This was, by far, the most productive trip I've had to Indonesia. It's probably the most productive two-weeks I've had in my recent career. We accomplished everything I came here to accomplish, and I'm very comfortable with the outcome. What did it take? Me working in the office from 7:30 AM to 6 PM and then in the hotel from 8 PM until, on one occassion, 1 AM.
So, if you were wondering why I didn't blog every day on this trip as I did on my prior trips, now you know.
A few things I learned (or reminded myself of) on this trip:
1) Ramadan (or Ramadhan) is the Muslim Christmas. This is the holiest of times for them, and they celebrate it by fasting, giving gifts, celebrating family, and focusing on resisting temptation. I have a hard time turning away a bowl of ice cream each night.
2) Jakarta is a HUGE city crammed into a TINY area. When going 5 kilometers (about 3 miles for all you Americans) takes 45 minutes, you know you have traffic issues. This is a town without speed limits because the traffic itself prevents high speeds.
3) Peaceful plurality is achievable when you remove the notion that your beliefs are better than anyone elses. It also helps when the plurality occurs in pockets of homogeneity. The nation has 4 different religions, but each island has a dominant one that drives the government and culture for that island. If these were neighboring states, I bet the peace would be more tenuous.
4) Poverty and wealth can coexist - and often do. If anyone has been to Gross Pointe, Michigan, you've seen a mild version of what occurs here. In Jakarta, you can drive down a back alley, barely wide enough for two cars with their mirrors extended to pass each other, seeing throngs of people living at a subsistence level. In that same alley, there will be a 15 foot metal gate that, when it slides open, reveals a moderately guarded compound of 3500sf homes with personal swimming pools, shared playgrounds and tennis courts.
5) They don't get the NFL here. That really sucks. I missed the first full week of the only sport I pay attention to.
As one of my colleagues here said to me: "I'm really glad you came, but I'm really glad you are leaving". I'm really glad I came, but I'm glad to be going home.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
9/8 - Back in the office
I woke up early to try and catch an hour or two of some NFL games, which began at 12 AM JKTA. Scouring every sports channel available to me in the hotel didn't even find anyone reporting highlights - it truly is an American phenomena - so I had to settle for seeing the scores on the internet. It just isn't the same.
When I woke up this morning, I could tell it had rained over night. The windows still had fresh drops and the streets glistened with moisture. The roads were much busier on the drive in than they had been my whole trip. Ramadan has the same effect on Jakarta that Christmas does on the US; or July does to Arizona: everyone leaves or stays home. Seeing so much traffic surprised me. Then I saw the puddles. Huge puddles in the middle of the street. There had been no rain in the two hours I had been awake, so this was left over from whatever happened overnight.
I arrived to the office a little before 8 AM and the place was mostly empty. Because most of the office is up by 3:30 AM to eat before they start their fast, seeing an empty office this early was a bit of a surprise. I even checked my watch to make sure I had not come in an hour early. Then I found out that the overnight rain had lasted three solid hours. This isn't common for Jakarta, and there was flooding everywhere. Not the destructive flooding you see in the Midwest, or every hurricane in New Orleans. More like flooding where the streets become rivers and your feet get wet on the petals because there is water in your car.
Today I did not have scheduled meetings. The team is finalizing the design documentation so I was available for questions, but spent most of my day researching outstanding issues from our prior project and developing a plan to resolve all of them.
Tonight, I realized how difficult it is to be an American with food allergies in Jakarta. I've had to get very good at recognizing by name and by sight what food is safe for me to eat. I went to the club for dinner, and found the only main dish they had was chicken. Not really in the mood for salad, mashed potatoes and sauteed vegetables, I went down at ate in the buffet. Really nice restaurant, but, per usual, almost everything was fish or poultry. I ended up finding some plain steamed rice with lamb baklava.
The other culinary realization I had today is that I really like the juice varieties here. I commented on my prior trips how it was nice to have mango and guava juice again. Today I tried strawberry juice. Keep in mind then when you ask for juice out here, it doesn't come from a bottle or a can. They make it fresh. They take the fruit you requested, put it in a blender with some ice and that is your juice. Strawberry juice is my new favorite.
When I woke up this morning, I could tell it had rained over night. The windows still had fresh drops and the streets glistened with moisture. The roads were much busier on the drive in than they had been my whole trip. Ramadan has the same effect on Jakarta that Christmas does on the US; or July does to Arizona: everyone leaves or stays home. Seeing so much traffic surprised me. Then I saw the puddles. Huge puddles in the middle of the street. There had been no rain in the two hours I had been awake, so this was left over from whatever happened overnight.
I arrived to the office a little before 8 AM and the place was mostly empty. Because most of the office is up by 3:30 AM to eat before they start their fast, seeing an empty office this early was a bit of a surprise. I even checked my watch to make sure I had not come in an hour early. Then I found out that the overnight rain had lasted three solid hours. This isn't common for Jakarta, and there was flooding everywhere. Not the destructive flooding you see in the Midwest, or every hurricane in New Orleans. More like flooding where the streets become rivers and your feet get wet on the petals because there is water in your car.
Today I did not have scheduled meetings. The team is finalizing the design documentation so I was available for questions, but spent most of my day researching outstanding issues from our prior project and developing a plan to resolve all of them.
Tonight, I realized how difficult it is to be an American with food allergies in Jakarta. I've had to get very good at recognizing by name and by sight what food is safe for me to eat. I went to the club for dinner, and found the only main dish they had was chicken. Not really in the mood for salad, mashed potatoes and sauteed vegetables, I went down at ate in the buffet. Really nice restaurant, but, per usual, almost everything was fish or poultry. I ended up finding some plain steamed rice with lamb baklava.
The other culinary realization I had today is that I really like the juice varieties here. I commented on my prior trips how it was nice to have mango and guava juice again. Today I tried strawberry juice. Keep in mind then when you ask for juice out here, it doesn't come from a bottle or a can. They make it fresh. They take the fruit you requested, put it in a blender with some ice and that is your juice. Strawberry juice is my new favorite.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Sept 7
Today, I did nothing....unless you count 4 hours of work and watching several movies as something.
I'm sore from golfing. It's somewhat embarassing to say that. I mean, all you do in golf is swing a club, and you aren't even swinging it hard. If the size of my score wasn't enough to prove that I was doing something wrong, where I'm sore is a further indication. I'm a right-handed golfer. That means, my left arm, wrist, and shoulder do all fo the work. Today, my RIGHT elbow and shoulder hurt. Obviously, whatever I was doing involved my right arm much more than it shoudl have. I've also somehow injured my left knee and ankle. At 33, I wouldn't think I was too old for golf!
As I usually do on my trips, I want to use today's post to discuss some of the observations I have of Indonesia.
This visit has me in Indonesia during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It's a very interesting time and poses some new challenges from a management perspective. Ramadan is the time of fasting. All Muslims must fast from sun-up to sun-down. Based on the calendar the hotel provided me, that means that Muslims are fasting from 4:15 AM until around 6 PM every day for the month of September. Fasting during Ramadan means no eating or drinking, so they don't even get water. On the evenings we have stayed late, we have had to break from our meetings at 6 PM to allow our Muslim employees to "break fast" - now you know where the English "breakfast" comes from (it's the breaking of the overnight fasting you do while you sleep).
Ramadan is a fascinating time. As an American, you don't really gain a true appreciation for the Muslim faith, or the devotion of its followers. I would equate Ramadan to the Catholic tradition of Lent. For Ramadan, in addition to the fasting, Muslims are supposed to avoid any form of temptation, any form of swearing, any form of excitement. They can't even speak in loud voices. In America, we fear Muslim's so much, we fail to appreciate the strength of their convictions and their willingness to submit to the tenets of their faith.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published a religious map of Indonesia. I've mentioned before that Indonesia recognizes four faiths - Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and Islam. Each island in Indonesia has a dominant faith that drives the political and cultural experience. Java, where Jakarta is located, is considered a Modern Muslim state. The island of Bali, on the other hand, is Hindu. In the state of Aceh, they have elections underway. The leading Muslim group in Aceh is having all of the candidates submit to a test of the Koran. They must pass the test if they wish to continue their candidacy.
This is one of the few places on Earth where you truly see Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian faiths coexisting in harmony. American press likes to report on violence, attack on Americans, etc. I have found the contrary to be the truth. They love Americans here. Everyone wants to talk to you, learn about you, learn about America. The only thing you have to worry about in Indonesia are scams - and those are everywhere.
The more time I spend in Indonesia, and the more I learn about it, I realize that Indonesia could very easily become an economic super power if they could get rid of the corruption. Other than the monthly earthquakes, the country does not have natural catastrophes. Their are volcanoes, but they are in remote areas. They don't get hurricanes, no tornadoes, and the rain is constant. Filled with natural resources - arable land, mineral deposits, lots of people - Indonesia has everything it needs to become an economic superpower. The only thing it lacks is an honest government and a willingness to invest in education. They have recently passed some laws and created jails specifically for officials who accept bribes, so maybe they are beginning to realize their potential.
Well, hopefully this was all coherent and not as disconnected as it seems to me. I think I had a little too much wine at dinner. Next week should not be nearly as busy as last week, so hopefully I'll have an opportunity to blog each night.
I'm sore from golfing. It's somewhat embarassing to say that. I mean, all you do in golf is swing a club, and you aren't even swinging it hard. If the size of my score wasn't enough to prove that I was doing something wrong, where I'm sore is a further indication. I'm a right-handed golfer. That means, my left arm, wrist, and shoulder do all fo the work. Today, my RIGHT elbow and shoulder hurt. Obviously, whatever I was doing involved my right arm much more than it shoudl have. I've also somehow injured my left knee and ankle. At 33, I wouldn't think I was too old for golf!
As I usually do on my trips, I want to use today's post to discuss some of the observations I have of Indonesia.
This visit has me in Indonesia during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It's a very interesting time and poses some new challenges from a management perspective. Ramadan is the time of fasting. All Muslims must fast from sun-up to sun-down. Based on the calendar the hotel provided me, that means that Muslims are fasting from 4:15 AM until around 6 PM every day for the month of September. Fasting during Ramadan means no eating or drinking, so they don't even get water. On the evenings we have stayed late, we have had to break from our meetings at 6 PM to allow our Muslim employees to "break fast" - now you know where the English "breakfast" comes from (it's the breaking of the overnight fasting you do while you sleep).
Ramadan is a fascinating time. As an American, you don't really gain a true appreciation for the Muslim faith, or the devotion of its followers. I would equate Ramadan to the Catholic tradition of Lent. For Ramadan, in addition to the fasting, Muslims are supposed to avoid any form of temptation, any form of swearing, any form of excitement. They can't even speak in loud voices. In America, we fear Muslim's so much, we fail to appreciate the strength of their convictions and their willingness to submit to the tenets of their faith.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published a religious map of Indonesia. I've mentioned before that Indonesia recognizes four faiths - Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and Islam. Each island in Indonesia has a dominant faith that drives the political and cultural experience. Java, where Jakarta is located, is considered a Modern Muslim state. The island of Bali, on the other hand, is Hindu. In the state of Aceh, they have elections underway. The leading Muslim group in Aceh is having all of the candidates submit to a test of the Koran. They must pass the test if they wish to continue their candidacy.
This is one of the few places on Earth where you truly see Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian faiths coexisting in harmony. American press likes to report on violence, attack on Americans, etc. I have found the contrary to be the truth. They love Americans here. Everyone wants to talk to you, learn about you, learn about America. The only thing you have to worry about in Indonesia are scams - and those are everywhere.
The more time I spend in Indonesia, and the more I learn about it, I realize that Indonesia could very easily become an economic super power if they could get rid of the corruption. Other than the monthly earthquakes, the country does not have natural catastrophes. Their are volcanoes, but they are in remote areas. They don't get hurricanes, no tornadoes, and the rain is constant. Filled with natural resources - arable land, mineral deposits, lots of people - Indonesia has everything it needs to become an economic superpower. The only thing it lacks is an honest government and a willingness to invest in education. They have recently passed some laws and created jails specifically for officials who accept bribes, so maybe they are beginning to realize their potential.
Well, hopefully this was all coherent and not as disconnected as it seems to me. I think I had a little too much wine at dinner. Next week should not be nearly as busy as last week, so hopefully I'll have an opportunity to blog each night.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
9/5/08 - 9/6/08
Friday
I spent my morning trying to catch up on the current issues with the release of my most recent project. We are still having significant challenges, and we don't have enough resources available to dedicate to the effort of resolving the issues. I've received nearly 400 emails since my arrival, and I spend my morning reviewing and responding to as many as I can.
In the afternoon, I meet with the team to set the agenda for next week. For both projects I am here for, we are at the stage where we need to finalize the documentation to review with our architecture committee. We need to complete this documentation, and then finalize the effort involved in completing these projects.
Friday evening, I eat dinner alone, continue to catch up on my work, and go to bed early to awaken for the early team time.
Saturday
Today I go golfing for the first time in Indonesia. I leave the hotel at 4:45 AM for a 6:30 AM tee time at one of the best country clubs in all of Indonesia. I learned from my colleagues that only members and their guests are allowed to play, and that a membership costs $40,000 USD. The golf course is at the base of a dormant volcano (last active a few thousand years ago) and has mansions - 10,000+sf - on many of the holes. Beautiful course.
After golf, I returned to the hotel and worked. My days are filled by meetings, so I'm not able to do my normal job during the week. What I thought would take me 4-5 hours ended up taking me nearly 7. Luckily, golfing only took 4.5 hours to play a full 18 holes. Almost the entire time was spent researching, resolving, and discussing issues with my earlier project. Even in a production state, it's still causing problems.
I spent my morning trying to catch up on the current issues with the release of my most recent project. We are still having significant challenges, and we don't have enough resources available to dedicate to the effort of resolving the issues. I've received nearly 400 emails since my arrival, and I spend my morning reviewing and responding to as many as I can.
In the afternoon, I meet with the team to set the agenda for next week. For both projects I am here for, we are at the stage where we need to finalize the documentation to review with our architecture committee. We need to complete this documentation, and then finalize the effort involved in completing these projects.
Friday evening, I eat dinner alone, continue to catch up on my work, and go to bed early to awaken for the early team time.
Saturday
Today I go golfing for the first time in Indonesia. I leave the hotel at 4:45 AM for a 6:30 AM tee time at one of the best country clubs in all of Indonesia. I learned from my colleagues that only members and their guests are allowed to play, and that a membership costs $40,000 USD. The golf course is at the base of a dormant volcano (last active a few thousand years ago) and has mansions - 10,000+sf - on many of the holes. Beautiful course.
You will not find golf courses like this one in Phoenix. I'm not sure they exist in all of Arizona. Arizona has beautiful courses. Arizona has expensive courses. Arizona does NOT have courses where every single lie, even in the fairway, the ball is either above or below your feet. I was in the fairway on nearly every shot, and on every shot I felt I was either choking up on the club, or bending over in an uncomfortable stance in order to hit the shot. The greens were VERY fast, too. On one hole, I literally just tapped the ball enough to get it to move from a stationary position. I missed the cup by a few centimeters, and because it didn't go in, it rolled another fourteen feet downhill.
I also got to experience first hand the Indonesian style of golfing. In America, you get four options: walk and carry your clubs, walk and have a caddy carry your clubs, walk with a pull-cart, drive a golf cart. Indonesia adds a new one - pay for a cart, get a caddy, and you walk the course while the caddy drives your clubs around! Actually, they only drive the cart when it makes more sense for you to walk to your ball (which I did a lot of since it would only go 60 yards). When you drive the cart, they are riding on the back.
So how did I do? Well, of the four of us who played, I was by far the most economical golfer in the bunch. My cost per stroke lower than anyone elses - and it was the worst round of golf I've played in 10 years in terms of score.
So how did I do? Well, of the four of us who played, I was by far the most economical golfer in the bunch. My cost per stroke lower than anyone elses - and it was the worst round of golf I've played in 10 years in terms of score.See the rest of the pictures at the below links:
After golf, I returned to the hotel and worked. My days are filled by meetings, so I'm not able to do my normal job during the week. What I thought would take me 4-5 hours ended up taking me nearly 7. Luckily, golfing only took 4.5 hours to play a full 18 holes. Almost the entire time was spent researching, resolving, and discussing issues with my earlier project. Even in a production state, it's still causing problems.
The more I worked, the angrier I became. I began to realize that we need to create another project to finish the original project. Not something I am looking forward to discussing with my boss. We're in a situation where we are trying to do so much with so little that we're starting to have to make painful decisions. We'll see how it works out.
Friday, September 5, 2008
9/1/08 - 9/4/08
Wow, what a week. 7:20 PM on Friday night is, literally, the first opportunity I have had to post another blog entry. I'm at the office by 8 AM and finally leave at 6:30 or 7 PM. After the drive back to the hotel, and dinner, I'm spent. This week, however, has been very productive and quite fun.
Monday
First day in the office. I'm here for two weeks to discuss two projects. The first project is a system to manage the process by which we request permission to do business with suppliers (requisition), create a contract with that business (contract creation), execute orders under those contracts (service orders), then receive and pay for the work (receipting and invoicing). The other project is a system that allows us to document and audit our processes for making changes to the systems our business uses.
A colleague of mine from the purchasing group is here for my first week to discuss the first project. Today, we hold our kick off meeting, meet the team we'll be working with, and go over the expectations of the project, set the agenda for the week, and do a high-level overview of the business process.
We break for lunch and eat at a nearby Malaysian restaurant. No one gets too adventurous - just really spicy. Oddly enough, we discuss the US presidential primaries. It isn't so much a discussion of who is the better candidate, more a discussion on who we think WILL win and why. I think that is a better way to discuss politics - who we think will win, not who we think SHOULD win. This changes to a discussion of the Republican philosophy - small government, private enterprise, personal responsibility - and the Democratic philosophy - government protector, state-owned/managed enterprise, wealth redistribution.
At the end of the day, my colleague and I leave the office and stop by the mall where I buy the DVD's. He is originally from India, and is stopping by Indonesia after a trip to India to work with some suppliers who are helping us in our Africa development. This is his first trip to Indonesia, so we spend too much time in the mall as he explores all the potential opportunities. I buy 11 more DVDs - Lion King 1.5 and 2, Jungle Book 2 and 3, 5 Elmo movies, Horton Hears a Who, and Bourne Supremacy. My colleague buys nothing (typical supply chain guy, didn't find anything he found a "good value"). Dinner at the club level. Having woken up at 4:00 AM and working out at 4:30, I'm exhausted by 8:30 so I crash.
Tuesday
We go in a little later today because I need to draft my fantasy football team. Draft starts at 7:45 AM. I bail at 8:30 AM after completing the first 12 rounds. Turns out, it's a good thing I delayed it. My colleague had trouble sleeping, and he had set his alarm for PM, so he didn't wake up until 8:15.
Today is one solid meeting. We spend the whole day discussing the process of requesting permission to spend money. It's amazing how many variations there are for the simple question of "can I spend money on this?" When a person wants to spend money, it has to work up their organizational hierarchy until it reaches the level of someone who has been granted authority for the dollar amount requested. At any point, someone in the hierarchy can request someone else in the organization to review the request and provide their opinion/approval. Sounds simple, but when you are automating a process, you always have to assume that something will go wrong and account for it. For example, what happens if someone has forgotten to assign someone a manager? How do we know who to route it to?
We break for lunch and this time eat at a Chinese restaurant. It is considered a high-end restaurant, though I found the food at the Malaysian restaurant better.
We finish our meetings for the day and my Indian colleague and I join a ping-pong game in the company lounge. I was concerned about playing with the Indonesians - if you watch the Olympics, you know that SE Asians are notorious for their skills in Ping Pong (Indonesia won several medals in Badminton, too, including 2 golds), and I haven't played Ping Pong in years. Turns out, my spin serve still works quite well -I scored 11 aces!
We returned to the hotel around 7:30 and went for dinner at the club level. While there, I ran into Amit whom I met on my first trip out. Seems he is still spending a lot of time in Indonesia for his business. I'm still impressed by his product. I wish I had a need for it. Having once again awoken at 4:00 AM, I'm asleep by 9:30.
Wednesday
My morning starts with an 8 AM meeting to discuss any ongoing challenges with most recently released project (the reason I was here in March). The project will go down in history as the most challenging I have ever worked on. It delivered nearly 3 months late (meaning it took almost 2x longer than expected), we had several contentious moments at the end, and, once released to production, it crashed every 10 minutes for 4 days until we isolated and resolved the issue with the application. We still have a list of about 30 items that are either ongoing issues, features we failed to deliver decided were not important enough to have another delay, or new features we've discovered we need. I left for Jakarta 1 day after resolving the production issue, so I have 2 meetings a week scheduled to talk through any current concerns.
The remainder of the day is continuing to work through the system requirements to automate our purchasing process. I'm learning a lot about our processes, and, I feel, I'm teaching a lot on how to conceptualize software in the definition/visualization phase of our efforts. We stay late - about 6:30 - to ensure we cover everything we need to before my colleague leaves. He will be with us just one more day (Thursday), and we can't have him leave without completing the end-to-end process and documenting our system design.
We dismiss our driver for the evening and join one of our local colleagues for a tour of the city. Having taken the tour twice, now, I realize that in terms of acreage, Jakarta is a very small city. When I was able to cover all of Paris in a one week trip, I thought Paris was small for such a heavily populated city. Jakarta is really just four main streets - and 18 million people crowded on them. We eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, and I take a picture of Starbucks for my wife (she wanted to know if they have them here).
Thursday
Our morning starts with a meeting with the team in Phoenix. We have a list of questions we need to come to agreement on, and we need to finalize the details of an integration with our document management application. A meeting scheduled for 2 hours ends up taking nearly 4. However, we get a lot accomplished.
Recognizing we are in for a long afternoon session, we opt to lunch at Wendy's in the building's lobby in lieu of visiting a sit-down restaurant. Turns out our discussion on nature vs. nurture and government's role in providing motivation vs. opportunity makes our lunch last an hour, anyway.
As expected, our afternoon session lasts well into early evening. We finally break for the evening at 7 PM. My colleague and return to the hotel, eat dinner at the club level, and say farewell around 9:30. He has to pack, I have another 2 hours of work to do.
I also have to check-in to my new room. When I arrived, they put me in a room on the same floor as the Presidential Suite. Apparently, after I arrived, a General with the Indonesian military decided he wanted to hold a meeting at the hotel and they needed to clear the floor. So, they move me to a new room and, to apologize for the inconvenience, they upgrade me to a suite. The suite is twice as large as the standard room. So, now I have two bathrooms, two televisions, and a place to entertain separated from a place to sleep. If only I had people to entertain!
I spend the next two hours finishing most of the work I had to do, and then try to go to sleep. That's when I hear the drip...drip....drip. I locate the source of the drip, and realize I can't fix it. I call the hotel and they send someone from engineering up to my room to take apart my toilet, replace a valve that had a leaky seal, and I'm finally off to sleep shortly after midnight. I have another 8 AM meeting on my problem project, so I'm not going to get much sleep.
Well, I'll finish updating my week tomorrow (Saturday). It's not too terribly late, but I have to awaken at 4 AM tomorrow to make a 6 AM tee time.
Monday
First day in the office. I'm here for two weeks to discuss two projects. The first project is a system to manage the process by which we request permission to do business with suppliers (requisition), create a contract with that business (contract creation), execute orders under those contracts (service orders), then receive and pay for the work (receipting and invoicing). The other project is a system that allows us to document and audit our processes for making changes to the systems our business uses.
A colleague of mine from the purchasing group is here for my first week to discuss the first project. Today, we hold our kick off meeting, meet the team we'll be working with, and go over the expectations of the project, set the agenda for the week, and do a high-level overview of the business process.
We break for lunch and eat at a nearby Malaysian restaurant. No one gets too adventurous - just really spicy. Oddly enough, we discuss the US presidential primaries. It isn't so much a discussion of who is the better candidate, more a discussion on who we think WILL win and why. I think that is a better way to discuss politics - who we think will win, not who we think SHOULD win. This changes to a discussion of the Republican philosophy - small government, private enterprise, personal responsibility - and the Democratic philosophy - government protector, state-owned/managed enterprise, wealth redistribution.
At the end of the day, my colleague and I leave the office and stop by the mall where I buy the DVD's. He is originally from India, and is stopping by Indonesia after a trip to India to work with some suppliers who are helping us in our Africa development. This is his first trip to Indonesia, so we spend too much time in the mall as he explores all the potential opportunities. I buy 11 more DVDs - Lion King 1.5 and 2, Jungle Book 2 and 3, 5 Elmo movies, Horton Hears a Who, and Bourne Supremacy. My colleague buys nothing (typical supply chain guy, didn't find anything he found a "good value"). Dinner at the club level. Having woken up at 4:00 AM and working out at 4:30, I'm exhausted by 8:30 so I crash.
Tuesday
We go in a little later today because I need to draft my fantasy football team. Draft starts at 7:45 AM. I bail at 8:30 AM after completing the first 12 rounds. Turns out, it's a good thing I delayed it. My colleague had trouble sleeping, and he had set his alarm for PM, so he didn't wake up until 8:15.
Today is one solid meeting. We spend the whole day discussing the process of requesting permission to spend money. It's amazing how many variations there are for the simple question of "can I spend money on this?" When a person wants to spend money, it has to work up their organizational hierarchy until it reaches the level of someone who has been granted authority for the dollar amount requested. At any point, someone in the hierarchy can request someone else in the organization to review the request and provide their opinion/approval. Sounds simple, but when you are automating a process, you always have to assume that something will go wrong and account for it. For example, what happens if someone has forgotten to assign someone a manager? How do we know who to route it to?
We break for lunch and this time eat at a Chinese restaurant. It is considered a high-end restaurant, though I found the food at the Malaysian restaurant better.
We finish our meetings for the day and my Indian colleague and I join a ping-pong game in the company lounge. I was concerned about playing with the Indonesians - if you watch the Olympics, you know that SE Asians are notorious for their skills in Ping Pong (Indonesia won several medals in Badminton, too, including 2 golds), and I haven't played Ping Pong in years. Turns out, my spin serve still works quite well -I scored 11 aces!
We returned to the hotel around 7:30 and went for dinner at the club level. While there, I ran into Amit whom I met on my first trip out. Seems he is still spending a lot of time in Indonesia for his business. I'm still impressed by his product. I wish I had a need for it. Having once again awoken at 4:00 AM, I'm asleep by 9:30.
Wednesday
My morning starts with an 8 AM meeting to discuss any ongoing challenges with most recently released project (the reason I was here in March). The project will go down in history as the most challenging I have ever worked on. It delivered nearly 3 months late (meaning it took almost 2x longer than expected), we had several contentious moments at the end, and, once released to production, it crashed every 10 minutes for 4 days until we isolated and resolved the issue with the application. We still have a list of about 30 items that are either ongoing issues, features we failed to deliver decided were not important enough to have another delay, or new features we've discovered we need. I left for Jakarta 1 day after resolving the production issue, so I have 2 meetings a week scheduled to talk through any current concerns.
The remainder of the day is continuing to work through the system requirements to automate our purchasing process. I'm learning a lot about our processes, and, I feel, I'm teaching a lot on how to conceptualize software in the definition/visualization phase of our efforts. We stay late - about 6:30 - to ensure we cover everything we need to before my colleague leaves. He will be with us just one more day (Thursday), and we can't have him leave without completing the end-to-end process and documenting our system design.
We dismiss our driver for the evening and join one of our local colleagues for a tour of the city. Having taken the tour twice, now, I realize that in terms of acreage, Jakarta is a very small city. When I was able to cover all of Paris in a one week trip, I thought Paris was small for such a heavily populated city. Jakarta is really just four main streets - and 18 million people crowded on them. We eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, and I take a picture of Starbucks for my wife (she wanted to know if they have them here).
Thursday
Our morning starts with a meeting with the team in Phoenix. We have a list of questions we need to come to agreement on, and we need to finalize the details of an integration with our document management application. A meeting scheduled for 2 hours ends up taking nearly 4. However, we get a lot accomplished.
Recognizing we are in for a long afternoon session, we opt to lunch at Wendy's in the building's lobby in lieu of visiting a sit-down restaurant. Turns out our discussion on nature vs. nurture and government's role in providing motivation vs. opportunity makes our lunch last an hour, anyway.
As expected, our afternoon session lasts well into early evening. We finally break for the evening at 7 PM. My colleague and return to the hotel, eat dinner at the club level, and say farewell around 9:30. He has to pack, I have another 2 hours of work to do.
I also have to check-in to my new room. When I arrived, they put me in a room on the same floor as the Presidential Suite. Apparently, after I arrived, a General with the Indonesian military decided he wanted to hold a meeting at the hotel and they needed to clear the floor. So, they move me to a new room and, to apologize for the inconvenience, they upgrade me to a suite. The suite is twice as large as the standard room. So, now I have two bathrooms, two televisions, and a place to entertain separated from a place to sleep. If only I had people to entertain!
I spend the next two hours finishing most of the work I had to do, and then try to go to sleep. That's when I hear the drip...drip....drip. I locate the source of the drip, and realize I can't fix it. I call the hotel and they send someone from engineering up to my room to take apart my toilet, replace a valve that had a leaky seal, and I'm finally off to sleep shortly after midnight. I have another 8 AM meeting on my problem project, so I'm not going to get much sleep.
Well, I'll finish updating my week tomorrow (Saturday). It's not too terribly late, but I have to awaken at 4 AM tomorrow to make a 6 AM tee time.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
8/29 - Travel to Jakarta
After a while, a flight is just another flight. I the last few months, between work and vacations, I've been on a plane about every two weeks. Every flight experiences some turbulence; coach, first class, and business class aren't really that different on short flights; and the airlines still haven't figured out that if the overhead bins are full, it's because too many people brought on more bags than they are allowed and the bags are larger than what fits in the box outside the gate.
My travel started with a less than auspicious beginning. The airline agent was unable to provide me with a ticket. She found my reservation, but my travel agent, apparently, had not issued the tickets for my itinerary. I had to call the agency's emergency hotline and wait nearly an hour for them to actually "ticket" my travel. I did not know there was a difference between "reservations" and "ticketing". I do now. In the agent's defense, I did change the dates 3 times after we made the original reservation.
As is my preference, I'm travelling PHX-LAX-Hong Kong-Jakarta on Cathay Pacific. Singapore Airlines is the other option, and most would prefer Singapore. For me, however, Cathay has more food options (less likely for all the options to be fish). I also chew gum, so I'm nervous about travelling through Singapore. Gum chewing is illegal there and they cane you for chewing it.
When I travel, I seem to always have a moment or two where a simple observation leads to a much larger reflection. This time, it happened in the international terminal at LAX. In an episode of Cheers, Woody had not taken a vacation in years and Sam insisted he take a trip - somewhere that required a trip to the airport. Woody reluctantly agreed, went to the airport...and never left the airport his whole vacation. In his simple innocence, Woody obtained great pleasure simply from talking to all the different types of people in Boston's Logan Airport. Seeing the varied cultures walking around LAX reminded me of that episode. I'm sure, if passengers would actually talk to you for an extended period, you could spend days in fascinating conversations talking to the people that travel through LAX International.
On the flights, I watched several movies (5) and read over the documentation for the two projects I'm here to finalize the project plan for and kick off the development effort. I only slept for about 4 hours, though I think this will help with acclimating to the timezone in Jakarta. All of my flights were on time and I didn't have any of the "passenger" issues as I had on my prior flights. I did seem to get a seat on the second floor instead of on the ground floor. I'm not sure if this is the new trend - business class is on the second floor - or if I'm just getting the luck of the draw. The second floor seats are more like caves and would make travelling with small children a bit interesting.
I arrived at the Ritz to find a lot of changes from just six months ago, mostly around what they charge for and what they don't. The explanation of when their club level is open has me a bit concerned about the value of paying for it, but we'll see how it works out.
At a prior job, my CIO would commute every week from New York to Phoenix. He stayed at the Ritz, which was across the street from our offices, every visit. He did this every week for over a year. It wasn't long before all of the staff at the hotel recognized him by site and new him by name. I've only travelled to Jakarta 3 times in the last year, but the staff in the club level all recognized me and know me by name. I think that means I've spent too much time here in the last year.
My travel started with a less than auspicious beginning. The airline agent was unable to provide me with a ticket. She found my reservation, but my travel agent, apparently, had not issued the tickets for my itinerary. I had to call the agency's emergency hotline and wait nearly an hour for them to actually "ticket" my travel. I did not know there was a difference between "reservations" and "ticketing". I do now. In the agent's defense, I did change the dates 3 times after we made the original reservation.
As is my preference, I'm travelling PHX-LAX-Hong Kong-Jakarta on Cathay Pacific. Singapore Airlines is the other option, and most would prefer Singapore. For me, however, Cathay has more food options (less likely for all the options to be fish). I also chew gum, so I'm nervous about travelling through Singapore. Gum chewing is illegal there and they cane you for chewing it.
When I travel, I seem to always have a moment or two where a simple observation leads to a much larger reflection. This time, it happened in the international terminal at LAX. In an episode of Cheers, Woody had not taken a vacation in years and Sam insisted he take a trip - somewhere that required a trip to the airport. Woody reluctantly agreed, went to the airport...and never left the airport his whole vacation. In his simple innocence, Woody obtained great pleasure simply from talking to all the different types of people in Boston's Logan Airport. Seeing the varied cultures walking around LAX reminded me of that episode. I'm sure, if passengers would actually talk to you for an extended period, you could spend days in fascinating conversations talking to the people that travel through LAX International.
On the flights, I watched several movies (5) and read over the documentation for the two projects I'm here to finalize the project plan for and kick off the development effort. I only slept for about 4 hours, though I think this will help with acclimating to the timezone in Jakarta. All of my flights were on time and I didn't have any of the "passenger" issues as I had on my prior flights. I did seem to get a seat on the second floor instead of on the ground floor. I'm not sure if this is the new trend - business class is on the second floor - or if I'm just getting the luck of the draw. The second floor seats are more like caves and would make travelling with small children a bit interesting.
I arrived at the Ritz to find a lot of changes from just six months ago, mostly around what they charge for and what they don't. The explanation of when their club level is open has me a bit concerned about the value of paying for it, but we'll see how it works out.
At a prior job, my CIO would commute every week from New York to Phoenix. He stayed at the Ritz, which was across the street from our offices, every visit. He did this every week for over a year. It wasn't long before all of the staff at the hotel recognized him by site and new him by name. I've only travelled to Jakarta 3 times in the last year, but the staff in the club level all recognized me and know me by name. I think that means I've spent too much time here in the last year.
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