- The rest of your life is exactly where you want it to be. So, this one isn't true for 99% of the population.
- You have the correct mental attitude for it. This isn't true for most of the population either.
- You are doing exactly what you want to do in life. The chance that you could be distracted by another possibility / avenue is next to nil.
None of the above are impossible asks, but they certainly unreasonable. But some managers like to ask anyway, mostly as a form of leverage. If you're foolish or desperate enough to fall for it, then well, only fools and desperate people will give you time week after week to listen to how much you hate your boss / job.
I always like to ask, "who wins?". News gets out that Russia is poisoning people critical of it. Who wins? Do they achieve their goals of silencing criticism? Obviously people think negatively of them and think twice before visiting the country. So, who wins?
I've been a member of some minority almost all my life. On more than one occasion I've been a refugee, a tourist, an immigrant, a high scoring student, the new person.
My rules for success as a minority.
- If you are the minority, never forget this. Ever.
- Don't congregate in a manner that excludes the majority.
- Sure, be proud of who you are and where you come from, but remember that the majority are also proud
and they have far superior numbers. So, be sure to operate in a manner that does not offend their pride: include them in your celebrations and be there for them in their time of mourning.
- Be useful. Find ways to be useful.
- Set your goals to be the best example of not just the minority that you belong to but the majority as well.
I've found that whenever a minority breaks one of these rules, they do so at their own peril. They needn't break any laws to gain the scorn of the majority.
China is not a market. It is a very large vendor and customer with many departments. This isn't good or evil, but it may be depending on who you are and what you're willing to stand for.
In a traditional market, the organizers set rules for vendors and customers. The same rules apply to anyone should they decide to become a vendor or customer, but organizers usually avoid becoming a vendor because of obvious conflicts of interest.
If you are a vendor then your customers in China are basically some subsidiary of the very large organization that is China. If you are a customer then you are basically buying from a subsidiary. Since you are dealing with subsidiaries, you have to understand that all the subsidiaries are encouraged to share information with each other to build a stronger China.
Building deeper relationships with a subsidiary means building deeper relations with the whole organization and that means satisfying deeper requirements (taxes, knowledge sharing, local factory, IP sharing, equity sharing). All this is normal if you are say, just two companies doing business with each other. But you aren't. You are a company doing business with an organization who you may be misunderstanding for a market.
Finally, theres the case where two companies merge and share all resources to become a stronger, better organization. Unlike many other countries, the Chinese identity is very much an ethnic and a lingual one. This means that if you are not Chinese, you will never be Chinese. If you aren't already Chinese, then the chances that you will be able to move to China should China become a prosperous society are slim to none.
- Salad with nuts in it. Dressing is chopped cilantro, lime juice, salt and olive oil, which seems to go really well with leafy greens. I can eat this salad for one meal everyday.
- Some kind of a curry or stir fry or soup with vegetables and mushrooms.
- Frozen berries for dessert.
- Salted pistachios for snaking.
It is easy to follow but it does get boring. So, when I crave something else like dessert or bread or fish or whatever then I indulge. That makes it easy to follow the regular diet the rest of the time.
Competition, both perceived and real increases as density goes up. We're not wired well to handle it. Especially since so many lack the deep roots to feel truly secure.
Well, that depends. Is the escalator located at the Embarcadero BART Station in San Francisco? Are there people shitting on the escalator? Are the escalators designed to take such an abuse? Would you like the maintenance team to do something else or just fix the same escalator each week?