The last 4 days, I have been working in overdrive. We have a "product" demo this coming Wednesday where knocking their socks off is important. We've previously demo'd this product to other customers but in those cases, we had the sense that (1) we were the only vendor being considered and (2) implementation schedule was further in the future. So those demos were just ugly hacks using existing features. This time, there's competition so I totally rewrote the underlying architecture and implemented the theoretical features to produce a polished product ready to turn on.
Working remotely overseas during these periods have its pluses and minuses. On the upside, I was extremely productive being able to work with the regular office interruptions. In addition, working at off hours meant I had the development resources all to myself for testing. On the downside, not overhearing the office discussions meant other developers started down a different direction than mine and there was some wheel spinning to get re-oriented.
Meanwhile, Chinese New Year festivities were starting in full force. During holidays, just normal crowds in China come out in huge numbers. In the United States, the only analog would be Black Friday shopping. (The two photos are of the local pedestrian shopping district and a temporary flower plaza.) But unlike Black Friday where lower prices stoke demand, the demand in China goes up first and then prices follow. Restaurants will not only stop accepting their VIP discount cards (if they have them) during this period but even add a surcharge on menu items. The local hair salon I usually get a haircut at doubled their price from 30 rmb to 60 rmb during the final few days.
Fresh fish in this area is usually very cheap but once in a while, i have get a hankering for non-local fish. So yesterday, I went to the biggest supermarket in town (
Vanguard Shop) and bought frozen salmon. Sure, it's not as good as fresh salmon but beggars can't be choosers. Pricing in this part of China (perhaps all of China?) is done in rmb per 1/2 kg (pronounced "gun" in Cantonese). So at 59 rmb per gun, that comes out to $7.85/lb. A nice premium over the $5.99/lb for fresh salmon steaks I used to pay in San Francisco.
(Filed in misc)
Work Overdrive Trivia
Posted by Mossy
February 14, 2010 9:26 PM
Working remotely overseas during these periods have its pluses and minuses. On the upside, I was extremely productive being able to work with the regular office interruptions. In addition, working at off hours meant I had the development resources all to myself for testing. On the downside, not overhearing the office discussions meant other developers started down a different direction than mine and there was some wheel spinning to get re-oriented.
Fresh fish in this area is usually very cheap but once in a while, i have get a hankering for non-local fish. So yesterday, I went to the biggest supermarket in town (Vanguard Shop) and bought frozen salmon. Sure, it's not as good as fresh salmon but beggars can't be choosers. Pricing in this part of China (perhaps all of China?) is done in rmb per 1/2 kg (pronounced "gun" in Cantonese). So at 59 rmb per gun, that comes out to $7.85/lb. A nice premium over the $5.99/lb for fresh salmon steaks I used to pay in San Francisco.
(Filed in misc)
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