Saturday, May 24, 2008

Craving for more?

When describing desires, people fall into 2 categories:
  • Person F, who has an income of 4500 euros, or 4700, but strives for 5000 euros
  • Person M, who has an income of 4600 euro, but strives for 400 more euros
Person F strives for a fixed amount, while Person M strives for more X euros. Do you see a fundamental difference here?

If not, let me give you a slightly different example. Say you're looking for a new job, and before going to any interviews, you said: "I'm targeting 5000 euros".

You get 2 offers:
  • Offer 1: 4800 euros, flexible hours, not very stressful
  • Offer 2: 5500 euors, 9-to-5 hours, with the possibility of aprox 20% overtime
Person F will choose Offer 1, while Person M will choose Offer 2.

Before delving into more details, let me give you the facts:
  • there are a lot more of Person M in the universe
  • Person F live a quite happier life than Person M
The fundamental difference between Person F and Person M is:
  • Person F has a fixed goal, knows when the goal is reached (in our case, the 5000 euros/mo), and takes the time to enjoy it, before eventually moving on to other goals
  • Person M will always want more, even if he reaches 6 or 7000 euros (while also ending up working more and being more stressed)
There's something very comforting about reaching a goal, and slowing down for a while, just to enjoy it.

The trouble with being a Person M, is that it unconsciously means more work on your part. You want more, you need to do more. The fundamental difference is that Person F understands this, while Person M doesn't (and doesn't know when to stop).

What type are you, and, if you're a Person M, are you willing/do you want to change?

P.S. It's my birthday today, so Happy Birthday to meee!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

The ancients and their fax machines...

Personally, I don't understand people that still use the fax. It truly denotes a lot of stupidity on their part, when email is soooooooo much better.

Email is so much easier :
  • to store
  • to copy
  • to search
  • to send/receive
  • to categories
  • to forward
  • the service is 99.99% available

And who can be so stupid to use the fax? At least the following: the Romanian Pu(b)lic Administration. Unfortunately, they're not alone: there are other idiots that use it (like, Grupul de Presa Roman, aka, Romania Libera).

When I hear of an organization that uses the fax, a bell rings - this clearly has quite a few employees that are there just to slow down a process.

Unfortunately, you do need to deal with idiots now and then. I used to be very pissed before, since I don't have a fax and had to go to the Post Office to send faxes.

Well, finally, I'm using www.efax.com to send my faxes online. They haven't payed me for advertising, I'm just happy they exist - I've sent a few faxes using their service, and amazingly, it works. Just one less stress for me :)