The Big Cut Day (in Eng)

It is a story which occurred on the Thursday, February 12th, 2009.

It was a humdrum February Thursday. The groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania has seen his own shadow and said the spring was coming within a few weeks. (Please see the detail here.) The sky which covered New York City looked deep and dark blue, and the temperature seemed to have already risen a little bit. The topics in the air everywhere was Valentines' Day which was just around the corner. Oh, right! And the Friday the 13th which would come tomorrow. Before 9 o'clock, as I usually do, I squeezed in the crowded subway train for an hour and then walked into my company's headquarters which was located in downtown Manhattan. It was not news that my company was facing financial and credit crisis. The friends who had contacted me lately knew my company has already started various downsizing and layoff. As usual, after I stepped into office, before I entered my cubicle, the colleague Efren who sits beside me always asks the same question. "Good morning! Have you heard any news, Sam?" And I was doing the same thing as always, looking at him, smiling, and shaking my head. It is a humdrum Thursday morning to me.

If you have ever received a pay check in a financial firm, typically you will get its pay check on Thursday morning. So people usually regard Thursday as Pay Day. In Melbourne, Australia, the retailers, such as department stores or the street vendors, would provide different kinds of promotion on Thursday, and even prolong their business hour to 9PM (they usually close at 5PM on other weekdays) to stimulate the customer demand. On the other hand, during this terrible economic situation, companies would choose Thursday morning (or Monday morning sometimes) to announce its downsizing or layoff action. After you get the last pay check, you can start to pack and leave the company. One of my close friends, Ben, used to work for Morgan Stanley, got his last pay check on a Thursday last year. Some friends at JP Morgan Chase had received a similar email on Thursday last October as well.

And today, it seems to be the "Big Day" for my department!

The Big Cut Day

一個發生在 2009.02.12 Thursday 的故事：

這是一個不起眼的二月天星期四，賓州的土撥鼠已經看到自己的影子 (詳情請看這裡) ，而且說春天只要再過幾個禮拜就會來了。紐約的天空一碧如洗，氣溫也似乎漸漸回升了點，大家談論的逃不出再過兩天就到了的西洋情人節，喔！還有隔天的十三號星期五。一大早九點不到，我像平常一樣地，擠了一個多小時的地鐵，走進位在紐約金融區的公司總部大樓。公司面臨財務和信用危機的威脅與震撼已經不是這一兩天的新聞了，近來跟我連絡的朋友們也都知道我的公司早就已經開始了不少大小規模的改組與裁員了。一如往常地，在我進到辦公室、走到我的座位前，坐我隔壁的菲律賓同事 E 君，都會問我同樣的問題：「你那邊有關於公司的任何消息嗎？」我也是一如往常般地，對著他笑一笑、搖搖頭。對我來說，這是一個不起眼的星期四早上。

有在美國領過薪水的朋友們都知 (據我所知，澳洲也是這樣) ，一般的工作都是在星期四早上發薪條的。大部分的年薪工作 (或是顧問工作) 都是隔週發薪的。所以每個禮拜四又叫做 Pay Day ，零售業大部分會在星期四開始促銷活動，比如說在澳洲墨爾本，百貨公司或是一般的店家在星期四晚上甚至會延長營業時間到晚上九點 (平常五六點就關門了) ，來刺激買氣。另一方面，在這種經濟環境下，公司行號也都會選在星期四一早 (或是星期一) 宣布裁員。員工收到最後一張 Pay Check ，然後就打包離開公司。之前跟我很熟捻的朋友 B 君，在 Morgan Stanley 服務的時候，就是在 Pay Day 的那一天被解雇的。之前 JP Morgan Chase 也是在星期四向員工發出了一封信，告訴收到信的人是可以留下來繼續工作，還是再過多久就要打包離開了。

而今天，似乎就是我的部門的 "Big Day" ！

Setting and Changing the Server Collation

Here is a data warehousing project following by the standard implementation process, Development (DEV) → User Acceptable Test (UAT) → Production (PROD.) DEV and UAT server have been installed MSSQL Server 2005 Developer Edition as default setting which has Latin1_General_CI_AS as default collation, but PROD server has been installed MSSQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition as SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI as default collation. It will bring errors when you do the data migration from DEV/UAT to PROD. The only solution is to change the collation setting in either of them.

Let's Green

"Green" is not only a simple adjective to describe a lime, an olive, or a piece of jade's color right now; or a noun to illustrate a color which is a mixture of yellow and blue; the color of Shrek or the color of New York Jets. The word, green, becomes a verb to express that someone is doing something which can protect the environment, as well as a noun to categorize someone who has capability to care for the environment. Nowadays, furthermore, the word represents an investment and a future trend in the business field. When you open any investment guides or business magazines you found on streets, the "Green Industry" always stands as the hot topic in their suggested list. However, I think to achieve "Green" in the United States will be a long journey.

[轉載] The Credit Crunch 信用危機

這是一篇在網路上轉寄的一篇文章，他針對了最近信用危機 (Credit Crunch) 導致的次級房貸風波 (Subprime Crisis) 提出說明。淺顯易懂，可以讓大家參考一下。原文如下：


過去在美國，貸款是非常普遍的現象，從房子到汽車，從信用卡到電話帳單，貸款無處不在。當地人很少一次現金買房，通常都是長時間貸款。可是我們也知道，在美國失業和再就業是很常見的現象。這些收入並不穩定甚至根本沒有收入的人，他們怎麼買房子呢？因為信用等級達不到標準，他們就被定義為次級貸款者。

From the Day Lehman Fell Down to Work Philosophy

Although all of us have already known the financial industry is heading to an incredible crisis, no one has expected that day would come in a hasty and astonishing way.

It was a regular Sunday night to me. I poured the last of bottle of wine and randomly browsed TV channels from my comfortable cheap coach. Suddenly, the breaking news on CNN showed a shot at the front of Lehman Brother’s home office in Time Square and reported, "The employees of Lehman Brothers are packing their stuff on this Sunday night, since the company is already full of rumors of bankruptcy. You can see the people are coming in and out right now." The next second, I was dialing my friends who work for Lehman but no one answered. I was shocked!

We Have Only One Life – Australian Philosophy

這是我有生以來第一次離開北半球，拜訪看不到北極星的另一半世界。雖然沒什麼機會到各個觀光景點，甚至沒能有機會去最著名的大城 ─ 雪梨一趟，不過我真的滿喜歡這個新大陸的。若要我說對於澳洲的印象，其實讓我印象最深刻的，不是那些濃厚口音的澳式英文，也不是那些只有澳洲才有的奇特生物，什麼袋鼠、無尾熊、鴨嘴獸之類的，而是他們對於生活的態度。

在這一大片由火山爆發形成的古老大陸，雖然是全世界面積第三大的國家，澳洲人帶給我的感覺卻更像是個與世無爭的島國居民，一切自給自足。在這裡最重要的經濟活動是農業、礦業、跟畜牧業，其他的活動似乎都只是附加上去的，這也讓澳洲有著與其他經濟體競爭的資源與本錢，加上近幾十年來開放並鼓勵新移民的遷入，高加索白人、非裔黑人、印度人、亞裔黃種人，各式的種族在這裡落地生根，接著融合在一起，讓澳洲的文化更增添了特殊的風味。在這裡，沒有紐約那樣的忙碌與冷漠，同樣是有著多元文化的國際型都市，這裡更多了一點亞洲人般的親切、和歐洲人般的氣質、還有澳洲人獨特的悠哉閒適的生活態度。