You don’t have the time or the resources to evaluate every applicant who strolls in. to guide your work, you should develop a profile of your “ideal” candidate. You may never find your ideal, but you will establish a basic framework that outlines the person you are looking for.

Developing an ideal candidate profile is similar to viewing a lineup of suspects after you’ve witnessed a bank robbery. The individual you pick out may not be the actual bank robber, but chances are the real criminal is strongly similar. Often, a lineup helps police establish the silhouette or basic framework of the person being sought. The police is clear even if the details are not. Likewise, your ideal candidate profile will give you a sharper idea of what you are really looking for, so that you can increase your odds of finding him or her.

Use the following outline to develop of profile of your ideal candidate:

1. Must have, or have done, or be able to do:
   • Experience: type and years
   • Industry: type, or specific companies, and years
   • Skills or talents
   • Education

1. Should have, or have done, or be able to do:
   • Experience: type and years
   • Industry: type, or specific companies, and years
   • Education

1. Would be nice to have, or have done, or be able to do:
   • Experience: type and years
   • Industry: type, or specific companies, and years
   • Skills or talents
   • Education

Be specific when you draft your outline. If you want someone with strong follow-up skills, say so. If you want an assertive person who can handle high stress, say so. To create a good match between job and candidate, you need to define the person as closely as you define the job.

Keep your company culture in mind, too. If your company is team-oriented and flexible, you want a candidate who is comfortable with teamwork—and not everyone is. If your department is highly structured, you want someone who works well in a structured situation. Describe the qualities that your company values so that you can find compatible candidates.

Just remember that defining the candidate is a lot like shopping for groceries: the more you toss into your shopping cart, the more you’ll pay. The cost of filling a job is influenced by two factors: how long it takes to find the candidate, and the supply of qualified candidates. The greater the number of must have items on your list, the longer it’s going to take to find that person. The greater the experience, skills, or education requirements, the smaller the supply of candidates and the larger the compensation package required to hire the person.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

The completion of a major corporate acquisition was recently delayed for several weeks. When it was finally announced, the chairman of the acquiring company was asked the reason for the delay. He replied that there was just one matter that kept the parties apart. Money! Its always the money.!

When you look at your relationship with your employees don’t underestimate the impact of the money. It may seem obvious, but all too often the obvious is given insufficient attention.

The money you pay to your employees is one of the single largest expenditures in your business and it is most likely your employee’s primary source of income. Your wage and salary structure has an enormous impact on your business. You must recognize its importance and manage it to your advantage.

The proper development of a wage and salary structure is dependent upon a number of differing factors peculiar to each business. However, there are certain fundamentals that must be included in all well administered programs.

All consistently successful programs need a firm philosophical foundation for support. Any number of philosophies on compensation can be successful depending on the type of business involved. What is essential is that you articulate a philosophy and develop policies that are consistent with your objectives and appropriate for your type of business.

With a well thought out philosophy as the foundation of the program, attention must be given to four issues; internal equity, external equity, justification and motivation. Internal equity means that employees are compensated fairly as compared with their fellow employees. External equity implies that your employees are paid competitively as compared to others doing similar jobs in the same industry within your area. Justification means that each employee’s compensation is a worth-while expenditure for the business. And finally the program should be constructed so as to have a positive impact on the motivation of the employees.

The employee’s assessment of the fairness of the structure is important. Pay inequities within a business, whether real or imagined, have a negative impact. The establishment of equitable internal relationships can be obtained through a process of job evaluation. This process measures the relative value of each job to the business. These measurements are then used to establish the salary structure with the highest valued jobs receiving the greatest compensation and the lower rated jobs receiving the least.

It is important to recognize that the job evaluation process measures the worth of the job and not the individual that does the job. The process begins with a job analysis requiring that the content of each job be defined. Using factors such as the required knowledge and skills, complexity of assigned tasks and the scope and impact of the position, the various positions are ranked or grouped in grades. The result of the process will be a ranking of the jobs upon which equitable compensation decisions can be made.

To insure external equity, you now must “price” certain key jobs with wage and salary scales used outside your business. The jobs chosen for comparison should have job content that can be easily compared with outside positions, represent different levels in your internal ranking and include heavily populated positions within your business.

Comparisons can be made with surveys that have been conducted by business organizations, government agencies and other private groups. More than one survey should be reviewed. Caution should be given to comparing job titles. A good survey will include a job content description for each position.

You should be certain that your business is justified in creating each position and employing the individuals in those positions. Aside from the obvious wasting of resources, the continued existence of any unnecessary positions will cause problems.

The subject of motivation goes well beyond the bounds of a wage and salary program. However, incentives should be incorporated into the structure. This is done by establishing salary ranges for each position. This provides an opportunity to recognize individual performance within a particular job classification.

The size of the range will increase with the higher rated jobs. This will permit the largest incentives for those individuals that potentially have the greatest impact on the business. In addition to a salary structure that provides incentive, a good compensation program will provide additional incentives designed to meet the specific needs of the business.

Because it’s your business, don’t forget to pay a lot of attention to that one little issue, money! A well thought out and properly communicated wage and salary program will prevent problems and provide results.

By Michael MacLeod

A CLEANER who was mistakenly paid £36,000 managed to spend £17,000 of it within just two days.

Catherine McLean, 39, didn’t question her boss when the bumper pay packet landed in her bank account on April 2.

By April 4 she had spent almost half of the cash clearing her debts, but was stopped in her tracks when her employer realised the blunder.

But when the Edinburgh woman said she could only give him back £19,000, he called police.

McLean, of the city’s Broomhouse Gardens appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today (Friday) charged with stealing £17,000 from an address in the nearby Broomhouse Crescent.

She admitted the charge and was given time to pay back the money.

Fiscal Depute Aidan Higgins said: “Her employer is a private businessman.

“He was conducting online banking and carried out various transactions and mistakenly transferred into her account a total of £36,000.

“It appears that she spent it paying outstanding debts and various ATM withdrawals.

“When her employer realised the mistake, he contacted the accused to arrange for the return of the £36,000.

“The accused was only in a position to return £19,000.

“That being so the accused’s employer contacted the police.”

McLean’s defence agent Jim Stephenson said: “She has sold her house and the proceeds won’t be processed until January.

“It may be that the £17,000 won’t be repaid until then.”

Sheriff Derrick McIntyre agreed to defer sentence, but added: “Naturally this money will have to be repaid.”

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

Today the TUC report that the amount of paid overtime has fallen significantly over the last year. This is not surprising given the depth of the recession. Much of the reduction will have come from reduced output; especially in manufacturing; some will have come from organisations where overtime was reduced to save jobs. Countering this will be situations where job losses result in essential overtime for those remaining.

The working population falls into two groups. Those for whom paid overtime is a regular part of life and those whose monthly pay rarely differs from their basic salary divided by 12. Overtime is a valuable management tool for flexing costs in situations where attendance equals output (manufacturing) or where attendance is a necessity (counter or call centre staff). However, there is a grey area, particularly for office-based jobs, where output is not quantified and allocation of time is down to the individual.

Much administrative and managerial work requires social interaction as well as form-filling and decision-making. The HR Officer who never asks staff how they feel about their work or discuses last night’s football will be seen as aloof and will not understand employee attitudes as they should. But when, at the end of the day, they have to stay on to complete a promised report are they working legitimate overtime or did they spend too long discussing last night’s match? Did they choose the wrong priorities for that day’s many tasks?

Common practice, and the law, require specified hours work but there are many jobs where a day at work may not always equal a day’s work.

Just today, the morning was greeted with a flurry of reports of civil servants getting just 0.25mths of their regular pay in place of the expected annual variable component. This is way and above the traditional 13th month bonus given out at the end of the year.

Some corners argue that at least the civil servants are getting something. Oh come on… the 13th month is part of their pay package, set in stone by their contract. If you want to begrudge their 13th month, join the civil service instead! No offense to the private sector, but I’ve not yet seen any civil servant complain about the ridiculous bonuses paid out in good times.

In another article today, it is also reported that Ministers and senior public administrative personnel are not having their salary revised as planned. It goes on to give some statistics of the various pay cuts etc etc…. Hey, a 22% drop in pay is still a substantial amount regardless of the base pay.

Yes, they still earn volumes more than the average Singaporean, but at least they are leading the way to keep salary down in these uncertain times. I don’t remember when leaders of any other country has come forward to offer a pay cut of their own together with the rest of the citizens. Or even if they did, it wasn’t publicized. I’d rather they did, if for nothing else but to letthe citizens know that the leaders are not impervious to the sentiments on the ground.

It’s surprising how people seem to keep quiet when the government talks about a pay cut for its own. Or does the silence mean that the people are happy with the government’s move?

Clean Machines (330/365 11-26-2009)

Originally uploaded by CarusoPhoto

My wife and I are checking in on our friend’s cats while she is back home for Thanksgiving. On the way out of her building, I paused to make this photo in the laundry room.

First of all a warning, this post in written in anger.  The views below do not represent my rational self but are instead the product of my evil twin.

I’m having a moment.  A BIG moment.  The world is conspiring to come and kick me up the arse in more ways than one and then to top it all off, to add the whipped cream and cherry to the top of the already mountainous cake I have a bunch of arseholes being……well arseholes.

If you read this, you will know that my children have croissants for breakfast at the weekend I am in the middle of pay negotiations and have been trying to find ways of landing a relatively tough deal by my organisation’s standards (nope not Honda style tough deal).  In doing this my team came up with a number of really good creative gives….because they are good and creative.  One of which was the extension of the ability to request flexible working to all employees.

Now if you are in the UK, you’re probably thinking “you don’t do that already?????” if you are in the US, you are probably thinking, “Its Thanksgiving now shut the fuck up and let me eat more turkey” actually scrap that last one you are probably not reading this at all.  And if you are….get a life.

I digress.  So we don’t offer flexible working to all.  Only to those that can request it under statute.  (Anyone who has a problem with that can see me after class.  And trust me, I’m not in a good mood).  So we proposed that we offer this to all on the basis that its non- contractual, there is no obligation to do it and EVERY OTHER F*****G BUSINESS IN THE COUNTRY DOES IT!

Well you would have thought that I’d suggested that one day a year the Board drop their trousers bend over the board table and offer themselves any side up to all and sundry.  The total shitstorm that has been created is really quite unreal.  You can fill in the blanks to the type of comments I’ve had, but the narrative is essentially, “If we tell people they can ask…..then they might”.

Yes and if we don’t tell them they can ask then they might still ask anyway.  Or guess what, they might just leave.  Heaven forbid we actually have a dialogue with them.  That, well that would just be….well wrong. 

PS – Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who eventually got to this point!

“Salaries in the public sector are under scrutiny as the budget looms. I regularly read criticisms of the ‘high salaries’ paid to university lecturers and professors, pointing out that they are significantly better-paid than academics elsewhere in Europe …” (more)

[William Reville, Irish Times, 26 November]

Got the tipoff from @hsivaram’s twitter post. Interesting and exciting info -

IT professionals with these in-demand skills are expected to earn the following salaries in 2010:

    * Flash developer: $75,000-$100,000
    * Flex developer: $90,000-110,000
    * PHP/LAMP developer: $85,000-100,000
    * Ruby on Rails: $75,000-95,000
    * CRM developer: $80,000-110,000

While the Bluewolf research was primarily focused on salaries in the New York, Connecticut, New Jersey area salaries — which are approximately 25% higher than the national average — Bluewolf said salary increases in other areas of the country will follow the trend, just at lower base levels.

All the more reason, you should move to Flex!!!

A leaked report suggests more than 1,400 Newcastle City Council workers could face a salary reduction to balance a 24m back-pay bill…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: city mortgage. The blog is also related to: population density cities.

“Trade union leaders have acknowledged for the first time that temporary measures which would reduce public sector earnings next year are necessary if across-the board pay cuts are to be avoided. The admission follows a day that saw 250,000 public sector workers take part in what unions described as the State’s largest-ever strike …” (more)

[Martin Wall and Stephen Collins, Irish Times, 25 November]

According to a new study by Harvard University, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. executives made US$2.5 billion from 2000 to 2008, a sign pay polices may have encouraged risk-taking that doomed the companies.

The top five officials at Lehman, which filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, received US$1.03 billion in cash bonuses and proceeds from equity sales during the period, according to the report, The Wages of Failure, released yesterday by Harvard Law School’s Program on Corporate Governance. Bear Stearns’ top executives made US$1.46 billion in the years before JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy the firm in 2008.

Losses the executives suffered when the firms failed were outweighed by payouts in the preceding eight years, the study said.

Source: Bloomberg

Flushed with news of the great bargains to be had in Newry, public sector unions today announced that a second National Christmas Shopping day is to be taken on December 3rd. Chairman of the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) Peter McLoone acknowledged the second strike would cause hardship to people who depended most on public services and that members regretted this deeply but pointed out that it was necessary to allow all his members an opportunity to get their Christmas shopping done in the North.

His main concern, however, was for those workers who couldn’t go shopping as they had to man the pickets during today’s strike. “We felt that the one day strike just wasn’t fair with some members manning pickets while others were off bargain-hunting. We knew there had to be a better, fairer way and now we’ve come up with it — two National Christmas Shopping days.” He explained that this meant that those workers who manned the pickets in today’s ‘Day of Action’ would now have the opportunity to get to Newry to get their own shopping done on December 3rd.

A government spokesman expressed gratitude to the unions for their selfless support of the government’s attempts to keep the public sector pay bill down. “Today’s strike is saving us a much-needed €100 million in wages. We appreciate that the union are doing the same again for us in December. If we can get to a stage where it becomes a monthly stoppage then we will just about achieve the necessary €1.3 billion savings in a fiscal year. I’m confident that the unions will do this for us as their members have expressed overwhelming support for the initial shopping days.”

The spokesman conceded that it might be more difficult to muster support for further ‘days of action’ once the Christmas season is over but pointed out that there would be January sales, then February skiing trips, while in March the day of action could be tacked onto St Patrick’s day, and so on. “I think you’ll find that the unions can always find a good reason to justify a day of action and, if they don’t, all we need do is tell them we’re cutting their pay and they’ll be out the next week.”

Success cannot be coaxed or bribed.
It’s the offspring of drudgery and perseverance.
Pay the price for success and it’s yours.

This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere.
Fortune sells her wares, she never gives them.
In one form or other, you pay for her favors or you go away empty.

Everything you want in life has a price connected to it.
There’s a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay for just leaving things as they are, a price for everything.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated.
She’ll give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

There is no victory at bargain basement prices

Households who recycle could get up to 130 a year in shopping vouchers under the Tories, says George Osborne…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: window shopping. The blog is also related to: shopping on line.

Now this is i like and will writing to watchdog to get my own compensation for bad football games i have seen – or might just pop up to Luton and see Esther Rantzen!

Now if this was the USA you know there will be whole industries popping up for other sports fans to claim money for poor performances they have had to endure.

Some of the claims I think that would appear include:

Eye Torture, for just poor play on the pitch.

Repetitive Stress Injuries – as a Boro fan i know this one as the pain never seems to go away, no matter what we do.

TWOCing – touching without due care. Henry watch out!

Any more suggestions?

Last week, the interesting speaker in class briefly talked about the online application/tools of  AdSense and AdWords, and a quick run-through of these, as well as some related issues, will be the topic of today’s blog.

AdSense was an ad serving application run by Google, where website owners could enroll to enable text, image and video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements were administered by Google and generated revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis.

Here is a picture of the typical reports page in the AdSense application:

The application was actually discontinued last year and superseded by DoubleClick, which was quickly snatched by Google after the huge potential of the application was revealed. This was solidly underlined by the $3.1 billion price tag! As an ironic twist, Microsoft actually tried to stall the acquisition on grounds of monopolistic effects – something quite hilarious considering the myriad of similar accusations against, well, Microsoft. DoubleClick, however, has not been without its problems; it has been linked to spy ware as cookies are tracked and it is therefore even considered “malware” by several antivirus programs. Additionally, DoubleClick was accused of misleading the consumer by proposing an, in effect, useless opt-out option of the tracking feature. Nonetheless, it continues to strive as a more or less independent subsidiary of Google and churns out some interesting products, especially for advertising and media companies to allow their clients to traffic, target, deliver, and report on their interactive advertising campaigns.

Below, one of many useful tools in the DoubleClick application is shown:

The other tool mentioned in class was AdWords – the grand flagship of Google’s online advertising, bringing in a staggering $21 billion in revenue in 2008 alone.

Below, an image of the AdWords position in the typical web browser is shown:

It is in relation to this that we see the currently ubiquitous Pay-Per-Click advertising model mentioned several times in my earlier blogs. The product has been developed extensively and is now relatively simple for anyone to operate and includes a suite of tools to enhance a website and monitor traffic. Despite of its huge success, there have also been a few glitches with the product, both in the form of trademark law suits (e.g. American Blind vs. Google and Rescuecom Corp vs. Google), patent infringements, and click fraud. The latter especially marred the reputation for and was settled for $90 million.

Nevertheless, the success of Google currently seems relentless and a plethora of sub-industries has appeared to cater for the increasing need of companbies needing to access all the people using the search engine. Included in such sub-industries are thousands of SEO and SEM specialists, as well as companies designing entire online campaigns to tap into the full potential of the online consumers.  The interesting aspect here is that, as Google increases the range of products offered directly to the companies, the intermediaries have to offer even more specialized and tailor-made solutions. It is currently not sure what the market for these will be in the future, but for now, it appears to be a lucrative market. A couple of examples of such intermediate companies are www.marketiniano.com as mentioned in class, as well as the even more interesting company www.guavamedia.com, which has received some attention in Scandinavia for having greatly increased the value of the companies in their portfolios. Apart from offering a complete overhaul of all online and branding issues of a company, Guava Media undertakes the innovative “Pay for Performance” solution where a company only pays for the actual sales realized as a consequence of an online campaign as opposed to the simple “pay-per-click” or “pay-per-lead” models.

 The only question is, how long it will be before such services merely become a standard part of the already rapidly expanding range of B2B and B2C offerings by Google…

FLIGHTS and packages are arranged for asylum-seekers willing to pay…. From The Australian. Full story

This site may contain information about: air travel. The blog is also related to: cheap trips.

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Lena Edlund, Joseph Engelberg and Christopher A. Parsons have a new paper on the wages of prostitutes:

Edlund and Korn [2002] (EK) proposed that prostitutes are well paid and that the wage premium reflects foregone marriage market opportunities. However, studies of street prostitution in the U.S. have revealed only modest wages and considerable risks of disease and violence, casting doubt on EK’s premise of an unexplained wage premium. In this paper, we present evidence from high-end prostitution, the so called escort market, a market that is, if not entirely safe, notably safer than street prostitution. Analyzing wage information on more than 40,000 escorts in the U.S. and Canada collected from a web site, we find strong support for EK. First, escorts in the sample earn high wages, on average $280/hour. Second, while looks decline monotonically with age, wages follow a hump-shaped pattern, with a peak in the 26-30 age bracket, which coincides with the most intensive marriage ages for women in the U.S. Third, the age-wage profile is significantly flatter, and prices are lower (5%), despite slightly better escort characteristics, in cities that rank high in terms of conferences, suggesting that servicing men in transit is associated with less stigma. Fourth, this hump in the age-wage profile is absent among escorts for whom the marriage market penalty is lower or absent: escorts who do not provide sex and transsexuals.

The paper also provides some interesting charts. The figure below plots the mean hourly wage by age group among escorts who provide sex to their clients, escorts who do not (e.g. massage only) and escorts who are transsexuals.

The next figure plots the mean hourly wage among escorts who have sex but are located in cities with few conferences. (Conference cities were extracted from the National Business Travel Association’s (NBTA) 2004 survey, “Business and Convention Travelers Report.”)

Pay’s Adventures in Brazil.

(Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Florianopolis)

Pay got the opportunity to tag along on Chingy’s tour in Brazil. Although she had expected to run into more hip hop/music related stuff in Brazil, this became a more personal review on the experience of touring with an artist, in Brazil. Being around an artist like Chingy and his entourage, and experiencing the first time being in Brazil came together in the following read.

October 13, 2009

Friday October 9^th it’s the day I am flying to Brazil. It’s my first time going to South America really. I had to get up at 4 am, way too early for me but I was still excited to go. Mostly cause I get to see my best friend in the whole galaxy again, after so many years. Although we speak on the regular on the phone or online, I’ve missed being around him. He has been the biggest positive force in my life for the past decade. I’m not even sure if I would still be around if it wasn’t for him. He has always been there for me and helped me through a lot of difficult situations in my life.

Anyway, I’m off to Paris cause I have a layover there. I hate layovers but this was the cheapest ticket. (Hey, it’s a recession lol) Charles de Gaulle airport is the first airport I sorta got lost. With all the flying I do, that’s nuts really. The arrows on the signs in that airport point to the wrong direction. Normally if you have to go straight ahead, the arrow points up. At Charles de Gaulle they point down. So I kept thinking I had to go back, the other way. And I don’t seem to be the only one that had problems with that. My girl Fyza told me she had the same thing when she was flying through that airport lol.

When I arrive at the right gate, I don’t have to wait long to board. The flight is on time. Off to Brazil! The flight is about 12 hours. Even though the fight is pretty full booked, I manage to get an aisle seat when I originally had a seat between two people. Flying Air France is pretty ok. Decent food and ice cream and candy as much as you can eat. Haagen Dasz that is, shit was good!

When I get to Rio de Janeiro the weather is really bad. Nope, not the sunny beach and fine women and carnival country we all know it for. It’s raining worse than cats and dogs. It’s rain storming so bad, the plane couldn’t land at first. Rio de Janeiro airport is the easiest I’ve ever been through. Within literally 10 minutes I’m already outside. Immigration just smiled and stamped my passport and customs just took the forms from me without even looking at them. Suitcase was out already also and BAM, I was standing in the hall of Rio’s airport. Peterson, the driver that came to pick me up was there with a sign saying PAY. I had a BLAST with Peterson, simply cause he didn’t speak a word English and I don’t speak a word Portuguese haha!

Traffic was really bad. It was dark outside already and still raining really bad so I couldn’t really see anything of Rio yet. We ended up being stuck in traffic for 3 hours. 1/4^th of my flight over here. But like I said, I had mad fun trying to hold a conversation with Peterson, we were mixing up English, Portuguese, Spanish, hands and feet. And somehow we managed to understand each other enough to actually talk about things. I did take a nap in the van cause I barely slept on the plane or at home the night before.

9 pm I wake up thinking “Damn are we still driving?” but a few minutes after I woke up, Peterson turns around to let me know we finally got to the hotel. With my ass all fucked up, I stumble into the hotel to let them know I’m there. As I sit down in the lobby, Efrem walks up to me. Its like one of them long lost and found-reunions you see in the movies. Oh what good it felt to see him and hug him again. =)

Once I get to the room and saw my bed I just had to take a nap before the show that night. Efrem had to go meet some fans or something with Chingy so I had time to rest. For those that don’t know, I came to Brazil for Efrem’s birthday. But during that time, Efrem put together a tour for Chingy, the artist. No I’m not his biggest fan, nor do I really care for his music like that but the tour is there so I am tagging along. More so cause of Ef than anything else. Side note: I met Chingy a few years ago already in London on the Ludacris show, where I was with Efrem as well and a day later in Amsterdam where Benny and I had an interview with him for Royal Radio.

At 1.30 we take off for the show. I met all the people once we get downstairs where we all had to hop in the two vans to go. Nobody over here speaks English so even talking to Efrem’s friends and people he works with, is really a challenge. We get to the club in Rio, The Week. Pretty nice club, it was packed outside the venue already. I really felt like a tourist with NO knowledge of the language. We get to the small ass VIP section a little above the side of the stage. The show was pretty cool, I filmed parts of it. After the show it was the typical “groupies trying to get to the artist-stuff”. I’m tired as hell, pretty much ready to go. But as I was sitting there watching the Brazilian club scene, I felt disappointed in the women. With all the stories and all the things my homies say about the women down here, there literally was not ONE fine ass woman that I seen in the club. I was sitting there with DJ Sno and Rich Money. Rich was saying the same thing about the women. It was his first time in Brazil as well so he had the same high expectations that I had. Nonetheless the women were all over them of course.

We were supposed to have a 6 am flight to Sao Paulo but Chingy and the guys had so much fun, we of course missed the flight. Now we had to take a bus ride to Sao Paulo which would take about 4 or 5 hours, so we were told. We had a mini bus and left at 11 am from Rio to Sao Paulo. That morning in daylight, I saw that our hotel was right on the beach really, but the skies were dark grey and it was misty from the bad rain so it looked nothing like the Brazil we know from movies and videos and all.

I still didn’t get any sleep. Maybe one hour from the time we got back in the hotel til we had to get up and leave. I figured I can get some hours in on the bus. I now could really relate to the life of an artist with this running around, partying and getting no sleep. But once I got on the bus, I wanted to see the country. I mean, how many times will I get to be on a road trip from Rio to Sao Paulo and catch the scenery? Seeing the slums and the really poor houses (half way built and lots of aluminum), was pretty real. It was also still raining really bad. Although the sky cleared up as we drove further south.

Everybody on the bus was knocked out, except for DJ Sno and me. We were choppin’ it up about the music business, radio and all kinds of things. Then later on I just put my ipod on and was relaxing with music while looking outside my window. After a few hours we stop for food and all, which was the first meal I had since 3 pm that day before, on the plane! We all know Pay NEEDS food. So I was happy lol. It seemed the driver is driving mad slow so it was gonna take a lot more hours to get to Sao Paulo. Once we ate, the guys were up and were wildin’ out on the bus lol. I can definitely say I had a LOT of fun and laughs with these cats. They are fun people to be around so I didn’t mind tagging along on this tour. Big Country, Chingy’s security guy is hilarious! He started doing the jerk on the bus hahaha! I got some of that on tape, hehe.

Seeing the drive took too long and Chingy had to be at some radio station for promo, they arranged for a car in the next city we go through, to pick Chingy and Country up so they can speed over to the radio station instead of being on that damn slow bus we on. Fast forward, we finally arrive in Sao Paulo, its dark outside again already. We spent the whole damn day on the bus. Even within Sao Paulo, with the bad traffic and all, again, it took us another 2 hours or so to get to the hotel. We passed a McDonalds right before we get to the hotel so we all decided to go there once we dump our stuff in the rooms. So we did. Most of us went to go there for food, but found out that McDonalds was closed already by that time. Nana, Efrem’s assistant, who lives in Sao Paulo as well, tells us there’s another one a few blocks away. We all agree to walk over there. It was sightseeing for me. The big strip reminded me of walking in Manhattan with all the big buildings and all. Sao Paulo looked very modern to me in comparison to the little I had seen of Rio de Janeiro.

When I get back to my room later on, I was so messed up from all the traveling I been doing the past 2 days and the crazy lack of sleep, I laid down in the bed and just wanted to sleep. The guys all wanted to go to the club and as much as I wanted to see the nightlife of Sao Paulo, I went to sleep.

The next day its Sunday, mind you, I had no clue what time, day or even year it was at that point lol. I still didn’t get much sleep, maybe only 3 hours or so. But it was a good 3 hours. Ef ordered breakfast for me through room service, that shit was GOOD. And guess what? I saw the SUN out! When we got to Sao Paulo the night before, it was still raining, it stopped raining later at night but it was pretty cold too.

Anyway, I called Nana to see if she wanted to go to the stores with me, I had seen some stuff the night before when we walked to McDonalds. It was SO nice outside, finally I felt like I was on vacation. After we went to the store, Nana suggested to lay out at the pool and of course I was down with that. We got some sun in! Just an hour or so maybe cause the sun out here is really dangerous in the afternoon hours, doctors advise not to lay out in the middle of the afternoon.

Tony Touch had also arrived that morning. In the evening we went to sound check with all of them. I met DJ Cia from Brazil, who I have attempted to talk to online a few times already. Again, this went with hands and feet when we met in person but we understood each other. Really nice guy and a dope ass DJ too. When we get to the venue, Tony wants to find some food. Nana, Tony and me find a McDonalds ha! Americans I tell ya, McDonalds is the first thing they eat when abroad lol. We go back in the venue where Chingy is still doing sound check. Once they saw the MickeyD’s bags of course they wanted some as well. I got some funny behind the scene footage from the sound check. =)

The show that night was ok. I recorded a lot. Tony definitely did his thing. The VIP section that night was ridiculous after the show. The groupie action in there was by far one of the most horrible I’ve seen in my life. It was like watching National Geographic Channel. “Groupies in their natural habitat”. I was sitting there with my bottle of water just observing and being entertained. Til it got too much for me. The chicks just leaning over the fence to the VIP, hanging over my head, spitting, reaching for Chingy, yelling shit in Portuguese, nah man, I was ready to be out. I even had to save Les (Chingy’s manager) and Chingy from this crazy chick that kept bothering them. Luckily we came with two vans, and those who were ready to go back to the hotel were able to just leave with one of the vans. DJ Sno, Tony Touch, Soni, Nana, D and me went back. We were talking about music, house music and all that on the way back, sparkled by Tony’s event in NY that took place that night as well.

When we got back to the hotel, Tony was like, lets hang out and chill in my room, so we went there to hang out, mind you its like 5.30 am already. I was mad hungry so I ordered breakfast. But before it arrived people got sleepy and went back to their rooms, so I went back to my own room to wait for the breakfast. Then the others seemed to have arrived back in the hotel. Calling the room asking where Ef was. Ef didn’t come back yet, he was still at the venue taking care of business. I hear groupies screaming in the hallway, Chingy and Rich got attacked by them or something. Attacked in a good way I guess. (Ef and I are on the same floor as them.) It was a crazy situation. While I’m still up, waiting for my breakfast, Les called and he came up to hang out with me while I was waiting. Finally breakfast came and we’re still choppin’ it up. We just yapping the morning away til I had to cut it off cause sleep was necessary. I ended up going to sleep at 8 am. I heard Ef get back at some point but I was too sleepy to even really notice it.

A few hours later I’m up already. Its 11.30 am. Why I don’t know. I was supposed to go to the pool again with Nana but its real cloudy outside so I stay in the bed. At some point, it started raining and hailing really bad. Even to the point where one of the guys said it was snow. I didn’t open the curtains to look outside but it was madness against the windows on the 16^th floor. I stayed in the bed watching movies while Ef is trying to work and catch sleep in between. Around 4 pm I decide to go get food outside. It’s still raining but not that bad anymore. Les and I go to Subway to get sandwiches. Ordering when not speaking Portuguese can make some funny situations but she got our subs right. We stop by the local supermarket to stash up on snacks and head back to the hotel. After I ate my sub, we watched an episode of CSI and I fall asleep again. I wake up at 8 pm, not knowing where the hell I am. I finally realize I’m in Brazil, in a hotel, in Les’ room. Les is still sleeping though. I’m like maaaan, that was Monday LOL. Earlier we decided that we wanted go bowling but seeing it’s a holiday in Brazil this Monday, the 2 alleys we found over here were closing early already.

I leave Les sleeping and go to my own room and get online to check my emails and stuff while Efrem, Chingy and Country are in the seating room “chasing a black dress” (a girl that was at the club the night before). Unfortunately I found out a friend of mine passed away, that kinda threw me off and upset me. Thankfully I got a hold of my other friend on the phone, to find out what happened. I decided to just go back in the bed, watch some movies on TV and call it a day. The passing of my friend triggered thoughts of how much I hate being so far from loved ones and don’t get to spend the time I wanna spend, with them. I’ll be ok though, if anything, it makes me appreciate the time I have here with Efrem even more.

It’s Tuesday right now. Tomorrow is Efrem’s birthday. J. Rawls just landed in Sao Paulo and is on his way to the hotel. I’m sitting here typing away. The birthday party/event we had for tonight is canceled. Due to some business stuff that’s going on. As much as I was looking forward to the party tonight, which was really the main reason I came out here, for Efrem’s party, I understand how the business works. And I just wanna spend time with my best friend, that’s all that matters right now.

I have 3 days left, seeing I fly back home on Friday. Time flies. I will write more later when I get a minute again. Now I’m waiting on J to get here and figure out what to do today. We fly out tomorrow to Floripa (Florianopolis). Maybe we can go bowling tonight, who knows. I’ll wait til Les is up and see what’s up. (–12 pm)

October 18, 2009

I ended up going to Starbucks with Les to get some hot chocolate. Yes, hot chocolate, in Sao Paulo Brazil. It was chilly outside and still mad cloudy. Thank God it wasn’t still raining. I still can’t believe I went to Starbucks to get hot chocolate. But again, the weather is not really summer weather, keep in mind, it’s spring in Brazil this time of year. After we went to Starbucks, we walked down the street to Domino’s to order pizza. Now this was hilarious. I got this on video too. Don’t ask me why we hit up all the American spots, but in the streets where our hotel is located, we really can’t find any real Brazilian food spots. Plus I didn’t have the energy to go look for them either.

Later that evening I find myself being bored in the hotel room again. We wanted to go bowling this night but for some reason we were all slow and late so I figured, another evening spent in the room. Pretty stupid seeing I wanted to go out and see Sao Paulo. Around midnight Nana calls the room and tells me they’re having a surprise for Efrem downstairs in the lobby so my sleepy ass goes downstairs. Everybody is already sitting there and they bring out a cake and sing happy birthday in Portuguese.

Right at the moment we are all done singing, someone walks up in the “party”. It’s Herbie Hancock out of all people! Herbie Hancock is staying at the same hotel! So suddenly everybody was all up and excited. People tweeting about it at the same time (J.Rawls, me, Tony Touch and Soni) and snapping pics left and right with Herbie. That was awesome. From all the places in the world, I’m in Sao Paulo, running into Herbie Hancock. That’s definitely a night to remember. Plus that was a real big surprise for Efrem on his birthday.

There were also some Portuguese groupies from the other night at the venue, I wasn’t really trying to be in that situation but Efrem had fun on his birthday. So I figured, let him have his fun with the people, drinking and partying with the guys and the girls. Les and me just went back up to watch TV shows he downloaded. (CSI, House, Family Guy) Aint that something huh?

The next morning I wake up around 9 am, still in Les room. We are leaving that day to go to Florianopolis (Floripa). I go back to my own room and find Efrem there, awake as hell, with one of them chicks. Just chilling in the seating area. Lord did he give me the 411 on what happened that night. From the three girls that came to the hotel, one left at night and the other two were fighting over Rich and the one that was still in our room decided that dude wasn’t worth it so she got back over to our room to kick it with Efrem. (She was the first to put dips on Rich but her friend didn’t care and went for him as well LOL) I told the girl she shoulda left her girl here and shoulda gone home. Any girl that chooses a dude that you don’t know from a hole in the wall and probably never will see or talk to again, over your years of friendship, is NOT a friend.

After I shower and packed, I call Les to go downstairs for breakfast. Efrem joins us later and tells me the girl took my advice and bounced haha! Man that shit is hilarious. It’s like living in a reality show or something. And I didn’t even get into THAT much detail when it comes to these chicks. Efrem goes to run some errands and Les goes back to his room to pack and all. When I get upstairs to my room, the front desk calls me that there’s a woman in front of my door. I open the door and see it’s that trick that was in Rich room all night. She had left her jacket and cell phone in our room in the seating area. I give her her shit and tell her to bounce. But she babbles something in Portuguese that she wanna go in my room, so I show her that everybody is gone. I can tell that she’s asking me where everybody is (meaning her girl). I’m like, aint nobody here waiting for you, you gotta leave ho! And I escort her out the door. I’m like why I gotta throw these ho’s out the hotel? LOL

I go check on J.Rawls seeing we’re leaving and I wanted to chop it up with him before we do, so we hang out for a bit. The van to the airport is at the hotel already at 1 pm. We’re all loading up but then some real shit went down. Our flight is at 3.45 pm. It’s about 40 minutes to the airport. Not calculating bad traffic in there. Now in all the commotion we can’t seem to leave in the van. We hop out and go into several taxis. The police is getting involved and all I see is Efrem yelling mad at the van driver, in Portuguese so I have no idea what that’s all about. In the end it looked like they strong-armed Efrem, he had to pay up before the driver wanted to take us anywhere. We end up leaving at 2.15 pm, to go to the airport, in the van. This was some bullshit for real. EVERYBODY was already in the mind state that we’re going to miss our flight. D, Les, DJ Sno, we were all like, we gonna miss it.

3.15 pm we arrive at Sao Paulo airport, Efrem and Nana rush to the check in desk with all of our passports. We run over there with all the luggage and run to the gates. Man, security is NOTHING in Brazil. We could leave our laptops in our bags, our drinks, all liquids, the whole shabang went through the x-ray machine but not a peep from the security people. Sno even got some weed through lol! We run straight for the gate and slided in the back of the line for boarding. We made it. We were all surprised that we did. Happy though cause it woulda been hell to change all of the tickets.

We arrive in Floripa around 5 pm. What a beautiful, beautiful island it is. And that was without a doubt the smallest airport I’ve ever seen or been to. Once we get out the plane and walk in the little building, within 2 steps you’re at the luggage belt. About 5 steps after that, you’re already out the airport hahaha! Literally! We hop in a van again to go to the hotel. Driving over the island seeing the bay and the sun setting was gorgeous. Beaches, palm trees, but not warm, it was chilly as hell again. Windy too seeing it’s an island. (Florianopolis is further down south from Sao Paulo.)

This is like the “rich, more white people-area”, place to be, in Brazil.

The hotel that the promoter over there initially had booked was MAD small and not do-able so we switch. Back in the van with all our shit. We end up checking into the Sofitel right on the strip including ocean view. 5 minutes from the downtown area, shops and all that. It takes us so long to check in, by the time I get to the room it’s already 8 pm. D, Nana, Les and me decide to go eat at Pizza Hut (yes another American spot –sigh lol). Hey, they had free wireless connection there haha! I tell our waiter Tony aka Maradona (yes the soccer player) that its Les’ birthday (even though it’s not midnight yet). We end up getting a free dessert, a sweet chocolate pizza.

After we eat, I just wanna go sleep. Country, Rich and Brian end up going drinking at the Irish Pub around the corner and end up going to the club, El Divino, which is also the club where the show will be at. I fall asleep in Les room again, watching CSI lol.

The next day, Thursday, it’s my last day in Brazil. I wanna go outside, see things, do stuff, get my tourist on and all. Efrem is working, doing business and I end up going to the mall with Nana, D and DJ Sno. It’s only a few blocks walk from our hotel. That mall was 8 floors and huge. I felt like I was in the States, but everything was very cheap. Not too long after that, we get back to the hotel to hop in the van with everybody for a little tour over the island. The only one that didn’t join us is Rich, he was too hung over to come with us.

This island is BEAUTIFUL. From North to South it’s only 53 kilometers, with 400.000 residents, spread over the city and the beach towns. Our hotel is at the northwest bay. We drive down to the south east bay while Efrem and our driver Geraldo are telling us about the area’s we’re passing through. At the south bay we stop to eat at a famous seafood restaurant. The restaurant is known for all the pieces of paper all over the walls and ceilings. The pieces of paper are written on by every customer that has been there. The food was good and we had a beautiful view on the ocean from inside. It was cold and windy as hell though.

-Let me state that Country is one of the funniest fuckers I ever met. I’m gonna have to talk to him to give him his own show on my website. I swear this dude is TOO much hahaha! Doing the jerk in the bus to Sao Paulo as well as swag surfing in the restaurant in Floripa LOL. I swear I thought he was gonna go cripwalking up in there too!-

That evening when we get back to the hotel, Nana and me go back to a store at the mall where I wanted to buy some more jeans. We also find a hair salon to get our hair done for the party tonight. I figured oh well, its my last night, let’s do it up! Also very funny to go to a hair salon and explaining the stylist how you want your hair, without speaking any Portuguese haha! He ended up doing a great job though.

The show in Floripa was OFF THE CHAIN. The people were wildin’ out and it was packed. After the show, we end up from the stage, which was upstairs, to the VIP area downstairs. Again, it was packed. Hot as hell in there too. DJ Sno was doing his thing! I went crazy when he actually started playing Masta Ace’s Born To Roll! One of my favorite songs EVER. Chingy was hosting away on the mic for three hours straight! I definitely had a blast.

Around 5 pm, I go back to the hotel with Rich, Country, Les and Chingy. The van is supposed to go back to pick up the rest. They didn’t end up coming back til 6 pm. Some troubles at the club with one of the groupies that the security people didn’t let leave. Les calls me to get downstairs for breakfast. I get downstairs and the three girls that annoyed the shit out of me at the club, were in the lobby. Oh, by the way, in Brazil, you can’t just take people (girls) up to your hotel room. You have to pay for them as if they were checking in. It was like that at the hotel in Sao Paulo also.

So the girls stayed in the lobby. These ho/groupie situations are funny but at that moment I was annoyed and tired. One of the girls asked me if I was Portuguese. I wanted to say No Bitch, can’t you see I’m staying at this hotel? (I was wearing my comfy clothes already.) Breakfast finally opens at 6.30 and while I was signing in for breakfast, the hotel chick over there thought I was one of them ho’s also. That pissed me off as well lol. I was practically wearing my PJ’s. I did NOT look like I came straight out the club for these dudes.

Breakfast with Chingy, Brian, Les, Rich and Country is funny as hell. But I was so tired and I had to leave for the airport at noon already. I said my byes and went to sleep. Slept a few hours and then got up, packed my stuff and said bye to D, Nana and Les before the van picked me up. I flew from Floripa to Sao Paulo first, then from Sao Paulo straight home. The rest of them were flying to Rio later that day for the last show in Rio. Once I finally boarded the plane to Amsterdam, I took one of the pills that Les gave me, just to get some good sleep. I had 3 chairs to myself so I laid out and BAM I was out. I slept a full 8 hours on the plane. That was the best sleep I had from the whole time I was in Brazil haha.

In the end, the whole week didn’t go as expected, or as how it should have been going. A lot of business got messed up so we all had to wing it, but despite everything I had a lot of fun. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to see my best friend again since years and for the fact I got the chance to see Brazil in so many different ways, even though I didn’t really get my sightseeing on. I saw Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Florianopolis, three different sides of Brazil. I also made some great new friends and connections that may be established for life.

Now most of my friends know I’m not Chingy’s biggest fan, nor do I particularly care for his music. But, touring with these guys did show me that it’s not ALWAYS about the music, it’s also about the networking and the people themselves. They are all great guys, each and every single one of them. They are open, friendly, HILARIOUS, cool and nice. Never once did I feel out of place there, seeing I wasn’t really part of the entourage, I was just tagging along. I respect Chingy for what he does even though his music type isn’t really my taste. I did end up bouncing along to the songs at the show in Floripa, I mean it’s poppy and people do like it. Lol.

Shout outs to all the people I’ve met and hung out with in Brazil. Peterson, Paulo, Thais, Brian, Nana, Demetrius, Les, Big Country, Rich Money, Chingy, Tony Touch, Soni, Geraldo, DJ Cia, and whoever I forgot. Lol.

Shout out to J.Rawls, it was great hanging out again, in Brazil even!

Shout out to Herbie Hancock for being really cool and nice.

I feel blessed to have had this experience with an artist and his people, in a country I’ve always wanted to visit. I thank Efrem aka Offshore for having made this trip possible for me. (Magma Culture)

I didn’t expect my review on this trip to be like this, but that’s what my experience was. I stay International. Next stop? Who knows. =)

-Pay aka Ms International.

PS. Video footage and more pictures of this trip coming soon.

Chingy: www.myspace.com/chingy

Magma Culture: www.magmaculture.com

“Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has indicated that he will use the 11.9 per cent pay cut private sector workers have already taken as a benchmark for public sector pay cuts, the Sunday Independent has learned. Mr Lenihan is to outline to his ministerial colleagues his intended expenditure cuts in next month’s Budget at a special cabinet meeting today …” (more)

[Daniel McConnell, Independent, 22 November]