Organizational Behavior

It has slowly started to dawn on me how the hierarchy really works here. Anyone who is not a VP cannot make a decision here even for the smallest thing like a vacation day (which amazes me sometimes still). At times you realize that it literally is like the army, no private will decide anything (likely not even when they can pee ;)
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A meeting with the client, who has coffee with the one team member who did not join our kickoff meeting (also being the most senior person). but still, wouldn't information from our initial discussion have been important? (i ask this knowing that in korea it is not what you think they need, it is what they say they want). anything else may get you in trouble (even if it is legitimately what they need ;)

but the issue with not being a strong english speaker always amazes me. If you are head of an international division (or even manager level or higher in an international marketing group for example), shouldn't you speak English well?

Can we reprogram Korean TV?

Seriously, what is it about death and crimes on korean tv? not one sitcom over here, but almost every CSI/NCIS/Criminal Minds/etc at night on the English channels. And that does not include some bad action movies that i end up watching. True, we are supposed to have super fast cable, or i should download things on iTunes, but laziness wins out, and i end up watching some bad shows. and it really doesn't help a good night's sleep when half of them involve murders. you would think i might learn ;)

The problem with bloggers

...is that they can be #@$%. I made a mistake in addressing a blogger (for some reason screwing up his name). Now instead of ignoring my email, he choosing to respond not correcting my mistake, but being very rude to my company as a whole. Now as I had written a number of emails, but specifically personalized not just the name but the subject matter of each one, a flippant comment like that only frustrates someone. And the funny thing is that this behavior is encouraged as bloggers get more followers. I suppose it is fine that the world has some people with no class, but email and getting a following entitles people to assume that they can act this way. The real kicker is that I can't respond, because I am writing on behalf of my company, and the last thing I need is to get into PR trouble. But people take their jobs seriously, but also make mistakes.

So I am deleting the last portion of this rant, mainly because the update is that he ended up getting in touch with me later, and we have had several interesting dialogues since then. It does remind me about the impartiality of email and the challenges that it creates, but you do realize in the end that it is a person behind that address.

I don't think this was intended

So I was awake (or had my eyes open) for a rare moment on the bus ride to suwon recently. And I noticed that across the street from our "compound" was a store called "Samsung City" Now anyone who has read my comment about Citibank in Korea would know why I started smirking when I saw this. Pronounced in Korean (which was right below), it is Samsung Shitty). And given my recent issues with laptops and my phone...

Friends leaving (2 sets of couples)

So a few more folks leaving. It is funny, as I likely look at the end of my time in Korea, I am reminded by a bunch of the cool things that I have experienced here, the friends that I have made, and the general craziness. And to have a great apartment, and at least at times, a great lifestyle. (at least before I started commuting to Suwon ;) So over yesterday and today, I have two sets of friends leaving. One back to Dubai, and one to the US. I am happy for them, since a new world awaits afterwards, but it is strange to think about the next step on my side as well.

Crashing a Korean wedding

So at some point in the coming week there will be a lot of confusion between a bride and groom. Because I went to a wedding this past weekend, carefully checking the invitation, but realizing it would be fairly awkward since i didn't know anyone there (other than the groom, and maybe one other person who never responded to my email!) About halfway through the wedding (awkwardly sitting at the table with a group of koreans I didn't know), I decided to look at the invite just ONE more time. The 28th...Wait, isn't that tomorrow? Who knew it was a Sunday wedding? Given that I had already given a small envelope of cash, I decided I needed to at least finish the meal (can you imagine me trying to go up and ask for my money back?) I decided it was worth the W30,000 I had paid for my story of sheer stupidity. I just wonder how the groom and bride will react. Who the hell is Angus Maclaurin!??!

So on Sunday I decided to go back, to the actual wedding. I stood near the corner to take things in (I did not feel overly comfortable sitting down after the previous day, and that whole "being the only white guy at a table filled with koreans who probably just want to hang out with each other and not make small talk with a foreigner." (as an FYI, i feel that more in korea than other asian countries, it is a little more insular here). What was super nice was the groom saw me standing there, and ended up guiding me over to a table of his friends, and the one person I knew, who is actually about to leave Samsung this week). So I had a great time meeting new folks, mainly Korean-Americans, and quite the peanut gallery ;)

The ceremony was almost a carbon copy of the previous day (exact same food btw), and it cracks me up to see how the scene unfolds. Apparently they delayed bringing out the food, which meant a more relaxed ceremony, and they played 3 whole songs (instead of the usual 1), so I joked that it was going to be a "long" Korean ceremony. Literally a full Korean ceremony seems to take 1 to 1.5 hours. I watched the couple come down from the ceiling on a platform, light a large candle, pour champagne on a tower of champagne glasses (that looked REALLY cool, especially with the gas or smoke-like effect when it was poured!) and cut the cake. All in a span of about 10 minutes!

We ended up staying longer than that and I learned from one of the friends visiting from the US about how a traditional Korean ceremony works. They changed dresses (this was the third dress she had worn, the wedding gown was so big that it could have been enough fabric for a small village, and was such a nightmare to move around in, you could tell walking down the aisle was not the easiest of all tasks!) So they both were in traditional Korean wedding attire, and there was a sort of "tea ceremony" with the different families. Of course in Korean style, they were drinking alcohol from the brass kettle ;) They had to catch dates that were thrown by the parents (signifying fertility and how many kids you would have), and he had to give his mother-in-law a piggyback ride (to show he was taking the burden off her in terms of caring for her daughter. I think James felt like he should have spent more time in the gym at this point, and the peanut gallery was likely not appreciated at this point ;) But at least they could blame things on having at least 2 full-fledged foreigners there. If this had been Koreans only, it might be been rude, instead of funny (although it was the Korean Americans that were making the most noise ;)

Samsung quality or not

I remember my 2nd cellphone very well - actually my 2nd and 3rd phones, since the 2nd one had the notorious issue of faulty wiring between the base and the speaker (it was a clamshell design). Needless to say after those experiences, I switched from Samsung phones, sick of the quality issues (which many of my friends had). On the whole there has been a lot of talk about how the quality has improved, but it was not evident last weekend. Over the course of 1.5 days, my screen stopped turning on (unless I slid the phone shut). The screen being on when you slide is shut is okay, but not if you actually want to access your address book, see who called, etc. (After missing a phone call on Friday night, I had to call back, asking "who is this?" and hoping I was not dialing an international number). Needless to say, it was an easy (and fairly cheap fix), but the same thing happened to Michelle's phone, and the camera on mine was also broken (that was not going to be a cheap fix. $50+ for a 1.3 megapixels of crap? sorry). So needless to say, I am not happy with the Samsung quality again, and I won't even get started on the fact that my computer battery lasts all of 10 minutes.

What I do find interesting will be the iphone launch over here. The pricing on the phone is very low, and a number of foreigners I know intend to purchase the phone. If iPhone succeeds in breaking into this market, it might be one of the best things for Samsung (a much needed wake-up call). The technology here is amazing, but services and quality (not that Apple is any better on that one, Nokia is though), not so much...Interesting times in Seoul!