What is your Subway order?
I order it the way I ordered it first time.First time I went to a Subway was when my younger brother told me to pick one on the way and all he mentioned was to get a ‘Veggie Delite’ for him.So, I went to a Subway parlour on my way and waited for my turn as a guy was standing at the counter putting in his order. He started by saying the bread he wanted, which vegetables extra, which not, which sauces to put on, which sauces to overload and which not, extra cheese and salt-pepper. By the time, he finished speaking I was in a blank state of mind. “What am I supposed to say?”, I asked myself and tried calling my brother but damn!, network issues. I was called by the counter person, and as I took tiny steps to the counter, a kid ran up asking about his order. Thankfully. I used that time to read the board where they mention about breads and veggies, trying to figure out what to say. The kid went and it was my turn.Q. What would you like to order maam?Me. Veggie Delite.Q. Which bread?Me. Umm, (Looked at the board and saw that Parmesan Oregano looked a bit better than rest.) Parmesan Oregano.Q. Which veggies? (Taking out the bread and cutting it into two.)Me. (Looking at the veggies) All of them.Q. Which sauces? (Putting crisp sliced vegetables on the bread with cheese)Me. (Reading the list of sauces, trying to understand one of them, looking at those plastic white,yellow, red bottles) All of them.Q. All?Me. Yes please. (Feeling relieved. Order placed.)Q. Salt and pepper? (Drizzling all sauces in line.)Me. (Who asks that? Is anyone supposed to eat without salt?) Yes.Waiting for my order. Paid, grabbed the parcel bag and walked right out from there without looking at anyone around.I had no clue what to ask for and what not, what to add and what not so I kept telling them to add everything, and result? My brother loved it.Till today, this is my first and only order, whenever I got to Subway. Veggie Delite. Parmesan Oregano bread. All veggies. All sauces. Salt and Pepper. No change at all.
What is it like working at Subway?
Subway is a great place to have your first job. You'll learn the basics of food safety and how to put together a good sandwich. In addition to making lunches and dinners for customers, you'll be taught prep work, bake bread and keep the food areas sanitary. Subway is always innovating with its menu, so you'll have chances to make new products Prep includes filling sauce containers, chopping any vegetables we are low on and making sure the table is full. I also finish the bread that the previous shift has started making, removing it from the proofer, baking it, and putting it away. When dinner hits we are busy making sandwich's for a few hours. At night we are responsible for cleaning the entire store, sanitizing, and prepping the table for the morning. Cleaning is very important in the food service industry. You are required to learn the menu by heart basically so that you could instantly make what people needed. That wasn't very difficult. You needed to also be able to take some deliveries, unpack and stock items. You also prepared a lot of the food for the day. You cleaned the store every night, sweeping, mopping, bathrooms, etc. And were also responsible for cash registers and phones. Working at Subway, the only things you really need to remember is to clean up after yourself, be very hygienic, and that you need to hold your own. Out of all the fast food place I've worked, you have to be the cleanest in this type of environment. People are going to be watching your every move while making their food, and you should remember that. You have to be very patient as well. Besides making subs, it's a lot of cleaning and nothing else. Clean and make food. Simple enough!
Does Subway pay you for training?
I finished my University of Subway training. I go in tomorrow at 10:30 to start training in the store. I was just wondering if I will be paid for the training in the store or not? I don't really care either way, I was just curious. I want to make sure I get a savings account everything since this is my first job. Extra details to help answer my question would be, I'm a part-time sandwich artist, & I'm working in Illinois. Fill me in on any details you know about pay at Subway, also! I'm trying to save up for college. Thanks so much!
Is Pimsleur a good way to start learning Mandarin?
I started with Pimsleur and am glad I did. It is not perfect and is not at all comprehensive, but what it does, it does pretty well.Pimsleur gets most of the credit for the fact that I've had more Chinese people than I can count remark on my lack of a foreign accent when I speak Mandarin. (The fact that people specifically comment on my accent rather than spouting a generic, "Your Chinese is very good!" platitude makes me think they mean it at least somewhat.)Corroborating this, when I took Chinese classes, I noticed that the pronunciation of the couple of classmates who started with Pimsleur was much clearer than those who started with other systems. Could be coincidence, but my hunch is not; the fact that Pimsleur has you constantly speaking out loud and paying close attention to pronunciation and intonation is the likely explanation.The huge advantage is that it puts you in conversational settings right from the get-go, so your entire experience with Mandarin will be preparing you for the first time you talk to a real person. You will train yourself to listen to someone else speak and respond in kind. That's much harder to do if you've mostly been learning from books or lectures.So, what's wrong with it? Well, like any non-interactive course, it has no way to drill you more on things that are giving you particular trouble, so you may find yourself repeating a whole lesson to get a better grip on 25% of the lesson's material even though you already have a solid grip on the remaining 75%. It can't slow down or speed up according to your reaction time, so if you're like me you'll either fiddle with the pause button a lot or frequently find yourself struggling to recall some word and starting to speak just as the recorded answer starts playing. It does not make any attempt whatsoever to teach you to read or write (though this is arguably a feature, not a shortcoming, since you won't be constantly screwing up your pronunciation by trying to read romanized Chinese words as if they were English; in fact, I'd wait until you're 20+ lessons into Pimsleur before even starting to learn pinyin). Finally, and most critically, it can't actually tell you whether you're pronouncing things correctly; you have to figure that out on your own. I actually recorded myself taking a couple of the lessons so I could hear how I sounded.But all that doesn't change the fact that it's probably the best audio-focused program out there at the moment.
What's it like to have attended an elite school and then be an utter failure afterward?
"Failure" really depends on how you define success. In terms of my feelings of "success", my high point was when I was accepted to all the Ivies I applied to. Yup, I peaked at 17. People I knew personally in college include billionaire serial entrepreneurs, a bunch of college professors, CEOs, big time constitutional scholars, etc., etc.Those were my peers, the standard of comparison. By that standard, yup, I am an abject failure. Getting into an elite school does not guarantee any sort of success. It just improves your chances. You are still on the hook to make good decisions, recover from your mistakes, and work your ass off to be a success. The good news is you can still do those three things after you graduate. Also, you can do all those things even if you didn't go to an elite school. They actually matter more than the school you went to.If you mature, you learn to redefine success for yourself. You stop using other people as your standard of comparison, you become more realistic and more individualized in terms of what is important to you and how you define success for yourself.Me, well, I'm pretty lazy. That is why I'm not "living up to my potential". So I've gotten work that pays pretty well that doesn't tax me too much. Big fish in a little pond, so to speak. I've been continuously employed for the past 30 years. I have come to realize that while I've never achieved significant wealth or notoriety, even within a field, I've done OK.
How do you find time to read everything?
How do I find time to read everything I want and need to read?Quick answer? Time-planning. Even quicker answer? SmartphoneI work as a medical researcher and an academic writer which means I read a lot, and I mean a lot. Everyday, I have to surf through tens of complex research papers and pick out points, methods, and ideas that suits whatever it is I’m working on, and this is not easy. I won’t go into details about how I deal with readings related to my work, but I’ll tell you how I deal with other readings.Everyday I read Quora, Scriptures (Bible, Book of Mormon, and other religious material), Comedy book, scientific book, work related articles.This is how and where I read them.Quora - On the toilet (both at home and at work), on the bus on my way to and from work, and sometimes at work. Sometimes when I’m bored at work or I just need to relax my brain, I go to the toilet (we have a very clean and cozy toilet, that fortunately is outside of the office area), do my business and read Quora for 15–20 mins.Scriptures - Usually in the morning, and together with my wife in the evening.Comedy books - on my way to work, while riding the subway (metro). There’s no internet network down there, so I can’t read Quora. Instead, I use that time to read other books that are already stored on my phone and do not require internet connection. I take both a bus and the subway to and from work, so I have enough spare time everyday to read.Scientific book - also on the subway ride. I alternate with comedy books.Work articles - during work hours (10am - 6pm) and extra work hours at home (usually between 8/9pm -12/1am, this varies). I make it a priority not to read anything at lunch, I need that time to rest my head, I also try not to take my work home with me. I already work long enough. My extra work is seasonal so I don’t work every evening.With this plan it seems like all I do is read, but that’s not true. I still have the time to interact with my wife, go on dates, cook, play games and other things I like to do.Planning is key. Plan it, and you’ll see that you have enough time to read everything you need, and want. You definitely cannot read 1% of everything that has ever been written. That’s just not possible. You need to pick what works for you from the lot.Good luck and happy reading!
Is it normal that I find Chilean Spanish particularly hard to understand? I'm learning Spanish and training myself to understand spoken Spanish by watching telenovelas. I started with an Argentinian show. I find Argentinian the easiest to understand.
I think it’s normal because that happened to me as well. In fact, I lived in Argentina for two years and really thought I had gotten very good at understanding Spanish by the end of that time. I had a high level of confidence in my Spanish ability. I then set off to travel for two months, going down to Patagonia (in Argentina) and then crossing over to Chile.Bam! As soon as I got to Chile, I felt like a baby in a land where I didn’t speak the language. When I heard others speaking, I could maybe pick out a word or two here or there. I worried that all the time I had spent learning Spanish in Argentina wasn’t going to do me any good outside Argentina and that I would be starting over from scratch any time I entered a new country. Fortunately, that hasn’t been the case.Others who have answered have given great details about the particularities of Chilean Spanish (like the aspirated s and the po added to words.) I also think that cultural differences between Chile and Argentina might be at play. Disclaimer: this is my own observation only, it may or may not be true, and is not meant to offend anyone. But, in general, I found Argentine people (especially those in Buenos Aires where I lived) to be extremely gregarious and likely to talk loudly, stretch out and enunciate words. In contrast, many of the people I met in Chile seemed much more reserved, even in Santiago. Many people seemed shy, spoke softly and tended to swallow words — in essence the opposite of what I saw in Argentina.In Argentina, the Italian influence is huge because that country saw large-scale immigration from Italy. The Spanish spoken in Argentina has been heavily influenced by Italian, and I don’t believe this is the case in Chile, which has seen less immigration overall. That might be a factor.To this day, I still say Chilean Spanish is hardest to understand. (I find Cuban and Puerto Rican Spanish challenging too.) Of course, this depends on the situation and the speaker. I think who the speaker is and what situation they are in matters more than which country they are from. Some people just naturally speak slowly and neutrally and enunciate well while others speak quickly or quietly and use a ton of slang.
How can I learn UX/UI design?
Hope my answer will be rather thought provoking than controversial.To start with - forget about tools. While great designers are efficiently using their weapons of choice, tools themselves never made anybody a great designer. Most of them are so far from the true nature of the design that can only spoil you.Turn yourself into a constant redesign machine. Think about how to improve any product and service that you see. Including a door handle and a coffee machine.Observe people around you and analyse pattern in their behaviour, problems that they encounter using certain products etc.Whenever you’re tempted to design something, stop yourself and try to describe: who’s the Customer, what’s the Problem and what could solve the Problem (C-P-S Hypothesis).Design as little as you can. Solve problems.When you’ll feel that you mastered all the tasks above, get more practical:Improve experience of Facebook, Twitter…and other possible services (as an exercise, a sketch or wireframe would be enough; interactive prototype and usability testing would be awesome)There's couple of interesting Design courses at Udemy: UX Training - User Experience Training Online and Website Usability and User Experience Training Course - take them to improve your hard skills.There’s more than a couple of great blogs e.g. http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine...http://blog.usabilla.com, http://designmodocom - read them daily.The Ultimate UX Design Starter Kit - list of UX resources for beginners that can guide you through meanders of UX.Knowledge Wants To Be Free - List of articles and books written by UXPin teamUX Zeitgeist: User Experience books, articles, topics - the list of books and articles curated by Rosenfeld MediaAnd build up your portfolio having in mind that even if you don’t have big clients, you can certainly help some NGOs (we’d get you a solid discount at http://uxpin.com for doing that!), or a local salesman. Any improved experienced will be a proof that you’re a UX great designer.