a FUNNY piece (drill down in the url for most fun} The Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide: Telecom

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 20:28:21 +0900
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Dave Farber IP
<dave () farber net>
Subject: The Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide: Telecom


The Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide: Telecom
http://www.telechoice.com/WCSGreetings.htm

A Blatant Rip-off Parody For The Holidays


Nothing can be more telling than those prophetic words in Piven's and
Borgenicht's Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook:

Lesson #4: No matter how bad you think things are now, they can always get
worse.

Interestingly, their first lesson in there is "How to control a runaway
camel," something I wish I had read before working on the Jordan Telecom
project. (And by the way, in case you did not know, camels are very nasty
animals - they spit and smell. So don't fall for the tourist trap rides. If
you do, read the above first. And see if there is camelback riding
insurance. And a hottub at your hotel.)

It's clear, however, that the authors have not weathered the telecom
industry as a few of us stalwarts have (although the section, "How to foil a
scam artist" comes close).

Indeed, perhaps the authors of the Best Case Scenario Handbook, now out in
stores too, were closer to the mark with such pieces as "How to proceed
when, shortly after the expiration of your pre-nup with a $900-million
corporate mogul, you discover that he gave more than just an interview to
the editor of the Harvard Business Review." Seems a tad more relevant to our
industry.

But yet, still lacking in its definitiveness, it's taken our landmark piece
of journalistic and consultative achievement here to really capture the true
essence of what it means to be in telecom today. With record layoffs,
bankruptcies, and fraud, you'd think we stumbled into the television series
for the movie Wall Street: Telecom Style.

So, in lieu of our traditional fruit cake or sale candy cane, and in case
you missed the training courses in "Accounting 307: Creative Treatments of
Capital Leasing Structures" and "The Insider's (Trading) Guide To How To Be
A Millionaire In One Stock Trade," we've assembled our best advice as you
take on new assignments and move up the ladder. (After all, you really don't
think they are going to actually hire any replacements for people who have
left, do you?)

    The Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide: Telecom

1. What to do if you find out your VC is going to pull the remainder of his
funding from you

2. How to win if Bill Gates leaves behind his cell phone and you find it

3. What to do if your Verizon phone really works as well as it does on the
TV commercials

4. How to be a Telecom Service Provider CEO

5. How to be a Telecom Financial Analyst

6. How to react when your engineering group delivers the next product load
early, under budget, and without bugs

7. How to cope with a customer who tells you exactly what they need, how
much their budget is, and where you stand in the bidding process

8. How to survive on a desert island with Miss Telecom Geneva 2003

9. How to manage tensions when the boss who you hated most in your last job
now becomes your subordinate at your new job because your firm just bought
his

10. What to do if you are at an industry trade show and someone mistakes you
for being the head editor at Network World

11. How to deliver a message to your boss from the SEC saying he¹s being
investigated

12. What to do if you find someone stealing a load of equipment that has
been sitting in your warehouse for years because the startup failed and
there is no means to install it

13 How to deal with getting laid off and getting a severance plan the day
before you intended to quit and go work for a competitor

14. How to respond when you find out that Big Five consultant planning the
new corporate direction takes bribes

15. How to respond when you find out that the ITU just standardized the
world¹s telecom networks on a solution to which you have the only patent

16. How to respond when a beautiful woman you don¹t know approaches you at a
trade show and says, ³Excuse me, would you mind coming to my room and help
me get out of this stupid boothbabe outfit and into something more
comfortable²

17. How to act when your equipment is the only one that passes the Plug
Fest, and you do it with a new Telecom World Record

18. How to survive a totally fatal computer virus

19. How to win an industry award for your product that¹s not yet ready

20. What to do if you need a good holiday card idea when the industry is in
the dumps


-- 
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
In Tokyo as Glocom visiting research fellow through April 2003
Cell: +81 80-3121-6128 Work: +81 3-5411-6613 http://www.glocom.ac.jp
eFax: +1-408-490-2868 rberger () ibd com http://www.ibd.com



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