Weekend Journal — Social Capital
I threw a BBQ last night. The food and drink, though not cheap, was delicious. All of the guests complimented me on my ability to bend smoke and heat to my will and tame the fibers of a beef brisket. Really I did this because my wife decided she wanted to have a party for friends and family, but it got me thinking about the concept of social capital. Do I trade food for friends? No. Do I think giving someone a slice of brisket will necessarily endear me to them? Nope. Even if there’s lots of free beer to go along with it? Nah. Do I think good things happen when you bring people together and help cross polinate your social groups and try to find commonalities among them? You bet your brisket I do. Remember, you don’t have to have a reason to hang out with friends. But…
Timing
One of the things that I was totally oblivious to (and unprepared for) prior to starting this tenure track position was how critical timing is when dealing with proposals. I’m fortunate enough that I do have some money coming in from proposals, so that’s a good start. However, now that I have money coming in, I need students to work on projects. Unfortunately, my funded projects are on topics that where none of my current students are working. And the topics for my current students are sufficiently different that it would be unwise to switch them to a different project. Thus, I’m in a time crunch where money has been funded but there are no students around to support. This is one of several issues with timing that I’ve seen. I’m going to point a few issues below but feel free to comment below and add some more. Are there…
WTF #22: Crying at Work
Barring unexpected sad and tragic events, is there a situation where it’s appropriate to cry at work? In a male dominated engineering culture, is there a place for tears? Last week, a new hire on my team came on-board. At the end of the week, I sat down with this new hire for a brief one-on-one. I asked how the week was going and was wondering if there were anything that was needed from me. I made some small talk and when the topic of past jobs came up, I casually asked why this new hire left the first job. The answer: failed workplace romance. Awkwardness ensued, but I think only on my part. The topic then swerved to how life took a turn for the worse afterwards, etc., etc. The voice started to quaver. The muscles around the eyes started to stiffen, as if trying to hold back tears.…
Speaking engineer
The most difficult aspect of being on a multidisciplinary team is the fact that you don’t always speak each other’s language. Communication can be a problem. All of us are so immersed in what we do that we know what we need and our limitations. If we knew that the people we were working with didn’t understand those limitations, we would gladly explain them. However, it doesn’t become clear that there’s been a miscommuncation or lack of communication until we’re looking at a project and asking why the person didn’t do things a different way. From my perspective, it’s a bit difficult to do modeling and then hand my work to someone who will make the thing I’ve modeled. Often, the way I’ve designed the model isn’t exactly the way the object needs to be built. Then the question is whether the model is a sufficient representation of the device.…
Showing Appreciation
There was a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed this week in which the author was advising a smart but abrasive younger colleague to “try being likable“. The phrase that really struck me was “Think of what you could accomplish if people actually wanted to help you”. The piece was focusing on interacting with peers, but it reminded me of discussions I’ve had with peers about interacting with the people who make it possible for you to do your job, which I’ve touched on previously. For example, most of my work is done on a super-computing cluster. In order for me to do research, I need the server up and running. Last Friday was System Administrator Appreciation Day, and so my group brought the sys admin team various goodies. They just did some major system upgrades which are having stability issues. Because they remembered me , when I contacted…
WTF #21: Can’t Buy Me Love
Three weeks ago, I offered one of my analog IC designers a 30% raise, hoping to entice him to stay with the company. Unfortunately, he’s still leaving despite our better offer than his soon-to-be new employer. Back in WTF #18, I mentioned that salary wasn’t the only issue and in fact, wasn’t even the main issue. He had other personal reasons to leave and I was trying my best to accommodate him. At the end of the day, I wasn’t able to convince upper management to make that accommodation. Hence, all the leverage I had remaining was money and my charming personality. Apparently, both failed miserably. Analog IC desginers are hard to come by in China. I’ve recently hired four and they weren’t exactly my top choices. But given market conditions, I’m forced to go with the traditional route of hiring those with good foundations and then developing them in-house.…
Weekend Journal — Vendor Relationships
This weekend I had a buddy in town who I’ve known since childhood. It was great getting to hang out with him. But in one of the great ironies of the universe, it came to pass that my best friend is also what sometimes ends up being a perfect foe for an engineer: a purchasing agent. In reality, we work for different companies and work in drastically different industries. So while there could be tension, it usually only comes up as a function of our discussions about what engineers should do and how purchasing agents should act. But on today’s topic, our contention came to a head: My purchasing friend says that I should not maintain relationships with vendors (platonic, of course). I should not allow them to buy me lunch occasionally. I should not accept sample kits from them. I should not talk to them other than in official capacities for work. I’ve written…
WTF #20: Damn Overseas Workers
Those damn overseas workers. Can’t they do anything right? Why don’t they follow the rules? Why don’t they follow instructions? Why don’t they complete important tasks on time? Of course, from my vantage point in China, those damn overseas workers are Americans. Sorry to generalize. Rather, that damn overseas worker is an American. He’s also a fellow manager with a few brand new hires in China. As managers, we are responsible to ensure that our new hires are equipped with an email account, UNIX account, access to various internal documents, a phone, and a computer on the first day. It’s quite easy. All we need to do is to spend 10 minutes on an internal website filling out some forms in order to make a formal request to IT. This manager has four new hires in China. Three arrived two weeks ago — without computer, without email accounts, without UNIX…
WTF #19: Sleeping on the Job
If a scene like the one to the left were to present itself at your office, a few things might cross your mind. Your fellow co-worker is a lazy bum. Or perhaps he pulled an all-nighter last night. Or maybe he’s dead. But this scene is one that is quite common here in China. Literally, sleeping on the job, right in front (and sometimes on top) of one’s laptop is quite the norm. Not the whole day, mind you, but for about half an hour’s worth after lunch. Some schools here even impose a mandatory nap time after the lunch break. I wouldn’t mind taking a little nap myself, except decades of cultural training in Canada has left me incapable of sleeping at the office. First, I’m too self conscious. Second, I don’t have that internal clock well trained enough to wake myself up after 30 minutes. I may end…
WTF #18: Offer, Counteroffer
Although I don’t officially start work until tomorrow, I am in the office a day early to take care of some urgent matters. My first official order of business is to present a counteroffer to a team member who has just tendered his resignation. He has accepted an offer from some other giant multi-national to do analog design. I like to think that it isn’t an indictment of my management skills, and given the short amount of time I’ve managed the team, it shouldn’t be. Still, it kinds of nags at me at a semi-subconscious level. The IC design landscape in China is quite like Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom. Job hopping is common and unrealistically high salary expectations are the norm. Of course, what makes it the norm is that giant multi-nationals are willing to pay those sort of raises. In this particular case, we are providing a…