Final Countdown

It's been a couple of days of intense work this week, but fortunately I was in pretty good shape when the week started. Unlike some of the other teams, my main deliverable isn't so much a report or a proposal, but a system. It's a ranking system for countries on their likelihood of investment in South Africa, so the bulk of my work has been done in the weeks preceding this, so when I started to work yesterday morning, it was really just up to the presentation of my findings. I did have a little bit of a bump because our client wanted not just a presentation but also a white paper (essentially a formal document explaining in detail). Yesterday I tied down on my format for the presentation and gathered my thoughts and created an outline.

I'm a big believer in presentation quality, and therefore I thought it was worth the extra time getting that right. It doesn't matter how good your work is, if you dress it up in rags, it's going to have to beg on the street for a job. Here's my title page as it is now and an example page from the presentation:

I've done my best to incorporate the logos of both IBM and the agency that we're working for, MEGA, along with the south african flag and colors of the flag, and then finally with local things from the area as the bullet icons, the flag, oranges, and a springbok.

Now don't be fooled, there's a ton of work to support my slides, including a massive excel model that analyzes over 6000 data points and their relation to each other to arrive at my conclusions. We present our projects and our four weeks worth of work tomorrow to our client.

On an unrelated note, I got pulled over by the police on our way back from a client meeting the other day. I wasn't speeding, or atleast not really. Turns out they have speed traps here just like everywhere else and there was one small stretch where the speed limit dropped to 80 kph and I was still thinking it was 100 kph, and so got clocked at 104. This encounter was very much different than my last encounter with foreign police in that this gentleman didn't have an AK47 around his shoulder, so I felt much more confident.

He lazily strolled up to the car and asked for my license and where I was going. I didn't have my international license on me, and just handed him my New York driver's license and said, "here's my local license, my international is at my hotel." He asked details about where I was staying in South Africa and I dropped the names of all the government agencies and police organization that my team or the other teams are working with, explaining to him that we're here for four weeks doing humanitarian work, etc. He said there's a fine for speeding, and I asked him how much, he had to go check.

Meanwhile, I'm kind of laughing about the whole thing. I've been pulled over a lot over the years and had my fair share of tickets, but another country might be a good souvenir.

He comes back to the car with only my license in his hand (Always watch the cops through your mirrors so you can see what they're doing and carrying) and proceeds to explain to me that the ticket would be 550 Rand ($70) and that I'd have to go to the police station to pay it. First thing in my head? yeah right, you don't give me a ticket and trust me to pay it, you'll never see me or my money again. Fortunately, he let me go with a warning...which really means he didn't want to mess around with the paperwork it would take to give a New Yorker a ticket. Chances are I wouldn't pay it anyways, I'm pretty sure NY and SA don't have reciprocity when it comes to traffic tickets, but who knows.

We've also planned another school visit on Thursday afternoon which I'm rather excited about. I've maintained a good relationship with the art teacher at the school, Maurice, and we call and text each other occasionally. He's a young enthusiastic guy and a lot of fun to talk and hang out with. He called today asking how many we expected to take to the school and then he told me about some workshops he had planned for us including art with the kids and preparation of some traditional African food. It sounds amazing! I'm sure I'll have more things to post tomorrow.