The value of a friendship

I tried a little experiment on FaceBook the past couple of months. With a few friends, I stopped initiating conversations. I didn't ignore my friends. I decided to let them come to me instead of me going to them. What happened? Well, I haven't spoken with them, at all, since the experiment started, until one of them sent me a link to a page about letting go of attachment. Her whole point was about how she didn't need any connections to me, so she was formally severing them. To be honest, she was among the friends I picked for that experiment because I honestly questioned the nature of that friendship before I even designed the experiment, so severing connections with her was not a real problem, which was un-friending her on FaceBook, but I do need to reflect on the past here and derive some sort of lesson. The lesson in that one case, don't be of endless utility to your friends. In fact, it is best to be of no need to your friends. Mega Tokyo put it best, when Largo replied he didn't need Erika either, tossed her a beer and continued on without blinking. If people are around you out of utility, then you are going to get hurt.

But I also haven't spoken with a couple of people I thought were going to message me within a couple of days. Seems like I misread those friendships. My concern is, that I am more of an annoyance than a pleasure for people. I don't want to waste time around people who don't enjoy my company. Annoying people is not a good way to build a positive reputation. Now I need to be oh so very careful with my other friends and figure out what the nature of those friendships is. Thing is, I actually value some of those friendships, so this part is actually gonna hurt.

Moral of the story? Be careful of who your friends are.

- Servus

Know your town's networks

Living on the Faroe Islands helped taught me the importance of informal conversation and interaction in business. Business isn't the big sale and best offer on the table. Business is a chunky concept, but the two corner stones for business is managing your professional work's relationship with the public, and making your profession a profitable one. Looking back, it is clear there are differences in both cornerstones when America and Scandinavia are compared and companies that try to enter from one market to the other can experience difficulties in managing relationships and profits. Here are some fine details any business should keep in mind.

Work ethics in blue collared jobs are radically different. For the Dane in America, some sound advice is sorely needed. Any stereotypes of lazy teamsters you carry with you will fail you when it comes time to start production. Americans are hard working individuals who want to provide for their families and with the current economic environment, competition for work is fierce. Asking an employee to slow down and take a break can cause friction. Worse still if you take it easy as a foreman, manager or director; if you are visibly driven to meeting your goals, your employees with slowly loose respect for you and in the end, resent you a tad little bit. American workers may work hard for the money, but take pride in their work and you need to show faith in what the company is doing. Just as important for an American in Scandinavia, pushing people to work faster and perform better will more likely result in a strike than increased production. Rules and ethics are well defined by the work-unions and it is hard to fire someone for under performance. The work ethic is more formal and requires you to use more time to consider your position with care than in America. That said, nominal results are the best guide in deciding if someone needs to be let go or kept on board.

Work relations over beer is a bit of common ground between Scandinavia and America, but keep in mind to how much business in done over a glass of beer. Business lunches are out right common, but don't order that beer if you are in America. You need to return to work afterwards and it is frowned upon to drink before you clock out. There are exceptions at the executive level; informal business is done on the golf course and a bit of brandy isn't uncommon at the club house, but this is rare if the interpersonal relationship is all business. A glass of beer is more common when you leave the office with your co-workers or the guy you think is good for a conversation and also happens to have a great project you want to get your hands on. Again, we are focused on the interpersonal relationship between you and your drinking buddy. In all other occasions, you need to abstain from 'Den Grønne'. The case is different in Scandinavia. It is actually common to enjoy a bottle of beer, or few, at lunch and chat a bit. If you want to your negotiations to take on a relaxed tone, invite your perspective partners or clients to a café, enjoy a light lunch a offer a round of beer.

Formality is a tripping point for many. There are dress codes and then there are dress codes. Individual style has a greater foothold in Scandinavia, because businesses are focusing more on your production, not your personal stylistic tastes. It was common for my managers to wear a pair of blue jeans with a button down shirt. The executives would wear sports jackets as often as suit jackets. It is completely acceptable to come to a formal meeting wearing slacks, suit jacket and no tie. In the US, the situation is far different. Dress codes put employees in uniforms. A tie is always a must and more often than not, a white shirt with black dress suit and shoes are required. If you know the Mærsk company well, you can compare the dress codes in that one Danish company with most large corporations in America and see little difference. Before stepping on that flight, make sure you can meet the dress code of most companies. They enforce it even on partners to protect their professional image.

These are some rules of thumb for the cornerstone of business that represents your relationships in business. A good lawyer will help you sort out the second stone, but business relations is all on you partner.

- Servus

Be careful not to insult a cop

My experience with the police in Denmark hasn't been outright friendly. They are nosy, bossy and rather impolite, but drop any ideas of complaining to the department. They are protected by law and can demand you answer questions that are otherwise private on the spot. If you refuse, for example, to give them your name, they can detain you, without a right to be put before a judge, until you tell them what your name is. They can arrest you if you offend them. They can stop you and lie about why they stopped you, just because. And the population is okay with that. There is a certain submission to authority in Denmark, and a certain sense of authority over others. If a psychologist says you are a and b and you feel you are b and c instead, the psychologist can add d to your file and make a and b stick. If you act according to b and c, the psychologist can add e to your file and prescribe a treatment for a and b, and e and d. Point is, you can end up not being allowed to define yourself, be told how you are supposed to act sick, and depending on your point of view, be punished for being yourself instead of what a psychologist says you are. The authority of the psychologist in this case comes from a degree the state recognizes. Of course it is over simplification and doesn't apply to every case or happen every day. It is a way of depicting the extent of authority and nature of it in Denmark. If you earn a degree, you are given authority that cannot be challenged without difficulty. With it comes a certain arrogance.

In the case of a police officer, it can be difficult to shake an officer. If an officer thinks you are a criminal, your time is going to be wasted by this officer when ever the two of you run into each other. It is like a cold you can never really shake off. If something bad in town happens, the officer might come to see you, in the middle of say, a lecture at a college that you need to note down for your finals. An officer in Denmark can easily become a bully without any course of appeal for relief as long as they stay within a set of defined administrative actions.

When you meet an officer, be exceedingly polite. Say nothing if you can, but for gods sake, smile! Say nothing offensive and show your love for Denmark. If you don't consent to any searches, you are going to be searched anyways and be on that officers 'best buddies' list.

- Servus

I can do it all....except that little detail

Okay. Let me start off by building myself up with a bit of bragging.

I am a North Atlantic - North American business relations consultant.
I am a Scandinavian business relations consultant.
I am a Communications consultant.
I am a Logistics analyst.
I love Physics and Astrophysics and study Biology at the national university on the Faroe Islands.
I can explain entropy to a 10 year old in a way the kid understands.
As an autodidact, I have studied...

• Organizational Theory
• Regional Cultures and Languages
• Human Relations
• Economics
• Leadership Skills
• Advanced Mathematics
• Policy Studies
• International Laws for
• War
• Trade
• Space

I speak three languages and understand five.

Now that I built myself up, I can cut myself down.

I, the smart ass up there, cannot for my life understand Acid Base titration or Acid Base relations.
A concept kids half my age understand without a problem.

As soon as I hit Brønsten-Lawry, I loose it. I memorized the relations, but this one little chemical reaction. I just can't relate what I memorized to how NaOH enters into the equation and changes the concentrations in a predictable way.

Seriously, is there anyone that can help me out here?


CH_3 OOH (Downarrow) + H_2 O (uparrow) %Ux2194 CH_3 OO^-` + H_3 O^+`
newline
NaOH + CH_3 OOH (Downarrow) + H_2 O (uparrow) %Ux2194 CH_3 OO^-` + left ( binom{H_3 O}{OH^-`}  right )  + Na^+`
newline
H_3 O + OH^+` = 2H_2 O
Newline
NaOH(uparrow) + CH_3 OOH (Downarrow) + H_2 O %Ux2194 CH_3 OO^-` + Na^+` + 2H_2 O
Newline
NaOH(uparrow) + CH_3 OOH (Downarrow) %Ux2194 CH_3 OO^-` + Na^+` + H_2 O

Emotional Numbness

There is a point, when a person feels such extreme emotions, that the ability to feel emotion at all is temporarily lost. One can try to explain it through neuroscience, theorizing the synapses have gone through a chemical exertion, leaving parts of the brain non-functional, or use psychology to state the come back leaves a person confused without a reference point that is comparable. Think of a time when your hand received a shock, similar to when you strike a metal pipe against a hard surface. You lost sensation for a short period of time, except for a weird kind of pain. This is a numbness I have felt a few times before.

Before moving to the Faroe Islands, I visited several times before to see my children. It always is emotional, because I never really want to leave. Because I am scared of what I will miss when I do leave. I never really have any sort of comfort, so I am on my own with my emotions. When I was in a relationship, it was expected I dealt with my own problems. For the longest time, I put that down to Scandinavia, but that is besides the point. When you have no one to help you own, when you do become emotionally numb, you will be lost. Coming back, the first emotions I felt were all cold. I didn't have much of a plan ahead of me day to day.

One the return from one trip to the Islands to see my children, on the train home, I admitted to being emotionally numb, and the reaction I saw from her was, in hindsight, shocking. At the time, I had only my intellectual capacities to tell me what I should or should not feel. Her messages to me did not have much emotional impact. I just could not recognize any feeling of caring inside me. Of course after a few hours and some sleep, I was able to answer back, but I doubt any words from my side could explain how I was feeling to someone who hasn't felt the same. The emotional numbness lead to a deeper depression than before.

The ability to continue after feeling numb and the following let down is something I suspect is rare. It is a spiral, where my isolation lead to jealousy, which lead to anger and mistrust. People who can interrupt that spiral, even temporarily, are well equipped to handle stressful situations over long periods of time. I do not know if they can psyk themselves into feeling happy, but it is still an interesting feat of emotional maturity. Still, I will avoid numbness in the future and currently seek people who can catch my fall if I ever do so again.

- Servus

Taking Photos

I at one point had a ton of photos from IPC on a digital camera. Funny thing is, it made it far too easy to loose the picture. A hard drive dies. Technology moves on. Early image storage services died out. Services close. When you upload a photo that is important to you to a service online, you expect the service to last a life time. I was taught differently when I kept photos of my first born son in my inbox. I thought it would be there for life. I was wrong about that though and in the end, the only photos of my oldest child right after birth are lost. So is a story of my stay at IPC, including that of a rubber chicken.
But photographs are not the only place where images are stored. I still remember those photos of my son and hope I always will have a clear memory of them. If I do not, I still cannot complain. We may live in a time where taking photographs is as simple as pointing your phone at something, but there was a time when we only had our memories, when photographs weren't even a luxury item. It is because of how short lived documents can be, notes written in class, pictures of that night out or letters from the president, that I do not do much to create these documents in the first place, but they still have a certain power to bring a shard of a memory to others.
When my dad was dying in 2009, I rushed to his bed side and took with me the pictures I had of my children. I printed them out at a local shop from my USB stick. He had never seen them before and I regret that. I honestly do. I did what I could and showed my dad pictures, a facsimile of a memory, a point in time, for him to at least see what they look like. The regrets I feel still haunt me to this day, but at least he had this small consultation. But the expression on his face, his honest interest in my children, told me more about my dad than I had learned in the seven years I had been away.
Documents can provide a common ground, something for people to connect with. It can be a photograph of loved ones, or it can be a story of fantasy, allowing people to loose themselves, together, in a world that doesn't exist anywhere else. The expression 'You had to be there' only states there is a lack of common experience, a valley in between two people, but a photograph can create a bridge between two people who would never see eye to eye without it.

Photographs in the news have become more violent and actual, as people document what is happening around them. Dictators and government may seek to control the distribution of these pictures, to prevent any common ground forming between opposition to a regime or policy. Propaganda, an attempt in political manipulations, is an age old tactic in politics. In times of war, looses are under reported. Unpopular acts are suppressed. The image of the good guy fighting for everything right against the worst depiction of the enemy possible is shown repeatedly. Free distribution of images is the strongest possible counter measure to such propaganda, undermining the intent of those who seek to control your opinion. It is because of the strength of these images, that dictators fear the camera-man, the writer, the newspaper and broadcaster. It can lead to understanding and common ground between those who support the government and those the government opposes. It can lead to peace.