Myers-Briggs - The Fortune Teller

Have you ever been to or read fortune teller who just describe how you're like to make you ooh and ahh of how accurate it is? I just experience it myself. I took the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) a while ago with this the result below:



However, I just found out what it means to be an ISTJ - Introvert, Sensing, Thinker, Judging. Holy cow... it's like the writer has worked with me for years...

Serious and quiet, interested in security and peaceful living. Extremely thorough, responsible, and dependable. Well-developed powers of concentration. Usually interested in supporting and promoting traditions and establishments. Well-organized and hard working, they work steadily towards identified goals. They can usually accomplish any task once they have set their mind to it.

The text is excerpted from PersonalityPage. You can take the test of 60 questions and see the results there.

Danang Krungthep - pork leg, anyone?

DaNang KrungThep Restaurant
905 San Pablo Avenue
(between Buchanan St & Solano Ave)
Albany, CA 94706
(510) 524-6837




I'm on the run again - now to Richmond, CA, a little town just a bit north from glamorous Bay Area (sayonara Kansas City, I won't miss you!). Great food, lots of night lives, tons of Thai friends.

Seems to me things are not that simple in consulting. For the first two weeks of the project, I have been carpooling with my manager to the client site at 7.15, attending back-to-back meetings till 7 in the evening, feed myself with crappy cold food at the hotel room, and work a few more hours before spending valuable time on recharging sleep. The cycle has been like this three to four days a week.

I rang a good Thai friend who went to Stanford for two full years, asking what she recommended around the area close to my hotel. The first and only thing she could think of is this place - Danang Krungthep. With all the steam I accumulated during the work hours, I know it's the time to give myself good Thai food and a bottle of Singha. DaNang is the forth largest city in Vietnam while KrungThep is the Thai name for Bangkok. So, we expected the balanced mix between Thai and Vietnamese menu from this place. (be careful of another place called Thep or KrungThep down the same street - it's not the same restaurant)

I was impressed with Danang Krungthep. The place, though not highly decorated, is spacious, clean, and well ventilated. At the time we arrived (7-ish Tuesday night), the place was less than half full. Parking is just in the convenient back lot. We were seated right away. The menu is huge. And, most importantly, they had the unlimited supply of Singha... Ahhh....

We spent about ten full minutes to go through the hundred-page menu. I decided without thinking to go with the pork leg (it's chinese/thai stew style with pickled cabbage). Seriously, most Thai restaurant just stick with perfecting their spices for stirred fry and sauces, and don't bother to buy the whole pig legs and make this rare dish from scratch. It comes with appropriate amount of skin. The meat is tender. Pickled cabbage is mellow. The dish and Singha just go really well together. We also had fried spring roll as appetizer. You know how good Vietnamese spring rolls are so it's not a disappointment either.

Full five stars for great food, parking without hassle, good service, willingness to go above-and-beyond on food, and supply of Singha.

I guess I have 412 more items to try at this place.

Steve Jobs Hates People Like Me

Uncle Stevie's got an angry rant today about the job McKinsey did over there. Although I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, terribly sorry, Steve. I picked this career track before I even know your secret diary exists.

And yes, my firm's end-user platforms are completely Microsoft now. We run Windows XP on ugly ThinkPads, all firm-approved mobile devices are required to run Windows Mobile, we don't know what we do today nor can send message without Outlook and Exchange, we don't call each other anymore but chat through Live Communicator. There are more but I think you get the idea... People just keep complaining about work/life balance in this industry. I guess you can turn things around by moving things to Apple. Free MacBook Pro, iPhone, and free iPod Classic will surely save a lot of our sanity and blood pressure level. And we will be the coolest kids on the plane!

I heard that there may be needs for our help at Apple. I would be more careful before coming in if you have this attitude then. I probably need to paint my ThinkPad silver, put on the Apple white sticker that you give us with an iPod, run WindowsBlinds with Mac OS skin, and shut up when we get BSOD. Peace out. Namaste.

Another Corporate Example from Dilbert

I'm sure you have or will have experienced this in a project at some point.

Deloitte Films Available to Public

Following my prior blog post about Deloitte Film Festival, now all the movies are posted on YouTube here... and here are the top three:

Winner: Food for Thoughts


Second: The Green Dot


Third: WTBCTB (man... this is actually my favorite)

Enjoy!

Deloitte Film Festival

My firm had an initiative a few months ago to get employees submit short films about work and life at Deloitte. I think it's a great idea for people to relax from project work by doing firm activities, expand their network, and show their creativity.

3rd Place - WTBCTB (Rap MV by the interns. Dude... I think the lyrics are even better than SNL's Narnia thingy)

2nd Place - The Green Dot (super hero action-packed short film)

Winner - Food for Thoughts (you know how much consultant people love food!)

Not sure if the links work with external network. Leave the comment if they don't then.



Update: Apologies folks. My ex-colleague just let me know that the links don't work if you don't have deloitte account. Ironically, he just left Deloitte last Friday. For those of you who's interested in viewing these great films, just visit our Jobs site and send me the job posts with your resume. I can refer you through our internal referral system. The access to the site will be available for you within your first week with the firm.

Update 2: The films have been made available on YouTube. See more details here.

I found her life with two carry ons

I once blogged about last year's American Airlines Road Warrior winner. I finally found her blog! Just a reminder, she's working at the same company that I'm sacrificing my life to, referred in her blog as ABC Consulting. Her blog is 100% hilariously written--she called Mother Nature bitch when her flight to Wimbledon was half-day delayed. I started to be a fan of her blog when she described our professional travelers' lives in seven days of the week. Highly recommended for someone who wants to know more about lives at ABC Consulting or consultants in general.

Great job Jammahs. You have become by favorite blogger now!

My Life with Two Carry-ons

One of a consultant in my firm just won American Airlines's Road Warrior award. She received 1 million American Airlines miles and 1 million hotel points (sounds like a lot... but she's already got 500,000 miles with AA. I don't think it makes a difference unless you're on vacation for a couple of months, or you can convert them to Virgin miles and make a trip to space!) Her blog is right here... I found her blog hilarious as I have been on the road for almost two months now and we're using the same traveling policy.

The good thing about traveling for work is that it allows me to fly back to Seattle instead of Boston every weekend. Only last weekend that snow hits Denver and made me missed my connection (bad choice of project location, Pisit) so I had to fly red-eye from Seattle to O' Hare, then catch the first flight to the client site in Kansas City. Even worse, I sat next to a baby who was uncontrollably screaming the whole flight. Not very pleasant night.

Hope it's getting smoother over the next three months when the snow is going away... Please... Can't do this every week.