New Beginning

Hola readers..

Howdy all of u. Looks like it is a loooong time since i last posted anything on this site of mine. And I did not put myself into exile or something, just that I did not find time, nor was in a mood to write anything.

Well, after a forced trip to Amman and bidding a good riddance to my previous job, I am hoping that I might be in a better mood to write something more from here on.

So, what was I upto? As mentioned, I was forced to go to Amman … to the client location to ‘manage’ the client, for 3 months. Yes, that is actually the notice period in my previous company. Well it does hope of becoming a leading software company in its domain. And I do wish it all the best, but the way it treats its employees do put the seed of doubt in me as to whether it will actually go on to be one. Well, if I do actually go on a cribbing spree regarding them, I think it will go into multiple posts. So, I am happy that they did relieve me, forget the money which they have still not transferred.

I should be thankful to my present manager that he actually decided to wait for me for 3 months. And yes, it does put a bit of pressure on me to perform right away. Just hope I can thrive on this pressure ( Damn … think too much of Football Manager game is influencing my sentences).

And yes, I have moved back to my homeland. That is the biggest relief for me

Hoping the changes in job and the location can put some creative juices back in me.

Feel too rusty to write much. But with my cute little niece coming over this weekend, hopefully she will provide me some fodder for articles

Happy New Year or whatever

Happy New Year??  Let’s See:

• Awake on the New Year’s Eve waiting for a colleague to send me the document which I had to work on and send to my boss by 1^st morning so that they can prepare an estimate and send it to the client before 2^nd.
• Finally get the document on 1^st afternoon and spend the afternoon working on it.
• Got my thumb stuck below a 2 inch concrete slab on the 2^nd morning.
• Woke up 3^rd morning at 4 am to catch a 6:45am flight
• Got ready in half an hr and waited an hr till 5:30am for a cab which was supposed to come at 4:45am
• Reached airport just a couple of minutes after check-in counter closed
• Pleaded with the ground staff to check me in and finally got her to check me in
• Had a flight waiting just for me for 2 minutes
• Spent half an hour waiting for a pre-paid taxi
• Came to office to see that they had not started on preparing the estimate based on the document which they wanted on Saturday.

Yeah … Happy New Year it is

The Immortals of Meluha – Book Review

After thinking of buying this book for a long time, I finally managed to order this book. This is the first book in the Shiva Trilogy series. The reasons for which I wanted to buy this book were that it was written by an alumni of my beloved place IIM-Joka and also that I had seen extreme reviews on the book. The reviews ranged from being called as ‘distorting mythology to gain popularity’ to ‘extremely good’.

The concept of the book is based on the question, “What if Gods were not someone who was born with magical qualities, but someone who was born as a normal person and attained the level of God by his karma”? “What if the story of Gods did actually happen and is not just mythology?”

So the story is based in the 1900 BC (the actual time of the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations). The story is about a tribal chieftain ‘Shiva’ who lives at the foot of ‘Mount Kailash’ and next to the holy lake Mansarovar. Fed up with the constant and the meaningless war with a rival tribe ‘Pakratis’, Shiva decides to accept the invitation to move to the kingdom of ‘Meluha’, which is incidentally given to him by ‘Nandi’ a captain in the army of the kingdom of Meluha.

The kingdom of ‘Meluha’ is supposedly started by Lord Ram, the last Vishnu at the time, thousands of years ago.  It spreads from Srinagar to the edge of river Narmada, with its capital as ‘Devagiri’. The main cities in the kingdom are Srinagar, Hariyuppa, Mohan –jo-daro, Karachapa (which incidentally I think is the present Karachi) and Koonj.

Incidentally Vishnu is a title given to great leaders who are the protectors of the world and propagators of truth. Not all the leaders were given the title, but only those who richly deserved it and Lord Ram was the 7^th Vishnu. There is also the title of ‘Mahadev’ which are less in number and the last Mahadev at that time was Lord Rudra.

So as the story goes, the people of Meluha are Suryavanshis and believe in righteousness and the path of good. They are being troubled by their arch rivals, ‘Chandravanshis’ who rule over the land ‘Swadweep’ with its capital as Ayodhya. The Meluhans believe that the Chandravanshis have joined hands with the Nagas in order to bring the downfall of the Suryavanshis. The Meluhans have a legend that the evil will be completely destroyed with the arrival of ‘Neelakanth’ who will be a person who is not from either of the regions and whose throat on drinking Somaras will turn blue.

So when Shiva, along with his friend Bhadra moves into Meluha and on drinking Somaras, which is incidentally manufactured in ‘Mount Mandar’ by large churners and the chief scientist of Meluha being Brihaspati, his throat turns blue. King Daksha, who is the ruler of Meluha, invites Shiva into the capital Devagiri, where he tries to convince Shiva that he is their savior. Shiva meanwhile falls for King Daksha’s daughter, Princess Sati, who does ignore Shiva at first.

So does Shiva agree to fight for the Meluhans against the Swadweepans? Does he manage impress Sati and get her interest and Love? Are the Swadweepans what they are actually meant to be? These are the questions which will be answered by reading the book.

I found the book to be an easy read. I actually finished the book in 2 days over the weekend, along with my mandatory 10-12 hrs of beauty sleep over the weekend. I would say, for people who are not rigid about what they believe in the mythology, for those people with an open mind, this is an amazing book. I am actually looking forward to the next two books ‘The Secret of the Nagas’ and ‘The oath of the Vayuputras’.

Head-Hunters

For slightly more than an year hence, I am having my profile active on the job sites in the hope of getting some lead in my hunt for a better job. So do a few (???) of my batchmates. May be passing out at the peak of recession has something to do with it. So coming back to the post, I have had a lot of mails bombarding me on a daily and weekly basis. Of course, with so many recruitment agencies mushrooming across the country, owing to the fact that it is one of the businesses which guarantees an exception RoI, this was to be expected. But is it of any use??? Well, the fact that I am still in the same job tells something about the effectiveness of this process.

It is not that there are no jobs being offered. I have been and am being offered a variety of jobs. Just that none of them matches the profile.

It initially started with “High paying” BPO jobs and tele-sales job. The mail also goes on to mention that the education requirement for the job is “graduate/any graduate”. Also goes on to tell that the high paying BPO job pays you 1.2 – 1.6 lakhs per annum

And then we have the training institute offering me training in anything and everything. Yes training in Business Analysis I can understand, I am working as a business analyst, but training in SAP??, training in Excel (??). Weird, really weird.

It is not just this, I also had the happiest moment in my life when I was shortlisted for the position of an AC Technician. Yeah… I am not an electrical/electronics engineer, never worked in anything related to AC, let alone to be an AC Technician.

But all happiness has to come to an end and it came to an end when a friend of mine received a mail from some recruiting company telling that one of their clients wants drivers for their car!!! Now why did they use an online job portal, I don’t know. But biggest mystery is how did they infer that we need an MBA degree to be a car driver?? I know it is tough to believe it. I didn’t believe it too, until he showed me the mail. Yeah dude, we passed out in 2009, but driver!!!!

Most of these websites concentrate more on the quantity of the jobs being offered and less on the quality of it. They are more happy in showing that your profile was viewed by x number of candidates. But how many of them are actually matching the profile which a person has? I have observed this more in the mails sent by recruitment agents. The HR or recruitment manager of a company will be more careful in doing an analysis of the person and matching the requirements and the skills. Sometimes I wonder whether the agents actually read at least the headline of the profile to whom they are sending the mails. Oh I know, they don’t… Otherwise they would not have sent mails to be a driver and AC Technician.

What next??? Sweeper??? Or Watchman???

PS: To clarify, I do not have any ill-will or one-upmanship against the jobs I have mentioned in the post. I do know that these people are the ones who make our life a lot more comfortable. All my grouses are against these head-hunters (what an apt name) / placement agencies mushrooming all across the country, who do not even do a matching of the profile before contacting the person.

Selfreturnsfileophobia

Noun: Selfretursnfileophobia , self-ri’turns-fI(-u)lo-fow-bee-u

1. A fear of filing the tax returns by oneself.

This is one situation which i have seen in a huge number of people. Irrespective of what level they are educated to or what work they do many people have this phobia of filling the tax returns by themselves. So they will wait till the company they work for gets someone to prepare the returns for them and do the filing or they will approach some CA to do the filing for them.

Fine, earlier there used to be a time when the filing of returns used to be a tedious job and required accountants. And after all that you will also have to stand in a queue in the Income Tax Office to submit the same and get a copy of it stamped to act as an acknowledgement. I understand some of them who knew how to prepare the returns too used to go to the accountants just so that they need not do the operational work of standing in the queue and submitting the returns.

Then came the SARAL forms which were very simple to fill in. So out goes the tedious part. But still the sweaty part of standing in the queue (mainly because everyone used to wait till the last date to file their returns) wasn’t out.

But now, after the e-filing of tax returns has come up, even that part of the work is simplified. You file the returns online and if you do not have a digital signature, then just send a copy of the acknowledgement you receive to the address which is mentioned in the acknowledgement by ordinary post. So all you spend is Rs 5 on the postage.

But no… Bulk of the people are still are very much apprehensive to fill in their own returns. Working in a Financial software company myself, I was shocked to see that almost everyone in my office thronging to the representative who had come to file returns. I was amazed when even the people in finance department were standing in the queue there. And yeah the queue also included a couple of people who calls themselves independent and self made … Yeah … Independent and Self made just in the same way I am Michael Schumacher

And the funnier part is the person who had come collects a copy of the Form 16 and pan card and Rs 150. He goes to the office, files the returns online and sends them the same acknowledgement copy which they get when they file online. So basically the people are willing to spend 30 times more just to avoid the phobia.

I literally had to drag a couple of my cubicle neighbours away from the queue to show them that they can fill the same online in time lesser than the time they spend in that queue and for a lesser amount.

Next time may be I should charge 100 bucks for the same .

For ppl who want to fill their own returns, this is the site to visit: https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in . It won’t take more than half an hour of your time.

Edit: One thing I came to know from interacting with many people in office regarding this is that not many people either don’t know that you can do this or think it is very complex to do it.  And once I explain the process to them, each and every one asked “Is that it???” . Looks like lack of awareness is one of the main reason for this feature not being used by individuals.  Time for IT department to do something regarding this ???

Affirmation

OK … No new posts for more than a month and a mind not obliging to even try to write something. That was when @swaram posted this tag. Lemme tell you this is going to be insanely funny and insanely insane

The rules of this tag are as follows:

• Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, IPOD etc. on shuffle.
• For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
• YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

1. If someone asks you, “are you okay” you say:

Keh Doon Tumhe – Ya chup Rahoon … To answer or not to is the question

2. How would you describe yourself ?
Learning to Fly [Pink Floyd] – How I wish i could fly … I mean how I wish I could have become a pilot

3. What do you like in a guy/girl ?
Soniyo (From the Heart) – A nice song from the movie Raaz (2009)

4. How do you feel today ?
Kangna [Dr Zeus - #1’s Greatest Bhangra Hits] – No where close to it

5. What is your life’s purpose ?
Rhythm Divine – Nice …. … An awesome song from Enrique Iglesias

6. What’s your motto ?
Like a prayer (Life is a mystery) – Yep as of now life is a mystery

7. What do your friends think of you ?
Suraj ki kirno – A flop song from a flop movie …. This is what they think of me … Grrrrr

8. What do your parents think of you ?

Baat niklegi to phir door talak jaayegi [Jagjit Singh] – Huh !!! Whatever it means

9. What do you think of often ?
Bharat humko jaan se pyaara hai – Yo Baby …. Patriotic me

10. What is 2 + 2 ?
Badi Haseen Raat thi [Jagjit Singh] - Seriously … 2 + 2 = this ????

11. What do you think of your best friend ?
La Tortura [Shakira] - An awesome dance number … Sigh .. where is Shakira???

12. What is your life story ?
Aapke pyaar mein – Nice pick … finally my media player picks one right

13. What do you want to be when you grow up ?
Mein aisa kyun hoon – No no … That is what I am now … I don’t want to be the same

14. What do you think when you see the person you like ?
Dil De diya hai Jaan bhi denge – Hmmmmm …. No comments

15. What will you dance to at your wedding?
Do ghoont mujhe bhi pilaade sharaabi – Yo !!! Nice song to dance to … Lets dance

16. What will they play at your funeral ?
Insha Allah [ Welcome ] – Kya ???? Song is nice … But a dance number in my funeral???

17. What is your hobby/interest ?
Chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko – Heh ???

18. What is your biggest fear ?
Tequila Sunrise – Yeah … I am a vampire and am afraid of sunrise

19. What is your biggest secret ?
It was not me [Shaggy] – LOL … U shud listen to the lyrics of this . Check it here

20. What do you want right now ?
Songbird – A nice Kenny G song … Yes I do want a songbird now

21. What do you think of your friends ?
Jashn-E-Bahaara – Being with them is indeed a Jashn-e-bahaara time

22. When you want to rush to the toilet, what do you think ?
Nothings gonna change my love for you – ROFLMAO … No no I am not suffering from OCD nor am I obsessed

23. Person you hate the most is in front of you, what will you tell the person ?
Mundiyaan tu bach ke rahi – Bach ke rehna mujhse

24. You have just won a lottery. What will you sing ?
Secret of Success – Winning the lottery is the secret to my success????

25. What will you post this as?
Affirmation - Nice song from Savage Garden and the title of this post

Seriously who thought of this tag and all these questions ????

Cartoon

To all those who call me fat …. Well here’s my explanation

Chaos Theory –II

So coming back to the chaos in the leave application fiasco as promised in the first part (which you can read here), this is how the conversation went.

Sometime in the first week of April

Me: Mr Hr, can you please change my reporting manager in the leave application from Mr A to Mr B??

HR: Hmmm … Sorry, we cannot do it without approval from VP. You apply for leave, they will take care.

So the application for leave was done and the system sent mail to Mr A. After a couple of days when the leave was not approved, I go to Mr A

Me: Hi… I had applied for leave….

Mr A: I don’t know what you learnt in MBA. Why do you keep sending the leave application to me when you do not report to me? Didn’t they teach it to you in MBA?

Me: Well, they did teach me that, even before my MBA. But unfortunately they did not teach that to the leave system, which sends the automated message

Mr A: Huh??? So you are blaming your problem on the system?? A typical MBA only.

Me: ???? :O (#$%#$%#$%)

Me: OK … What about my leave?

Mr A: Go and ask your reporting manager

So I go to Mr B.

Me: Hi … I was planning a vacation… Chutti chahiye tha

Mr B: Nahin milega

Me: Not now … in May

Mr B: Nahin milega

Me: (@#$@#) Sahi hai … You don’t even ask when I need and how long I need. You directly disapprove it?

Mr B: How many days you want?

Me: 10 days

Mr B: Nahin Milega

Me: I need it.

Mr B: Take 1 day

Me: (@#$@#$@#$@$) Nobody calls it a vacation

Mr B: Do you know the project plan for the project u r on?

Me: I am not the PM and the PM hasn’t shared it with me coz it has not yet started. But I know it will be in the development phase in May and I am not a developer.

Mr B: I need you to prepare test cases at that time

Me: I am not in QC.

Mr B: I need you to.

Me: OK, but that shouldn’t stop my leave. I need atleast 5 days of leave

Mr B: Ask Mr C

Me: Mr C??? I don’t report to him.

Mr B: You do.

Me: No, You did my appraisal.

Mr B: I did it because it was sent to me. But you report to Mr C.

Me: OK ….

I go to Mr C

Me: Hi .. I needed leave for 5 days in May

Mr C: OK … Ask Mr B

So at the end of all this …. Who is my boss??? Mr A, Mr B or Mr C????

Update:  Yeah the leave is approved and am off to Bangalore next week

Social Vibes – Helping the charity

As you can see, I changed my blog theme and once I did it all my widgets went for toss. So had to sit and add all the widgets once again and that was when I came to know of this widget which was powered by social vibes. It allows the users to help charity of their choice. I thought it was a very good widget in that it actually helps people who want to help a certain cause in supporting a charity.

As far as I can make out, the way it works is, you add the widget in your blog and it allows you to choose a cause which you want to support from a huge list of causes. While choosing the cause if you do a mouse over, it actually does mention the charity which will be benefitted from it. You choose the widget and display it in your blog. Now what?

Well it works something similar to ads. When the person visiting the blog sees the cause and chooses to help it, all he/she has to do is to click on it. It opens the sponsors’ web page or an ad which asks some questions or asks you to rate a video and once you answer it, donates to the charity associated with the cause.

So, the money goes out of the brand and not the readers. All the reader invests is some time in rating the video or answer some question. So what do the brands gain? Advertisement at a cheaper rate. Most of us have lots of readers coming on to visit the blog which we do maintain and by tying up with the social cause, they can make the people know of the brand, watch ads or basically market themselves at a cheaper rate than by traditional means.

What do we get? The satisfaction that you did your 2 cents (really don’t think it is more than this) for some cause which is close to your heart without spending a single cent.

Does this work? Well, personally, I haven’t seen the brands making the payment, but it is trust at the end of it. And you are not spending a cent of your money at all.

My main issue with the widget is that they do not have a single charity working in India. I would have preferred to choose a cause which is closer home. Agreed there are people suffering elsewhere in the world too, but charity begins at home and I would have preferred a cause closer home to choose from.

So, if anybody is actually visiting this blog and have read this boring post till the end, I would love it if you can spend another 2 minutes on the cause widget on the right side bar.

Chaos Theory – I

So the other day I went to my HR manager with just one question: “Can you please tell who I am reporting to???”

Appearing concerned the HR Manager asked: “Why, what happened???”

Me:” Nothing, just that the appraisal process has started and I would like to know who is conducting my appraisal.”

HR:” Who do you report to??”

Me: (D..uh)”That’s what I asked?”

HR:” Whose name is present in the leave system?”

Me:”Well … Leave system shows the name of Mr A. But I don’t work with him for anything”

HR:”He is your reporting manager.”

Me: “ So he will be conducting my appraisal?”

HR:”D..uh … Yeah”

Me:”OK”.

HR:” Did you log into the Performance Management System???”

Me:”Not yet. I don’t have the password”

HR: “OK I will send you one. You log in and tell me who your appraiser is”.

After a day a mail arrives in my inbox from the HR for the Performance Management System (oh so aptly shortened as PMS and which oh so aptly performs as if it is having PMS). I log in to the system and see that my appraiser is indeed Mr A. So I go to the HR manager and tell him that my appraiser as mentioned in the system is indeed Mr A.

HR: (With a I told u so grin on his face).” So he will be the one who will be appraising you. Perform a self appraisal. Tomorrow is the last day”.

So I come back to my seat and start my self-appraisal. After sifting through nearly 4-5 pages of rating questions which oh so reminded me of the stupid surveys which we are forced to fill in for the sake of friendship, relationship and sunken ships, I submit the self-appraisal, and the next screen comes up proclaiming: “Your appraisal is locked now and has been forwarded to the appraiser Mr B”.

MR B. ???? But I thought my appraiser was Mr A?? Off I go to Mr HR again.

Me:”Err… HR”.

HR: (Oh No… not him again)”Yes ????”

Me: “Did my reporting manager change in the last couple of hours?”

HR:”No … Still having doubts? Your appraiser is Mr. A and so he is your reporting manager”

Me: “Yeah he was my appraiser when I logged in to the system. I completed the appraisal and it said that it has been forwarded to my appraiser Mr B”.

HR: (Confused) “Mr B???…. Not Mr A???”

Me: “It said Mr B.”

HR: “Oh so he is your reporting manager.”

Me: “Ohhh.. K … He joined just 7 months back and I am working with him for only past month… What is he going to appraise me on??

HR: “Well … He will do your appraisal”

Me: (Damn … There goes my hike for a hike of its own) “So can you change the reporting manager in the leave system?”

HR: “Oh I need the approval for it from the VP. We’ll see what I can do”.

Well What happened with the leave system will be updated in the next part shortly.