Working in Teams

While working in Teams what is one expected to do when one is made to feel that one is not required in the team inspite of putting in number of years building the team

Menace of cars ferrying BPO employees

This is my observation in Pune , I dont know how it is in other cities which have more BPO firms. As is the case , most of the BPO firm employees are ferried from their homes to offices in cars typically hired from some service operator. I have no grouse against this practicse.
My crib is against the car drivers. These guys drive the cars as if they are lord of the roads without paying any head to anyone.One should specially see the way they park their cars outside the offices and dont even let others drive on the road.Have even read in newspapers that these vehicles are becoming a nuisance in one of townships in Pune which has number of BPO firms

This weekend I saw number of instances of these guys breaking signals with impunity. I understand that most of these cars have a wireless system plus the drivers are provided with cell phones by the service operators.
Probably the attitude of the people these guys ferry rubs on them and they think no one can question them. I am really surprised how none of the companies which employ these cars say anything whereas these firms are at forefront of proclaiming CSR(Corporate Social Responsibilty)

Shwaas - a breath of fresh air

Saw the film "Shwaas" over weekend. Really a touching story specially the way it portrays the relationship between a grandfather and grandson, patient and doctor and what life is really about.

I would recommend a must watch for anyone even if they dont understand marathi

My best wishes to the makers of the movie as this movie has been nominated as Indian entry for Oscars.

Where is the life we have lost in living?

I got this as a forwarded e-mail. Thought of putting it here

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into
the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.


Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask, "How are you?"
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short
The music won't last.

Ever told your child
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not seen his sorrow
Ever lost touch,
Let the good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say hi.
You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.


When you run so fast to get somewhere,
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music.
Before the song is over.

A Cruel Waste of Forests - A tribute to Pune Times

Kunal S a fellow blogger from Pune along with Salil has started a new blog meant to lampoon Pune Times and its trashy content. http://punetimepass.blogspot.com

I will say , a good initiative on their part. This reminds me a couple of months ago some students came to my place , saying they were doing survey on behalf of the trash Pune Times. As soon as I started telling them about what a trash PT is , they wished me a good bye

Decesion making and Human mind

Sometimes we have to take some decesion and our mind dilly dallies. Many times in such a situation we take decesion and then try to convince ourselves how our decesion is correct.We think of all possible reasons justifying our decesion , but we dont realise that only time will tell whether our decesion was right or wrong and that time it would not be worth remuniating on the same

Work Culture in an Organization

Recently I read about a person returning to an organization inspite of having more lucrative offers because he missed the work culture. This brings forth a thought whether people work for money or they like to work where they cherish a nice friendly atomsphere.
I have changed jobs twice , first time it was for couple of reasons - money being one of them, peer pressure being another and some more. Second time was due to organization closing down , so it is difficult for me to comment

Though there have been theories that people dont leave organizations , they leave managers. I feel this is quite true because finally it is the manager only who can develop and nurture a culture in his group

Rural Malls


Yesterday night on CNBC I saw a story that ITC has opened a rural mall near Bhopal by the name Sagar Choupal.This is an extension of their e-chaupal initiative.
The concept goes something like this .Farmers will come to ITC godowns to sell their produce and with cash in hand would visit the mall nearby. The mall stores things of daily needs from Soaps/Oil/Grocery/Clothes etc and appeared like a mall in any major city.
From the sound bites of the village folks it appeared that they favored the place as things were available cheaper over there.
ITC probably seems to derivie this concept from the traditional haat system, but whether this will succeed only time will tell. Also needs to be seen what impact it may have on rural economy
Some links related to the same

http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/mar/06itc.htm
http://www.blonnet.com/2004/03/03/stories/2004030301360200.htm

Double Speak

I am really surprised how people can do a double speak within minutes and that too in front of the same person.
Today I came across a situation where a person, said something in a meeting where number of senior people were around and immediately after that with juniors around he said the contrary.
As I was present in both the meetings , the concerned person didnt have the gumption to think that he is contradicting himself

Blogging after a loooong time

The New Pepsi ad

I think the new Pepsi ad "Pyasa aya " featuring SRK is one of the stupidest ads made in the pepsi series.Some of the points which strike when one sees it
1) A Soldier's family serving him a Pepsi can as soon as he comes ( In reality, how many soldiers families might be storing Pepsi cans at home)
2) A Soldier on the battle field throws a Pepsi can thinking its a hand grenade
3) Another one(SRK) runs to catch the Can instead of fighting the enemy

The Ad really pokes fun at our soldiers and am surprised how come no one has raised a bogey for banning it

Fishy Business

Last night I received a call on my mobile. It was wrong number but the person at the other end was not ready to accept it was so. He insisted on informing me that he has reached Goa with a boatload of fish from Ratnagiri and was asking me where he should offload the stuff.
Since the person was adamant on not accepting that he had dialled a wrong I decided to pull his leg. I asked him is there anything else apart from fish in the boat ( a la old Hindi movies) He replied in the negative and probably understood that I was pulling his leg and disconnected promptly

Giving 100 %

Last week at work I was feeling quite irritated. Some of my colleagues did notice and even asked me why I was behaving so. While driving back and over weekend I thought about the reasons. It may have been because
a) I was feeling helpless in the project which I was working on. I being alone on that project , nothing seemed to work and on top of that I was being asked everyday when I would be able to complete the work
b) I was feeling guilty that I was not able to spend time with my family properly.

Later on Sunday I read this article and thought over. May be, I was not giving 100 % to what I was doing.Getting distracted because I had too many things to do in too little time. I thought I should concentrate on one thing at a time giving 100 % to it.

Practised it since morning and have been feeling better

TV Addiction

Though I do not watch any of the TV programs regularly, but just surf the television every evening Yesterday my cable connection snapped and I found that I have plenty of time at my disposal. That left me wondering how much time we waste in front of television


Manish

Work Life Balance - what a strange coincidence

Since the day I made the posting on work life balance, my work life balance has gone hay wire.

Expectations .............

I dont understand the atttitude of Americans. They give so much importance to weekends , leisure etc, but expect us to come and work on weekends. This week I have received number of mails enquiring whether I would come and work on weekend because they want to release a product. Its a different story that the release has been delayed but who is responsible for it.
On top of that yesterday in telecon they asked that since one of the fellow is coming late to office in US would anyone of us be around in the office when he comes in which would have been around 2130 IST.
In my three years of assoication with this client , I have noticed that many people working in client's office have been going on vacation during critical release times Then how do they expect us to work on weekends.

Walk with Elephant

This weekend I was driving down one of the roads in Pune and overtook an elephant which was being ridden by two sadhus. Since I wanted to show the elephant to my one year old son, I parked the car on the road and waited for Elephant to approach us. The animal passed us at a touching distance. Since my son enjoyed it , i decided to walk with the elephant for a short distance.

Though having seen elephants in circus, television etc, never have seen it so closely. One thing which I noticed that everyone on the road was just looking at that magnificent animal. Down the road , there was a traffic signal and when the elephnat reached there it was red, but the sadhus on the elephant never cared to stop and continued moving. A traffic constable who was observing this just laughed and touched the elephant.
Probably he might have thought how will I stop him or what should I fine him and that too during the 10 days of Ganpati festival

Work Life Balance

Recently, one of my friend,who is a office colleague suffered from headache , dizziness at work. This was happening to him second time in last couple of months.
Those who know the person cant imagine that this can happen to him because he is a fitness freak, excerises regularly. One more thing which he does regularly is stay late at work.

Since , this was happening to him second time he consulted a doctor who diagnosed him for Hyperglycemia - which is low sugar in blood.My friend recounted his discussion with the doctor .Here it goes

In India social changes have occured too fast and compared to that our bodies have not responded in the same manner. We in IT sector work at hectic pace for 5 days which includes sitting late at work ,no regular exercise, no hobbies, no entertainment and then suddenly on weekends we try to give importance to all these things thinking that by getting involved in these activities we will get refreshed.One thing which we dont realise is we are moving from one imbalance( 5 day work) to another imbalance( 2 day leisure). This unknowingly creates a havoc on our bodies. It will take years for bodies to get accustomed to this because they are not built for such kind of cycles.
If one looks at earlier times people never had these problems because this kind of imbalance never existed in their lives, they used to work , play everyday.

According to the doc , these symptoms are quite common to people in software industry.
No wonder one reads reports in the media that prevalence of high BP , heart attacks, diabetes is increasing in the age group of 25 -35

Its high time we realise these problems and take steps to correct these

Walking !!

When a child starts walking , he insists that you leave his hand because he wants to walk alone, but the parental instincts prevent you from leaving his hands and you have to walk with him at his pace.

Similarly , in our work related activities we may have to work(walk) with a new comer and it would be prudent on our part that we walk with him at his pace , not ours the way we do with children

Cell Phones - are they a nuisance in office

I dont know whether I should be writing this or not as I also own a cell. In most of the offices , one might be hearing a mobile phone ringing at some time or other. It not only detracts others , but it also reduces the productivity of employee.Why cant people keep it on vibrator mode, and to add fuel to the fire, people keep on chatting on the phone for hours without taking into consideration how inconvenient it is to fellow workers or how their prodcutivity is going down.Later the same people will crib that they dont find the work challenging, How can you when half of your working time you are talking on your cell.

I am not against having cell phones , but people should also impose a self discpline

Interviews

Since last two weeks I have been conducting interviews in my company. Some thoughts on the same

In an interview , how do you judge whether the candidate is really good. If you say, how he answers the questions, but is that all.
Even the questions asked depend on interviewers frame of mind and answers given surely would depend on the same.
I have also observed that some people write a lot in their resume and when questioned on the same feign ignorance.
Also can a person be judged on the basis of his handwriting. I would yes, the handwriting conveys a lot .

I love to conduct interviews because it helps you to study/read the other person. You can make a judgement by observing a person , but talking to him for some time helps you to improve your skills in observing people.
Interviewing is skill , the more you practise , the more you learn