and the axe fell

today reminded me of those gloomy days at the tail end of the dot-com era, morale dropping to a seemingly impossible low after a few more people said their goodbyes. these days played a significant role in why i left the uncorporate corporate world of the startup.

so it saddened me, though i knew it was happening, that a couple people were asked to stop showing up. one person, i consider a friend, albeit not a close one. not much of a worker, but a pleasant fellow. the office will be a bit more somber in his absence. the other, i have little fondness for. he hasn't taken particularly well to my delegations of responsibility and a sense of resentment emanated from him constantly. still, i don't wish joblessness on him either, especially after hearing that he splits time between his sister's and a friend's couch already.

all that said, the layoffs were deserved, and for that matter, tardy. i'll be taking over their duties, which look to be minimal. and i guess i should feel good that i negotiated them a modest severance package, two weeks paid notice and delayed their dismissal for a week. from what i've heard about the man above, none of those things would have happened normally.

but it still doesn't make me all that much happier. those looks of resignation on their faces as they were called into the one-on-ones, understanding their inevitable fate -- they're difficult to forget.

time to drink it off.

feng shui me

i spent a day out of the office this week in order to interview some people for a piece i'm writing on a peer coaching program they've launched at the haas business school. and upon my return the next day, i discovered several bulbous objects hanging from the exposed piping that runs along the ceiling. intrigued, i crept up close to inspect these hanging oddities which resemble a headless snowman.

i flicked one with my finger and it reacted much like a ping-pong ball might, flying away quickly and emitting an unsatisfying and hollow tapping sound. "we had a feng shui guy come in yesterday," my coworker said.

"you're full of shit," i replied instinctively, thinking that a company this far in the red could not afford to spend money on such new age gobbledygook.

but indeed, my coworker told the truth. the hanging objects were gourds and had been strategically placed around the office in order to improve the energy, or flow, or some other descriptor normally associated with yoga. apparently, a red welcome mat has been placed at the door as well. obviously, another key component of achieving whatever it is that feng shui sets out to achieve.

i'm no expert on feng shui, so i do have one question about it: how much did it cost us?

a strange thing about ms word

as a sometimes freelancer, i've become accustomed to using the word count feature of ms word. since i'm always writing on word count, it's the last thing i do before saving the file and submitting it to my editor.

here's what i've noticed though. there's (at least) two ways to do a word count in ms word, and they consistently give you different results. using the word count feature in the tools menu on the profile i'm writing about the founders of a nice little company called revolution foods, i get a count of 418 words. on the other hand, according to the readability statistics feature (which i use to make sure i'm not using the passive voice excessively, 10% is the acceptable limit in my book) the count is 415 words.

in the whole scheme of things, this clearly doesn't mean shit, but as a former computer scientist this bothers me. why would you use two different routines to accomplish the same task? after all, even if you chose the one that calculated the result wrong, i wouldn't have noticed.

by the way, i have to get down to 400. i'm close, but finding words to excise has become real difficult. not surprising considering i started at 625 (or was it 628?).

absence makes the heart grow fond

correction: chef paul bertolli is no longer affiliated with oliveto. bad (i should say no) fact checking on my part. he is the founder and curemaster for a company called fra' mani salami, whose products i shall be trying with all due expedience. paul canales, previously the chef de cuisine for oliveto, has taken over as oliveto's chef.

i considered the idea as i sat down in the cafe area of oliveto, rockridge's renowned italian restaurant.

nearly ten years ago, as a starving college student, i had dined in the restaurant, sitting just two tables away from where i sat now. i can't recall the faces who crowded around the small square table that evening, but i do remember the incessant complaining. their main gripe, and a common one for people that age, accustomed to the mammoth portions at culinary meccas such as tgi fridays and bennigan's, was that serving sizes were too small.

now let me be clear. the portions were small, primarily because the pasta dishes we ordered weren't intended as entrees. the meal had been set up in the traditional, and frankly, far superior (i understand that now), manner, where pasta is but a small dish bookended by the antipasti and main.

but the portions weren't just small, they were heavenly. as i consumed the last bite, i was awestruck: pasta never tasted like this before. and to be honest, it never has since. chef paul bertolli makes all his pasta on the premises and does it better than anyone else. it's a bold statement and one that i stand by.

oliveto was my first great meal, the one that i look back upon as the turning point in how i viewed eating. it was no longer just an activity, it was an experience, and a visceral and sensual one at that.

as the years passed though, i wondered. was oliveto's greatness a product of the dismal food i had experienced up to that point? would it still tantalize me, after a decade of dining at some of the world's finest restaurants?

yes.

for starters, my two dining companions and i split the salami plate. like the pasta, all the salami served at the restaurant are created by the chef. once again, it shows. all five varieties shine, with the soppressata particularly memorable.

the real test was yet to arrive though. the pasta had its previous greatness, as well as ten years of absence, to live up to, but sailed well beyond my expectations. the tagliatelle, a wide flat noodle, was served in a light sauce, with the flavor supplied by shaved fish eggs. the dish captured the best qualities of food, even ones that would seem to contradict. subtle, yet somehow rich. simple, yet unlike any other pasta i had come across.

in fact, all that held the meal short of greatness was the lack of a dessert to cap the meal. not the restaurant's fault, of course, but simply because my dining companion (and ride back to sf) needed to depart.

in hindsight, however, should i have just taken bart?

the shins must read my blog

since they heeded my call for a trip to the bay area. they'll be stopping at the warfield on the 16th and 17th of the coming month.

i won't be going though. not because i hold a grudge, but becuase i don't think much of their latest album, wincing the night away. song two, australia, however may be their single-best song yet. that's saying something.