Ailian Gan | >140

Of business trips and a three-year-old

Another day, another business trip. This place is growing on me. 

It’s funny but there are things mentioned in the meeting that refer back to things that happened months ago. I remember what happened and I also remember how I felt back then, how lost, how mildly terrified that I was going to screw up a big deal. Except that of course, I had no idea how big a deal. And I had no idea that this particular working relationship would turn around and become a partnership. We’ve come a really long way. 

Getting to see people change is an amazing thing. Getting to see companies change equally so. 

**

I squeezed in an extra meeting that afternoon. I got to catch up with a b school friend over ice cream. He brought his two daughters along. Kate is 5 and Jane is 3. At one point, I have a moment alone with little Jane and she decides to pretend to be Kate. 

I ask Jane, “Okay, if you’re Kate, what would Kate say? Say something that Kate would say.”

Jane thinks for a long time. Then she bursts out, “‘No, Jane!!’ That’s what Kate would say.”

:)))

When we leave, I hug my friend. I get in my car. Then Jane decides she wants a hug too. So her dad carries her over. My new three-year-old friend hugs me and kisses me on the cheek. 

**

May all your business trips be so full of blessings. 

Loving the insanity

I was asked what I miss about New York. I said, I don’t really miss New York. If I did miss anything, it’d be the food, the opera, Central Park… I’ve been a bit too enamored of the stunning weather and lovely hikes and many bubble tea options here to miss New York. 

Then I read this post by Sasha Dichter about two people asking for your money on the subway with a creative gig. They sang, they got audience participation, they gave you their URL.

That’s what I miss. The insanity of it all. The willingness to do whatever it takes. With equal parts flair and verve. With a dash of human connection in a city known for being harsh and lonely. 

Me and all the people who get that story? We all love NY in the same way. 

That’s what I miss. The insanity. 

How we tell our stories

From an email exchange with a friend about how we make friends…

I sat next to 2 strangers on a plane last week. I was eavesdropping the entire time. It was an older man (maybe 80?) and a young man (late 20s), and they chatted for pretty much the entire 4 hour flight. It was the most amazing thing to hear 2 strangers strike up a friendship. 

There was something so all-American about their stories. Young man went to a college in Pennsylvania, turns out older man has a son who is a professor there. Their families were both from the New York area. Young man is engaged and will probably move to Arizona because his fiancee’s family is there and she wants to be closer to them. Older man has like 8 kids or something, and he named a handful of the cities his adult children now live in. And they went back and forth trading anecdotes about their lives. 

I observed that I could never be part of this conversation, partly because I don’t have any of these things in common with them. I don’t live this slice of American life. But more because that’s not the kind of stories I tell. My stories (and maybe yours too), the ones that make me feel most connected, tend to take an introspective bent. I’m interested in understanding underlying motivations and tensions, what makes people tick, how our ideas and perspectives shape our actions. (The angle I am using to recount this story here, to you, illustrates my point.) In some way, these men were also telling stories to communicate what has shaped their lives, except that their stories were all about their family histories and the geographies that their lives have crossed. 

They both remarked how rare it is these days to find someone they can converse with on a plane. Most people keep to themselves (me, eyes on iPad, guilty as charged). And to me, the information they swapped wasn’t particularly meaningful. I wouldn’t feel a deep connection with someone who grew up in my neighborhood in Singapore or went to my high school or whose ancestors came from the same hometown as mine. But to them, these family stories meant a huge deal. It was clear that they had found in each other a kindred spirit who shared their wavelength. 

It was just so fascinating to observe and to realize that… sometimes the thing you need to have in common is how you tell your stories. 

How to interpret Yelp ratings

Yelp has transformed my travel dining experience. Its geolocation feature has made it possible to do no research beforehand and still end up eating great meals for almost every meal on a trip. Yelp has made it possible to drive through a tiny town in upstate NY of 2,000 people and find a good local joint. Yelp has also made it possible to entertain a dad’s request for decent pho even in a town like Monterey. 

Here’s what I’ve learned from using Yelp to navigate my meals for my last couple of trips:

1. Stars are just a first cut, you must read reviews. If reviewers say “everything here is awesome”, that’s a bad sign. It probably means the reviewers aren’t very discerning about food. Naming specific dishes that were excellent is a great sign, especially if a lot of people agree on the same few dishes. 

2. Negative reviews give you a sense of what a bad case might be like. Complaints about one specific server should be forgiven. A complaint that the food sucked because that reviewer ordered the vegetarian plate at a steakhouse is not bad sign. That’s a good sign! The steak is more likely to be really good. 

3. If it’s a small town and reviewers are rating an ethnic restaurant, discount ratings by 1 star. You need a large and diverse enough population for ethnic restaurant ratings to be accurate.

4. If the restaurant is running a Yelp promotion, discount ratings by 1/2 to 1 star. A particular restaurant was running a free clam chowder promotion. All anyone talked about in reviews was the free clam chowder. If you read the reviews carefully, you’d see that a few reviewers were not swayed by the freebie. They mentioned that the non-clam chowder dishes weren’t up to par. 

Other notes:

- As @waaramaa noted, Zagat + Yelp works even better.

- Nothing quite beats a recommendation from a friend with good taste.

- For the record, Ad Hoc’s Monday night fried chicken is amazing. I am a sucker for regular foods executed to perfection, and that fried chicken was exactly it. That meal took a lot of advance planning. It’d be good to have tips on reservation strategy on Yelp. (Or is there an app for that?)