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

For everything else there is MasterCard

Couple of years back MasterCard ran a TV commerical which showed a child playing with a cardboard box. Parents think that they should bring toys for children. But children being children will not play with those toys , but prefer playing with the boxes in which those toys are packed.

Looking Back

Yesterday , I completed 5 years in the company where I work. As I look back at these 5 years , I have seen the company change and grow. Needless to say many people left , many joined.Personally , I learnt a lot of things through interaction with other people. Frankly speaking, in first 2 1/2 years I learnt a lot , because the organisation was small , there were no boundaries between different project groups. You could just walk across to person working on a different project and find out what he was doing. Our current setup prevents such a kind of interaction From business point of view , such a setup may be needed , but from learning perspective it forces you to keep your vision narrow.
In these 5 years the company has moved from inside the city to outskirts. We got bigger buildings , but smaller cubicles.Earlier , I have seen couple of my friends coming to office on weekends early in the morning (6:00 a.m) , work for couple of hours and go away. Now all those things are history.

On personal front also in these 5 years saw some tough times.Now looking back those problems though quite grave in those times feel trivial now.Afterall wounds get healed with time.I feel that such tough times only make us stronger and help us prepare for more difficult challenges in the future.

As they say one should not think too much of the past but look at the future because afterall past is no longer with us and future is yet to come.

Passwords !!!



With internet becoming a part of our life , one needs to have passwords to access different sites
What happens when you miss one password or confuse one with other. On top of that if the site is configured in such a way that if you attempt for 3 more times with wrong password it gets locked
One surely has to find a way out

Manish

What children teach you

1) Never give up
2) Patience
3) Cheerfulness
4) Observe


the list would go on , will add new things as I find out more

Manish

Philosophy of Doctors

I cant understand the philosophy of doctors. Why do some doctors insist on giving antibiotics while others abhor the very idea of prescribing those. May be , because they are also human beings .After all different people have different school of thoughts and each one feels that his way of thinking is correct.

How Close is Software Development to Real Life situations

Recently, while on vacation at my parent's place , I came across a situation which left me wondering how close software dev. is to real life situations.

It goes like this. The place where my parents stay is a newly developed area and we dont have a tar road in front of our house.Infact bang opposite our gate there was a small depression and in rainy season , water used to get accumlated there. My father decided to get that pothole filled up and he got hold of a labourer asked him to put some gravel for an amount of 500 bucks.
After some time we noticed that around 7-8 labourers are working and trying to patch up the area , infact they were trying to patch up the entire stretch in front of our house.
When questioned , one fellow( not the one we had asked to do the work) came forward and said that we should talk to him as the labourers worked for him. Inspite of our telling him , the workmen continued the work. When we threatened that we are not going to pay ,they stopped.
When it came to payment they started demanding 2000/- stating that they had got the gravel etc. Hearing the commotion , our neighbour also jumped in saying that the gravel has been picked from his plot and we should not pay the labourers anything for the material as they had not paid him. Finally everything was setlled for 1000/- bucks.

When I analyed the situation, I noticed striking similarities with s/w development.
We needed a solution for our problem( the pot hole). The labourer we contracted ( software developer). He not being sure of the scope got his colleagues to chip in.
The fellow who insisted that these people work for him ( The Manager) and they were charging us for their work as well as material which was in fact a freeware
(the gravel picked from neighbour's plot ) and we finally ended up paying more than what we had budgeted(customer) and those guys got less than what they had planned.

ATMs

Today withdrew some money from ATM . I needed the cash in 500/- notes but the machine spewed 100 bucks ones making my wallet quite thick which is the last thing which I wanted. Why cant the ATMs ask for denomination of currency we need.
On second thoughts, it would surely complicate things.

How about a cashless money transaction process even for small things like a rickshaw ride. May be I am becoming too utopic.Still a long way to go

Manish

Making a resolution to update the blog frequently

Road Rage and Politicians

What do local politicians think of themselves. Yesterday , I was approaching my house on bike. A section of the road is very narrow and there were number of cars coming from opposite side.Suddenly I saw one white Zen was trying to overtake a number of cars. The driver of the car seemed a politician ( while clothes , dark glasses - one can easily make out such people in Pune though it is not a political city like Delhi) . His intention was to push me off the road. I stopped my bike and made it standstill. The fellow had no other option but to wait for cars to pass and go in proper lane. When he came to my side ,he tried to get into an argument with me by saying "phut". As I dont care a damn about politicians didnt pay any heed to him. Frankly speaking , what great did he achieve

Manish

Updating after a long time.Good article by Rajeev Srinivasan on SARS and China

Is it tough time for IT?

Collapse of Infy stock and rush at ICICI ATMs a good article by Sucheta Dalal

Security by stupidity - amusing article

New generation schools - A report in today's ET.

There is an article in Outlook which talks of Pune being the next hep city. But having lived in Pune since last 12 years , I feel that the city is going to dogs. Pollution is on the rise. The last two paragraphs of the article summarize the best as to what is happening to Pune

Updating after a long time.
Saw a good article on rediff as to why Indians are being persecuted abroad