I can deal with the politics of a much larger organization. After all, I have seen and experienced plenty of corporate politics.

What is driving me and my colleagues crazy is the number of management consultants we have to deal with.

The acquiring organization is largely run by former management consultants. They ask a lot of questions. But they have a very superficial way of understanding how our business is run.

They do all of their planning using spreadsheet. They never consult us – the general managers who have been running the different business lines for years.

They put together a budget with goals for us to hit, but they never talked to us about how to achieve the goals.

It’s basically building a business plan in the air.

Absolutely bullshits.

And most of these people used to work for Boston Consulting Group, as well as a few other top tier management consulting companies.

They’re not dumb, but they have absolutely no clue of running a business. And they don’t have the humility to learn. They think too highly of themselves.

I absolutely hate to work with management consultants – they’re useless.

“I work for clear channel and it has come to my attention this week that there will be layoffs and/or firings sometime next week.  Until yesterday I had no clue, however, my boss, a local sales manager, informed me that our program director heard rumblings from an online forum that there will be layoffs next week (week of 10/24/11).

I researched this and found this… http://insidemusicmedia.com/  I am not willing to pay to subscribe to find out how big the layoff will be and what regions will be affected.  I look at it like… more people will have to go hungry so Limbaugh can remain fat and happy on his $400 Million salary from clear channel.”

I guess we will find out if there is a massive layoff at Clear Channel sometime next week. This blog started in 2008 during the financial crisis. In fact, one of the most popular features on this site is the Great Depression 2.0 Layoff Tracker.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that I need to start updating the layoff tracker more frequently in the next 6 to 12 months – in fact I believe we’re heading to another financial crisis soon, and it’s going to be worse than 2008.

Stay tuned. I have a lot in the plan to make this blog more informative, more useful, and more action oriented to help you navigate the difficult economic environment for years to come.

This will result in high inflation and high interest rate.

Is housing price going up or down during inflation? You might argue that during inflationary period prices of products and services will go up.

But, there are also downward pressure on the housing price. High interests make it harder for an average American to afford the monthly mortgage payment. Additionally, the job market is still pretty bad. As long as people are not feeling secure about their employment prospect, they would tend to rent instead of buy.

I could be wrong, but I think the housing price will go down further in the next two years due to higher interest rate and high unemployment. It might eventually increase again due to inflation, but we are not there yet.

Do you agree? I’d love to hear from you.

I actually felt worse than the 2008 financial crisis because I think we’re running out of options.

In 2008 the government was able to use stimulus packages to temporarily “stop the bleeding”. China was able to implement its own stimulus package to help stabilize the global economy.

This time around, the world governments are running out of options. European Union is absolutely in a mess. China is having its own issues. And United States government is in serious debt.

As of tonight, according to Market Ticker, “After being down 634 points today the DOW futures are down 264 more overnight at this point, or approximately 900 points in less than 24 hours.” I cannot predict what’ll happen tomorrow or next week or next month. But ,I do think we have not seen the bottom of this.

What will happen to job market?

Are we going to have hyperinflation?

How will the housing marketing react to recession and hyperinflation?

What should be your strategy for your career and personal finance?

I started this blog exactly three years ago to help people to go through the “depression 2.0”. Well, I have a feeling that I’m about to getting busy again to write about depression 3.0.

That’s okay – let’s get ready together – let’s  follow Warren Buffet’s advice:

“Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful”.

As a result, Zynga founder Mark Pincus will finally join the billionaire club.

We don’t know Zynga’s “cap table” – how many shares are owned by employees? How many millionaires will come out of Zynga’s IPO? Unless an insider reveals the details, it’s going to be hard for us to find out.

For an average silicon valley worker (software developer, QA engineer, product manager, customer support, sales, etc.), hitting the IPO homerun is the “Silicon Valley Dream”.

Things have changed in the past 6 to 12 months. The IPO market suddenly becomes more active. The successful LinkedIn IPO brought back hope – IPO can still happen and one can still make some money from the start-up game in the Silicon Valley. The Zynga IPO will only fuel the burning “IPO fire”.

Are you envious of folks who work at LinkedIn, Zynga, Facebook, or other "hot start-ups”? Are you anxious to leave your big company job and find a hot start-up to join?

Maybe I’m a little bit older (and hopefully a little bit wiser) as I went thought the last great bubble in the Silicon Valley during the mid-to-late 1990’s. I want to share with you my perspective on this.

First, the number one reason for people who become rich in start-up is luck. For a start-up to have a home run like LinkedIn, it doesn’t matter how smart and hard-working the entrepreneur and his team are, they need a lot of luck for all of the stars to align and create a successful start-up.

Second, timing is everything. To have a huge exit, the capital market has to be ready to support such an IPO. For a low-to-middle level employee to make a lot of money from the IPO with fairly small number of stock options, the company needs to have million of dollars of market cap after the IPO. And the employee’s strike price should be low enough for him to reap the benefit. Timings for aforementioned events must align.

Third, statistically there are not many exits over $100mm. On his  blog, famed venture capitalist Fred Wilson stated

“There are on average 1,000 early state financings every year. I suppose a few of those 1,000 financings are for the same company, but I doubt that many are. So we can use 1,000 as an approximation of the number of companies that get funded in a given year.

And somewhere around 50 and 100 of them exit for more than $100mm every year. So 5-10% of the companies financed by VCs end up existing for more than $100mm”

Why am I telling you these? Because I think if you’re an entry-level or middle-level worker in the high tech industry, it is virtually impossible for you to pick the winner of the start-up game.

You’re at a very disadvantaged position – venture capitalist needs one home run out of ten investments to make a lot of money. Entrepreneurs and senior management can make good money even though the company’s exit is moderate because of the higher number of stock options they own.

But, you, as a hard-working worker bee, are risking your career and money (you probably will take a pay cut) while working your tail off for a tiny chance to make it.

Do I sound too negative and discouraging? – I’m not telling you not to join start-up. I want you to understand your odd in the start-up casino – you are just like many people who are visiting Las Vegas casinos – the house has an upper hand over you although you might get lucky once a while.

So, instead of chasing the money, make sure you’re really interested and passionate about the product the start-up is making. Joining the start-up should help accelerate your career, make you more fulfilled professionally, and set you up for next stage of your career.

Please don’t join a start-up with the high expectation of hitting a home run because it’s highly likely that you’ll be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you join the start-up for your passion and the opportunity to learn and grow, you might get lucky to have a base hit, or even hit the home run.

“That, he explains, is a running tally of how he’s spending his time, and whether he’s sticking to a big goal he set for himself years ago: to spend 50 percent of his workdays on creative pursuits like research and writing books, 30 percent on teaching-related activities, and 20 percent on all the other things he has to do.

These aren’t ballpark guesstimates. Mr. Collins, who is 51, keeps a stopwatch with three separate timers in his pocket at all times, stopping and starting them as he switches activities. Then he regularly logs the times into a spreadsheet. “

This article really made me think: how am I spending my time? Am I spending time on things that is my calling and I can really make a unique contribution?

I have to say that I have a tendency to be very emotionally invested in my work. Very often when I get home, although I’m physically home I am still thinking about work.

As I’m getting a little bit older (I’m in my mid 30s), more and more I feel a sense of urgency – I want to work on things that really matters. Time is precious – why spend time on things that are not meaningful to me? why spend time with people who you don’t enjoy working with? Warren Buffet said that he chose to work himself because he wanted to choose whom he worked with.

I recently came back from two-week vacation. During the vacation I thought a lot about the importance to consciously knowing and managing how I spent my time everyday.

I’m actually very excited because I feel that a lot of exciting things are in the horizon, but I need to make it happen. I’ll share with you my learning and doing along the way

How are you spending your time everyday? Do you feel fulfilled and enjoyable? I’d love to hear from you.

After spending several weeks of reviewing the business metrics, we determined a very focused strategy. More importantly, we focused on building small wins. Our motto was every order matters – we tried to make a lot of small, incremental improvement in customer experience, marketing messaging, cost control, team effectiveness, etc.

We implemented a team dashboard that took a metric driven approach to run our business. Every week we reviewed our performance and tried to do something to improve our business.

Little by little, the business started to improve. Six months later, we were growing at 4 times of the average industry growth.

The interesting part is that suppliers starts to contact us to give us more favorable terms. We’re getting calls from marketing agencies for lower rates in exchange for longer term contract. We’re getting more brand recognition.

Once we started making improvements and building momentum, it’s like a snowball that keep rolling. The key is to maintain the momentum, and ride the wave.

Do you feel stuck in your career or your personal life? I suggest you to start DOING small things to make incremental improvement to your situation. Once the snowball starts rolling, the momentum will eventually carry you to the finish line.

Give it a try. Momentum is magical.

A gentleman in his forties started to play with my kids. Soon we started chatting. This guy has been working like crazy at a start up. In the past year he started to draw cartoons at his spare time.

It is a hobby that allows his free spirits flow. Like many of us he is trying to find a way to  get away from his soul crushing job and follow his passion.

Most readers of this blog are career minded and ambitious. But, have you thought about what you really need and want? Do you work to live or live to work?

In the few weeks I heard several similar comments from second generation Asian Americans.

These comments upset me. I am Asian. I have live here for a long time, and I embrace both cultures. However, I will never forget my immigrant experience.

I am who I am today because of my immigrant experience. It makes me hard working, resourceful, entrepreneurial, creative, and taking nothing for granted.

I love working for immigrants, working with immigrants, and hiring immigrants. They are some of the best professionals, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

They are not the poor, pathetic, survival mentality losers. They are my heroes.

Julie could have a million legitimate reasons to complain about Adam’s performance. However, when she said “I’m done with him”, she lost.

She made herself sound emotional and immature. She felt that she was the victim and she couldn’t do anything to improve the work relationship.

Her manager would feel

1) this issue is a big headache that manager has to spend time on

2) in a way Julie was sending out an ultimatum – let me tell you something, no manager would like to be held hostage by an employee. No matter how great Julie is, when she sends out an ultimatum, she is threatening. And in most cases, ultimatum will not be well received by management.

3) Julie is incapable of solving hard problem on her own. She feels that she is a victim. If you’re a manager, would you like to have someone on your team who feels she is a victim? Probably not.

No matter how difficult situation is at work, stay calm and collected. Focus on your key goals. The minute you become emotional, you lose.