Social Media Revolution
Posted on October 27, 2011 by Ching under Videos, Web.
Here’s another video clip we got to see today. I wanted to share it with all of you guys before I went to bed. Some things to think about. Good night.
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Gripes Go Up
Posted on October 27, 2011 by Ching under Leadership, Movies, Videos.
We got to see this video clip from the movie Saving Private Ryan in our meeting today. I’d never seen that movie before. Brian says it is really good. It’s the first movie that actually made him cry.
Anyway, this is the perfect example of the whole “disagree in private, execute enthusiastically in public” concept that we always learn in leadership classes. You don’t want to be just a “yes” man or woman. It’s important to ask questions and voice your concerns, but there is a time and place to do that. And it’s not in front of your team/subordinates. Like Tom Hanks says in the movie, there is a chain of command. Gripes go up.
After a decision is made, a leader’s role is to present the information in the best possible light. Subordinates can see if the leader doesn’t believe in the decision or isn’t supportive of it, and they won’t be as well. The leader must execute enthusiastically and with confidence and conviction in order to ensure the best chance of success.
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The LBD Fits
Posted on October 23, 2011 by Ching under Family.
Brian organized a little dinner at Carrabba’s in honor of my birthday. We decided not to have a big party this year like the one we had last year because we’re trying to be more fiscally responsible, specially since I have some medical bills.
Anyway, I had to dust off one of my LBDs to wear to dinner. I think it’s the only one I have left. LOL. (Although, I think Darcy said she had a couple of my old LBDs that she can send back my way. I was really excited when she told me that the other day. I love, love, love getting my old clothes back!)
We had a good time at dinner. Thanks to everyone who came out. We’ll have a big party again next year. Stay tuned!
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Kevin and Kasey’s Wedding
Posted on October 22, 2011 by Ching under Events, Family.
I missed Kevin and Kasey’s wedding because we got stuck in Atlanta overnight. Instead of arriving in Wichita by 10:00 pm on Friday night, I didn’t end up getting home until after 1:00 pm the next day. Brian had to be at the church in Derby by 1:30 pm, but had to drop me off at home. He actually ended up getting there late. They were able to work around him for the pre-wedding photos, though. Here are some of the photos that Brian took at the wedding…
Even though I missed the wedding and cake reception, I was able to attend the party at the KMMH that evening. Not a lot of people came, but we still managed to have a great time. I met Robby and his fiancee Elizabeth for the first time.
Kevin was quite jolly with his bottle of Kraken.
I can’t wait to see the official wedding photos!
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(Poor) Quality Hotel
Posted on October 22, 2011 by Ching under Travel.
Thanks to Delta, Carmen and I got stuck in Atlanta overnight. They did give us a hotel voucher, but the hotel they sent us to was terrible. Our hotel voucher was for Quality Hotel and Conference Center by the airport. It used to be a Ramada Inn.
We arrived at the hotel via the hotel shuttle. When we got there, the front desk rep couldn’t care less. She didn’t even make any eye contact. She simply wrote my room number on the key sleeve and sent me on my merry (or cranky, as I wasn’t too happy about getting stuck in Atalanta overnight but tried to make the best of it) way.
When I first entered my hotel room, I noticed a weird smell. I thought it was me at first because I did get sweaty from running through the Atlanta airport, but after taking off and smelling my tanks I knew it was the room. LOL. The smell went away after a while. I didn’t have a change of clothes so I put on the t-shirt that was in the amenity kit that Delta gave and hung my tanks to air out and dry.
Besides the gross smell in the room, I noticed that the refrigerator in the room wasn’t plugged in. Not that I needed it, but I was looking for power outlets to charge my phone. The coffeemaker in the room wasn’t plugged in either. There weren’t any open outlets, but the cord wouldn’t have reached because of where it was situated. Anyway, I found an extension cord behind the fridge so I used that to plug my phone charger. Then I needed to plug in my computer. I couldn’t find any other outlets so I had to unplug the alarm clock.
I did call down to the front desk to see if they had any other rooms. I asked for one with only one bed instead of two double beds and was hoping that I could get a non-stinky room in the process, but she said this was all they had. No apology, no empathy or anything. Just flat out that’s all they had. Anyway, I figured that they were probably full because of all the passengers that Delta stranded in Atlanta that day.
Carmen was having similar problems with her room (it was stinky, the carpets were sticky, and the bathroom was dingy) so she came to mine to see if we could move to another hotel altogether. She got on the computer and began searching for alternatives. In the meantime I wanted Delta to take care of our other hotel because I didn’t want to have to charge it to work, so I called Brian who called Delta customer service. After several minutes on hold, he finally reach someone who told him that we would have to go back to the Delta desk at the airport if we wanted a voucher for a different hotel. That was pretty much a dead end.
Carmen wasn’t having much luck with finding alternative hotels either. Most of the ones around the airport were completely booked. I suspect it was because several people were stranded. Carmen did find a couple of rooms available at the Double Tree on the other side of the airport from us. We were going to take care of the room and just deal with it later, but we wanted them to pick us up from our existing hotel. They couldn’t do that, though. They said we needed to take our hotel shuttle back to the airport and then we can pick up their own shuttle from there. Our shuttle only runs every 30 minutes so Carmen and I figured it would be midnight by the time we made it to the new hotel. Besides that, Brian was doing some checking online as well (trying to help us out) and he found that our current hotel was ranked #1 in the area on Trip Advisor. I was like, I would hate to see what the other hotels in the area are like if this is the best one. Rather than take our chances, we agreed that we would just stay and leave first thing in the morning.
Carmen told me how bad her room was, but I didn’t realize the extent of it until the next day when I went with her to her room to get her stuff. Her room smelled bad too, but the odor was different than my room because I could smell it. I had grown accustomed to the odor of my room so I couldn’t smell it anymore. Carmen said that she couldn’t even wash her hair that morning as she didn’t have any shampoo in her room. In her bathroom she had conditioner and lotion and someone’s leftover lotion. It was in a totally different container. It seemed like they didn’t clean her bathroom at all between occupants. Anyway, we survived the night and were out of there.
Our flight back to Wichita wasn’t until 10:50 am, but by 7:00 am we were both in the hotel lobby waiting for our shuttle to the airport. We’d rather hang out at the airport than spend another minute in that nasty hotel. Yes, it was that bad. I’m so glad that all of that is behind us now. The whole thing (terrible service, gross hotel) has left me with a negative impression of Atlanta overall. I never want to set foot in that city or airport ever again.
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