There are so many things happening that I haven’t captured here. Still, I’ll try to paint a fuller picture of what’s happening with me…
Work: I’m now about halfway through this project. I’m part of a team of four people that are working with a large insurance company to align the IT strategies of its four distinct business units. As you can imagine, these units have a lot in common despite being centred around different insurance projects, and despite having different backgrounds (two are past acquisitions that remain somewhat seperate). They all have very similar business processes and face very similar environmental challenges and pressures. So, there’s a lot of scope for them to be more aligned and co-operative.
The biggest challenge in the project has been to sell the benefits of co-operation to the BUs, who value their independence and who over-estimate their uniqueness (common to almost every client I’ve ever met). They also presumably harbour a fear that co-operation across BUs to reduce duplication of effort is the type of thing that doesn’t bode well for job security. Still, I think we’ve made good progress bringing them onboard.
The travel between SF and LA is luckily relatively painless, although I had a flight delay one Thursday night that wasn’t fun… it’s not nice to be held up on your way home.
Apartment: I moved in properly at the end of October, and last weekend I made a big push to get the room fully furnished a home-like. It involved a trip across the bay to Ikea in Emeryville, and lots of hard work hauling stuff around their store, into a taxivan, and then into the apartment. I appreciate the savings involved with their self-serve model, but it was exhausting. I had ordered most of my stuff online before I realised it takes 3-4 weeks for delivery. I can’t understand why! Anyways, once I got the stuff home it didn’t take too long to assemble everything and get the room sorted. It feels great to have a home base and my own bed with sheets I’m not allergic too, etc.
Friends: Brian (my roommate) and Sugam (the guy whose room I took who still lives nearby with Katie, his fiancee) have both been really cool… introducing me to their friends, taking me along when they head out on weekends, and such. I’ve also recently had the chance to catch up with Jayee and Monika, old friends from NZ and Lithuania respectively. It’s always very nice to renew friendships. Jayee has spent quite a bit of time in SF, so she has been a great source of tips for nightspots and places to eat!
This Weekend: My highlights of the coming weekend are the ABs game and our Turducken dinner. The game is at midday on Saturday, so it’s a pretty convenient time. I’ve got a bunch of people together including three other Kiwis and a Frenchman, so there should be some good banter to go with the confused questions from the Americans. The Turducken dinner will be on Sunday night… for those who missed it, Turducken is a roast that’s made up of a turkey with a duck stuffed inside it, which has a chicken stuffed inside it. Yum? Brian assures me it’s good, and we have 40 people splitting two so it won’t be too much food each. I can tell it’s going to be hard to get up for my early flight on Monday though!
