By Nick Sarraf - September 22nd, 2011  Category: CCMBA 2012| Semester 1: Shanghai/Kunshan Tom Purcell joined Peace Corps at age 23. It was the summer of 1965 and his first assignment was to go work in Bassi, a small village in North India, about 20 miles east of Jaipur. The villagers, none of whom spoke English, took him for a British when they saw him the first time. Sensing a faint resentment that had built for him, the headmaster of the local school explained it to people that he was from “umreeka”, a different country that was also a British colony once. A lot of people then didn’t know about the US and then he would make a reference to Hiroshima. I personally find it amusing how those people knew about Japan when they didn’t know the US but that’s a separate discussion altogether.
Many years later, in the 1990s, I spent my early teenage years in Bassi. It was then I came to know about Tom Purcell. I also came to know that my father who was a college student back then often played the role of his translator. He was in fact 1 of the 2 college students in the whole village who spoke some English and thus being given the responsibility was inevitable. Tom lived in the village for about 2 years and worked tirelessly during his stint. People, who knew him, remembered him fondly – he’d helped start scholarship program at the local school, helped set up first public lavatories in the village, and most importantly, he was master at consensus building for solving problems compared to the other “foreigners” before him who came to rule, always used force and often guns.
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By Jordan Lofton - September 16th, 2011 Category: CCMBA 2012 Well today was a day like no other. One I could not have predicted and would not change despite all its bizarre twists and turns. On this particular day I decided to leave the comfort of my own little home office to work from a nearby Starbucks. I do this occasionally to get myself out of the house and today I also had to meet up with someone to exchange something. I chose this convenient location to exploit Starbucks free WiFi and indulge my caffeine addiction.
I left at noon during the lunch hour so no my coworkers would not miss me during the commute. When I arrived at this popular Starbucks location I was not surprised that most of the tables and chairs were already occupied by patrons. I found one chair left at a large communal table next to the outlets. It wasn’t much space but I couldn’t complain. The gentleman sitting across from me helped me plug in my power cord and thus began an interesting two hours.
I connected to WiFi, VPNed in, and pulled up my next assignment as the man across from me began to dance in his seat and wave at me. I smiled back and continued to review the document I had just opened. Only seconds later this gentleman approaches me with a small question, which seemed rather benign. “Are you Eastern European?”
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By Jordan Lofton - September 9th, 2011 Category: CCMBA 2012| Semester 1: Shanghai/Kunshan A lot can happen in a year. I say that knowing it’s completely cliché, but it also seems eerily timely at this moment. It was about a year ago that I sat working at my consulting job and the meeting reminder for a monthly Senior Consultant meeting popped up on my computer. It was a Friday just like today. Unlike today, I was sitting at my desk already frustrated with what the meeting topic would be over.
You see, after one very long project and many man hours worked, people were starting to feel the burnout. We had thought for years that after Go Live we would see the reward of our labor and finally get some much needed rest. Unfortunately the long hours didn’t stop, rewards were fewer and harder to come by, and ultimately we were all feeling let down and led astray by our management. In January of 2010 we began to see turnover. It started with a handful here and there, but it became a trend. After several months more than 50 people had left from our project alone. Even our offshore team experienced a high turnover.
On this particular Friday, the Atlanta VP had called a meeting to speak with all of the Atlanta Senior Consultants. It was an open forum for us to ask him questions and to give him our honest feedback. Or so we were told. As I got up from my chair to go to the session I was frustrated and anxious for the dog and pony show to be over.
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