I am sure many of you have heard of Friendster or MySpace, but now the new debutante at the ball is FaceBook. It would seem that my colleagues and classmates have discovered FaceBook and the features and customisation they can do with it has caused quite a stir. How do I know? I have been deluged with invites and requests to join.

I am not sure when it was discovered by my classmates in London, but I have noticed that slowly one by one they are creating FaceBook accounts. It is amazing that such a simple concept as social networking has taken off. And what is even more amusing is the faddishness of the sites.

Most of you won’t remember, but ages ago it was Friendster that launched and there was a one to two year buzz with that site where people created accounts and spammed all their friends to join. Then it was MySpace, which lasted a bit longer, but over time it appears that it is losing ground to the new kid on the block, FaceBook.

One of the things I like the best about FaceBook is that by default your profile is not shared with everyone and their mother. While with MySpace, unless you restrict it, everyone can see your profile. I read somewhere a while ago that companies are starting to conduct “background” checks on their prospective employees to see what they post on their social network sites. I asked a few colleagues who are in HR and they said they have actually not interviewed people based on what they found. So I guess your super sexy, half nekid photo of you drinking at that party last weekend is best left off the ‘net. Otherwise, it could cost you a job…something to think about.

I was talking to someone the other day about the joys of Telework.  We were talking about how employees benefit from flexible work arrangements, but I contended the firm benefits as well.  While to most that seems absurd, because in the end the employee has the flexibility, which is why it is called a “flexible” work arrangement or “flexible” schedule.  However, I there are subtle benefits for the employer as well.

Take for example my current situation.  It is true I enjoy the benefits of not traveling to school every other week for two months to finish my MBA.  That in turn provides me with the ability to focus on school, just get done with it, and then focus back on work when completed.  It also benefits my pocket book, because instead of flying back and forth four times I only had to fly over once.  Not to mention, I didn’t have to pay double rent in the US and the UK.  So I am not arguing there are many, many benefits to the employee for Telework arrangements. 

However, the firm gets a few benefits as well.  The lack of travel I do now means my health stays relatively high due to the wear and tear of bi-weekly commutes.  It also means my stress levels are relatively lower than they were say six months ago.  So from a holistic, healthy employee perspective that makes sense for the firm.  But where most Managers don’t realize the benefit is in the hours.

Let’s dissect my daily workday (for those of you who could care less you can just skip this last paragraph).  I get into the office at 0900 GMT everyday.  Now at 1700 GMT, the San Diego office is just getting into their office.  This is the point where I start to converse with the San Diego Office.  I typically stay here until about 2000 GMT, which is about lunch time for the San Diego Office.  I then race home to my flat and quickly make dinner and get back online available until about 0100GMT, which is the quitting time for the San Diego Office.  So on average the firm gets at least 10 hours a day from me, and oftentimes 12 – 13 if I was to focus solely on work.  I end up using all of that “extra” time between to do that administrative stuff you just can’t tie to any particular project.

I was having that chat again about the number of miles I flew and as always I had to look it up. It turns out that in 2006 I flew 141,000 miles on American Airlines (my preferred airline - I wish I was paid to say that and will gladly accept Air Miles as compensation). on top of that I flew 30,000 miles on United Airlines. So the grand total of miles was over 171,00 for 2006. That is approximately over 300 hours in the air or almost 13 days on a plane. Crazy huh?

Yes, I am mental.

Once again I was having a chat with some friends today and we started to discuss the amount of travel I completed last year. Everyone asked me how many miles I had clocked last year, and my initial answer was “a lot.” However, after some moments of reflection I became curious to know the actual miles I flown last year.

So after I had a few more pints at the pub I headed home and logged into American Airlines Website (my preferred carrier of choice and I wasn’t paid to say that, but I’ll happily accept Air Miles as compensation).  It appears I flew last year 154,382 miles on American Airlines and 30,142 miles on United Airlines.   So the total miles were 171,881 for 2006.

That is kind of scary when you estimate that I have spent over 312 hours (the equivalent of almost 13 days) on a plane. Talk about mind boggling.

So I was browsing the web, like I normally do when I should be studying. And I found this cool little website that lets you make a graphical representation of where in the World you have been. I couldn’t resist, thinking I was quite the worldly individual, but in reality it appears that I have only visited about 4% of the World’s Countries (10 to be exact).

To be specific, I have visited: Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, and of course the United States. Wow I feel so unworldly now…

So to cancel out my feelings of inadequacy, I plotted the number of states I visited in the U.S., which was 21 states (or 41%):

So a few people have asked me about what its like working in the London Office, and I must say its pretty different. I mean you’d think it was fun and exciting to be in a completely different office, and yes it may be. But the office has moved from its normal location to temporary housing while it is renovated.

That being said the new office is “dreadful.” I am absolutely serious, its awful. There isn’t any privacy…anywhere. We sit in groups of 4 or 6, side-by-side without partitions or any type of privacy screen. You can hear everyone’s conversations and everyone can hear yours. And to top that off it is a clean hot desk policy, which means its first come, first served and you can’t leave anything on your desk when you go home. The reason for this is you’ll probably not get the same desk the next day. I’ll have to take a picture sometime so you can see what I mean.

I was sitting here this evening and I figured I would draft out my all time Pet Peeves. These are things I have been noticing over the past few years being in London. They are in no particular order:

10. People who feel it is absolutely necessary to stand in the VERY FRONT of the bus. Ok, this isn’t rocket science, but a packed bus becomes MORE PACKED when nobody moves to the back of the bus. London Bus Drivers will actually pass bus stops if the bus is full, so why make it artificially full by standing in the front of the bus…move back. I have been passed by a bus many times to only see that the back of the bus is vacant.

9. The Pound Coin. I got into a “debate” with my flatmate of the value of the American Dollar Bill, but I contend the Pound Coin is the most worthless item out there (well not monetarily, it is worth about $1.99). The worse is when they run out of £5 notes and then they give you 5 one pound coins. Next thing you know you are caring around like £18 in change, weighing down your pockets…I rather carry around $36 in singles than £18 in change.

8. Driving on the opposite of the road. Do you know how many close calls I had looking the wrong way. One of my classmates pulled me out of the street recently, because I was about to get clipped by a car barreling down on me. Yes he saw me, yes he saw I was looking the wrong way, no he didn’t slow down, and yes he was accelerating towards me (as my classmates told me afterwards).

7. Posers. Those are the people who rent Ferraris or Lamborghinis and drive around London. Shoot even if they own them, they still come into the city from out of town where rent is cheaper (it would be hard to afford both the car payment and the rent). They zip into the city and weave in an out of traffic trying to look cool, but in reality they look like they are trying too hard. Those who have money don’t have to flaunt it. How do you know they are posers? Simple. WHO IN THEIR FRICKEN’ RIGHT MIND WOULD DRIVE A FERRARI OR LAMBORGHINI INTO LONDON TO SIT IN TRAFFIC???

6. People who take up 2 seats on the tube. Most people are pretty good about this, but there is the occasionally person who feel it is necessary to take up a seat with their bag. You stand in front of the seat and they totally ignore you, because if they don’t make eye contact…you don’t exist. Next time this happens I am just going to sit down on their package, briefcase, purse, etc. and pretend I didn’t see it.

5. British Grammar and Spelling. Ok I am no grammatarian, I definitely get confused with how they spell over here. They use ‘S’ instead of ‘Z’ (e.g., Organisation, Realisation, analyse, etc.). And they tend to spell funny (e.g., colour, judgement, theatre, centre, programme, etc.). I need to figure a way to turn my MS Word into British English for spell checking and grammar, because until then it is just going to keep telling me I spelled incorrectly. And pants mean something completely different here in the UK. They are trousers, because boxers are pants.

4. Outsourcing. I swear all of my banks and the airlines in the UK have outsourced their call centers to a foreign country. I do not believe that the representative’s name is really “Bob or John” and sometimes they have thick accents, which makes understanding them difficult. I feel bad for the customer service representative, because they are clearly reading from a script. And thus tend to want to do things in a step-by-step process, which tends to be frustrating.

3. In tube stations people who are completely oblivious to the posted signs that read “Stand on the Right” by the escalators and stand wherever they please. This creates a huge bottleneck on the escalators for those of us who try to keep moving up or down. Or my other favorite is “Keep to Left” signs where people just wander around willy nilly doing their own thing. And lastly getting out of the tube station through the turnstiles and the people who feel it absolutely necessary to stand in front of the turnstile and pull out their map to read. And they just stand there, as everyone starts to pile up behind them.

2. Annoying ringtones. If you are in England be prepared to be bombarded by the most inane ringtones from all types of shows, music, sound effects. Around the office here it is not uncommon to hear the most annoying ringtones and it seems there is a contest on who can come up with the most annoying one yet. You can tell it is a game, because who in their right mind turns their ringer volume way up, and leaves it on their desk for hours on end.

1. The two ice cube rule. It seems that no matter where you are limited to the number of ice cubes you are allowed to have. The rule is no more than 2, and I think there is a law about having 3 ice cubes. Would it kill anyone to throw a few extra ice cubes in my drink? I don’t know about you but a mildly tepid Jack and Coke is not my idea of a great drink, it should be cold and refreshing.

From the ashes of my old blog, I have relaunched my blog again.  Its been a while, but I have been so busy with school and work.  Speaking of which, today is my first official day in London.  I am a telework arrangement out of the London Office and will be here until the end of July. 

In August, I am going to take some time off and do the traveling thing for a few weeks.  So excited to be in London, but missing the weather in San Diego.