迷失的老美

Well, I am waiting for my official offer, I know the gist of it, and it is a great opportunity.  Class, still going, but it is so dull.  I really need a break from the non-thinking classes.  Something that makes me think and use my skills.  I need it to keep from going insane, and it is great preparation for real life anyways.  Might as well dive in, and if it all goes to shit, well, at least I have it on my resume, some cash in the bank, and I can continue my education without much difficulty.

Etienne is all better now, silly kitty.  Is full of energy and bouncing off the walls nonstop.  We are spoiling her, but hell, she is a great kitten and deserves it.  Sophie, well, today marks 8 months.  8 months she came into my life and changed it for the better in countless ways.  For that, I am greatful.  Here’s to another 8 months as good or better than the last 8 were.

We were on our way to 俏江南 to have dinner with 爆花. We originally went to a bookstore near 北大 to look for something, so we had to get on at 五道口. This meant changing at 西直门 to get over to 东四十条. The interchange there is designed so to change from 13 to 2, you have to leave the building and go to the other station. The area inbetween is filled with hawkers and 黑车 because of this regular traffic flow. We were making the change and ran across a middle-aged man selling kittens. Sophie stopped to play a little and we asked how much. He said 90kuai. Then the police were making their rounds and the hawkers started scattering. This resulted in the price falling to 60. We were genuinely interested for some reason and followed him to a more secluded area. We got Etienne for 20. Yes, we bought a kitten.

She is not very old, maybe a month. We smuggled her onto the subway (it’s good to be white sometimes) and went to have dinner. We smuggled her onto the subway to return and I smuggled her into my dorm. Yesterday we got her a bed, kittylitter, and some food. The bath we gave her seems to have killed off her fleas. But now she is sick. Poor Etienne seems to have an upper respiratory infection. She is sneezing a lot, sleeping all day, and her eyes have junk which is crusting them shut. We are taking her to the vet tomorrow morning.

That being said, she is a smart kitty. She learned the concept of 猫沙 and craves attention. I took a nice nap with her today after a meal of fish sausage and some rice. She should be ok. URIs are apparently very common in young kittens and there is antibiotics which clear it up quickly.

Get well soon Etienne. Enjoy tonight with Sophie

I had another interview with the XXXXXX CEO today at #58 in 三里屯 over coronas and smokes. He likes me, a lot, for this position. I am thinking on the same level as they are for pretty much all of the business plan, and for some crazy reason, they see me as a valuable asset. He is going to go over the budget tonight and give me my offer tomorrow. He’s really cool, and I love the company’s business model. This is actually exciting to me, where this can go, what all is involved, and I see my future staring at me right now. There is going to be travel to New York at least once per quarter, so, that’s kind of cool. Sophie, I know you will probably read this, so, I am just saying that the promise before still stands. I am going to show you New York as soon as I can, I don’t break promises.

The stock options are not a bad part of the offer either. I gave him a range of 8-15,000/月 as what I want in terms of pay, not including the other benefits. I basically told him to pay me what he thinks is fair for what I can do for the company. He said he will put together something good and not to worry. So, I am excited, yet somber… maybe it’s the lack of sleep. A month and a half ago, I set out on the path that everyone must follow… growing up. And now, I am facing my choice. I will know soon where I am going, and to be honest, it is scary and hard. I just know that I must do this if I can. It seemed impossible, but here I am now, staring at it in my face, and just waiting for me to grasp out and take it… almost there.

Speaking of impossible things, someone else did something impossible. And it has had me smiling all week. Sophie, you are a Phoenix, a beautiful Phoenix who I want to see soar. Anything I can do to help, I will do. No need for thanks, because to me, you are the strongest person in this world that I know, and I know you can do it by yourself. You told me to be realistic, I told you I am a dreamer. We have both done seemingly impossible things. The sky is the limit for both of us it seems.

So, I have been busy with interviews again, well, not again because I have not really stopped having them. I finally found my keeper too if I can land it, but more about that later. The first was on Wednesday over in 上地 at www.isoftstone.com working as an intern pre-sales manager. It would be decent I guess, nothing too special but a great foot in the door, I have another interview with them on Wednesday where I need to meet with the VP. The second was on Friday over at www.terra.com.cn as an “IT Support Engineer”, which translates to “IT Support”. I don’t know why they call it engineering, but they do. These two are decent I guess. The one today however, was cool.

www.xxxxxxx.com is the company’s site, well one of them anyways. They are going to blow zhaopin, 51job, and ChinaHR out of the water once it hard launches. I threw my resume on the site a month or so ago so I could apply for a Microsoft position. Today I got a call from them. It appears that they want me as their IT guy. It’s a startup, but it has VC money behind it and the whole concept is golden. It will revolutionize the online jobhunt market for China. Personality tests, skill testing, credential verification, video interviews, and the entire thing is solid… needs some work still, but it’s solid. I met with the CEO today at the Kerry Center, and went over it all. I am expecting a call back tomorrow, and I really want this one bad. The salary will be enough to justify full time work, there is visa sponsorship, stock options, etc. Getting in on the ground floor, proving myself, and this would be a launch into the big time if I decide to explore other options later on. The contacts I can make through this will help friends get good work too perhaps, so that’s another motivating factor. I need to brush up on my Coldfusion and Java (Java, how I hate you). The big key of this is going to be the psychological profile database it will build up. That’s where I see this expanding to in the not-so-longrun. This sort of thing simply does not exist in China yet really. It is good not only for job compatability, but also for marketing trends. This will be incredibly valuable as it grows in size, and become a major asset.

Problems that exist now and in the future with the concept/company:

Video streaming – The hardware is good enough for it, but the bandwidth is not. It needs to be colo’d in China. Hopefully with a government contract and hosting on CERNet. This would provide great access to students.

Verification services – How to do this is a big question. It really needs to be offered, but it will take work to do. Employers should be able to use the service if they want to, but it may lead to a situation where verified users are selected above non-verified users, simply because the company doesn’t want to spend the cash on it. So, why not give the jobseekers the ability to verify? The problem with this is that it has to cost money, $3-5 to do it each time, so that’s 25-40kuai, which can be a deterrent to a student. Also the payment method would be overly complex. Again, leading to a situation where underqualified non-verified users are preferred above more qualified verified users. This leads to a dilemma which is annoying and hard to solve. The software is being given away for free to students so it is viral marketing which google proved was effective with gmail. Offering it for free would lead to possible abuse as well, so that idea doesn’t work. Offering 2 rates which offset each other would just lead to more abuse, where the company requests that a candidate pays for the verification at the lower rate.

Here’s my proposal. Require a user to complete X number of elements. The video, the psychoanalytical test, and at least 2 skill tests for skills they have listed. These are then reviewed over the next N weeks. If the scores are high enough, offer the user an option to “self-verify” their data for free. Verified data is collected and stored in a database. Employers will see users that are self-verified as well as ones who are not yet verified. Verification status states the date the information was accurate and nothing more. The employer must pay to access this database on a per-user basis. Old information costs the employer a base cost which covers the initial cost. Reverification costs more and would be phased in over time as the userbase grows. Offer employers packages of X verifications for a reduced cost to cover the initial costs. There is less room for abuse by users, as they must prove themselves through the skill and psychoanalytical tests and spend some time doing it. The databases of this information are worth money, in terms of marketing potential alone. There is also potential for this service to become a spinoff at some point.

Ok, now, sleep…

A few more pics from that day

Some things are indeed universal afterall.  No, that’s not a cop-out to Chomsky.