So someone I know VERY well created ETHOS-WATER.COM - it's a web site against Starbucks because they peddle overpriced bottled water. I'm glad the creator of the web site isn't the only one noticing the water bottle rip-off project.

It was even promoted on StumbleUpon.com!

And featured in NOW Magazine in Toronto!

And in the irregulartimes.com!

And the Daily Kos!

Haha - awesome.

Learned a valuable math lesson today...



It's best that you don't try it. Almost the same lesson can be had by viewing the Mentos + Coke videos on YouTube.

Someone recently asked me about my career at xyz company...

This is what I had to say:

I fix problems. All nine positions that I've had at xyz company in the past five years have a common thread - there was always something wrong, or something major to do to get whatever group I was assigned to out of a rut.

1) Customer service in the beginning days... Being employee number 141, I did a lot of evangelizing of the xyz company mantra that everyone and ANYONE could pick up a domain and create an online piece of real estate for themselves for less than one month's cell phone bill.

2) We were a small team so I filled in where I was needed. xyz company was getting slammed with customer service e-mails so I filled in at night as e-mail support and returned to customer service as we ramped up a dedicated web board staff. When I went back to a customer service role, I must have been doing something good because I was hired to start an entirely new team to handle our biggest customers.

3) I started a group called the Retention Team. We had some major domain players at xyz company and we wanted to make sure they stayed. My job was to increase the customer service levels that these customers experienced so they would keep their domains at xyz company .com. In the first 3 months, my groups revenue tripled and it now is the most profitable customer service group at the company.

4) I moved to the Billing team where we were suffering from HUGE LOSSES. Our customer service group on the front end was pushing sales onto customers or customers flippantly purchased services but then had buyers remorse. I turned this department around from operating in the negative each month to becoming one of the most profitable customer service groups - rivaling the Retention team.

5) Seeing how the front end customer service representatives were either misinforming our customers or slamming credit cards to make a quick buck, I headed up a customer service team of my own and trained them to start doing needs based selling vs pushing product on customers. I trained one of the highest grossing customer service reps on the floor and offered sales training for new hires once a week.

6) xyz company wanted to move into custom site design but unfortunately before the group was to launch, the plug was pulled on the project due to market conditions.

7) 2nd tier customer service was lacking the necessary communication between software developers and the real issues that the first tier customer service groups were experiencing with customers. I filled in as weekend and night shift 2nd tier customer service support.

8) The Registration Authorities group was losing their manager to another group so I transitioned and headed up this group as we issued SSL certificates. We went from issuing roughly 80 certs a day to sometimes over 150 certs a day. I performed audits twice a month and once a quarter to ensure we were not issuing certificates to unauthorized entities.

9) xyz company .com's Web Site Tonight application was released and I came on board as the Software Development Group Lead to lead the development team in fixing all of the application quirks it had. It's been a year and a half and we are continuing to make progress.

That in a nutshell has been my xyz company life. :)

I heard this song lip synced by the famous Asian Backstreet Boys and had to download it.

Now you can too. :)

While I was searching for the link for the Asian Backstreet Boys on youtube, I found these kids doing the same thing. Haha - I would have totally done this back in the day!