What Made You Miserable Today?

[LordKinbote]

[Pablo]

Yesterday we bid on a job that was over 6 million pounds of pipe (roughly $4 million worth). This was the biggest pipe job I've seen in over 30 years in this business. Based on the contractor who was the low bidder and the distributor he normally buys from, when I went home from work last night, I thought we had an 80% chance of landing it. Wrong. I learned this morning that a competitor was $100,000 below us on the pipe, and will get the order. Damn.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Zag]

Your 80% chance might well have been right, and this was just the 1 in 5 where you don't get the order. The number of times I've had a better than 80% chance of winning a poker hand and then losing is too painful to count. (It seems that it is WAY more than 20%.)

[Pablo]

Its probably not the same in poker, but my estimate of our chances were 80%, whereas in reality, our chances may have been more like 10%. I'm pretty sure now that my estimate was high. I think poker might be a little more mathematical in nature and less dependent on the biases of the "estimator".

Under identical circumstances in the future, I can guarantee my estimate will be something less than 80%.
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Zag]

My point was that it is very hard to judge the quality of an estimate that something will happen, especially if it is a single event.

When the weatherman says 30% chance of rain, and then it rains, was he right? (I'm ignoring, for the moment, that he could be perfectly right if 30% of the area he was talking about had rain. Let's pretend he is talking only about one specific spot which is too small to have weather variations.) Either it rains or it doesn't. The only way to say if he was "right" would be to collect up all the times that he said 30% chance or rain, and then see if it actually did rain in 30% of those times.

Sometimes in poker you can know an exact probability of winning, because you know how many cards will give you the winning hand. On the other hand, sometimes you have to make a guess much like the one you made, where even after you know the answer, it won't tell you if your probability was right. I'm talking about when you have to decide if the opponent is bluffing or not.

Say the pot is $500 and your opponent bets $100. You have a hand that would beat any bluff, but not any real hand someone would bet, and you have to decide what are the chances that this opponent would bluff in this circumstance. Suppose I decide he is 25% likely to be bluffing, and 75% likely to have a good hand -- then I should call. And I'm going to be unhappy 75% of the time! (But really, really happy the other 25%.) But, once I make the call, it's an all-or-nothing answer at that point, much like you getting the contract or not. The actual results don't say much about whether or not my estimate was correct, at least for one such call (or one such bid).

So, to apply game theory to your bidding process, you might assign different percentages of winning the contract, for different amounts of your bid. Then there is a bunch of algebra and a little calculus, and you could find the most profitable bid to make. I can say that it definitely is not the point at which you are 100% sure you'll land the contract. Of course, your accuracy in guessing the likelihoods is extremely important for the calculation to be correct, but all you have is your knowledge and experience to go by. You can't second-guess it after the fact, because it's a single event. However, you can learn and improve your ability to estimate these probabilities.

I guess my point is that you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. (Unless, of course, there is more information that would have improved your estimate that you could have legitimately discovered about your competition, but didn't bother to do so.) The fact that the event that your estimate says is most likely didn't happen doesn't mean that your estimate was horrible, or even wrong. It does impact your average, so a future estimate in a similar circumstance should be lower, but don't go overboard on that, either.

If you could point to all the times you have thought, "we're 80% likely to win the contract with this bid," and it turns out that you actually did win 80% of them, then your estimating is perfectly right.

[Pablo*]

Yep. I agree with all, and I only beat myself up for a little while. The question I wrestled with was "If I knew my competitor's price, would I have matched it?"
Probably not. This particular competitor has struggled and rumor has it they lost $20 million in 2009, while our company was profitable. (They are much bigger than we are, and the big guys are really hurting). Consequently, they are more desperate and couldn't afford to lose this one, while we could.

But I really wanted the outcome of this job to end up in the "What made you happy today" thread.

[MatthewV]

The other side to consider is what happens if you didn't get the contract. Is it a good idea to bid in a manner where you will lose money but will lose more money if you don't get it?

[Pablo]

[LordKinbote]

[Amb]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3836510/Woman-killed-in-car-blaze-named

THis was my co-worker.

She had just taken early retirement a couple of weeks ago.

[Trojan Horse]

Memo to all GLers: don't get gallstones.

They hurt. A lot.

Things have been slowly getting worse over the last few months. I'm currently working my way through the red tape to get this taken care of. Perhaps I'll have my gall bladder removed; perhaps there's some other procedure I can undergo instead.

But regardless, I'm going to resolve this ASAP.

[Samadhi]

As Soon As Pissible?
[edit: never mind that's kidney stones. =( ] Get Well!
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Dragon Phoenix]

Dropping Bambi off at the airport. She will be in Shanghai until summer 2011, which means we will only see each other for a few weeks in February when I will visit her.
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My photography:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/

[AcidFast]

That sucks, DP! Sorry - sad for you two
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When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead

True story

[Dread Pirate Westley]

Ron Santo died on Wednesday.

[Lepton*]

Opa has cancer of the everywhere and he doesn't have much time left. Literally and figuratively the strongest man I know; a real hero. Between immigration and estrangement, this will be the first passing in my family.

Just needed to tell someone.

[Zag]

My sympathies to you and your family, Lepton.

[Death Mage]

What made me miserable is this accursed flu. The soar throat is a killer. Worst part to deal with by far.


What didn't make me miserable, but did make me was, was the final shuttle mission has landed, ending an era with no current replacements. During my life time I only got a chance to see two launches live (via television). Only one actually made it. It was more than twenty years later before I saw the second.
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* These senseless ramblings brought to you by Insanity™. If you just can't figure the dang thing out, it must be Insanity™.
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[Samadhi]

Throat: So you're an alto?

Shuttle: We should have all dressed like monkeys for their return.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Incompetent managers and indecisive, soft-spoken customers who expect me to get their order correct.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[JDTAY]

[Quailman]

The Check Engine light came on in my 2008 Toyota Yaris. I took it to the service station where I have regular maintenance done on it and other cars. They told me it's the Wire Harness, and since I only have 34,000 miles, it will be covered under warranty. So I take it to a Toyota dealership. They do the same tests and tell me it the Wire Harness and, by the way, the warranty is 36,000 miles or three years. The car's in-service date is February 1, 2008, so it will cost me $1,317 to repair.

I am driving it with the check engine light on while I fight with Toyota. Later in 2008 they issued a TSB about a problem with the Wire Harnesses in 2007 & 2008 Yarises. I guess they haven't had enough with a problem to issue a recall.

[LordKinbote]

[Quailman]

I had an Isuzu Trooper with a seven year/100,000 drive train warranty. I got new (rebuilt, I'm sure) transmissions at 40K and 65K. The third one lasted at least to 125K.

I bought the Yaris used in 2009. It only had 2K on it. I had no idea it's in-service date was 2/1/08.

[Ctorj]

I HATE being allergic to cats. Has made my life so much harder...
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"Love is the absolute expression of the human perfection" -Me!

Created by MyFitnessPal.com

[Quailman]

I went over to my wife's shop today to have lunch with her and her employees in celebration of her birthday. I was in the shop for about 70 minutes. When I came out, I discovered that someone had tried to steal my car. It's a ten-year old Chevy Suburban. What they wanted with it I'll never know. They didn't get away, but they popped out the lock on the passenger door, dismantled the steering column and messed up the ignition switch. They also rifled through the glove box and console storage, but the only thing they appear to have taken was a disabled parking placard that is due to expire in two weeks. This sucks.

[itisally]

Oh quailman, that is awful. It makes what I was going to whine about seem much more like, well, whining.

My husband and I seem to have a need to save people, normally not too bad, but my house is getting a little crowded, and teenagers bread drama.

I just figured out how to make room for the friends that have been staying with us so that I can have my office back for going back to school in December and Durryn's ex's daughter is in need of a place to stay for a few days. This is right after my step daughter makes a big deal about needing to came live with us and then backs out at the last minute. It broke Durryn's heart, yet came with a sight of relief.

Next people to come vistit? Sentran, LifeinMomLand and family, I am so excited for that.
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.

[Ctorj]

This was 2 weeks ago, but whatever.

tooth·ach e/ˈto͞oTHˌāk/
Noun: A pain in a tooth or teeth: "he has a toothache".

This DOES NOT define a toothache. I offer my own definition.

toothache: A massacity of pain located in an area of your mouth that no pain reliever can solve unless with heavy doses of morphine or a dentist, whichever comes first.

Stupid wisdom teeth growing sideways.
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"Love is the absolute expression of the human perfection" -Me!

Created by MyFitnessPal.com

[Jack_Ian]

Definition of toothache : A pain that will drive you to extraction.
Refuse Novocain, transcend dental medication.

[Pablo]

When does a Chinese guy go to the dentist?

"Tooth hurty"
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All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Quailman]

Pujols signed with the Angels.

[Perpentach]

Multiple teachers seem to hate me. I realize that they have a lot of students, and they aren't trying to single me out, but today I felt that they were.

[MNOWAX]

so last night I stepped on my phone and broke the screen. totally black now
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The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[j_s*]

Theoretically, this should go in the happy thread, but I feel really disappointed (instead of really excited).

I closed on my first house today. http://www.planomatic.com/8574

Its a great house, we got it for a good price and everything went smoothly. But I m really bummed and can't figure out why. thumbs down.

[j_s*]

For those who don't feel like loading the site, here a picture:

[The Ragin' South Asian]

You're probably just worried about walking out of that door above the garage and then falling and breaking something. Solution: put a trampoline underneath.

[Tally*]

What does that house mean to you Heathery? Maybe a future you are ambivalent about? Or maybe it's just the weird feeling when something you've been so looking forward to actually happens and that sweet feeling of anticipation isn't there any more. You'll figure it

[MatthewV]

Uh oh, I know that when I have those gut feelings something doesn't work out in the long run.
Home ownership really immobilizes you. I am starting to feel that it isn't a good deal unless you really wish to settle down in one place. The financial benefits are almost non-existent in the short term. I am stuck in Fairbanks for several more months partly because of owning a house. Sigh.

You should paint it a more interesting color. There is too much idealistic blandness.

[Hitchhiker]

http://xkcd.com/905/

[j_s*]