Month: October 2015

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When it is safe to do so..

On Chinese traffic laws

十字无红绿灯路口交通规则So the diagram on the left is meant to explain the situation if it’s a 4 way crossing with no traffic lights, and who has the right of way.

For those of you that can’t read Chinese,
the character 先= 1st
后= after

Top left-makes sense (i guess you give way to the right)
top right –makes sense
Bottom right- makes no sense   as the car wanting to take a right turn has ‘the path of least resistance’ and should therefore have right of way.

Bottom left- makes sense. (the car wanting to turn left in front of you has the path of most resistance and so should have to wait until it is safe before making their turn. This is safety conscious because the car going straight ahead may be blocked by another car from the left turning vehicles sight and could be approaching the intersection at speed.)

However This bottom left picture actually changes when traffic lights are added to the equation.
Apparently even though you are going straight ahead and have the path of least resistance, the car turning left and cutting across you will have right of way.  Which…is ridiculous. Cars will often bunch up together so as to create a caterpillar of cars that the ones which in every other country are meant to have right of way…can’t cut through.  This generally means that main line roads are blocked up due to this very stupid traffic law.

In every other country that I know of, it is the case that when no directions are given, (like in this situation there is no specific ‘turn left’ arrow) then the car with the path of most resistance has to make the turn ‘when it is safe to do so’.

I can only guess that in China, there is never a time where its actually ‘safe to do anything’ so this rule can’t be applied.

insecure idiots

I hate it when colleagues don’t add anything substantial to a series of emails other than making you appear stupid to other people…

For example I ask a question, and before doing so I provide my background understanding for the subject, after which I then ask my question.

And then they say/ write something like ‘Ok, let me explain things for you….’    and then proceed to type out exactly what you’ve written but in a different way.

To which  you’re like…. ‘yeah, thanks dickhead’
‘you didn’t actually add anything of substance’

All you really want to reply is a cold stated   ‘I know.’

All this person has really shown to you is that they’ve only got a loose understanding of the concept themselves, so loose that someone writing it in a slightly different way might confuse them, and they’re the kind of insecure dickwad that always wants to remain in control, and show others that they’re in control to ‘lead’ the project.  So will therefore CC  managers/ big bosses into the email sequence so that they ‘can understand that you don’t know what’s going on’

The only way to get around this is to write out your little background knowledge and then literally type ‘is my understanding correct?’  and underline it or something, and that way they have to address it.

Even then..

It’s not idiocy in this alone, rather more insecurity.
However when these people are showing that they would rather ‘lead’ or remain in control more than they would prefer to engage team members that actually know what’s going on….then I’m sorry, they’ve lost credibility and logic in my book.

fun times in the bathroom

Today walked into the bathroom at the office, and again with the cleaning Ayis that keep cleaning the bathrooms.

I’d just walked in so I was relatively safe, but whilst the Ayi was walking into the bathroom she yelled out her ‘anyone in here?’     but its not like she stopped to hear the answer first, she just continued walking in.  She apparently just doesn’t care anymore.  So by the time she finished the last word in the sentence she was already fully inside the bathroom.

What is the point of that?

If you’re going to do that, why not just shout ‘I’m here and I’m looking at your penis!’