You float like a feather
AN OPEN LETTER TO ORANGE
(as in the telecommunications company)
Dear Orange Folks,
I think you’re doing a good job. I do, however, have certain strong feelings about a particular product of yours.
One of your corporate services, BEW (Business Everywhere) is a big part of my working life due to the nature of my job. It lets me dial in to my company’s private servers from wherever I am in the world, as long as there is an internet connection present.
Now that is all good. (And kudos to the guys who worked on the last upgrade — connections are more stable these days. Chest bumps all round!)
Where was I. Oh yes. While I have few complaints about your services, I must say the first eight seconds of any dial-in process quite bothers me. You see, this is the image that greets me each time:
*silent scream*
Now what is odd about this picture?
For starters, those photographer-types will tell you that your focus is all off, and uh, things like depth perception are wonky. But. As a general know-nothing plebian, I have issues with the woman in the picture. I speak for myself and for several colleagues, as well as (possibly) the other thousands of silent suffering BEW users all over the world.
Surrealism bites! Who is this strange woman in strange corduroy trousers and a green knitted top? In what looks like a field of dying weeds? I mean:
- Those trousers are terribly ill-fitting.
- That sweater looks like some random garment the stylist threw at her right before the photographer went “Okay, now look into the camera and pretend like you aren’t worried about rattlesnakes crawling up your roomy pantlegs!”
- And what about that hair? It doesn’t say ‘windswept’. ‘Frazzled as all hell’ is the message that comes through.
What is she thinking? Who is that phantom man standing in the background? And why are they in a random field looking like they’re waiting for the mothership to return?
I ask myself these difficult questions each time I use your BEW service. Those eight seconds or so distress me in a manner that I cannot explain, and I think I may not be alone.
When people operate remotely and have to dial in to work, let’s safely assume that they prefer their first visual encounter not be one like this. I’m not talking Man Ray surrealism here, this is plain disturbing randomness.
Now I cannot speak for anyone as to what that ideal visual should be (because in my head, I would probably say, juicy cheeseburger) but this just does not work.
I hope you will be struck by the gravity of this issue, and how it affects the user experience. Let’s have some change we can believe in, as Senator Obama would say.
Yours in hope,
L.
Dua Hati Yang Tak Mungkin Bersatu
3 AM, no more wine at our place, and my friend Francesco’s sudden desire to speak in a language he did not know, to a girl that did not exist.
We completed ‘filming’ fifteen minutes before I had to get on a conference call to KL.
I’m not sure how amusing this is to someone who’s not familiar with the Malay language (or KL landmarks). Click here to watch the outtakes instead.
PS. I love the speeds on my shiny new macbook. HELLO, MINDLESS VIDEO-EDITING!
You say that we’ve got nothing in common
First impressions really do count.
They’re also usually made more than once. (Then they no longer count as first ones, you say)! But they do at the workplace, especially on business trips, and particularly at the breakfast buffet between the cereal and the croissants.
You see, those forty-five minutes or so at the beginning of the workday are crucial. They can make or break your next eight hours.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I go on business trips where there’s usually more than one of us from the company travelling at the same time. The social and professional pressure cooker that is the hotel breakfast room is a microcosm of all the trivialities that working life involves: your opening lines, the way you handle hot coffee. How you look in the morning, with jetlag and a strange bed thrown into the mix.
Based on the inordinate amount of formal breakfasts (and the occasional slip-up) that I’ve lived through, I’ve found that the only way to survive the power breakfast gig is to live by three cardinal rules:
1. Never eat anything that might stick to your teeth
This includes muesli, bran, any kind of chewy cereal really. Fruit with lots of fiber. And in Asia, sesame seeds (deadly). They will lodge themselves in that perfect spot between your two front teeth. You will find a semi-chewed bit of raisin stuck in one of those molars at the back of your mouth. With any luck, you usually make these discoveries at one of two junctures: 1) when you’re peering into your bathroom mirror at the end of a long day, or 2) when you’re talking your audience through Slide Three at the morning meeting.
2. Avoid wearing white
The crisp white Oxford is overrated anyway. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but food stains are a bitch to clean out. Coffee spills are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s the fruit selection that I now unconsciously separate into two categories: Juicy, and Safe. Watermelon and all citrus fruits fall under the former category by default. Bananas, melons and grapes save you the embarrassment. You never, ever want to be the chump who excuses himself from breakfast proceedings to go stab wildly at the orange stain on his chest with a useless napkin.
3. Watch the morning news
CNN. BBC. Hell, do local news if that’s available on the telly in your hotel room. Current affairs discussions are at the root of an ancient, universal corporate ritual where one discusses the day’s headlines with one’s colleagues in vivid detail and with sufficient animation. The tricky part about breakfast conversations is that there’s an equal division of people who want to talk about work matters, and those who want to do anything but. The latter group often revert to the fail-safe “world issues” chatter, so you should be ready to discuss Kenya’s political situation just as quickly as you’d talk about the crazy plane that attempted a crosswind landing Heathrow. Anything sufficiently relevant really, which from firsthand experience unfortunately excludes classic Tom & Jerry reruns and that nail-biting morning repeat of Deal or No Deal.
Under Electric Candlelight
It’d been a long day, and I was in bed by midnight.
Several hours of dead sleep.
Then my phone rings, loud and persistent. I have the world’s most annoying ringtone after all - it’s the theme from Bewitched (judge not or ye be judged). So I’m stumbling out of bed, shuffling to the other side of my hotel room.
I look at my phone. It registers a strange number, but in that state, I pick up anyway, and this is how the conversation goes:
“Hi, is this Lola?”
“Huh? Um. Yes?”
“Hi! I want to ask you something.”
“Okayyy…” (who the fuck is this??)
“You know, those pole dancing classes. Tell me more about them!”
“HUH.”
“The pole dancing classes.”
“What pole dancing classes?”
“You know Fiona? From Talenthub?”
“Yes. Uh. Fiona Gomez.”
“Right! She’s got this pole dancing class and I want to join, so I thought I’d find out more.”
“You what? Who am I speaking to?”
“Eileen” (or Elaine, hell if clarity is going to be anybody’s best virtue at this point)”
“Okay. Eileen/Elaine. You want to take a pole dancing class and you’re asking me?”
“Yes! Fiona’s class!”
“Did Fiona refer you to me or something?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m asking you. Can you tell me?”
“Okay. I think I’m going mad.”
“Huh?”
“Fiona. Talenthub. Pole dancing. Does she know what’s going on?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Right. Look, I’ll tell you more about this stuff another time, but I can’t now because I’m in Brazil and it’s bed time and this call is costing me a shit load of money” (how that logical thought process even took place, I will never know)
“Oh? BRAZIL? When are you coming back?!”
“Uhhh..” (does mental calculations in head) “On the 10th.”
“Okay, I’ll call you then!”
“Okay. Okay. Bye then.”
I hang up, look around my dark room. Walk to the window and open it, peer at downtown São Paulo and wonder if I died in my sleep or something. If I did, I’m asking God for my money back because I’m pretty sure my package deal includes the whole life-flashes-before-my-eyes bit, and I didn’t get any of that before I keeled.
As it turns out, I’m doing fairly well on the living thing, since you are reading this now. But I seem to be a bit short on the parts where I don’t get cross-continental pole dancing enquiries at four in the morning.
I don’t think I’m making any of this up. When I get out of bed the next morning, my phone is next to me. I check my received calls and there it is. All one minute and thirty-four seconds of it.
- Addendum: it is later revealed that I am not crazy (or dead). Fiona - an acquaintance and boss of Talenthub, a dance school - had two Lola’s listed on her phone. Guess what happened.
