Mall-nourished

After shelving our long weekend plans to Ellora Caves, we resorted to some mall hopping on Sunday. Sometimes retail therapy can do wonders to your mood like nothing else does. The Santa was entertaining a lot of kids yesterday afternoon at the Pune Central. Watched a bunch of movies - Apaharan, Ek Ajnabee and a few on TV. Don't be misled by their 3* ratings. Not good at all.

Lot of good food at home, tried out some new recipes on the Microwave. I'm sure that the pictures of the Indian recipes in the Microwave book are all actually made in gas and not in MW. From Phirni to bartha none of them come out as good and as crispy.

The weekend is almost over and so is my mindless blogging for now.........

Customer Service in India really sucks

Little doubt that Customer Service in India really sucks. Else attribute it to some freakish coincidence that ICICI Bank, Citibank, BSNL and Tata AIG Insurance are all equally bad in serving their customers.

Believe it or not we wasted over 5 hours of our weekend talking to some customer service reps for various year end/mundane tasks like paying insurance premiums, telephone bills and all of them outdo each other in acting stupid!

Consider it twice if you are taking your Auto Insurance from Tata AIG because you can be sure they wouldn't dispatch your policy hardcopy even 2 weeks after you've paid the money.

ICICI Bank requires their customers to visit the bank in person to change the address. Which is still fine. But for every task you got to visit them atleast 2 times for they never seem to get anything straight the first time, from issuing pins to changing addresses. It is quite funny to visit the branch..stand in long queues glaring at the 10 inch monitor over your head for your token number to go ting tong..so much for automation!

Citibank is the master of it all. On the one hand it charges their customers when they make a personal visit to the branch and on the other it resorts to ancient ways for getting the address changed. It requires them to post a hand written letter ensuring that your requests never get handled. It has taken me over 4 months to get a goddamn address changed.

BSNL, Pune is a black mark for BSNL. On the one hand you see pictures of Dayanidhi Maran and Bill Gates flashing all over and his attempt to make the connection process smoother and faster, and on the other you see such morons that makes you think, where is this country heading to. Telephone bills never reach home after multiple reminders but they are prompt enough to call up to disconnect the line.

Either I must be living in a very backward city of this country or Pune is totally not worth a place to live in. Atleast now I can partially empathise with Americans' experience of Indian Call Centers and their processes.

Corporate Culture in Pune

"Workplace Culture". What is it and does it really matter? I've often heard this term in conversations when you are talking about Google or Sun Microsystems. Or for that matter what is it that you really miss about your old job and bang comes the answer "the culture".

In my opinion, "workplace culture" is synonymous to the environment, the atmosphere you work in. Which has been created by the people who work there and over the years has been emulated by others who joined the organization. Be it good, be it bad it has all been carried forward. It is the "system". And as kids, we have been taught to adapt to the "system" and not "revolt" against it. "Workplace culture" defines how you treat newcomers into your Project family - you can either be hostile or inclusive and accommodative. It defines how you interact with your peers and superiors, the openness, the freedom to voice your opinions. It defines how much tension is always in the air as you swipe your cards in and enter the corridors of your workplace. It dictates whether you will live in freedom or in fear. It dictates when you come in to work and when you leave and how much time you spend on lunches and coffee breaks. Someone set the rules and they become graved in concrete for the rest of the lifecycle of the project. It percolates from the top management to the lowest orders.

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Now why should it affect one? It does because we are all social animals and not robots. We spend 8 hours or 3/4ths of a day if you are working for one of those top Indian Services Firms at work. And if you are not having fun what you are doing, then you got a problem. "Workplace culture" after all is nothing but "Social Behavior" at workplace.

The reason why I started off with this post was I found "Workplace Culture" in Pune quite different. I leave it to your discretion to judge if it is different good or different bad. I know it is politically incorrect to generalize as huge a thing as Corporate Culture for a place as big as Pune. But having worked in 2 companies and heard a few up, close and personal stories, I think I will do it justice. A few experiences...

a) Day 2 of a job - Manager introduces to two most senior members - persons A and B. While he is doing that, one does not even have the courtesy to look up. Leave alone standing up and shaking hands. What a great first impression!

b) Day 3 - A "hi" is met with a hostile unfriendly stare.

c) All this while, this has just been a dark place. No other introductions have happened except the 2. The others around don't even bother and refuse to acknowledge that there is someone new sitting behind them.

d) Week 2 - Person A refuses to address X by name. A comes and taps on the table - what a gentle way of addressing someone.

e) We don't really care if you are having your lunches alone.

f) "I've just returned from a trip to Germany. So I'm going to flaunt my travel stories by shouting loudly on the phone." How lame!

g) So what if you are from down South. We will all rattle in the local language even if you don't understand.

h) Manager A walks into a meeting and addresses Manager B sitting in the meeting so rudely that makes you think "What have I got into?".

Well, never before in the past 6 years have I heard or experienced of such stories until now. What is surprising is the fact that the same organization has cultures that are poles apart in different locations. Pune definitely needs a cosmo look to make it a choice of the preferred offshoring destination in India. On a closing note, I would also like to say that where there are such people, there have also been some very nice and supportive people.

Categories: Corporate, work, culture, Pune

Retaining Top Talent

"Retaining Top Talent" was the topic of discussion last night on NDTV Profit's program called "One Life to Love". The program featured interviews with Grow Talent's CEO Anil Sachdev, HR of Sasken Comm. Technologies and Chief People Officer of Scandent.

There are times when you can't point a finger to one reason as to why you want to quit a job. It happened with me when I quit my first job. It could be as trivial as "I just don't feel like I belong here anymore" or "the culture". But whatever it is, you sometimes feel the management isn't taking the right steps to retain its top talent even after identifying you are their top talent. Why? It is no secret that the services firms in India do treat their employees as commodities. Can they afford to do that? Ironically, their balance sheets show they can. But I'm sure it comes at price. Though opportunities are galore, highly talented people generally are not primarily motivated just by money. So they don't jump like rabbits every quarter. Go ahead and read the rest of the entry if you feel you can make a difference by going that extra step to take are of your talent.

A few takeaways from the program:

Top 3 reasons why people quit their jobs:

1. Performance Review.


2. Rapport with the supervisor - according to me this is the most detrimental factor. People don't leave companies, they leave their managers.


3. Personal Aspirations - lack of opportunities for cross border deputations, trainings and so on.

There was this interesting case where apparently the only budget the CEO of that company monitors is that spent on recognition and parties. I know you are dying to know which company that is...Frequent "Rewards and Recognition" is by far the most influential factor in keeping the morale of employees high.

How do you know when people leave?
No Sixth Sense. If people are absent from work citing reasons such as "uncle is unwell", "my car has broken down, gotta take it to the mechanic", then you know its time to leave and interviews are on! When a highly active employee who brings up issues all the time look withdrawn and wears that "doesn't really matter" and "don't care" attitude, you know its time for you to take care.

When do they leave?
Employees generally start looking out for options when they have been working for 2-4 years. Having started as freshers, expectations are low 0-2 years and the desire to learn is high. When aspirations increase, the urge to explore the market is high. If you've not taken the plunge then one tends to stick on. Again people with 40-45 years of age start looking out when they know they can't get into the big league in their own organizations. This also coincides with the time, most personal obligations have been met such as kids starting college.

What motivates people?
there is no straight answer to this. Ask people what motivates them. Talk to them. But here are a few pointers:

1. Show career paths to people.


2. Invest significantly in competency building.


3. Monitor the levels of employee engagement.


4. It is not just the HR manager's role to keep employees satisfied. It is primarily that of the Operating Manager's

Yet another person interviewed said, CEOs of today are social architects. The era of charismatic leaders is over. This is an era of leaders that pay attention, listen to you and thrive at making the workplace far more democratic, vibrant and participative.

This is the part I liked the best. How many of you remember your exit interviews? Were you already being treated as someone from their "yesterday"? Do not call people who walk out of your doors as ex-employees. They are your Brand ambassadors. The new mantra - "Forget Lifetime employment, it is lifetime affiliation" now.

On a closing note, an ex-employee of a company who joined a competitor said, "They could've kept me, but they never asked." So don't stop yourself. Ask them to stay only if you believe in that person and do it in a way that would appeal. Remember its not a bargain. Bargains are short lived!

Categories: work, talent, management, employee, morale

I'm back

After 3 weeks of forced break from blogging, I'm back. It feels GOOD to see the blogger screen again. No web-based e-mails, no regular dose of blog sites, no NY Times at work. It wouldn't feel like the day has started at all. Stupid Websense. Websense blocks just about every website ever made. Ok not really. Blogs are catgorized under "Message boards and Clubs". How nice! Its work, work and only work .. how boring can that get. The absence of broadband connection at home made it worse. But now I have one.
I feel alive again...more sooner.

First (and Last) few Days At Work

As a kid, I would fake tummy aches and dysenteries and lock myself in the toilet when the school pickup car would pull in our driveway to pick my brother and I. My antics for avoding going to school. This would be followed by my mom's persuasion turning into bribing (chocolate at the end of the day). When nothing worked, she would storm in drag me out, pick me up and just thrust me into the car. I can't recall going to school without tears flowing down my eyes even for a day. Its strange because I was exceptionally good at studies ...

Fast forward. 20 years later. I do the same thing even today. Umm, not exactly. My mom doesn't drag me out and shove me in. But the morning drama continues to this day. "Don't-want-to-goto-work" blues. There is one common string though between my childhood and now. I changed schools every year as we moved a lot and I studied in a dozen of them. Before I could make fast friends, we were already at a new place.

As I switch jobs (voluntarily) again, I'm going thr the same trauma now. The first few days at work are never easy. It is an info overload. Everything changes. From formals to casual clothing to formals again. Friends, your fav corner at work, coffee corner, that comfy chair, library, your housekeeping guys, work culture, the buildings you pass thr during the commute every morning.

First day usually means getting to know a bunch of jargons, being introduced to 30 odd people over a span of 30 minutes. Just when I thought I got all the names and the respective faces right, its time to leave again. Its kinda funny because I tend to relate people to the clothes they are wearing on the first day. So if the guy is not wearing a green shirt the next day, I would totally be confused.

First few days at work is all about connecting with people. Making/breaking relationships. You tend to form a social network of sorts. Introducing yourself a bunch of times that at the end of it you almost forget your own identity. There have been times when I have fumbled for my name.

On the contrary, last few days I believe is tougher because you are in the middle of nowhere. It is an awkward situation because people know you are leaving and you have to answer this question smartly , "Where are you going to?". I hope this is the last time I do it....

The Art of Project Management

Book Excerpt: The Art of Project Management, is featured on Slashdot. This book is authored by Scott Berkun and the sample chapter was an interesting read. You must be thinking, "Not again. Not on Project Management". So much has already been written and will continue in the years to come on the Art of Project Management. Despite that, projects fail everyday. Projects are executed in the same manner as they were probably 5 years ago. Sure reading how to execute projects will not make you a successful one overnight but reading about other's experiences, I believe, will enable you to react to situations better. Probably.

I have come to believe that the journey is more important than the destination itself. The successful delivery of the project does not essentially mean the project's success. The stages of a current project (this journey), will determine your future successes and if your dream team will hang in there.

Some takeaways from this article :

1. Master the many ways to say no


2. Prioritization - The challenge of prioritization is always more emotional/psychological than intellectual, despite what people say.
- This is so true. When projects turn emotional, they lose a sense of purpose.


3. The challenge with questioning others is that it can run against the culture of an individual or organization. Some cultures see questioning as an insult or a lack of trust.


4. Sheer quantity of effort can be noble and good, but always look for ways to work smart rather than just hard. Be relentless in spirit, but clever and savvy in action.

Another great read on a similar topic - When clients (and bosses) go bad...

Custard Apple aka Seethaphal

Custard Apple also known as Seethaphal in India, is my favorite fruit. It doesn't taste even a bit like Apple (which btw I dislike) does. So I don't know why the name Custard Apple.
Many people I know are put off by the not-so-inviting exteriors of the fruit. The rugged bumpy green lumps of the fruit is much in contrary to its delicious and soft interiors. The Custard Apples that we get in Pune in abundance are so yummy that I indulge myself and my sweet tooth every evening. Turns out it fares well nutritiously too. If you have a big backyard, then spit the black seeds there and you will have a beautiful custard apple tree.


"Friends"... 'til the End: The One with All Ten Years
David Wild I saw this book at the Crossword Sale on the front rack. It was so inviting that I finished the Joey section of the book. Priced at Rs.699 it is a great buy (though I didn't get the book but ended up buying a CD). It has amazing pictures of the 6 F.R.I.E.N.D.S with a story of how every episode was made, some secrets and interviews as well.

Group Dynamics - What works and what doesn't!

Not so long ago, a group of highly sought-after 27-old somethings left their lucrative jobs with an established firm to pursue a dream. They gave up a run-of-the-mill job to create something of their own, a career they believed in and to work for themselves. True to the saying, their actions showed "People don't leave companies -- they leave leaders." But there was a slight difference. What do you do when leaders leave? The leader left and the followers tagged behind. A tiny ripple effect was in order!

The leader had a dream, a vision. A dream of making a quick buck. There was a high demand for their skills in the market. The entrepreneurship bug bit them..the greed to capitalize on it marred the strategizing process. This was soon to be a dream come true story of one tiny cohesive group lead by an able leader that overcame all the odds to pursue their vision together. The perfect script for a successful startup firm with all the essential ingredients - passion, freedom, millionaires overnight was ready. Or so it seemed. Until the story turned sour...The startup plans were shelved for lack of a VC and they joined another organization as a "group" ofcourse! Needless to emphasize, you become a mini organization when you go as a group and the voice is expected to be "one" - that of your leader.
Continue reading...

Transitions are never easy. Neither was this one. Too many odds, too little time, too many convincing sessions, too many sacrifices and in the heart of hearts you know you are rejecting good advice but you still do it. This was one such thing. There is no growth without taking risks after all. It was all hunky dory. The group seemed stronger than ever atleast superficially....when trouble began. Personal interests took precedence over groups' vision. When there is no personal money involved, there can never be true commitment if there is no passion. Passion for money is not passion for work. (So long my shirt is not out there to dry.. I will never work too hard ... thats THE fact.) The killer earthquake (easy 9-5 job from competitors) struck once, twice luring everyone...some quit! For some the journey is on..

But there are others who truly believed in that dream that are holding on to it..someday may be they will succeed. They realize one thing ..with great power comes great responsibility. There is only one way to go now - UP and the determination to make it work!

Some lessons to learn ..

1. Too many voices leads to noise.
2. A written commitment is always better than high flinging statements in a cozy restaurant over a sumptuous dinner.
3. If you've chosen a leader, you've got to believe in his mistakes as much as in his successes. It takes a lot to stand by in failures than clap hands and flash smiles during success stories.
4. It is not just your leader's vision, it is yours as well.
5. Attitude - getting the right kind of people with the right attitude is detrimental.
6. Delegation and Initiative - It is team work.
7. Transparency - This is very very important. Any DECISION taken has to be one after a collective consensus of all involved.
8. Cohesiveness - depends on a number of factors ranging from the size of the groups to peer pressures to personal expectations. But this is one important thing that holds a group together. If you lack the personal chemistry amongst yourselves, there is a lil likelihood of success.
9. Self Motivation - A leader can only motivate so much in realizing that dream. You got to believe in it yourself to be self motivated.

On a closing note,
Girte hain sheh-sawar hi maidain-e-jung main,.
Woh tifl kya giraingay jo ghutno ke bal chalain !!!

"Ideas are capital. The rest is just money."

Generation Z outsmarts Gen X / Y

This Sunday evening, we hung out with our house owners and their kids at a neighboring "farm". Miniscule fun parks are called "farms" here. Don't ask me why. They are not big and cool enough to qualify for a theme park like Essel World (or Six Flags) but are bigger than the clubs to which you get an annual membership at a ridiculous price just to wait in queues for hours to play an hour of tennis every time. So these farms are kinda nice in a way because they are not crowded and you don't have the guilty feeling lingering in your head every Sunday morning "Oh my gosh. I paid 15K for the club membership that I haven't used in months." Too lazy to get up I make a mental note to do it positively next Sunday and pull the sheets over to get another 30 minutes of precious sleep. And that Sunday morning never comes until the next year when you pay the annual memebership charges again. And lasts just a week. Anyways that's beside the point. So you see how these farms can offer great entertainment for lazy people like me for a meagre 100 bucks one evening when you feel like going on outing.

This one was quite different as they had some fun things to do apart from the regular features of a club like tennis court, swimming pool, a dine-in restaurant and such. L Farm had a person who could engrave your name on a rice grain, a lady that would braid your hair using threads of different colors, yet another that would apply beautiful mehendi in 10 mins and in house astrologer - well actually palm reading. However the ones that I enjoyed the most were pottery, shooting, the magician's tricks and ofcourse watching the lil kid R twist and turn on the dance floor to the tunes of Kajra Re. That was fun.

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The kids C and K obviously belong to the Generation Z and they are smart. The magician was closing for the night when we entered his den. But on our request he was kind enough to unpack his bag and he started with a few familiar tricks. All his tricks worked and he had our attention. We were just observers until now. For the next trick, he called the lil kid C and gave a silver ball in her hand. Asker her to keep her palms open and promised her he would make the ball disappear in 10 seconds. He did the predictable joo boom baa and asked "Beta, do you have the ball?". C happily nodded. He did joo boom baa again and asked triumphantly, "Beta, the ball is gone now right?". She shook her head in refusal. Confused if his magical powers have waned, he removed the black cloth from the top of her palm and stated in disappointment, "you should not hold the ball tight. Leave your palm open". C was quick to respond "That is not magic. You make it disappear this way". Anyways she obliged and the lo the ball went. C says, "I saw you taking the ball with the cloth. That's not magic". The magician disappointed said, "you are smart".

Now it was the turn of the elder one to join the younger one on the stage. The trick was simple. The younger one had to put a pink cloth in black jar. The magician would pass it on to the elder one and she had to pick the cloth. The trick was successful but the elder kid says, Uncle I saw you pull a lever that made the cloth go down".
Sensing trouble, he sends them both to their seats. But the kids don't give up. After a few tricks, he resigns and says, "kids you are smart. Lets stop now". It is not that when Gen X and Gen Y were the same age would not have understood what was going on, but this generation is quick to respond and doesn't really care where the stage is right to point out. It was funny!

Quote for the Day : A man travels the world in search of what he needs
.... and returns home to find it.
George Moore (1852 - 1933)

Diwali - 2005

Diwali was great this year. The best one in recent years. We had so much fun. Pune is great at celebrating festivals. The festive spirit is so high in this city like none I've seen before. Since the time, we have moved in, it has been one festival after the other. Ganpati first, followed by Navratri and then now Diwali. There is so much of enthusiasm that for every festival there's a pandal in every neighborhood and celebration (garba - dance during Navratri) through the night.

News of the serial blasts in Delhi on Saturday was upsetting.

We were in Delhi that day last year enroute Amritsar. We did cracker shopping, gifts for family and friends, cleaning the house over the weekend. We were all set for Tuesday - the day of Diwali. People in Pune apparently celebrate Diwali for 4 days. (We do it just for a day). But the mood was so upbeat that we ended up bursting crackers since Sunday (and discovered all the rotten ones that the shopkeeper had tricked us into buying). They would just go pppppppsssss.......

Monday evening I made a colorful rangoli. This is the first time I did that for Diwali (again influenced by Pune tradition). I will post a few pictures of my rangoli and best picks of my neighborhood soon. Can you believe we were awakened by the crackers at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday morning? It felt like they were lighting the crackers over our heads. Boom bam it went on and on for hours....So we started our day early with our share around 6:30 a.m. Made sweets like coconut burfi and then it was indulgence in food the rest of the day. Sweets and dry fruits. Meeting friends kept us busy thr the day.

Diwali as such is celebrated in different ways across the country and it also signifies different incidents to people in different states. People in the North perform Laxmi Pooja on the day of Diwali. However, one common tradition that binds them all together is that of bursting crackers.

I must say buying crackers is an art that comes with experience. As a kid, I would plan it carefully a week in advance, dry them in the sun, remove the paper to expose the wick and such, with cousins. It used to be a lot of fun. A lot has changed since then with crackers named after Aishwarya Rai and Nokia. More colorful ones have replaced the noisy ones like the notorious green hydrogen or atom bomb. It is about light than sound now. My favorites this year were the butterfly one (that hops in 3 stages in different colors), the ColorPlus (rocket combined with 3 colors) and the snake tablet (duh..it caused so much of pollution that I stopped after 1). So that was burning a lot of money in an hour. There was a lot left that we gave to the kids.

Categories: india, festivals, diwali, rangoli

Ads - Made for Men

This post is dedicated to V. There are some ads for women (all the mushy mushy senseless ones). There are ads for kids. And then there are ads for men. Well not intentionally made that way but you acknowledge that it is a guy thing. It appeals the men psyche so much that they would go to any lengths to make the entire household silent to watch those.. There have been some ads in this league before but the recent two are of a totally different class...They have raised the bar in advertising. They are epitomes of creativity.

Bajaj Avenger DTSi - I feel like God.

Honestly, it took me a while to understand and relate to the ad. A man is riding the Avenger on a mountainous terrain (Ladakh ?). As the ad progresses, there are flashes of incidents form the past like his shouting father, a drop of blood on his cheek when the barber shaves, the potholed roads. And you hear him say :


I forgive my father
I forgive my boss
I forgive the Government
I forgive my barber
I forgive them all
Because I feel like God.

This is huge. Bajaj Avenger DTSi makes him forget and forgive ? Well I don't know if Avenger is so good that you can get into a state of Nirvana, feel at the top of the world. But one thing is sure - this ad will ensure a high volume of sales! Feel like god after watching the ad? You can see the ad here.


Tata Safari Dicor - Reclaim your life
This one was much easier to relate to. The success behind this ad is its music - mesmerising flowing high and low in succession to match the mood. The ad starts on a depressing tone with these images
(A man in a boardroom meeting gazing at the lashing rain on his windows).
I ALWAYS WANTED TO CHASE THE RAIN ..
(A pregnant lady in a hospital lounge dreaming of an airplane)...
I ALWAYS WANTED TO TAKE A TRIP AROUND THE WORLD..
(A man in a parking lot)
I ALWAYS WANTED TO QUIT ON MONDAY MORNING..
I ALWAYS WANTED TO SWIM WITH THE WHALES.

The music suddenly turns upbeat and here comes the voice ..Reclaim your life. The sense of control that brings in is a inspiration. There is a striking chord that appeals to you instantaneously. Watch the video here.

Or is this just about the man and the machine (or the beasts) ?

Compensation: How much is enough?

You hear people cribbing about their salaries (compensation and benefits) all the time. The rat race just doesn't end. There is always some Foo or Moo earning more than you. These are good times for India and its time we accept it. Thanks to Offshoring and outsourcing. There is a huge market for services. Though McKinsey reports indicate that there is a far greater supply than demand, I have changed three jobs in the past 6 months. (Ok! Don't raise your eyebrows now. We'll come to that later).

Probably there is a shortage in quality supply - supply of talent. In line with my principle of anonymity, these are fictitious names to the organizations I have worked with. Compensation increases have been to the tune of 50%-70%. I was shocked (in a good way ofcourse). It was time for some reality check to see if one is really worth so much.
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So I did a little bit of survey to find out if the compensation packages are really skyrocketing and is this a trend. What got me thinking was if Bangalore was going to pay such high compensation, then we would soon lose out on the cost advantage as rightly indicated by McKinsey's report. On an average, one can expect a raise of conservative 25-30%

On switching jobs for generalized expertise such as specializing in Java or .NET. For niche markets like product or domain expertise, the compensation increase is quite high. I have seen many people accepting offers that give a 60% increase and then renegotiating for a 100% increase. I mean seriously...
Honestly, a demand for 15L with 4 years sent my temper flaring! So how much is enough?

On to my next question on changing jobs. There are some instances that I've known where people switch jobs every year to get a raise. 7 years, 7 jobs. Westerners are known to dread Indians for this. How much time should you spend on your current one before switching if you don't have a valid reason? I won't go into the definitions of valid now. I was told that too many jobs in too short a time makes a resume bad. The recruiters know it and the hiring companies know it. So why do they hire you then despite knowing you won't stay for long looking at your history. Despite that you are offered a handsome package. Why? I don't have concrete answers. Is it because attrition is accepted, is it because there is a lack of talent or is it because there is so much of demand?

Your opinions?

Categories: compensation, hr, india, offshoring

From Sahara to Siberia

....come experience it all in the eight hours within the four walls of the workplace. For free! Ofcourse it would be sans the reindeers and ice of Siberia and sandstorms / antelopes of Sahara. But I assure you will feel the heat and the cold. A'right I'm exaggerating but you get it..It is funny to see people wearing sweaters and jackets on a bright n sunny day to work. And sweating profusely after a couple of hours ....that gets me worried if we might witness a show.... And its not just at one place..I have heard many of my friends complaining too about their offices. Why can't they get the a/c temperature just right?

Categories: temperature, workplace

The Bose Experience

Bose is synonymous with the quality of Sound. Once a dream, it turned into a reality two years back when we bought the Lifestyle 12 model (part of the LifeStyle Series) at Framingham, headquarters of Bose Corporation. LifeStyle 12, a now discontinued model comprises of 5 cube speakers, a music center and a hide-away Acoustimass module.

After two years, we finally set up the Lifestyle 12 system this Saturday. We have set it up once before for a couple of hours. Honestly, the sound generated is too much to bear in a modest 10*15 size living room of an apartment. You would only do it if you wanted to get in trouble with your neighbours! The present living room is just about the ideal size for it. We got a pair of Sony speaker stands to place the surround cube speakers on it.

Why Sony stands? A funny incident happened couple of months back. V visited the Bose Outlet at Bangalore to purchase the original stands for the cube speakers. He asked for the price and the beautiful lady at the counter said "Rs.10,000 Sir". confident that he was mistaken, he repeated "I don't want the speakers. Just the stands." And she replied with a sarcastic smile, "Yes, Sir. The stands cost Rs.10,000".

The stage was all set to turn the system on. 5:00 p.m. And the power went out for 2 hours. Damn! We waited and switched it on at 7:00 p.m. The experience cannot be described in words. It is amazing feeling to hear music on a Bose. You can almost hear every note, every pluck of the guitar, every faint sound. The first CD we played was the test CD. It takes you through a series of steps to ensure all the
speakers are connected properly and such. As part of the CD was "Rain King".

She's been lying
I've been sinking
And I am the Rain King

Hey, I only want the same as anyone
Henderson is waiting for the sun
Oh, it seems night endlessly begins and ends
After all the dreaming I come home again...

Satisfied, V got up. Switched off the lights, closed the doors. Played FreeBird - Lynrd Skynrd.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see.

We were mesmerised by the music. A Saturday well spent.

Bose has introduced a relatively inexpensive CineMate system in India. Priced at Rs.32,000 it should be a steal.

Categories: bose, lifestyle12, cinemate

Notes to Myself

Decisions, decisions? It was time to make a decision again. I had two choices on Saturday. One decision to be made. Company X. Company Y. To quote David Russell's words , "The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." Saying no to one and accepting the other. It was difficult and I was choosing one over the other, dilly dallying between them every other hour. Confused in the head. Cursing myself for putting myself in a spot so frequently. For when I was choosing one over the other, it was only the favorable aspects that were visible to me.

I do not regret or judge that the decision I made a month back was a wrong one. From all the variables available then, I did what I did then. I did not have a choice then. This experience has taught me not to rush into anything before weighing all the factors and the consequences.

To help us make a better and informed decision this time and not question myself a month later and most importantly to stand by what I decide, we took a piece of paper and listed down all the pros and cons of both the choices. We refrained from getting influenced by intuition or guesses. The most critical thing that helped me was to get my priorities straight. Getting a good perspective of our long term plans. I might not have all the answers to the "what ifs" but I want to be committed! I have acknowledged that in part "hodophobia" (however ridiculous it might sound) was driving me to choose company Y over X. I'm working on it by distracting myself / playing Su DoKu and it has helped me immensely.

It is hard when everyone raises an eyebrow over your decision. It is demotivating and I think "what was I thinking?". I don't want to do that anymore. So this post is a note to myself to go back to my pros and cons sheet when in doubt in future. There is the human tendency that provokes one to get consensus for all the decisions. Getting the tag of "Ms. Right" and not being called "Ms.Unethical Unprofessional". This is not possible always and I have to understand that. It is frustrating and hard today but I will live through it.

Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.

Digging Deeper into Squidoo

I gave the Squidoo concept ( it is still a concept to me as I haven't seen the application) some more thought. This is a sequel to yesterday's post - Squidoo. A lens or a mirage. And just to clear the air, I respect Seth Godin a lot. I want to support Squidoo but there are still some unanswered questions bothering me..

1. I still don't get one thing. why wouldn't people use Wikipedia for expert opinion on a subject. Wikipedia offers an unbiased view on a topic.

2. LensRank - This concept completely loses me. Isn't this analogical to PageRank? So how would it ensure that the "best lens" on a topic isn't necessarily by a person who has the most connections? And this person might not even be close to an expert.
The networked people ...
And if it is not expert opinion, then why Squidoo, why not Google?

3. What I would also like to know is if there is a master list of categories such as Advertising, Books, Photography under which you can create a lens. You can damn well guess what would happen if there isn't one?

Categories: squidoo, lens, seth, godin

Squidoo. A lens or a mirage?

Seth Godin launched his new online company called Squidoo recently. With little or no knowledge about the product, I waited anxiously for its announcement as my friend Harper worked as a summer intern on this "secret" (sssssssshhhhhh...) project. But I'm disappointed, atleast for now. Lets see why...

What is Squidoo?
Before digging deeper into Squidoo, it is important to understand what a lens is. A lens is a single webpage that highlights one person/group's opinionated view on a subject or topic or ideas. A webpage that points to other websites / blogs /wikis (sources of information) that the lensmaster(person creating the lens) thinks is important to him/her. For instance, a lens on Formula 1 will (or should) tell you the races for next season, driver's contracts, stores selling Formula 1 merchandise and such. Or to see Tom Peter's Lens on all-time great books.

Squidoo helps you build lenses. Squidoo becomes a window through which other's can see your views!

What are people saying about Squidoo?
Interestingly, for a couple of days after Squidoo's announcement (it is not yet released), articles on Squidoo did not offer any user's personal views or insights. Part of the reason is beta testing invitations weren't sent out until this Monday.
The early birds were simply re-quoting Seth by extracting sentences from the e-book - Everyone is an expert. Few examples are Squidoo, Seth Godin on Squidoo and Squidoo Beta. Quite a few interesting comments and heated exchanges here.

As you can see, there are mixed reactions.

Why Squidoo?
Every product has to have a purpose. A mission. A goal. Seth does a good job of defining what Squidoo's purpose is in Squidoo organizes lenses. We host them for free. We make them easy to build. In short, what MT/typepad or blogger is for blogs, Squidoo is for lenses.

Squidoo, in principle, is a co-op that will earn $ for you and the links that appear there. The trick here is only lens that are ranked high by the proprietary algorithm will attract traffic in the first place.
So are we not falling in the same SEO trap as with Google?

Would I Squiddo?
It is definitely not synonymous to asking "Would I google?". Atleast not yet. I haven't recd. a beta invitation. So it remains to be seen
if it can really go beyond the marketing air surrounding it. So I don't know if I would Squidoo. Only time and its acceptance and usage will tell.

To quote Seth, "If you can't describe your position in eight words or less, you don't have a position." I am eager to know "why one should Squidoo" would be described in eight words.

Categories: squidoo, lens, seth, godin

Su Doku

Early 2005, newspapers in India started publishing a puzzle called Su Doku in the supplement sheets. Its popularity rose quickly and you can find morning commuters attentively pouring over one. su Doku, a Japanese Game, is a logical number placement puzzle. It consists of a 9*9 grid (9 rows and 9 columns). The grid is further grouped into 3*3 sub grids. The idea is to fill in the empty square boxes with numbers so that every row and every column has the numerals from 1 through 9. No number should be repeated in any single row or column or in a sub grid.

The grids come with some numbers randomly placed. The complexity of the game depends on the numbers already present, number of eliminations required to fill an empty square and such. On an average it takes about 30 minutes to complete the grid. For instance, if 2 adjacent sub grids have the number 6, then the 3rd one should not have 6 in those horizontal rows. So they are eliminated.

what is nice about the game is that it requires no mathematics, just logic! I have been doing it for the past 2 months and I just love it. You can try too at TimesSudoKu or WebSudoKu

Categories: sudoku

Alonso does it for Renault at the Chinese Grand Prix

If last weekend's Japanese (Suzuka) Grand Prix presented a nail biting finish, then this weekends' Chinese (Shanghai) Grand Prix was no less. By crossing the chequered flag first, Alonso completed this season in style. The silver lining to Alonso's win was the constructor's title for Renault. After all, that was the big enchilada for Renault at Shanghai.

Montoya's exit mid-way through the race was a huge disappointment for McLaren who stood a good chance of clinching the constructors Trophy. They were our personal favorites too. Kimi is a classy driver. From starting 17th on the grid to finishing first on the race or overtaking on the last lap to clinch the title, is the sign of a real champion. I mean who does it?

Cruising at over 300 Kmph, Alonso's cool-headedness and determination to make it amidst 2 safety car periods is worth talking about. But I do believe that Fisichella had a lot to contribute to Alonso's victory. At the start of the race, he so selflessly tucked himself in between Alonso and the McLaren duo Raikonnen-Montoya. Now that's Strategy and team work!

Personally happy for Ralf Schumacher who took a somewhat improbable third place with a brilliant pit-stop strategy. Think of wreckage and the last 2 Grand Prix(s) come to mind. Karthikeyan's wreckage was the worst this season. And somehow Shanghai

I'm glad this season is over for 2 reasons. For one, we don't have to put up with Alonso's wins. Secondly, see M.Schumacher struggling with his not-in-shape Ferrari. One T-shirt in the crowd read "Schumacher, who?". If you are thinking that our loyalty towards Ferrari has shifted, then you have got me all wrong! All the unbroken records of the past 5 years held by Ferrari-Schumi have been broken this year. That's sad.

We will have to wait another 6 months for Ferrari-Bridgestone-Schumi to make a comeback. Won't we? They can do the magic all over again!

Categories: alonso, formula1, grandprix

Reading Corner : Articles For the Day

1. The CEO's Path to the Top: How Times Have Changed I liked this quote in the article - "Skills and capabilities open the doors, not degrees".



2. Presentations on The Talent 50 and Presentation Excellence Tom Rules as always! Call it good or bad but I have developed a habit of judging executives by the presentations they make. I went through a day long induction program yesterday. It was quite an ordeal to drag myself to work this morning! I love these presentation tips by Tom. I feel you can lose the audience in a minute if you pull a long face and mutter the words "Lets be passionate about work".



3. Games managers should play --
   Game theory can help managers make better strategic decisions when facing the uncertainty of competitive conduct. If you don't change your game to gain advantage, one of your competitors will.

Economic Divide. A train ride

Pune Railway Station. 18:00 hrs. Destination : A Pune suburb. Mode of Transportation : Local Train.

At the ticket counter, I request for a first-class ticket. The ticket collector looks at me for a few seconds, states the price and on second thoughts says (in English), "I think you should be with the ladies in the ladies compartment. Take a regular ticket." I follow his advice and duly march towards the a bench on the platform where a few ladies are sitting.

18:10 hrs. The silent platform suddenly is buzzing with activity. College students discussing the day's highs and lows, white collar workers whining about their bosses, blue collar workers resigning quietly after the day's work, low wage workers squatting on the ground and above all this noise hawkers shouting loudly selling chat (read: junk food), biscuits luring prospective customers.

18:15 hrs. The loud speaker announces that the local train is on time and is expected in a few minutes. People get up and move towards the edge of the platform. Boyfriends bid goodbye to girlfriends.

18:20 hrs. As the train pulls in, it sends a shiver down my spine. As a kid, I fell from a moving local train close to the platform and was lucky to come out alive. Since then, I have a train phobia and avoided traveling by one for many years. When a express train zips past at 80 Km ph or one pulls into the station, I shudder looking at the moving monster. Thankfully, this local train pulled into the station very slowly.

If you are seeing one such train for the first time, you could get a heart attack and die in shock. The train was overflowing with people, some were hanging out of the door with a iron handle standing in the way of their life and death. Before the train stopped, people disembarked (well, jumped) out so adeptly that they have done all their lives. It was a shock but then this is INDIA. Anything and everything can happen if you can't find your way through a country with over 1 Billion people.

Once the train stopped fully, everyone was pushing one another to get into the bogies. The trains stop for 30 seconds at every station. No fancy doors. If your feet slips, you could be on the tracks counting the last minutes of your life. I was behind not pushing anyone. Apparently, the people behind pushed me and with the natural force I got in. Once in, I found a few inches to keep my feet and myself in balance.

Despite warnings from acquaintances refraining me from taking the train during the peak hour which it was, I took the train. Thanks to my driver who called in sick. You might ask what was I thinking? Honestly, I don't know and wasn't sure quite what to expect. But I'm glad I did it because ---

The scene inside was a representation of the real India. Ladies of multicultural, multilingual background from the middle and the lower segments of the society chatting away with no strings attached. Discussing their festival plans, discussing work, college students talking about guys.

It was a slap in the face. The India IT has made us forget. Bangalore and Hyderabad is not India. That is the India the world knows about. As we gloat in our status having lived for the past few years in the comforts of plush offices/residences and commuting in a chauffeur driven car and shopping in malls and vacationing in foreign destinations and huge disposable incomes, the IT generation is leaving their past behind. But the past hasn't vanished. It is still a reality for some.

This is the true face of India. According to a recent McKinsey report, an estimated 695,000 people are employed by the Indian IT and business-process -outsourcing industry. Sure, it is a large number. Interestingly, it is a meager 0.0695% of India's population. These 695,00 odd people are the envy of the rest of the Indians. Our older generation toiled hard but couldn't make it big. There is a huge economic divide and you can sense it in the railway stations. Be adventurous and go on one yourself!

Categories: local trains, Pune, India

Cubicles/Corner Offices - a distant dream. My new job at a "cyber cafe"

My new job is very exciting. Tabbed browsing for 8 hours is harder than real work. Or is it? The temporary "Office Space" has no cubicles and thank god no corner offices either. I was fishing for an appropriate term for this open space when a coworker commented it resembles a cyber cafe. Cyber cafes in India are Internet Browsing centers where people with no internet access pay money and browse for a fixed time. Typically, it is a 10*10 space cramped with 10-15 desktops. Privacy, huh?

I'm not complaining. I'm having a great time doing what I enjoy the most. Reading and loads of it and all kinds.

When to leave that first tech job has evinced keen interest on Slashdot. It is an overwhelming account of a fresh grad joining a startup firm getting fired within a year offering advice on when to quit. Too inexperienced to offer one citing all the wrong reasons! The comments are more interesting than the article itself.

It happens only in India ....

A good ole' friend wisely remarked "Any transition is difficult." when I switched jobs in April. This transition to Pune has been significant in more ways than one. And a lot harder. New place, no friends and no job for a month was not hard to cope with. But the traffic and the daily commute is SCARY. I'm not kidding. The 40 KM ride to and fro is a drive thr hell. An unfortunate traffic incident involving us about a fornight back has made me very paranoid. Every time our driver overtakes someone, I'm sitting on the edge of my seat squeezing it tight and applying brakes in the air as though it would have an effect. Lane discipline and traffic rules are unheard of here. Last evening was quite funny or was it?) We were stranded for a couple of mins..thanks to the 20 buffaloes parading through the center of the road. 2 of them happily brushed the car too. Welcome to India!

I'm Hired

...finally the 1 month saga of job hunt is over. 9 to 6 routine starts Monday. Got so accustomed to leading a lazy life the past 2 months, that the thought of going back to work is unsettling now. No more brunches or afternoon soaps on TV and a quick evening nap or crouched in the sofa all day with a novel :(

By the way I take back all those statements about Pune being great. The city's weather sucks! I step out of the house for 30 mins without an umberella and it goes puouring and here I'm stranded.

View from the glass cube ........

For the first time in 2 weeks, I ventured in to the Pune city last afternoon. Thanks to a personal interview scheduled for late afternoon. This has been my first break and a lil closer to being hired. More than the interview itself, the experience of getting to the venue was memorable. Hopping 3 autos as the rickshaw drivers took advantage of the situation and distance and quoted a totally unreasonable price which I agreed to pay, I reached the venue in 1 piece on time. Pune very much qualifies to be called the "City of Potholes". To my surprise the only people I found at the venue were a bunch of carpenters and masons carrying bricks and cement. Confused if I had applied for a tech job or a Civil one, I found my way through a maze of staircases and hallways. It took one final phone call to reach the destination.

As expected I waited a good 40 mins before the interviewer made an appearance. Anticipating this would happen, I went prepared with my copy of "Animal Farm" and was entertaining myself with the chapters where Mollie disappears, the revolution (Battle of the cowshed) and Jones getting ousted. What a timing ..just about then the "panel" made an appearance. For some reason, through out the day, the word "panel" sent shivers through me. The thought of 2-3 panel shooting questions is intimidating. But I survived.

I was in a naughty mood giving no thought to the outcome of the interview. Midway, my eyes feel on a board outside the glass door that had bulleted points on various steps to be followed for delivery during a Software Project Lifecycle. Glimpses of the movie "The Usual Suspects" came before me with BW weaving the story. I was so tempted to do the same...Overall I had fun the 2 hours I waited in the glass cube observing the world outside!

School days are back?

It feels like I'm back at college again. Never in the past 6 years have I been surrounded with so many technical articles or holed up in a room with a laptop pouring over technical specifications day in day out! Every interview in this goddamn city feels like a viva of college. I couldn't believe it that all the interviews so far have been stereotypical focusing on textbook definitions right from HTTP .......Pune is no match to Bangalore in terms of tech jobs. So watch out if you are thinking of moving to Pune without a job. I'm actually toying with the idea with encouragement from V about doing freelancing fulltime and giving up this corporate job juggling all the time!

Our house too resembles a college dorm with books strewn around everywhere as V is preparing for GMAT. Hopefully all of this would be over soon...

Otherwise, Pune is nice. It rains incessantly ...I haven't seen sunshine for more than 10 days now.

Live from Pune

It has been one hell of a week. A lot of travel, packing, moving and unpacking. I was shocked to see how much of stuff we have when the Packers and Movers started putting together everything. It took them over 10 hours to assemble everything into 84 boxes. Yes 84! If packing was exhausting, then unpacking completely drained me out of senses.

The 1 hour flight from Bangalore to Pune last Thursday was uneventful. The landing however totally shook me. The runway was very slippery after the incessant rains. My first glimpse of Pune was not a memorable one. We plunged into total darkness outside the airport in a shady black and yellow Ambassador car that would have been easily more than 30 years old. It turns out that call taxis or city cabs haven't yet reached this side of India. So it is the monopoly of these pre paid cars at the airports. Take it or walk your way into the city.

The city welcomed us with wetness and darkness. Apparently, there are no roads in Pune. Only traces of concrete for more than a 20 Km stretch from the airport. Narrow lanes, congestion as you would expect anywhere in India. All those who claim infrastructure is a mess in Bangalore must visit Pune. There is none to begin with and get messy. The saving grace here is that the population is not as high as Bangalore. This is the Bangalore of 1999.

Thankfully, the area where we live is pretty good. Very spacious, a lot of open space and greenery. No congestion at all any time of the day given the fact it is on the outskirts. Sometimes I get the feeling I'm living amongst a retired bunch of people! I have started loving this side of Pune. Applying for a telephone conn that would have taken me more than a week in Bangalore took just a day here. Trust is still intact as in any town. The IT bug hasn't bitten this city in its entirety here yet. The bungalow we have rented is quite big and I'm having a great time decorating it. Taking out all the stuff that have occupied a corner of our lofts in our Bangalore apartment. In general, people are very accommodative and the transition into this city has been wonderful.

Tomorrow is Ganesh Chaturthi (festion of Elephant god). Maharashtra is very famous for this festival and we are quite excited to be here this year.

No luck on the job front yet! A product company turned me down yesterday citing I was no good. Suckers! Must have been one hell of a company! Quite demotivating.

More glimpses of Pune with some pictures soon....

End of a vacation

My vacation will soon draw to a close. Had a wondeful time with no sense of how time passed by this past month, doing all the things that I have wanted to do for long - a lot of reading, painting and ofcourse sleeping. A break in between jobs is good provided you don't change jobs too often :)

No luck with the job hunt yet! Ofcourse I haven't been pursuing aggresively as yet. All set to move to Pune next week. More blogging from Pune!

Book Review : Five Point Someone

"Five Point Someone",a novel by Chetan Bhagat exchanged hands yet another time at work over 5 months back. I had heard a lot of "wows, this is great, I did that too" every time a member of my team read that book and religiously passed (or promoted? ) it over to the next. It is beyond my understanding why they didn't pick up a copy of their own from the bookstore on MG Road that have been flaunting a copy of this book on the front racks for months now.

Four months overdue, on one of our customary visits to Crossword Bookstoreon M.G. Road in Bangalore. I recommended this book to Vivek not knowing quite what he would expect. He read the back cover and picked it up. I started reading it that evening. Flipping through the pages, I read out a few lines aloud. Every time I did that he had this reminiscent look on his face with a glimmer of satisfaction that perhaps said "I've been through this." The turning point was the line on insti-rood, Floyd and Vodka. He snatched it from my hands and went onto complete reading the book in one sitting, as most under grads would do. Just so I made myself clear, one sitting in this case meant even while having dinner, trips to the looo and a 4 hr sleep that night eager to finish the rest next morning.

This 300 odd page book starring Ryan, Alok and Hari is a smashing success. It took me 2 more months to start the book all over again. And definitely not one sitting for me. Every time I asked what someone what was so great about the book or what it was about, came the monotonous reply, "It is about an IIT grad about his 4 years at Indian's Premier Technology Institute".

This is partially true. There is much more to thee book that the 4 years at IIT. It is a mockery on the Indian Education system. Be it a premier Institute of India or a third rate Engg. College built ina no-man's land, our system leaves no stone unturned in churning out and recognizing muggers year after year.

This book attacks the mythical equation :

top of the class === smart
under performers === dumb a*s

More importantly this book is about friendships. A friend of mine from College had recently said, "I made a few friends at College and I intend to keep them for life whether you like it or not". Friends made in college are for life!

This book is about survival of the smartest. It is about the transformation of obedient boys coming out of home for the first time getting acquainted with don't-give -a-damn guys like Ryan, getting easily influenced and making a comeback in the last year landing a job and turning into fine young men. Life teaches them a lot more than muggers like Venkat go through!

Written in simple English, Bhagat is a master story-teller. Of course I don't buy the fact that Hari had the guts to sleep with the prof's daughter in broad daylight. Fiction it is. He went a lil overboard but I guess its ok just as we can live with the item numbers in mainstream Cinema for commercial success.

Believe it or not, if you were a top performer, there are times when you are going to hate this book. There are times, when you would think, "OMG, I was so much like Venkat. Shut myself in a room for hours together mugging the 8 hr notes ready to vomit in the tests."It would make you think "There existed a LIFE outside while I was in the company of books." (Just for the record, No , I don't regret what I did back then).

Ryan's character is difficult to identify with but one that everybody fantasises to be. Memories of the adrenaline rush the night before the sem exams, a flurry of activity around the hostel rooms in search of the right photocopies, quarrels over lab practicals and cooking of obsy readings came back...

Surprisingly, normal IIT girls didn't figure in this book. Probably because they were Mech guys or do such guys find better company in insti roof, vodka and Floyd than ..

Overall, the book was entertaining. Guys can draw an instant connection. If you want to the revisit the 4 years of your under grad again, then this is a must-read.
It is actually fun to borrow this book and read. You can then buy a copy of your own. Priced at Rs.99, it is a steal. This book is very difficult for Western readers to relate to but if you want to understand how Indian Education System works, then do read this. On a closing note, don't ask me again how the book is. If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand.

Categories: Categories: booksbooks, five point someone, chetan, bhagat

Art : Tanjore Painting

Thanjavur Painting (or Tanjore Painting as it is widely known today) is a medieval form of art that orginated in Tanjore, a town on the banks of Cauvery, in the 1500's. Most paintings depict Hindu gods and goddesses. A very expensive art, as the colors used in original paintings were natural colors made from vegetables, barks of trees and fruits. Some of the original paintings are preserved to this day in museums. The cost of the paintings are also high because the jewels worn by gods and godesses in the paintings were real precious stones such as Ruby (for red), Diamond (for white), Sapphire (for green) and gold foil used for the throne outline.

I have long wanted to learn this form of painting. Now on a vacation for a month, the longest in 2 years, it seemed like the best time to do. The drawing that I'm doing is shown below in various stages. On completion I will add the real painting as well. The painting that I have started on is a 20*16" one of Lord Krishna (as a child) sitting on a swing. The sketch is drawn on a board (first pic). The board preparation itself takes 2 days. Once you draw the sktech, you start pasting the stones (pic 2). These stones are not real precious stones. Then sticking the gold paper followed by painting colors and framing. I'm learning it from a person who has been doing it for around 10 years now. The craftsmanship that goes into creating these paintings is tremendous. I'm pretty excited about it as I'm doing identical ones simultaneously. One for myself and another one as a gift to mom!

Technical (Java) Interview Experiences and Tips - 2

Numerous calls and e-mails from a consultant persuaded me to take a break in my vacation and come to Bangalore for 2 days to attend an interview. The promise that all the rounds would be completed the same day with an offer given made it all the more lucrative. I should have known better that it was too good to be true. The interview process was scheduled for 2 hours from 11:00 a.m. -1:00 p.m. I had arrived just that morning after a night journey and looked a disaster with no sleep from the previous night.

Nevertheless, we drove to the avenue and I presented myself on time with the laundry list of documents that they had asked for. Thank God, they didn't ask for my parents' birth certificates!
Waited at the reception area to be called inside along with some 50 odd candidates. 11:30. 11:45. Still chatting with Vivek. A guy clad in black presented himself, addressed us and took us up. I still hoped to be out by 1:00 for lunch. After filling a form, the waiting continued upstairs with 25 odd people. No sign of any action. A bunch of referral candidates were whisked away to another building. I had a few referrals but people had warned me against it here as this org didn't work that way.

More waiting. I kept myself entertained with SMSs to Vivek, gazing at the 10 odd clocks depicting times of various places across time zones. It was quite an entertainment as all were showing incorrect times from New York to London to Tokyo to Sydney.

Just I was beginning to get impatient, the black clothed guy that I would call P presented himself again and gave a very attractive offer of who wants to go and have lunch? No one was in the mood. We just wanted to finish it and be done for the day. Discouraged by a lack of response, he muttered, "you should cooperate. You should understand blah blah". So many "shoulds" drove me mad. No apologetic tone. No courtesy. Zilch. That was it. I told him they needed to organize better. It didn't matter whether I got the job or not then. He asked us to reassemble at 2:00 p.m.

Skipped lunch for a lack of place to goto nearby and came back at 1:50 p.m. More waiting. I finally went in at 2:40 p.m. totally exhausted from the 3.5 hour wait. The interview was ok and the interviewer was cooperative. I blacked out and my eyelids were closing but I survived. Lasted 30 mins and I moved to the next round. Little did I know that the next goddamn round would be at 5:35 p.m.

With no lunch no snack and meaningless waiting for 6 hours, I finally emerged at 6:10 p.m. My gut says I wouldn't get the job because I was very aggressive. But I really don't care. If you are curious to know, what was the place I interviewed at, it was IBM.

Today's Tips :

1. Get a good night's sleep before an interview day


2. Plan your travel ahead. If it is a last minute one, negotiate for a better travel deal with the company you are interviewing for. Else postpone the interview to a convenient date. That shows you are not desperate and works well in a services market.


3. Do not take bullshit. If you respect yourself, only then can you expect others to give you one. Don't be inhuman and wait for unreasonably long hours. Plan an alternate solution and suggest you would visit again for the next round. That gives you time to get things in perspective.


4. Check your e-mail and ensure that you have all the documents that they asked for before you leave for the venue


5. To avoid delays at arriving at the venue, make sure you find out where the place is a day in advance


6. If you are waiting for longer hours at the venue, keep yourself refreshed by splashing water and drinking lots of water.


7. If you have information that there are going to be numerous other people taking the interview, carry a book or iPOD to keep you entertained. And ofcourse some snacks to munch.

Was it my "Imagination at Work"?

July 29th was my last day at work. Exactly 75 days at this wonderful place. It is always difficult to leave your first job. But this was my second, so I didn't have the emotional bondage. It was too short a period to have one either.

I admit the transition was difficult and the early days don't bring back very happy memories. But that would have been true at any organization I would have joined. Technology was not their forte and they admitted it.
Too infatuated by technology, it took a while to come to senses and to learn how to balance both. To realize the fact that if one had the potential and the drive to change things for better, it was only a matter of time to be empowered to see those changes. I was beginning to feel that when I had to leave.

When you haven't seen what can go wrong in how an organization functions, you start whining about trivial shortcomings and don't appreciate how good the place is. So I want to take a moment and jot down all the good things that I observed in my short stint here:

1. Recruitment - Just as you can judge a person by the company he keeps, you can judge a company (read: organization) by its HR. If there was single biggest factor that persuaded me internally to join this place, it was the recruitment process. Amazing HR team. 3 round of interviews within 2 days and on the dot. Never did I have to wait for more than 2 mins. When I arrived for the interview once, I was escorted to and fro from the gate. Sure, for security reasons or courtesy. You are free to perceive as you want to, but I was impressed.

2. Between Recruitment and Day 1- Calls from immediate manager and HR to ensure that everything was going per plan and there were 2-3 hiccups my way and all were resolved with NO fuss.

3. Day 1 - I was floored. Same level of hospitality as I had witnessed before. The winning score however was a feedback form that I had to fill in at the end of the day. It had questions like --

Who did you have your lunch with? - Team, Friends, Alone
Did the joining procedure take long ?

Very comforting questions. The thought that someone had actually thought of putting such questions and not mediocre ones copied from somewhere was appreciable. Day 1 can be nightmare with hundreds of forms to be filled up, an intimidating feeling of a new place, judging eyes, the nervousness to be at your best to give a very good first impression and so on...But at end of Day 1, I felt GOOD. None less.
I did not have to grope for answers or lie for any of the above.

Can you believe I had a machine and place to sit within 3 hours? It is a big deal in India.

4. First week - I had to go on a 2 day emergency leave to attend to my hospitalized mom. That was no problem either.


A few things that I loved about the place:

1. Professionalism - No where ever have I seen such an universal display of professionalism. Respect for other's time was so high that no meetings were ever conducted without a request placed atleast 2 weeks in advance. Having said that, it did not mean that you could not have ad hoc meetings if the situation demanded.

2. Transparency - They proved all the rules wrong. I have learnt the hard way to read between the lines in an offer letter or in a financial dealing. Whereas in this case, my suspicious mind tried in vain to find a catch point. There were none. It was all there in BLACK and WHITE.

3. Integrity - Amazing. The rules were the same for everyone. "All animals are equal. Some animals are more equals than the others" principle did not apply. Integrity across departments from HR until Finance and your managers. All read the same rule books, it flowed in their blood, there was no question of mending them.

4. Passion - People drive a company, cattle don't. And passionate people drive a company better. In India where you can easily replace anybody's job, it was good to see a place where people are given due respect at all levels and vice versa. The passion is clearly evident in the tone and every action. It is not just a job. You do it because you love it.

You may say I'm dreaming. But this is for REAL. It is a no-brainer to guess the name of the place I worked at.
I don't know how to put this. But if I ever come back to Bangalore, I wouldn't think for a moment to consider joining this place again. (and this is a BIG DEAL for someone who believes not going back to a place you have quit from).

Respect the TV

...so said Vivek. Confused over what I heard, I asked "what did you say?". With his head fixed in the direction of the TV, he repeated in an emphatic tone, "Respect the TV", indicating that none of us should chat in front of the TV. Wondering what he was watching ? -- multitasking Tour De France and F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Haaaaa..so much respect for the idiot box. Do you guys do that?


Do Bloggers suffer burnout?
I think I did. Not so much because of writing but because of reading so many blogs in a day. I started wondering if Blogging was an obsession and if I could stay without it for a few days. I did just fine the last 5 days with no blogging and no checking the stats and without the frenzy of reading tons of sites like a maniac. End of the day my head would spin in a dizzy having read non-stop throughout the day assimilating all the information, making a note of interesting stuff, posting to del.icio.us and I would just come crashing. I was burnt out from the information overload and decided to retreat into a quiet world. It helped and now I'm back with a more organized approach to read and write!

Cold

I'm sick with running nose, cold, sneezing and a handful of tissues! I was just going through my blog archives from 2003 and found this quote.

William Gladstone said "If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated; it will cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are exhausted, it will calm you".

So true. I had a cup of tea and I feel so much better now. I'm contemplating on taking a month long vacation from blogging. Just contemplating ...

Will U.S come to terms with reality?

It required a 9/11 for U.S to acknowledge that its long term ally was not so "nice" as it projects all the time. When India harped for decades that it was terrorism on our borders along Kashmir and Punjab, they turned a blind eye and continued to support - you know who. Only when your fingers get burnt do you acknowledge at times. After 7/7 there was a good article in The Times of India that said :

India a lab for terror strikes

By Chidanand Rajghatta/TNN

Washington: Has the failure of western intelligence agencies to recognise India as a victim of terrorism and their lack of interest in terrorist modus operandi in India over the past 15 years brought them grief in recent years? It would appear so, going by the action replay of terrorist acts in India that one is now witnessing in various parts of the world.The serial blasts that shook London on Thursday show again that India has been used as a laboratory by terrorists.

The world may forget but Indians wouldn't - the serial bomb blasts of Mumbai in 1993! It was ok then because it was India where hundreds die every month. If you are smart, you know the point I'm driving home. Good articles on the same topic ---

1. Why Do They Hate Us? Not Because of Iraq


2. If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution - By Thomas L. Friedman

How I remember birthdays?

Of late, people are amazed at how I remember dates. I don't use an organizer or any fancy gadget or any website that sends me reminders every morning. Some people find it difficult to remember dates while they can recollect a whole lot of other things very easily such as faces and names. I have a fasciation for dates but I'm very bad at remembering names.
Here's my memory mapping secrets for dates (umm not really):

1. Rule 1: Association
   As a kid, we remember a lot of things and this number wanes gradually as we grow old. The key to remembering newer dates is to map them to what you already know like your friend's and family birthdays. Naturally, the dates I can remember easily are those that fall in the months of January, February, April, May, July and September (family birthdays). It takes an effort to remember the rest.
   
   The first step is to group the dates and remember them in patterns. For instance, Jan 21, April 21, May 6, June 21, July 13 and September 25 come naturally to me. So when I came across dates such as Jan 22, April 24, May 8 or September 23 it was easy to associate.
   
   People who share birthdays or anniversaries are the easiest.If they occur on a National holiday such as August 15th or Jan 26th all the more easier!
   



2. Rule 2: Recency or the last year rule
   Every morning when I wake up, I make it a point to see what date is. It is a mental action item to do it around 7:30 a.m. or just before I go to bed the previous night. I then do a quick mental run to see if the date seems familiar. If I have done something substantial such as wishing someone on their birthday or anniversary last year, I generally remember that by way of what responses to e-mails or calls that I received. Don't ask me how. I just have a vague remeberance. The more frequently I do that, which is successively over the next few years, it becomes a habit. Usually, if I don't remember it in the morning, the likelihood that I would through the rest of the day is very bleak!
   



3. Rule 3: Grouping Dates
   This rule works best to enrol newer dates into your memory. Birthdays of people from a similar profession or friends who are associated in some way to each other are easier to remember. One such group is March 20th to 22nd, July 9th to July 15th, Sept 21 to Sept 25th.
   



4. Rule 4: Day of the week
   This is an offbeat rule which hascome in handy at times. There are events and the day of the week and the month that it occurred the previous year that I remember distinctly. Such dates even if I make an effort I generally fail at it. So if it happened on a Sunday last year, it would be on a Monday this year. This cannot and will not work for long!
   

Despite all this, there are dates that sound quite familiar like july 19th and I can't figure out what it represents. It is probably also worth mentioning that it is selective filtering. Not anything and everything goes in. Either the date or the person associated has to be special in some way (obviously done subconsciously) to get registered.

Technical (Java) Interview Experiences and tips - I

I'm much more composed now than I was 6 hours back. The last post which I decided not to take down speaks volumes about my state of mind then. I wrote that minutes after that grilling 55 min interview.

Just a little background on what's going on. I'm looking out for a job because we are relocating to a new city and I began interviewing with prospective employers today. I went through a similar experience just 3 months back. For whatever reason, this experience is frustrating and teaching me so many lessons. So I decided to hell with anonymity and decided to blog about it here. Some Do's and Dont's. The process of getting a Project Lead job in India involves the following steps :

Precursor

1. Making a resume and I confess I'm not very creative at it.
2. Posting a resume in a job portal or through referrals.
3. Answering to hundreds of e-mails from thousands of consultants within hours of posting the profile.
4. Hundreds of calls come for administrators and network guys if you are looking for a project lead position. Everything is software and IT for consultants. Its their job and they don't give a damn.

Finally when something materializes, REAL interview calls start coming in. The criteria for every company varies. You can judge the kind of organization you are getting into by the way interviews are organized and conducted. Just like they say you can judge a man by the company he keeps, you can judge a company by the HR personnel the company employs.

Every company typically has about 4-5 round of interviews of which atleast 2-3 are technical nature varying in complexity.

What went wrong today?

Interviewee - that's me :

1. preparedness : If you are not prepared, do NOT agree to take an interview. If you do, then only 2 things can happen. Either you try to prove that you are smarter than the interviewer or you end up saying "I don't know" for the answers you know too because you are not confident.

2. Location : The place where I took the interview was just not right. It was in the open with 37 deg C Sun rays right over my head that made my temperature and temper rise.

Otherwise I think I did a good job.

Interviewer:

1. If you ever happen to interview someone, please review the role you are interviewing the person for. Asking the person what each member in "system.out.prinln" does not make any sense. How many times do you really care before writing system.out.println as to what it does?

2. No Googling: Please please do not Google for Java Interview Questions and ask questions from there. People are smart enough to do the same before taking an interview.

3. Ask questions relevant to what is needed to get the job done and what you encounter daily in the project. Ask design and architecture related questions for a project lead and not what is the difference between classes111.zip and classes12.zip.
Test for spontaneity and practical application, not theoretical knowledge.

4. Focus not on you: Your motto is to judge how good the person you are interviewing is. Your motto is NOT to prove that you are better than the person you are interviewing. I'm sure you get more chances and avenues to do that on a different forum.

5. Do NOT test syntax : In this age of Rapid Application Development, asking someone for the syntax of something is the most stupid thing one can do. IDEs do that for you. Use your gray cells to remember design patterns and better stuff.

6. Test the aptitude : Aptitude to be able to judge the right solution and the attitude to get the solutions by any means is what you need to test. Understand that one would not have answers to all the problems and one need not know anything.

7. Area of Expertise : Interview and explore their knowledge on an area of expertise extensively. A little knowledge of everything is not what you need. My interview this afternoons spanned from normalization techniques of databases to textbook definition of joins to Rational Unified Processes to Project Manegemnt tools to Reflection API of Java. What are you trying to judge by interviewing on all such varied topics? Have a focus area and attack that!

8. Problem Solving Approaches : The way a person thinks comes out best when you ask him/ger to solve a problem. I like ThoughtWorks way of interviewing. First they give youa problem to solve and then in the later round, ask you to critique it and improve the solution.

frustrated

Damn damn damn. 55 mins of goddamn technical interview. I'm exhausted. My desire to do some stuff on my own is growing by the day! I mean, seriously, wtf, such an ordeal within 3 months is definitely not welcome.

This blog post would be gone soon. I'm just taking out my frustration. It was goddamn HOT outside and my head is fried
literally!

What makes a presentation great?

Today afternoon, I along with a 100 other people sat through a 2 hour long business update presentation. The presentation commenced at 2:30 p.m. and it was intended for all the employees. I got very fidgety after 15 minutes. Contrary to my expectations, the lead presenter, someone with very commendable credentials wasn't a great speaker. I had cultivated this wrong notion that people up the ladder are great speakers! They might be great strategists, great visonaries, great businessmen but not necessarily great speakers.

Here are some do's and dont's of obvious flaws that I observed and compiled during the 2 hour presentation of about 6 speakers:

1. Content:
   It is not mandatory for every presentation to use PowerPoint. Content of any presentation goes beyond PP. The amount of preparation and the research one does eventually shows in the confidence of the speaker. Content is the king.
   
   
   
   • Golden Rule: One point per slide. Do not clutter your slides with text. This distracts the audience to read all that's up there.
   
   
   • Put only the gist in the slide. The rest is for the speakers to talk about.
   
   
   • Font size: Make it a 28-32 pt. Neither too small nor too big enough to read. This afternoon's presentation required magnifying lenses.
   
   
   • When there are too many related facts to compare, make a graphical representation.
   
   
   • Display the entire slide at once. Do NOT use any fancy fly-in fly-out text. It is exciting at first but distracts the audience and gets too annoying.
   
   
   • Organize your content in a logical flow. If you have too much of information to share and too little time, then focus only on the salient points.
   
   
   • Do some ground work and get the facts right. You don't want to get on the wrong foot by delivering incorrect information.
   
   
   
   


2. Delivery :
   Even if the presentation is rich in content, if not delivered right, all the hard work goes down the drain. by delivery I mean the demeanour of the person speaking.
   
   
   
   • Golden rule: Do NOT read the slides. MSPP is just a tool to guide you. The presentation is in your head.
   
   
   • Talk slowly. Indians have a very habit of talking fast. Blah blah blah no periods at all. One has to be very attentive so as to not lose track.
   
   
   • Having said that, it does not mean you can be very slow. Space your words right and get the pace. Pause briefly between sentences and make it consistent.
   
   
   • Variations in pitch is very important. Talking in the same tone throughout makes it drab.
   
   
   • Humour is a key component. You instantly win the attention of the audience if you start your speech on a funny note.
   
   
   • No "umm's mmmmm's aaaaa's".
   
   
   • Enthusiasm is contagious. If you can show the energy and enthusiasm radiating in your face, great!
   
   
   
   


3. Posture :
   Most people don't pay attention to it, but positioning yourself physically right is a vital factor too!
   
   
   
   • Stand erect. Move your hands. Pace up and down if you feel uncomfortable. Don't overdo it.
   
   
   • Glance across the hall at everyone. Just don't look at only one side of the room.
   
   
   • A very trivial one but positioning your microphone correct is important too. Else you would be fiddling with it throughout.
   
   
   • Arriving a little early at the venue to hook your laptop and be prepared is always desirable.
   
   
   
   

Weekend started yesterday ....

Finding my cubicle at work is like wading your way thr a maze. Unlike every morning, the maze wasn't buzzing with activity today. 30 odd coworkers from my team are out today and tomorrow on a fun team building trip to Kabini. Kabini is not very far from Kushal Nagar. They plan to go on a safari ride, sleep in the tents, do a bit of trekking and have fun. I couldn't go on this trip as we are heading to Madurai tonight. The workplace was deserted today and I was in no mood to work either..wish I could have taken the day off! 10 more days to go.

Check these links :

1. CEO Blogs List - Interesting that U.S still tops the number and is way ahead of the rest.
2. Consider the outsource

The work is getting done faster and better, Prestowitz argues, because Indians are not only hungrier than we are, but better educated. China, India, Japan and Europe all churn out more science and engineering degrees than we do. Worse -- and downright embarrassing -- is the state of American education. Globally, our 12th-graders rank only in the 10th percentile in math (that's 10th percentile, not 10th). Our students also rank first in their assessment of their own performance: we're not only poorly prepared, we have delusions of grandeur.

-- an interesting change in perspective on outsourcing from what was an year ago. If you recall the Cafferty File conversation or Lou Dobb's show Exporting America where the quality of outsourced work was criticised so much! Will America wake up in time to the China challenege and not lose its edge?

Getting that dream job

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