One thing I respected during my time working for a big international company was the work-life policy they had.
I learnt how important it is, for an organization, to respect its employees personal life.
Today is monday. I arrived at the office 20 minutes before time.
As usual, took out my coat and before I could sit down, someone approached me and say: “Hey Anderson, I have a favor to ask”.
of course my answer was “sure!”, but my real thinking was “can I sit down first?”
And it was not all.
The guy followed his request adding: “Yesterday I had to do some changes in the code…” Hey… wait a minute!!! Yesterday? it was sunday.
That made me think about the “work/life” policy I mentioned before. And that is a clear example about how japanese people priorize things in life.
The guy who came to me this morning is Japanese (of course), and married. He has a family to spend weekend with and the project is not even late.
I will not enter the merit of his personal relationship. Maybe he has problems… maybe not.
But anyway, this is not the first time it happens. I see that everyday in my company and some friends working for japanese companies also report the same situation happening with them.
Maybe it is only my company. Maybe I am unlucky.
Or maybe it is just an opportunity to lead a change in my company’s policy and introduce the work/life balance concept.
The big question is. Can they change their mind?
That we will see.
Just want to go “tech” for a change.
This is not a guide or review. I just wanna share some usefull findings and will keep updating this post.
Recently I’ve been testing some programs that provide storage in the “cloud”.
It is a little terrifying when I think about loosing all my data if something weird happen to my hard drive, the problem is that I can’t/don’t want to buy a new external HDD.
Another item in my wish list is to be able to control my computer at home (sometimes) and in some way keep access to my media (video/music) in a uniform way.
Below is the list of the programs I tested so far:
DropBox (http://www.dropbox.com/)
Storage: 2.0～3.0 GB
Features: Keep files in your computer (in My docs)
Backup
File Versioning
Overal experience: loved. Storing MP3 files in it allows me to stream music straight to my iPhone
FolderShare (http://www.foldershare.com/)
Storage: ??
Features: Keep files in your computer (can chose directory path)
Overall experience: hated. The web interface is confusing and the sync application hanged several times.
SkyDrive (http://skydrive.live.com/)
Storage: 25 GB
Features: huge space to put your stuff. Files can not be bigger than 50MB.
Overall experience: Still testing and loved so far.
LiveMesh (http://www.mesh.com/)
Storage: 5120 MB
Features: Keep files in your computer(can chose directory path)
Backup
Overall experience: the web UI is… heavy.All of the above services (3 from Microsoft) offer different functionalities and, as I can understand, aim to different targets.
Actually I am using Dropbox to keep files synchronized between PCs.
I do think that data persistence is important… but I will leave it to Microsoft, dropbox, etc to do it in their servers. For my daily life, keep a lot of redundant space makes no sense.
Keep my backups and old data that I don’t access often in my notebook has become annoying also.
My hard disk is shrinking on every windows, flash and QuickTime update. From my point of view a store house where I can put my old data without worrying about “where did I put the DVD case with the backups” or “oh no! the baby is playing with my backup CDs” is one of the first items in my wish list.
So… at the time of this post, the solution I am using is:
Dropbox
・keep my important documents backed up and always up-to-date.
・no remote control but I keep a folder synchronized in uTorrent so I can start downloading things without interaction.
・easy access to documents from iPhone (just in case I need my resume).
SkyDrive
・I started using SkyDriverExplorer (http://www.skydriveexplorer.com/) but stopped soon because there was no drive letter for the drive.
Now I am using Gladinet (http://www.gladinet.com/) and it is really convenient because it not only gives me a drive letter which can be accessed from a DOS prompt but also keeps different credentials for each drive I map. For instance, my SkyDrive and my wife’s SkyDrive can be accessed without problem in the same machine, at the same time.
If someone is using a different solution for storage in the “cloud” or have a different approach, let me know.
Os japoneses tem a terrivel mania de limpar tudo no final do ano. Eu jah entrei em profundas discucoes argumentando que se voce manter limpo, nao precisa de um dia inteiro de trabalho soh pra limpar sua mesa.
Bom, mas enfim, eu estou aqui e tenho que dancar conforme a musica. Alen do mais, quem nao gosta de um dia inteiro na empresa sem trabalhar?
Algumas coisas que e aprendi hoje:
(1) soh porque o tiozinho do teu lado nao veio trabalhar, nao inventa de limpar a mesa dele.
O “rapaz” de 250 anos que senta do meu lado parece que NUNCA limpou a mesa. Limpar o cafe de 50 anos atras que estava encrostado foi dificil.
(2) grampos sao do demonio!!!
depois de limpar a minha e mais outras 7 mesas, vi o lider do meu grupo tirando os granpos dos papeis para poder colocar no triturador. Eu, como bom moco que sou, resolvi oferecer ajuda.
Foi nessa hora que ele tirou um PILHA de papeis debaixo da mesa.
Resultado: eu e mais 4 pessoas ficamos 2 horas tirando grampos, empilhando e triturando os papeis do lider.(detalhe: nao existem mais grampeadores na minha empresa… ou seja, os papeis eram de muito tempo atras).
(3) soh porque vai ter comida, nao significa que voce nao precisa almocar.
Como hoje eh ultimo dia na empresa, claro que os japas todos vao beber e comer por aqui. O problema eh que estamos em tempos dificeis e a comida vai ser pouca e eu nao almocei hoje.
