Tuesday, November 15, 2005
DREAM JOB
I have to admit that I had my concerns about driving to the Murietta/Temecula area (roughly 90 miles away from our home) to visit with Karena's Cornell classmates. It's not that I didn't want to meet them, I just was afraid I wouldn't have enough energy to be extra social and friendly while they all reminisced about old times. Sometimes, situations like that end up being boring or uncomfortable.
But everybody there was extremely gracious to me so there was no problems. Plus, I got a chance to talk to K's friend Paul, who used to work for Major League Baseball and ESPN. He told me about his dream job of being a baseball general manager almost came to fruition. He has met and had meals with Dodgers' assistant GM Kim Ng, Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang, and many others baseball elite. He knows most of the 30 GMs around the league (and his fellow Cornell alum just landed the Texas Rangers GM job). He used to go into the clubhouse and be on the field. And that was just while he worked for MLB!
During the 2 years he worked for ESPN, he spent many nights working on Baseball Tonight and talked baseball with analysts John Kruk and Harold Reynolds. Then, he'd watch the show to find that they were saying exactly what he had said to them earlier! Plus, he had access to their database that gave you stats on how a player did in day or night games, in rainy weather, on Mondays, in July, on Opening Day, etc.
He helped come up with the ideas of how to showcase certain stats. For example, "When Cal Ripken started his consecutive games playes streak, a stamp cost 13 cents . . ." or "The Angels bullpen has faltered. Since July 1st, the bullpen has a 6.03 ERA versus 2.30 before that."
Now, he's going to get his MBA in sports business. Yes, he has a beautiful wife and two beautiful children. Yes, he owns a brand new 3,300 square foot home. And yes, he has decorated that home with authentic autographed World Series champion Yankees jerseys throughout.
But deep inside, I think he still must yearn for that baseball GM job.
And that got me thinking, is there another job I might want to do? A dream job? A job that I would truly love and consider as "play" instead of "work"? Something like that could still be in reach . . . and yet, somehow, the sensible Chinese side of me just thinks I'm fooling myself.
I have to admit that I had my concerns about driving to the Murietta/Temecula area (roughly 90 miles away from our home) to visit with Karena's Cornell classmates. It's not that I didn't want to meet them, I just was afraid I wouldn't have enough energy to be extra social and friendly while they all reminisced about old times. Sometimes, situations like that end up being boring or uncomfortable.
But everybody there was extremely gracious to me so there was no problems. Plus, I got a chance to talk to K's friend Paul, who used to work for Major League Baseball and ESPN. He told me about his dream job of being a baseball general manager almost came to fruition. He has met and had meals with Dodgers' assistant GM Kim Ng, Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang, and many others baseball elite. He knows most of the 30 GMs around the league (and his fellow Cornell alum just landed the Texas Rangers GM job). He used to go into the clubhouse and be on the field. And that was just while he worked for MLB!
During the 2 years he worked for ESPN, he spent many nights working on Baseball Tonight and talked baseball with analysts John Kruk and Harold Reynolds. Then, he'd watch the show to find that they were saying exactly what he had said to them earlier! Plus, he had access to their database that gave you stats on how a player did in day or night games, in rainy weather, on Mondays, in July, on Opening Day, etc.
He helped come up with the ideas of how to showcase certain stats. For example, "When Cal Ripken started his consecutive games playes streak, a stamp cost 13 cents . . ." or "The Angels bullpen has faltered. Since July 1st, the bullpen has a 6.03 ERA versus 2.30 before that."
Now, he's going to get his MBA in sports business. Yes, he has a beautiful wife and two beautiful children. Yes, he owns a brand new 3,300 square foot home. And yes, he has decorated that home with authentic autographed World Series champion Yankees jerseys throughout.
But deep inside, I think he still must yearn for that baseball GM job.
And that got me thinking, is there another job I might want to do? A dream job? A job that I would truly love and consider as "play" instead of "work"? Something like that could still be in reach . . . and yet, somehow, the sensible Chinese side of me just thinks I'm fooling myself.
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