Category Archives: work

Deadly Competition

Posted on by
1

What we do these days involves competition. No matter what. A a kid we race to the gate and back. As teens we race our bikes. As adults we race against time and colleagues. The time that we live in Competition is viewed as the source of creativity and self improvement. As a kid we are expected to be the top scorer in the class, not the smartest, as teens we are expected to be responsible but not creative and as the workforce we are expected to bring in profit and not innovation.

Why does competition has to be so bad? Slowly but steadily everyone starts to keeps expectations out of you and keeps reminding you about that. You fall victim to it losing your creativity. Its because we want to beat that record and get our names in there. We benchmark every thing everyday, we fall into The Curse of Great Expectation.

But what about creativity? If i have ever done anything that is creative or innovated an idea, its because i didn’t take part in a race. On the same grounds i hate taking exams too. Exams for me is again about breaking records and false derivatives. With time being most valued, exams seems to be the only way people want to find talents.

There is a trend with the organizations now. They are still competing and very much in the race. They do it in more ‘innovative’ ways. They ask you to just innovate and come up with some thing very brilliant. Even if you didn’t mean that to be part of any race or drive the race. Its used by the organization to outrun their competitor.

The human cost to win the organization’s race or the cost of health on onself is often disregarded. But what happens to those who stay out of the competition and decide to be .. uhh .. say free. They have immense potential to be creative and inventive. But why don’t they?.

The Society is stereotyped in believing that competing is the best way to progress. So much of the things that these so called ‘free birds’ innovate are considered inferior. They eventually gets into the race to survive or fall.

I knew of a person during my college days. He was this extra brilliant guy. There wasn’t much that he couldn’t answer about technology. Few professors realized his potential. But but the rest of the folks were unforgiving. Had the mentoring right he wouldn’t had to settle for a rather uhhh normal techie kind of job with an average company.

Its time we wake up to say no to the unwanted competitions around us.

Blogging Workshop @ Wipro

Posted on by
3

wip logo Blogging Workshop @ WiproThe day before the session, Christine calls me up and asks me, “So how do you intend to start the session?”. Then it hits me that, all this time i was preparing for each of the workshop, but didn’t even think of how to start of the whole discussion/workshop. Oops now i need to plan. gulp!

Ok, i felt i was going to crash and burn during the session – 1. I had no idea how i’m going to start off 2. The slides looked very very boring. The slides were a disaster, i was planning a workshop and they wanted slides if the whole thing was to be approved by the management. As a last minute step, turned to Calvin and Hobbes for help. Boy! they helped. Now my slides looked wacky and who ever saw it smiled. Let it be. So i spent the rest of yesterday’s evening taking screen shots of Twitter, Kwippy, Muziboo, Tempostand, Mutiny.in, All things Pakistan and individual blogs of 2s, Amit Agarwal, Adeeth’s and Mine. I would have loved to show all the blogs that i read, but the company firewall just blocked’em off. icon sad Blogging Workshop @ Wipro

On the D-Day, I was 30 min well before time and met up with Christine. The first of the participants turned up and didn’t even hope to have even 10 people. With all the work and things around, chances are that something like blogging could take a back seat for people. I was mistaken. There was close to 25 participants.

So here we go, as an intro got all the people who were there and had a blog to have their blog-ids written on the board. Only 8!!! Great!!! So more people wanted to get into blogging and as i learned they were confused at some point or the other with many things.logo footer typepad Blogging Workshop @ Wipro

As we started off, i made the fact clear that it will be a discussion/workshop as opposed to a session. Pushed for some user interaction and it just took off from there, jokes, experiences and facts. A fun filled session where the beginners are now serious on starting a blog. To the question, Should Al Qaida blog? YES was the reply, as they all believed no one should be stopped from blogging.logo Blogging Workshop @ Wipro

Interestingly, every one converged on the point that, blogs provide a fact / news in its raw format rather than the media, which they though to be fabricated. We moved on to show the newbies how simple it was to set up a blog. Interestingly most of the people who blogged used Blogspot and haven’t even heard of LiveJournal or TypePad.

logo Blogging Workshop @ WiproThe discussions drifted from some serious discussions on What to be done on profanity?, What formed the basis of Moderating a Comment?, The Do’s and Dont’s of Blogging..etc to some fun stuffs that i shared with them. Interestingly people didnt know what RSS feeds are. So got someone to explain the whole RSS funda to them.

What is MicroBlogging and why do we do it?, was a tough one to make them understand. Finally i feel that when i showed them Twitter and the indian counterpart Kwippy. They then got the whole idea of micro-blogging.

Finally i had to tell them about Google Analytics and showed my own Analytics graph as an example of the worst thing that you can do – being lazy. The downward graph showed it all.
I was quite overwhelmed by the participation i had and people said it was wonderful. Felt good.

The presentation that i made can be found here – Blogging Workshop (PPT)

Shattered Dreams

Posted on by
4

The monsoon breeze blew with a freshness that put everything in its path with renewed zest. It carried a very warm chillness. He felt it against his face and stood motionless. He had felt that before and rejoiced with child like innocence. But now it was different. He felt a cold lining on his cheeks. The path traced out by tears was more vivid now. A slight shiver.

Looking deep into the horizon he stood on the empty banks. His eyes fixed, some where far, searching for something lost, or, perhaps someone. He found no purpose in his existence. His ambitions, goals, dreams were now mere ashes. As i watched his head began to droop, he looked down, breathing gently. His breathing grew heavy, he looked up, left out a deep cry and dropped to his knees as i ran towards him.

I had never seen him like that. The friend i know was unfaltering and cheerful. He would grin ear-to-ear, make faces and just about do anything that would put a smile on your face.

Of lately i was seeing the change in him. That was a transition time for him. He became worse day by day. The guy looked like he could use some help. Many a time i asked him what bothered him. He would struggle and bring a smile on his face and say nothing. But you could read that in his eyes.

A week ago, when i was out with couple of my friends i spotted him along with a girl. The walked hand in hand. She leaning on his shoulders. There was an air of sadness around them. The next day at office i told of what i saw and felt the other day. I saw a tear run down his cheeks. He turned away and began typing furiously, pretending to be working.

I was loosing him. I pushed for an answer. He just replied,

“Even my folks don’t trust me. They where my greatest strength. I told them everything, hoping they would help me. But they are far from convinced. They want me to come back home and join a company there…”

With moist eyes he just walked out..

I contemplated that his relation with the girl was unapproved at home. There was nothing that i could do.

Things changed from bad to worse in the last two days. I saw him opening a letter and the disbelief an agony on his face upon reading that. He came to me and asked if i could just take him some where far from the hustles of the city. He mentioned, it was time for me to know.

Got into my car and we just drove away from the madness of the city. The first of the monsoon clouds where beginning to build up in the sky. I just pushed on. I was taking to the place where i always ran for a bit of peace.

The first of the drops were beginning to break away from the clouds and shatter against the windshield. They looked like suicide bombers. As i stopped. The rain was pouring down with all vigor. We sat in the car. With his head down and tears flowing down, he just sat there. We just sat there. Dont know for how long. The only sound was the heavy drops breaking on the roof. The rumbling was like a premonition for something bad to come. I wanted to belive otherwise, but i couldn’t cheat my heart.

The rain began to calm and that left an eerie silence between us. I don’t know how long we sat there. He broke the silence. His voice trembling

“She left me. I loved her with all my heart. Still she left me. I was helpless”

“There would be something, that we can do. Give me her number, i will talk to her.”, out of desperation and the scary thought of loosing a friend i mumbled.

“No! There is nothing left to do. She has gone far. Far from any of our reach. My parents if only they could believe me…”

He opened the door and ran towards the shore. I followed.

The rain was now gone. Sun was struggling to break out of the clouds. Nature looked so beautiful and gorgeous. The whole place was damped. Narrow streams of water still flowing towards the river. The first monsoon shower. It was beautiful…

His breathing grew heavy, he looked up, left out a deep cry and dropped to his knees as i ran towards him. I helped him on to his feet. He hugged me. I couldn’t fight my tears. He broke away, walked two steps and stopped.

After a deep sigh, he reached for his pocket and took our an envelope. I recognized it as the one that i saw with him days before. He opened it and handed me the letter.

With trembling hands i opened the folds…

“Appraisal Letter 2008″

Valentine’s Day Contemplations

Posted on by
11

“You don’t have to get me a red-rose. I’m already yours!!!”, well i still don’t know if that was a trick question or not that she threw at me. All i asked her, “Shall i give you a red-rose?”

Or rather i wasn’t supposed to ask anything like that. May be it was stupid cupid playing the role of the culprit. How the hell would i ever know what she meant? Cant they just ask us what they want rather than using virtual pointers. We run Java, pointers are not an option and why else do you think we date so many and never result in garbled memory. The core is never dumped.(2 years with IT industry this is all that i have left in my mind)

Sandy had said it the right way,

“And they say, love makes the world go round.
It sure does, in damned circles of nothingness.”

Inspired from Love and his post on Nothingness, came my two posts Second in Love and Second in Love – The Closure, two close to reality stories. 3 in fact!

Trust me “Guys who are Single”, the world will be mean to you, but once SHE is there in your life, your life can never get meaner. Jokes apart they do bring in a sense of orderliness if your really serious. I have seen that in people. They change overnight. Power of Love, they say, Power of HER i say.

Some people really live their life out on LOVE. They forget that they have a life that’s precious and they forget it. All the sweet words that you might have said and those moments that you cherished are all good. But once you break-up, you need to move on. Kambath Ishq, is to be blamed? No dude. Its you at blame’s end. Move on!!!

GUYs never ever on a very special day, especially on this day, tell her that you will get food from outside. You can never be convincing enough and wont sound sweet to her at all. Trust me all that She would hear would be, “I cant eat the carp that you prepare everyday! I need a break at least today. So lets eat outside”. Let her to decide. Its the safest bet. Watch “Pyaar Ke Side-Effects”, its a nice start for beginners.

As a parting gift, here is my 2 cents – Never trust someone who says, “I cant live without YOU! You’re my life”. Thats the biggest lie in the world.

And with all these said, I wonder why i’m still here in office on Valentine Day’s eve, working. She hasn’t called either. He phone is not reachable too…

(This post is now abruptly stopped. There has been a Fire Alarm at my office and Its a fake!!! Somebody got too steamy in love on V-Day i guess.;) )