I attended a virtual AI conference and several speakers/ hosts, based on how they spoke, were not native English speakers. One host kept saying ‘you know’, another seemed hesitated to choose word to use, and a panelist spoke on ‘n on in circles… At first, I was irritated then I felt bad for them (they …
Author Archives: admin
Double Celebration
Today is my roommate Stan’s birthday. I thought to get lunch to celebrate but he was busy on the phone. I changed to plan B: make croissant (as he loves it) and give him a ‘surprise’. I pulled the little piece of trigger and the cylinder ‘pop-open’, what a cool packaging. I pulled out the …
I Have Time
My roommate Stan is a consultant at a top healthcare consultancy. It’s not unusual to see him to work till 10PM or later and over the weekend. Sometimes, with big project and tight timing, he even worked till 2-3AM or overnight…yet he is usually cheerful and always willing to support others. I asked him how …
Engineer & Communicator
A few month ago, the product manager proposed to change the feature demo after the sprint (development cycle) from by himself to the development team. I thought it’s a great idea. It let developer showcase his/ her work and engage with stakeholders. Even better, the product manager said he’d coach and support the team in …
Thoughtful and Resourceful
A few weeks ago, we received email invitations from CEO’s executive assistant, Tammy and head of HR for a “social distance” lunch today. It will be great to see everybody after seven months of working from home due to Covid. To keep social distance, we were assigned “time slot” based on last name to get …
What Sells?
My editor got ill recently and apologized that she wouldn’t have the energy to work on the book. She recommended Linda, a freelancer friend. I talked with Linda. She told me she has been focusing on marketing works for a company. She also did editing and ghost-writing for some others. When I asked if she …
Mid-Autumn Festival 2020
Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the top three Chinese festivals. Last year, I celebrated it with 2 friends by a feast of seafood pasta, wine, and Barossa cheese with tomato. We walked around “Little Italy” (North End) to help “digest” afterwards. Then we watched the moon with Boston skyline while sharing the moon cake on …
Possibility
At work, we are rotating to support incident management. I noticed my duty days in November and December are 11/26 (thanksgiving) and 12/18 (close to Christmas holiday) which I will be out-of-office. How ‘lucky’ am I? Who (colleagues in America) is going to exchange with me during the holidays? First, I tried to change 12/18 …
Positive NO
On my usual after-lunch walk, I noticed one of my car tires was flat. What happened? I went to the auto repair shop (2 blocks away) asking if I could borrow a hand pump to put air into the tire to drive it over. The guy at the shop told me NO, they don’t have …
What is Love?
I heard from a friend that her daughter left US for Taiwan on vocation. She said she was worried at first about the risk of long flight yet her daughter, a busy consultant was close to ‘burn-out’ if not taking a break and because the Covid cases in US, most countries don’t welcome American visitors. …