deal with the Social Security mess.  Fantastic!
• Inflation - I’ve written before and I’ll say it again.  Inflation is very, very bad.  It has been dormant for almost my entire lifetime.  But right when it matters most, when people my age should be starting to accumulate wealth for retirement, it springs back to life.

I could go on and on.  These problems aren’t like the Great Depression or a World War (although we have had to deal with a very long, protracted war even though we reached “Mission Accomplished” years ago) but still.  While these problems haven’t really affected me personally, I’ve seen their effect on my friends.  It makes me think that things are even worse for us than I believe since I myself have never felt the pain first hand.  What do you think?  Am I part of generation screwed or am I making a bigger deal about this than it really is?

I was having a conversation with someone today about being a manager.  Being a manager is one of those things that everybody thinks is really easy but in reality is never as easy as you really think it is.  There are a lot of challenges most people just can’t deal with.

Now, I’ll be the first to say that if you have the right attitude and mindset it can be a relatively easy job.  You see, managers don’t really do anything.  There, I’ve said it.  In the end, they are responsible for the work of others and generally don’t produce anything concrete themselves.  Now that may sound nice and easy, but it has its own very difficult challenges.   The hardest part is dealing with the people themselves.

In a perfect world, people would just do what you tell them to do, do it well, and do it without complaint.  But the world is never perfect.   In fact, more often then not people are going to fall short in one of those three areas and you are going to have to deal with it.  Now here is the hard part, how do you deal with it?  If you are like most people, you want to be liked.  Humans have this desire to be liked by other people.  However, all good managers at some point have to be an ass.  Either someone is going to screw up, and you are going to have to tell them they screwed up, or you are going to have to tell someone something they don’t want to hear.  Perhaps they are behind schedule on a key project or you can’t give them the promotion or the position they want.  Whatever the case may be, most people do not want to be the bearer of bad news.

I’ve learned to deal with it in a relatively easy way.  I’ve just accepted that work is not a popularity contest, it’s work.   If people decide they don’t like me because I had to tell them something they didn’t want to hear or make them do something that they didn’t want to do so be it.  I’ve made plenty of friends in my life and a few people not liking me is OK.  That doesn’t mean I’m a jerk at work, I hate those guys as well, but at work, I do what I have to do to get the job done.   Most people accept that and even respect that.  In fact, I have found that most people hate those managers who go to the other extreme, try to please everybody.  In the end, when you try to please everybody you please nobody.  So long as you are consistent in your message, and people know you are working toward the good of the company or the team, things seem to just work themselves out

I got a new boss a few weeks ago.  It has been something that has been in the making for a while but it became official in the last couple of weeks.  I’m working in a completely different organization, and it looks at first glance like the scope of my job has greatly increased, but in reality I don’t see it that way.

It’s true, that my scope went from my particular division to company-wide.  My boss, who is the CTO, is much higher on the org chart than my previous boss.  But in reality, I don’t see much of a difference.  Sure, my co-workers probably do.   It certainly seems like I have more influence and scope, but that is mostly perception.  Here is the thing.  I just do my job.  I’m not overly concerned who my boss is and what my reporting structure looks like.  I’m here to do what is best for the company not necessarily what is best for my team or division.  This is especially true when you have a job as ambiguous as mine is, Program Management.  My main responsibility is to make sure we ship the right thing in the right time, and it doesn’t really matter who I report to because that function doesn’t change.

To be fair, my personal situation has gotten better.  I think my new boss understands my role better than my old one and is giving me more support.  But that is not to say that I’m going to do anything differently than I was before.  Having the interest of the company above and beyond most other things has always served me well.  It has kept be focus on the bottom line and had made sure that I make the right trade offs.   Not sure why I would do anything different just because the person I do my 1 on 1 with every week has changed.

I went to lunch today with a few coworkers.  I have to admit, I’m generally not a big adventurer when it comes to trying new places.   It is especially bad that there is a food court underneath my building because I’m generally pretty lazy when it comes to leaving the building for lunch.

Today, my coworkers were headed over to a different building, so I decided to tag along.  It was a bright and sunny California day so I figured it was a good time to get out of the building.  I also feel a little guilty about not being more adventurous because I work in Downtown L.A. where there are a lot of options around.

We ended up going to the cafeteria of another building.  It was odd.  First off, we had to pass through a security gate of the building.  It is one of those systems where you have to have a keycard to pass through the turnstile.  The thing was, we don’t work in the building, however the security guard let all eight of us pass through.  We just had to say we were going to the cafeteria.  What’s the point of that?  Why have a security turnstile if you are just going to let everyone through anyway?

It made me think a little bit about Microsoft.  Microsoft has cafeterias all over the Redmond campus.  There is nothing stopping outsiders from coming in and eating at the cafeterias other than needing a keycard to enter the building.  However, this is easily overcome by just waiting for someone else to enter the building as most people won’t stop someone from following them in.  The thing is, I know for a fact that there are lots of conversations going around in the lunch area which probably shouldn’t be heard by non-MS employees.  So I wonder, do non-Microsoft employees eat in the cafeterias?  If so, I wonder how often they overhear something they shouldn’t.