This weekend was pretty boring but Ice walking and visit to Barnes and Noble. I love the company of books. How I wish I had become a librarian or worked at a book store for a living.

Recommended Reading:

1. Harvard Business Review - February Edition. The article titled "Success that lasts" peaks of enduring success. Many of us don't feel contented even after achieving something. Why ? The article explains it happens if one of the four components - happiness, achievement, significance, legacy are missing.

2. What Smart people do when dumb things happen at work - talks about quick temper, fat egos and self centered actions.

Nostalgiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I was writing an e-mail to someone and I'm missing Bangalore, Bahrain...missing family and friends and home food....

A touching fwded e-mail I recd. this morning....It ended with...

FAMILY

Are you aware that if we died tomorrow,

The company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days.

But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.

And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than into our own family, an unwise investment indeed, don't you think? So what is behind the story?

Do you know what the word FAMILY means? FAMILY = F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU

Violent Culture

This Sunday V and I watched this program on Showtime called "Bowling For columbine" by Michael Moore. We both were instantly drawn to it. This documentary was speaking our thoughts and we couldn't believe it. Our perceptions, not exactly on the gun/violent culture but on various other aspects of the American society. Why is it that the kids are more spoilt here than the other developed nations..why so much violence, prejudice, nepotism etc etc. Humans are media made..we believe what we see. And its a fact that atleast 2 out of every 4 channels in the U.S show programs on reality shows, court programs called Judge Mathis, Judge Brown whatever. Cases of child molestations, abuse, parent abuse, drugs are all that is ever addressed. Maybe it is reality but showing it all the time does not teach a kid not to do them..it just influences all the more.
....to be continued

"I barely survived yesterday and it is already today." Every day is a survival. Perhaps I don't have a diversion now, that makes me take work so seriously. You give too much damn to work, and all you get back is bs. I'm attempting to learn English language better - I'm not good at it or perhaps I read between the lines too much. Some people have a way with their words - chk out this harmless sentence below..
"Can we redirect the .......... page?"

There are 2 ways to interpret this...Either respond in monosyllable answers with "yes" or "no" or just do it. If you respond with "yes" and don't get an answer, the question next day will be ..well it was asked to be done yesterday. And if you do it then the question is, I was just asking if that was possible..I didn't ask you to do it. Whatever... did you know
10 managers/1 developer is the new ratio. This sentence I read in the Tribune the other day might sound funny but is true - 3 people out of every 4 in a cubicle are expected to think out of the box :)

So resolutions from today for me -

1. Don't take an initiative.
2. Take it easy when there is a fire...Don't offer to put it out. Firefighting is not a part of the job description.
3. There is a night for everyone in every part of the world - respect it.
4. Job ends at 5:00 unless there is an emergency.
5. It wasn't a coindence that there are 2 ears and one mouth. So I have to listen more than I talk.

This is really cool if I can practice it even for a day.

Bday

It was a nice start today. It feels good to grow old, doesn't it? P called up at 1:30 a.m. to wish me. I bet he didn't know what the time was here. This morning after V left, the team called up followed by my parents. What more could one ask for. However yes, except Sarah no one at work remembered. She wrote something else too on the card..indeed very nice of her. Doesn't matter..all the people that matter to me the most made by day. I'm a happy person. I'm going to get a cake and celebrate all by myself :)

Yesterday's lunch with T @ big bowl was very nice. Though I don't know how T or V felt. T made my day on Friday by his nice gesture and words. I was acting like a lil kid showing off to her parents. I called up my parents, told V and called up V's parents and didn't stop telling that T appreciated. I can't believe it meant so much to me. My mind was very agitated until then because of the stress of the past few weeks. Any no. of hours of sleep did no good. But after that lil conversation with him, it made me feel so so so good. Thanks T.

It is 11:00 P.M. now and I'm at work. There have been similar nights with similar expectations, excitement - once in October and once in November, only to be met with disappointment the next morning. We got better every time but none of them were good enough to last forever. The journey continues - hope its the last one today. Back in October, the urge to make it work was high since it was my first project here and I didn't want to be a failure. So was the commitment. And frankly I was disappointed and couldn't accept failure with grace. I believe I'm more prepared now for whatever the outcome of tonight is (though silently hope that it is a success - don't want the stress on others to continue for it means much more to them).

I'm really thrilled now. We solved something that might have been the bottleneck. db rules :)
Performance tuning is so much fun. I wish I could do trouble shooting all the time but need a partner with very high common sense (which obviously I lack :) )

I had a great weekend. People who know me really well sense something is wrong if I'm quiet for more than 10 mins. And it was so unusual to be quiet the whole Saturday. I just didn't speak. But I knew V was observing and analyzing and calculating his next move. It reached a point when he could take no further and confronted what was going on inside my lil head. Obviously work of the past week was bothering me so much. Frustration gave way to anger which in turn made me use profane language that I generally don't. A strange feeling that I was probably estranging more people hit me hard. I wasn't coping and managing with the situation well at all. After a good talk with him, I started feeling good. Two things he said made a lot of sense. One - never fight a man's ego, you're never going to win the race. Two - have you ever wondered why America has never had a female president? Why are there fewer female CEOs? The fact is I wasn't fighting anyone's ego. Yes if pointing out facts as they are hurts someone, then it does make sense. And that was probably what was happening.

Sunday, we went ice skating. No actually ice walking. It was an improvement from last time. I didn't hold on to the rails this time. Hope to do it better this weekend.

Despite the tremendous stress at work, it has been fun to get to work every morning. I love working with people who talk sense and T is one of them. So its not surprising that my adrenalin rush to solve the problem together is very high. Once I get back home, there is a vacuum after the frenzy activity and db digging of the whole day. Wonder how it will be once the problem gets solved!

Lousy days

I'm really craving for an uneventful day now. Its been weeks now since I'm living under this stress. A typical day starts with e-mails that start with the line "Please no more mails on this... just kidding :)" and end with the line "please don't feel free to ask questions :)))" . And when you get atleast such 2 e-mails everyday from atleast 2 people you know it was not lightly intended and "just kidding" was just a diplomatic way of saying a harsh thing. I have been time and again advised not to take my job personally. Thanks to all such people and I gladly invite them to live my life for a week and then see how it feels to be there.
Would you feel glad -

- to ask sorry for a serious blunder committed by someone else and on a bad day atleast 4 out of the 9 people that work with you can commit such a mistake and then pretend as though it wasn't all that serious at all.
- to cover up for someone's negligence in doing his/her work or not keeping up to the committed date
- to try and put up a smile in a meeting when you feel otherwise

And after all this get blamed too.

Dammit - I'm not going to ruin my life and get a headache everyday because a bunch of 20 people on either sides decide to throw me around like a ball and use me like a punching bag. No more mails, let hell break loose for once. I'm tired of controlling things and keeping everything in order.