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Why working on weekends and holidays rock - A Tuesday Note

Last week, majority of the working class were on a long weekend holiday. In the PH, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were declared holidays. In Australia and New Zealand, they also had Thursday and Friday as holidays. As if that weren't enough, they also have this week's Monday and Tuesday as holidays, too. Now that's a long, long weekend holiday.

UK and Ireland are on a league of their own. Other than the holidays they had last week (Monday and Friday), they also had a holiday this Monday (bank holiday) and another holiday this coming Friday (some important couple's wedding). That's two long weekend holidays in succession!

I, however, was working the entire week last week. Boo, what a loser.

But, no, not really. Ever since I've started working (and even when I was still in college), I always saw holidays as very good opportunities. It helped that since my first job, working on holidays is always a must because of the industries I were in (retail, BPO). There are plenty of good reasons why it rocks to be working on weekends or holidays while the rest of the country are out on at the beach, getting drunk and singing their hearts out. Let me just cite three of them.

But, really quickly before discussing those three reasons I'd just like to say one thing. I always like to think that the hardworking person toiling in the middle of the night while everyone is sleeping (figuratively) will always get ahead of the game.

Anyway, three reasons.

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Lest we forget - The Marcos Chronology Report

Ferdinand-marcos

September 1976

This month the Marcoses bought their first property in the U.S. – a condo in the exclusive Olympic Towers on Fifth Avenue in New York. Five months later they would also buy the three adjoining apartments, paying a total of $4,000,000.00 for the four and using Antonio Floirendo’s company, Theaventures Limited in Hong Kong, as front for these purchases.

October 13, 1977

Today, after addressing the UN General Assembly, Imelda celebrated by going shopping and spending $384,000 including $50,000 for a platinum bracelet with rubies; $50,000 for a diamond bracelet; and $58,000 for a pin set with diamonds. The day before, Vilma Bautista, one of her private secretaries, paid $18,500 for a gold pendant with diamonds and emeralds; $9,450 for a gold ring with diamonds and emeralds; and $4,800 for a gold and diamond necklace.

October 27, 1977

The Marcoses donated $1.5 million to Tufts University in Boston, endowing a professorial chair in East Asian and Pacific Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The students and professors discovered this and forced the school to reject the donation. To save face, the Marcoses were allowed to finance several seminars and lectures.

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President Noy Aquino. Forsaken.

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me at 40?

Prince William and Kate Middleton are only in their late 20s. The French fries lovers in that McDo commercial were toddlers.  I am 51. I am President. I have a Porsche. Why can’t I avail of the sacrament of matrimony? You don’t want me to end up like Marlene Aguilar, do  you?

Please tell your bishop to shut up. State affairs and my affairs are none of his business. I promote responsible parenthood. Let him practice responsible priesthood.

I have not contributed to population explosion. I have the moral ascendancy to stop it.

via newsbreak.ph

The worst outcome is not failure. It's mediocrity. - A Tuesday Note

Dropbox-for-blackberry

In this week's Tuesday note, I'd like to share an insight that I found online thanks to @owrange.  It's a lesson from the entrepreneur Drew Houston and his startup called Dropbox.

The worst outcome for a startup is not failure — it's mediocrity.  When I first met Drew, he was still working for a local Boston-area software company called Bit9 (in the security space, and they're still around).  Good company.  Drew was in the midst of working on a startup idea that was in the SAT prep space (called “Accoladae” if my memory serves me right).  I met with Drew for dinner to talk about Accolade and his plans for it.  I was not a big fan of the idea (and told him so).  Super-competitive category, and it was going to be hard to differentiate.  Most importantly though, I was not sure how big of an opportunity it was.  I just didn't see it being a big, “break-out” business.  Frankly, at the time, I could tell that Drew was really smart — but I didn't have enough data to know if he was going to be great (as in a great entrepreneur).  I know many, many really smart people.  Few of them have what it takes to be great entrepreneurs.  As it turns out, Drew is one of those people, but I didn't know it at the time.

So, Drew ultimately ended up abandoning the SAT prep idea to do something different (which later became Dropbox).

Here's the big lesson:  Many founders think that the worst outcome you can have in a startup is failure.  You try something and it fails.  And yes, failing sucks.  But, what's worse than failing is going sideways for years and years.  Being stuck in a quagmire of mediocrity.  Things are going reasonably well, but not spectacularly well.  The reason mediocrity sucks more than failure is very simple:  Failure lets you move on, mediocrity stalls you and keeps you from reaching your potential.

Mediocrity, really, is a bitch.  It reminds me of the this speech that I found four years ago and I still try to listen and watch it every so often.

Now, on failure.  This is going to be a bit funny saying this but I'm a huge fan of failure.

Failure made me realize my potential back in high school.  When I started out as a freshman, I was so confident of myself because I came from a prestigious grade school.  I didn't study hard enough and I always went out even on school nights.  That misplaced confidence did not give me anything except low grades and put me on a lower section of the class on my sophomore year.  I realized I could do so much better.  And I did.  On my junior year, I sat at the top section of the class.

Failure got me to start working for my first ever promotion back in 2005.  I slacked off on the job to the point of getting a memo for skipping work.  At that time and in that company, not coming in to work was a mortal sin.  When I signed the memo and saw how disappointed my supervisor was, I promised myself to get back up and be a performer.  Six months later, I became one of the SMEs (subject matter expert).

Just last year, my team's first half of the year numbers sucked.  Customer Experience was low, attrition was high even on the leadership level and we weren't even sure if the business was going to stay.  We failed big time and morale was low.  But that did not kill our spirits, no sir.  We threw every playbook that we knew did not work for us and created our own.  We kept challenging ourselves.  There were a lot of bad eggs that we had to kick out (too bad but this is business).  We ended the year meeting 3 out of 5 metrics.  We ended the first quarter of this year meeting or exceeding ALL metrics.

I'm a huge fan of failure.  It isn't so funny now, is it.
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Ppip Cimafranca

Ppip Cimafranca

I look forward to the day when all I need to make things happen is a mobile device, the cloud, some rock music and a foul mouth.

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