Christmas eve/day and all the build up

Back on shore I have appreciated the Christmas spirit and the holiday but we haven’t really fully committed to celebrating it. I am not certain as to why that was, perhaps it was because I always open my presents early and hence was sleeping in on Christmas day. Being on the ship, people really are into this holiday all the offices are decorated, they have organized themed parties for both crew and guests and performances for the guests. It’s really quite nice. Of course there is no suitable weather for this holiday, but never the less it’s festive.

Christmas day is basketball day for me and I am hoping to catch a few games that are on today, which is much appreciated after this lockout. I have TNT ABC and ESPN on board here, but I have a burning suspicion that these channels won’t show all of the games specifically because the TNT that we have here is some kind of a Spanish version of the channel. Also I am going to miss Raptors games, but will see plenty of Heat games because of the region, I guess I will temporarily be Miami Heat fan.

I got my father into blogging too, which is somewhat of an accomplishment. He considered it to be a waste of time before, but as it turns out this is a pretty effective form of communication if one party is in the middle of nowhere J.

I exchanged a few emails with my mentor yesterday, which is great; I am still going through the book that she suggested for me “from Good to Great”. I am trying to be as productive in my downtime and do some reading as well as exercising to maintain the whatever muscle tone I have, otherwise having access to buffet and not having to move a lot is a dangerous mix of activities. I have also engaged in some LinkedIn forums, just to stay updated with some of the things happening in the real world. I think I would review the local HR policies when I have the time, as many of them should be at least curious to a Canadian HR professional.

All for now,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Everyone

Impressions after the first cruise

Now that I am en route of my second voyage I am starting to see some things repeat themselves and a potential of routine is rearing its head. This is really welcome in my mind as everything about this experience was new and made me feel like a real fish out of water the first few days. The first week was also a bit spoiled by this cold that I have developed, probably has something to do with the weather change or just me not taking care of myself properly. I am feeling a bit better now, but still got this cough and running nose that are getting on my nerves. I will try to go swimming in the next port of call in hopes that salt water will clear up my throat and nose from all this mucus.

One thing that I am still getting used to is working everyday, no days off. My schedule is a couple of hours of work in the morning, then a break in the afternoon and more work in the evening. Overall I am working around 70 hours per week, or 10 hours per day. From experience this kind of workload usually grinds you down and I wasn’t able to do that on shore for very long, we will see how I am able to handle it here.

Thankfully my schedule sometimes leaves me room to go outside in ports, and in the evenings I have time to go to guest areas, I seldom do it now however to try to not spread my cold to any more people. I have however seen a few comedy club type shows here, and it’s pretty awesome. We always get rotating entertainers coming on the ship and for me everything is still pretty new. I feel like I have been to most of the areas of the ship, I do get lost in the guest areas though.

First Impressions

Going from negative Toronto’s 5 degrees to about 23 degrees Celsius in Miami is fantastic. I’ve never traveled in winter before, and it’s great. Just the wardrobe difference is a very pleasant change, hello shorts! I settled in hotel in Miami a bit late, so didn’t have enough time to commute to south beach, which was about 40 minutes away car drive from Hotel. I roamed around the hotel, and grabbed some nice Italian food in a local restaurant.

This morning kicked off great with a continental breakfast at the Holiday Inn, which is probably my favorite way to kick off the day. There is just something about a buffet style breakfast that is really comforting; maybe it’s the fact that you are going to be full for sure after.

Following a stomach stuffing experience I have met up with the trainer from the corporate office, with whom I have been exchanging e-mail for the past 3 weeks. It’s always nice to meet someone with whom you have had written communication before, because even though this person is new to you, I just feel like I know them enough to feel more comfortable.

Then I got to see the ship and this thing is huge, I am impressed with the amount of decks that they have on this ship, the crew area is pretty roomy and well maintained. I came in here with an open mind and I am certainly not disappointed. Food is pretty good so far, and there are always drinks and snacks available here. I was shown around the ship today and different areas that I have access to, which is pretty much all of them. Wondering around employee halls is really cool there are all the other employees walking around mostly in their uniforms, which are different for different jobs and it’s kind of like walking in a bag of skittles J.

Went to the crew gym today after not going to any kind of gym on shore for about 4 months. Seems like a nice place to be to get some alone time and work the body.

The rocking of the ship doesn’t really bother me, and the Internet is cheaper than I expected onboard the ship. I have to figure out how to work this card system better, I always had problems with them in resorts and this is clearly not an exception. These cards that you get are always very particular. Figured it out! For now :)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150528680287754.442541.515712753&type=1&l=2fce1a1ce3 

Dealing with regret >= Accepting regret

Let's examine the chart that was presented during the presentation that draws things that we regret the most. Focus on education and career in the survey results that were presented in this video indicate a common viewpoint of priorities that are shared by the people of the society. Certainly this is correlated to the cultural dimensions of North American people, and their protestant work ethic. This is something that we cannot escape and we will inevitable place more importance on these values, statistically speaking.

When talking about regret one has to have a reference point of comparison of their actions. Often if not always this comparison is found in the outside world, which is explained by cultural tendencies, or dimensions. For example, I regret not doing this major at school because it is in demand now, or because the one that I have is not sufficient or useful for me, both of which make me less competitive in the job market and competitiveness is highly valued in North American culture. 

I also believe that acceptance of regret can be used as a form of excuse for lack of action. Fact of the matter is bad decisions should be examined and if you are blessed enough to commit enough of them you can determine a pattern in the motivations and use that as a tool to understand yourself and turn that perceived weakness into your strength.

For example, I have discovered a while back that I have this tendency to doodle things when I ought to be focusing on the lecture that is being presented to me. Having to rely on these sporadic and rather useless notes caused plenty of regret. So I read up on note taking techniques and realized that perhaps I have a tendency to think visually, which later on I have included into my study methods. So when taking notes I draw plenty of dependency charts, which actually helped me significantly, furthermore when preparing for exams I would draw these Idea maps to cover the material that I had to memorize and that also helped me immensely.

My point is, things that you regret for the most part are culture driven, rather than merely accepting things as they happened everything you do can be turned into an opportunity to explore yourself, which in turn is an opportunity to better yourself. 

Don't be a thief, hit that snooze button

“Laboratory studies showed that sleep quantity is positively related to self-control resources and negative associated with unethical behavior”

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597811000239

Great news Occupy Wall Street protestors: Scientists have found a way to make people more ethical. All the Bank execs need to do is have some more sleep and they will not bet on subprime mortgages. This is a true progress in the world of organizational behavior and human psyche in general. Psyke!

I find it very amusing that such meaningless studies are posted. I will likely be amongst the majority of people that hold scientist to a higher standard in their work. Unfortunately they didn’t meet my expectation here, by banally confusing correlation and causation. Even though they don’t come out and state that in the abstract. And frankly speaking I’m too cheap to purchase this article to find out, but logically speaking the study would be even more meaningless if they simply just post the found correlation.

Off the top of my head I can say that sleep is essential to the nervous system in maintaining it’s proper function. I have doubt that the amount of sleep can drastically and solely impact the person’s judgment. I believe that the more appropriate way to pin point the root causes of unethical behavior is through inductive research, not deductive. 

Changes to future workspaces?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/16/2503904/big-changes-coming-to-future-workplace.html

Interesting article that to me read like: “Watch out campus life is coming to work”. This is probably a way they can sell this idea to the decision makers. We tend to forget the negatives from our past and in perspective what was already done seems incredibly simple. Luckily I graduated York University not too long ago and I have a few concerns about the possible trend.

First and foremost, this sounds like it could further endanger work-life balance, even more-so than flexible work schedule. The problem here is that people are given an option to schedule their own time when work is clearly the more important priority because everything depends on our income, hence it would always take precedence. So whenever it gets busy, guess who is sleeping less? Imagine what happens if you have someone pushing the team to achieve more to make themselves look good. The only way this would work is if the corporate structure would change and perhaps more flat power structure, where work could be collaborative and project based.

Now with the 20/20 hindsight would you honestly say that you have been your most productive at school? Not many people can. For whatever reason it may be, this work style certainly didn’t make us more productive.

Do you remember how “awesome” it was to try to align schedules for group work or meetings? I hated that the most about group work. Then you learned that sometimes you have to have group majority meetings and fill someone in after. 

Ergonomics must also be considered, Having a big open space for people to work in creative ways can work, but working on a bean bag chair for 8 hours would quickly make your back hurt.

I do agree that with the environmental push, there is an opportunity to make as much digital and allow for this kind of flexible workspace. I could see myself working in this kind of environment.