Undercover Boss: 7-11

While I was back home for the holidays, my mom showed me an article in the NY Daily News (or maybe the Post, forget which one she usually reads) talking about the then upcoming CBS show, Undercover Boss. She clipped the article for me because it focused on the CEO of White Castle (that episode will air this Sunday). Anyway, I may or may not have read it, but obviously due to my lack of TV service had never watched the show. I wrote it off as being nothing more than a PR outlet for the companies involved and figured that through the magic of editing it, like the rest of reality TV, would be the furthest thing from actuality.

I never had any intentions on going back on my initial reaction. Of course there was the possibility that I may watch the White Castle episode just because it'd be hilarious to see an old white guy working on Fordham Road. What's he going to say, "I'm the CEO, don't shoot"? They killed a cop outside, so I doubt the idea of not robbing and killing the millionaire in charge would be popular. It could become a great episode of CSI though.

Anyway, tangent aside, today while I was checking out Facebook updates the school, mentioned the show and the review said there were some "heart tugging" moments in the recently aired 7-11 episode. So, I tuned in, cynical as ever. Of course, I should mention, that while I thought the show was nothing more than PR and publicity for the companies participating, I do, whole-heartedly support the concept and think that, especially in this era of corporate greed that would make Gordon Gecko proud, that CEOs taking a look at how their companies affect the people who keep them running is a great practice that would lead to improvements for everyone involved. You've got to realize, that the non-jackass, money stealing CEOs of major companies are probably pretty smart (either book or street smart) individuals, who when face to face with a problem or bad policy, will recognize it and react. Okay, enough build up, on to the show.

So the CEO of 7-11, Joe DePinto is introduced. I immediately decide I like him and that he's one of "the good guys" as far as suits go. Blue collar roots in Chicago and a West Point grad who spent time in active duty. That's the middle-America values kicking in, but since I do like 7-11 I am glad to know that this is the guy in charge. It's not going to make me buy more things, but they have the new Kratos Fury flavored Slurpee to do that. So Joe goes undercover as "Danny", first at a store on Long Island that sells more coffee per day than any other 7-11. He struggles on the job but the store's owner/operator Dolores is patient and encouraging. Turns out she has 1 kidney and goes for dialysis twice a week. She won't let her kids donate because she's worried that what happened to her could happen to them when they get older and then they'd only have 1 kidney. Immediately made me think of my mom. So Dolores comes across as this noble, humble, friendly (she knew just about every customer who came into the store, greeted them buy name and made it appear to be a small mom and pop shop rather than 7-11) heroic individual. Okay obviously it was edited that way, but you can't take away that the woman is obviously NY tough. Joe goes and works at the largest bakery that 7-11 operates, in Baltimore. Here he struggles a bunch on the line, but Phil, the guy showing him the ropes keeps the atmosphere light and helpes pick up the slack. Phil is a former Marine and "Danny" shares that he has an Army background. During the "confessional" part where Joe/Danny is outside of the job speaking directly to the camera he talks about how he felt attached to Phil because of the shared military background (something I expected. If it wasn't for the possibility of getting shot, and my lack of physical condition, I have to admit I think I'd really like what it is that the military provides). Anyway, in the break room Phil shows Danny some sketches and art that he's done and used to decorate the room. They didn't show a lot on the show, but some of it was pretty cool. Before leaving, Phil draws Danny a picture of a donut to take with him to remember the experience. Okay, in the next few experiences Danny learns that the maintenance system they have implemented sort of sucks, and that an immigrant from Pakistan who works the night shift so that he can go to school during the day feels like there aren't chances for advancement working at 7-11. Not exactly thrilling stuff. But it's TV, so obviously they are going to "wow" you with the last segment, and it didn't disappoint. Igor, a delivery truck driver from Khazikstan ( I shit you not). This guy was almost a walking stereotype of the Eastern European immigrant who came to American with hope and little else. Danny asked him as they were driving, what keeps him motivated and Igor told his story. Sure, it's just about your run of the mill, "America is the greatest country; you take it for granted being born here; it's given me great opportunity and happiness", but you know what? Every now and again you need to hear these stories, to remember that they're true. That yeah, shit happens, some days suck and all that, but on the whole, it's still a great place. Again, that middle-America values, mixed with the type of pride you can only develop living on the East Coast, and it made me happy to hear Igor talk with such excitement.

So obviously the show has to have some sort of payoff - besides the fact that the CEO now knows some ways to make his company better. It's time to reveal his identity to the people he just fooled. So they're summoned to the head offices in Texas. Long story short - Phil gets a gig doing freelance designing for the marketing and advertising departments so that he can build up a portfolio. I thought that was really cool, and less "gimmicky" than a raise, a bunch of cash or whatever. Dolores had an organ donor awareness program setup in her name, company wide, to help stress the importance of organ donation and potentially help get her a new kidney. She was overjoyed and really moved by the gesture. And then there's Igor, who got a resort vacation for him and his wife so that they could finally spend time together (Igor works nights, his wife days). Again, his reaction was the thing that should make you proud to be an American - he said about the big boss coming to work with the common guy and then this reward that Igor is receiving, not in movies, not in the books, only in America. Then Joe address the head office of 7-11 tells people what he learned, new commitment to the stoers, blah blah and then an epilogue of what's happened to all of the people. Nothing really interesting except - Igor was presented with his own franchise, as the caption said, "Igor is still living the American dream...He's now his own boss."

I guess the point of this isn't really so much about the show, other than company higher ups should really look into something like this (and it's okay to do without the TV cameras) and help strengthen their companies, which will in turn help the economy and the country. But beyond that, it was one of those human interest things where you realize that there is good out there. And here's my 10 cents even though I desperately try to avoid politics - it's people like these who give America the potential to be great. It doesn't just happen, one thing they all had in common is that they work hard and believe in the good. Someone needs to get tough and remind people that it's one thing to say you're the greatest country in the world while resting on your laurels. It's another thing entirely to show it everyday, with everything you do. And as far as I'm concerned, the latter is the way this country was founded.

And truth betold I miss you, and truth be told I'm lying

Today I had lunch at Google with my old team. It was my first time back in about 10 months. As has always been the case with Google (the Goog), things change. Most of the incoming class that I started with are gone. The director of the department I worked in, transferred to another department. Most of the people I knew from my days working on Gmail - gone. Even the HR guy who took my badge and escorted me out on my last day - gone.

So I walked into the office not really knowing what to expect to see as we rounded up the new look Reporting Team to grab some lunch, my fingers crossed that it was buffalo wing day at the Lunchbox (I have not found better wings in all of Cali) - it wasn't. We had a nice lunch, chatted, reminisced and all that stuff. After lunch I sought out a few non-reporting team friends to say hello and see how they have been.

I don't want to say that I was nervous about going back, but I did want to give off the impression that I'm doing well. Sort of like running into an ex, or in this case being invited to a friendly lunch by one of them. Even if they were always really attractive, possibly even too good looking for you, and it was their decision to end things, you still want to go in to that meeting looking your best and letting them know that it's worked out well for you. I'm not bitter about it, but I do want to come out on top.

I made a big splash right away thanks to my shiny Nintendo controller belt buckle. Some former co-workers were enthralled by it's awesomeness and the fact that it shines in the sun. One even took a picture of it. Well, I hope he was taking a picture of the buckle otherwise I won't be able to sleep tonight. That was a good start. Most people said "you look good", which if I didn't know is just the proper social response in that situation I'd chalk that up as a plus too. But, I did get what I wanted, I would probably call it validation.

Look, in all honesty, I was a pretty lousy data analyst. I never wanted to be one, although that's what I was supposed to be for the sake of my paycheck. Despite that, I knew I had something to offer, but unfortunately I didn't speak up about it until it was too late in their process to make a change that would benefit both myself and the company. Instead I went off on my own, put the skills and talents that I do have (since they're not data analysis ones) to use and did something I thought was a cool idea. 10 months later, not only is it still there and going strong, but my friend Steve told me that the idea has spread (or been copied depending on how you look at it) across the campus. Not only that, but as I stood there looking at it, a girl I'd never met before (new to the department since I left) commented that she looks forward to it every Monday. That was awesome, because I don't care about data analysis, I don't care about Google's googillians of dollars or that crap. When I had this idea it was for reactions like that, and to know that it still has that affect, so much so that other floors and other buildings are copying it, means that I had THE BIG IDEA. The best way to describe it is that it's similar to what Chaz said in Airheads - "I figure, ya know I'm screwed up and average enough that I could write a song that'll live on forever... and then after that it don't matter."

No matter what anyone says, I left a mark on the biggest company in the world. Not many people can say that, and probably fewer can say that they did it their way.

Without further ado, the ConOps question board. A weekly collaboration by everyone with an opinion, thought, joke or whatever on the question of the week. Fun, interesting and sometimes a bit scary.

The Gift of Awesome - Thanks Hillary

So today I had to be at school for a make-up session of my Typography class which was canceled on Tuesday. I'm not a fan of being at school on Friday, or any of my regularly scheduled days off for that matter, so I was just hoping to get through class quickly so that I could get some work done before going to Cobb's Comedy Club tonight to see Jim Norton, the highlight of my day - or so I thought.

As I was walking out of class I was stopped by Hillary, one of the school's administrative type people who said she had good news for me. I had asked her yesterday about when a particular class is offered and figured that she had heard back. "Gaming concepts is being offered next quarter and I can take it?" I asked. She responded that while that wasn't it, I was close. I was puzzled. Then she handed me a small strip of paper. I read it - Redeem this ticket by registering on-site for an Expo-Only badge. The letters GDC above it. I flipped it over to verify and I was right.

I was handed a ticket good for a free pass to the Game Developers Conference this March. Unfortunately, the last day is March 13, the day I leave for New York but all that really means is I need to cram as much as I can into Thursday and Friday. So yeah, I'm going to be at the GDC and get to see all of the new stuff that Sony, Microsoft and everyone else are going to be putting out.

I'm psyched.

Unleash the artist within

As part of my class on learning Adobe Illustrator we had an assignment to create t-shirt designs. It was really cool to concept and sketch out ideas, and even to work on creating them using Illustrator. In addition to designing and creating the shirts we also get to set our commission - I kept it simple, for my Clue based design I set the commission so the price was $19.82 (the year I was born)



and for my line of California Love shirts, I set it lower ($17) because I really believe in the design and would love to see people on the streets wearing it, so I tried to make it as accessible as possible.

Both shirts are available for guys and girls, and the California Love has a wide range of color combinations (check out my designer page for specifics), again because my goal was mass appeal. But more importantly, I want to my California Love design to replace those unoriginal, cheap knock-off "I heart SF" or LA or SD or whatever t-shirts. NY had it first and did it best. Don't imitate, innovate - and that's what I did. So California, get original and buy my shirts.

So, if you like what you see and get the feeling to buy one, go with it. Whoever sells the most shirts in our class will win a prize, and well, I want to win. If you don't like the current designs, don't worry - I've got 3 more in the works, although they'll probably have to wait until after the quarter ends to be finished and put up for sale, but they'll be worth it.

3 in 1 Game Review

Note: I'll fill in the gaps between my last post and now when I have more time - needless to say, went home, got sick, got better, started up school again, got busy, lost motivation, and now we're here.

Game 1: Bayonetta

I downloaded the demo from the Playstation store because there was a lot of hype about this game coming out from Sega. The story, as far as what I knew/know, puts you as a witch named Bayonetta who uses a combination of guns (including a pair that make up the heels of her shoes) and black magic to fight off angels and I assume discover the origins of her birth/re-live her childhood and come to some sort of dramatic conclusion. Whatever. The gameplay features a metric shit-ton of combination attacks, too many for me to remember so I just resorted to button mashing during combat, and some quicktime events to perform "finisher" type attacks. As for my major problem with the demo - besides the laundry list of attacks that felt like overkill, was the running attempt to make the main character, Bayonetta, into some perceived ultimate sex symbol. Look, when Laura Croft was first created she was just a hot chick who you played as while you ran, jumped, climbed trees and looked for treasure. Sega apparently found this to be too subtle and tries to sexualize all of Bayonetta's movements - something that will probably find favor with the 13-17 year old male crowd, but by the time you're my age it just seems gimmicky and annoying.

Result: won't buy

Game 2: Dante's Inferno

Another massively hyped release, with legendary source material so I was interested to give the game a try. What I found was something I struggled to get through in even a demo. The graphics for some of the scenes was just too graphic for me. Not lose your lunch disgusting, but enough that I didn't want to look at the screen. Then we got to the gameplay - as I started to play I had this unshakeable feeling that I had done all of this before, and I was right. Ever play God of War? Swap out Greece for the layers of Hell and there you go. Yeah I guess there isn't really much more for me to say. Like Bayonetta this game has already come out, and I'm happy to say that most reviews have also deemed it to be a mostly cheap God of War knock-off and it reviewed disappointing scores. Score another one for me.

Result: Will not ever play

Game 3: Heavy Rain

Okay, now this one I went into with high expectations, anticipation and a sense of dread. There are so many ways it can fail and since I want to like it, it made things tougher. I will say that while going through the tutorial and finding out that you have to hold down a button to walk was incredibly disappointing at first, and that the player movement is reminiscent of old school Resident Evil games, I found that through playing the demo this was just a minor inconvenience. The nature of the action doesn't require the quick, precise movements of a more complicated control scheme - the game is story driven and most of the important events occur during set cut-scene/quicktime sequences. The actions are performed in context, so there are no official button settings - i.e. X doesn't mean jump, in one scene it may dodge a punch from an attacker while in another it may be part of a button sequence necessary to successfully find your car keys. Additionally, the quicktime scenes are more like movie segments than your typical, pain in the ass "Press X to not die" variety and if you mess up you can usually recover. Also worth mentioning is that the game is dynamic, so different actions and choices affect the way the game/story unfolds. While questioning a source for information I was able to ask only a portion of the questions my character wanted before time expired. At the end, I wasn't sure if I had asked the right ones, and gotten all of the information I needed, but was unable to simply talk to the source again. This ambiguity was a refreshing change, it made me feel like the game required additional skill and thought compared to many of it's contemporary counterparts.

Result: Still waiting on reviews to confirm it's worth the price tag, but itchy trigger finger to buy