Fiction, Sort Of

Lin took a drag on his cigarette as he watched the American exit the main terminal. Even from 30 meters away he could tell he was an American; he might as well have planted a flag on the top of his head. The clothing, the walk. The girth was usually a dead give-away, but this one didn’t have the usual gut hanging over his belt. Maybe he was on that low-carb diet that was the rage in America.

Lin quickly put out his cigarette. Some Americans were rabid anti-smokers, so he didn’t allow his American fares see him smoke, and he definitely never lit up in the car, no matter whom he was driving.

The American got close enough for Lin to see the jet lag hanging on him like a physical weight. From the looks of him he was in his early 30s. He didn’t have the gray hair and entourage of an executive, nor the tennis shoes and awkwardness of an engineer. This was clue number one.

“May I take your bag, sir?” Lin asked in slightly accented English. The American gave him his suitcase but kept a death grip on his computer bag. Like it wouldn’t be safe in the trunk? Typical. Lin opened the back door and allowed his charge to get inside. He started the large Mercedes engine and sped away from the airport.

“Did you have a nice flight?” The Americans were sometimes chatty. The Japanese on the other hand, would never stoop to talk to a driver. Especially a Taiwanese one.

“Yes, thank-you,” was the reply from the back seat.

“Is this your first time to Taiwan?” He also found that engaging an American in conversation usually ended up in a tip, even though tipping wasn’t practiced on this side of the world.

“Oh, no. I have been here many, many times.” A veteran. No tip from this fare. And another clue. Lin merged onto the freeway for the 45 minute drive to the hotel and turned on some quiet music. From his mirror he could see the American looking out the window. This one wasn’t sleeping, so he might as well talk some more.

“Will you be in the country long?”

“Through Saturday.” This was clue number three.

“If you have some free time, the building next door to your hotel is currently the tallest building in the world. They have an observation deck that has a great view.”

“Really? That will definitely be something to do when I have time to kill.”

When Lin asked his father-in-law to borrow money to buy the big black Mercedes, he at first got ridiculed. “What makes you think you can make money driving gweilos around? Are you such a good driver?”

“What I am is a good study of people. That is why I will be successful.” He also spoke pretty good English, a pathway to success on this island, but he wasn’t going to bring that one up. His father-in-law was a little old fashioned and still pissed off about being chased off the Mainland. In the end, though, he loaned him the money.

So he learned how to spot his fares, how to treat them, what to say, what pitfalls to avoid. The Americans were the most obvious to spot, the easiest to ply. The Europeans were fewer in number, but easy to identify in their non-matching clothing and vaguely effeminate mannerisms. The Japanese? They acted as if they still owned the island.

He spent the next half hour chatting with the American, making him feel comfortable. Once he was getting close to the hotel, he started his up-sale that would also yield the final clue: “Will you be needing a driver during your stay?”

“Actually, I will need one tomorrow and probably later in the week. You available?”

The American didn’t ask the price, allowing Lin to put together the complete picture: an American salesman on an expense account, the best fares to have. “Yes, sir. I’ll give you my card and make arrangements with the hotel concierge when we arrive. For your convenience, the charge can be added to your hotel bill.” What Lin didn’t mention is that the charge was at a much higher rate than what the American could get by finding a driver on his own. And the American wouldn’t care.

“Excellent.”

And all it took was a few innocuous questions and observations to make tomorrow’s revenue double what he usually made. His father-in-law had no clue.

"Find the Umbrella" and Other Expense Statement Stories

A guy I worked with was on a business trip to London. It was pouring down rain one day so he bought an umbrella to get his business done and duly put the item on his expense statement when he got back to the States.

His statement got bounced back with a friendly note from the trolls in accounting: "Personal items cannot be expensed." Roger thought about explaining the situation - the umbrella was a business expense after all - but decided it wasn't worth it. He redid his expense statement without the umbrella, but it magically came out to the exact same amount as before. He wrote a note back to accounting: "Find the umbrella." He got reimbursed the full amount without any more hassle.

This true story shows a well known fact about expense statements: they're easy to pad. Almost ridiculously so. But we're talking penny-ante amounts of money.

In my experience most people pad, but usually for reimbursing themselves for something that is not reimbursable like the umbrella above. Another reason is for the inevitable amounts of money that leak out of the pocket while traveling. For example, traveling in Tokyo requires cash for taxis, subways, trains, and other modes of transportation that usually don't issue receipts. A lot of people I know just throw $10 into a random lunch they didn't pay for instead of tracking $2 every time they step on the subway. Even doing this most people still end up behind. I know every single time I travel overseas I end up spending money out of my own pocket due to things like this.

But there is padding in order to try to keep ahead of minor expenses, and there is padding in order to pilfer money. And the fact that Intel just fired a bunch of people for expense statement issues shows that the issue in this case is pilfering rather than balance. At least I hope so. I would hate to think that Intel is so small as to fire people for expensing an umbrella.

Science Proves that CEOs Really Are Crazy

Reader Manu, now added to the blogroll, sends in the following link verifying my post that CEOs really are crazy:

A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions.

Makes sense to me.

Visiting the World's Tallest Building

Coming to Asia is a tough job. I have to dine potential clients, drink ridiculous amounts of liquor, and find ways to kill time in exotic cities with the extra time that inevitably comes up. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Today my little group found itself with a few hours to kill between appointments, and conveniently enough, the World's Tallest Building, Taiwan 101, is across the street from our hotel. So up we went, over a third of a mile up:

The experience isn't any different from being on the top of a mountain, except I have to admit that looking straight down is pretty interesting. The conversation inevitably turns to the same topics in these situations: had anyone parachuted off of it, had anyone committed suicide by jumping off of it, and, of course, whether a penny dropped from this height would kill someone.

And while I can go around and smugly claim that "I have been at the top of the World's Tallest Building", I won't be able to say it for very long. There are several buildings proposed for completion in the next few years will surpass this one, so I will inevitably have to find time to kill in another city to keep my claim.

Always Travel with the CEO

My main client is sending me to Asia this week, so posting will be sporadic for the next 9-10 days as I head across the Pacific. I'll post when I get to these exotic places, so you'll know where I end up.

My client's policy is that all employees - and consultants whom they buy plane tickets for - must travel coach. However, this policy doesn't apply to the CEO, who gets to travel business class. Since I am going with the CEO on this trip, and since I convinced his admin that it is important that we discuss weighty issues during the 10+ hours in the air, I managed to get approval to travel business class with the CEO.

It's like the old saying: You don't need to be rich, you just need to have rich friends. In this case it is just changed slightly: You don't need to be the CEO, you just need to hang out with him.

In addition to my business class seat with almost full recline, I will also have my new iPod Nano with the Pacific-busting 14 hour battery life and my Bose noise cancellation headphones (Mrs. Director is good to me - for some reason I can't fathom). So my trip will at least be comfortable.

Crazy CEOs

Actually, the title is tautologous (and repetitive) since I have come to the conclusion that all CEOs are crazy. And I have the data to back it. In my 16 years of working I have had the dubious honor of running into quite a few CEOs, and this seems to be the one common trait among all of them.

Note that I am not saying that the CEOs in my sample were weren't effective or successful or smart. They were usually all three. But I found out that all of them have a different view of reality than the rest of the world, and a different thought process to go along with it. And at the end of the day, that is what the definition of crazy is.

Actually, I have concluded from my experiences that one has to be somewhat crazy to be a CEO. Because everyone else knows what the company's resources are for what can and can't be done, what is possible to promise customers and Wall Street, how to treat people like fellow human beings, and that the world doesn't revolve around their own schedule. But CEOs have none of this conventional thinking, and maybe this is what enables them to push companies and people to do more than they think they are capable of.

Another Employee Perk Being Cut

I've discussed before how stock option plans were being eliminated for rank-and-file workers by a Congress that passed shoddy legislation in a rush to "prevent another Enron."

It turns out that stock options are not the only perk being cut. Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPPs) are also being cut thanks to a new FASB rule that was enacted after the Enron debacle. From the WSJ (paid link):

Traditionally, Employee Stock Purchase Plans have given workers a chance to buy company stock at a 15% discount...This is changing, however, as regulators move to tighten accounting rules in the wake of Enron, WorldCom and other corporate scandals. That means that discounts on most stock-purchase plans, like stock-option grants, must now be treated as an expense.

(To date) About 15% of companies have eliminated the look-back feature, 7% have eliminated the discount, and 5% have eliminated the whole plan..."

Thanks, Congress. These rules will do nothing to prevent what happened at Enron or WorldCom, but they will certainly take money out of the pockets of the non-executive ranks. And the "C-Level" executives will still get tons of stock grants, options and other perks in the millions of dollars, so these rules will also do nothing in terms of lowering executive compensation.

An Idle Thought

If When they rebuild New Orleans, shouldn't they call the city New New Olreans?

A Guilty Labor Day

The U.S. has a lot of "pretend" places modeled on real historic places. Just within a few blocks of Las Vegas is a fake Egyptian Pyramid and a fake Roman Forum. They are idyllic models of the real places, with the warts removed and souvenirs added.

And there is a pretend New Orleans - right in the heart of Disney Land, and probably my favorite place in the park.

As I strolled with my family through the fake New Orleans on Friday, I couldn't help wonder if, like the places in Vegas, this would be the only way to experience the city any more; if the three-quarters scale buildings, the live Disney Jazz bands, and Pirates of the Caribbean would be the only New Orleans future generations would ever know.

So as I enjoyed the holiday weekend with my family I felt a pang of guilt that I was enjoying myself while so many fellow Americans were still suffering. And the sad irony wasn't lost on me that I was having fun in a clean, sanitized New Orleans while the real one was still under 20 feet of water.