thought for the day

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'”

-Charles M. Schulz

glorified slaves..

** disclaimer: this post is to be taken with a pinch of salt :P

if you thought slavery was abolished years back you are very mistaken my friend..go to Google & type define:slave one of lines say "work done under harsh conditions for little or no pay" .. i think some of us can really identify with the last part of the sentence which says little or no pay :s..
i have a numerous analogies to prove that we are nothing more than glorified slaves in the hands of our employers.. for people who have recently started working or people with not too much work ex to boast of will mostly identify with what i am saying...

some smart guy in an expensive suit simply decided to make us glorified slaves (and we fell for it)..instead of chaining people to place of work what was devised was extremely wise.. we were given laptops with data connectivity, mobile phones for office use:| so you can never really run away from workplace.. and if you don't have a laptop why worry the company has web mail !! anytime, anywhere access x(
guess what replaced the whip lashes ... nasty e-mails, review calls and performance management system... :P

as for harsh work conditions.. try talking to few colleagues or people up in the hierarchy :| it can be suicidal sometimes.. plus if you work in a process-oriented organization where everything you do needs to go into a SAP system then God save you.! oh and not to mention the measures taken in office for cost-cutting !! that is exactly what i call "harsh working conditions"..
coming to part 2 of the definition which says little or no pay;i really need not elaborate.. i am beginning to think some part of the company profit comes from not paying deserving employees :)

i guess i am not really wrong in saying we are glorified slaves :)

thought for the day

yet again i turn to Scott Adams to come up with the coolest quotes in life :)

“Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results.”

self "up-raisals"

if you work for a company with a a performance management system in place then you'd definitely go through something known as self appraisals ... it means that your boss would've set some KRAs for you in the beginning of the year and now you need to evaluate your self against the set goals.. for me this process has always been a pain.. mostly for the following reasons:

1. you are supposed to write things about ure self without sounding pompous !! (whatever happened to being modest..) and dont underplay your self either..
   
2. goals set are so vague that the response to them would only mean writing good english..
3. the KRAs if rephrased would sound more like " write 100 words on what you did throughout the year"
4. then there are catch-22 situations where one response would only mean that you did badly in something else..
5. and then there are questions on competency ! and ure like DUH! what do i respond to that.. your boss already knows how competent you are.. so u need to put the right amount of words without sounding like a fool..(if that was possible we d all be great writers by now )
   
6. so on and so forth....

at the end of it.. all that matters is not what you wrote or what you did but what ure boss thinks you actually did :D

i really don't understand why a company would go and invest so much of money on a performance management system when at the end of the day the only person evaluating you is your immediate boss and that wont change whether there is system in place or not.. the KRAs set in the beginning of a lifetime dont really matter because things keep changing and everything that one does can never be put on paper.. but whoever developed this has made a good amount of money and is probably laughing somewhere ...

to conclude.. its all about raising your self.. is that why it sounds right even when u call it "up-raisal" ?? :P

clueless..

have you ever felt like your life is not really moving anywhere ? or that you don't know what you want to do? if your answer is yes then i think you can empathize with me.. if no then i guess u can offer me some sound advice :)

when i entered engineering college the only thing i wanted was to clear all my semesters ( all EIGHT of them !! ) with ease .. the only thing thing on my mind was that if i don't study once i might have to take the exam again( which meant studying twice ..) and with some effort on my part and copious amounts of luck on my side engineering was smooth sailing.. time passed really quick and it was that time of the year called placements! it was quite dreaded back then especially for people who were not too sure of what they want to do next (read MS/ MBA).. i did get placed quite early on.. i had taken yet another step.. college ended, life changed .. and someone said "welcome to the real world ":)

i think this is where i kinda got lost in everything.. the cash at the end of every month was quite comforting... work was alright.. dint find the need to complain too much.. days, months and weeks passed and i realized that i was stuck in a rut.. a monotony that got hard to break.. home-office-home.. work work and more work.. learnt a lot of lessons the hard way..( trust me it sux !!) there was no playing fair and square.. it was all about how well you can sell your self.. i never got used to it .. have quite a few complaints against the system, against people, processes.. but then again i guess its just me.. i am told do your job let others do theirs unless you have taken up a social cause :|
still trying to figure out what is it that i want?is it more money ( that is always welcome :P) ? will that make me happy even if the work place sux? is it the people i have a complaint against? do i want a better job coz this one seems right if a few things change here and there? do i want to study? if yes then what, when, how, where ?? the questions seems quite endless... then it gets me wondering if i am complaining about things that i dont have the power to change? or has work got the better of me? ( now u know why i am so clueless :P) the only thing i keep hearing is "you think too much ?" and then m again wondering is thinking too much a bad thing :D (and m stuck in an endless loop of questions) i am not sure if i am making too much sense right now :D
sometimes u can see a glowing question mark on my face :P

i think i ll figure out what i want eventually.. that's all for now i guess. i am going to give my brains some rest :P

Cheers !

book review : the immortals of meluha

finally managed to lay my hands on this book written by a guy called Amish.. i used to keep looking at this book each time i went to the bookstore and i thought may be its based on some mythology and dint really want to get into that.. fortunately i was quite wrong..

an good book with a great plot.. if you are looking for a literary classic then please stay away because the language is really simple.. easy to read.. wont take you more than a couple of hours to finish the book and wait for the sequel already..
the book reminds you of movies in which people are waiting for super heroes to come and save them .. this hero does have some shades of grey which is what makes him more human.. the characters are well sketched and the story keeps you glued to the book..

the book is a welcome change.. a light book .. a good read..

happy reading !

the road less travelled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference

Book Review : Shutter Island

read this book called Shutter island by Dennis Lehane.. dint know this book existed until the movie released.. and I prefer a book to a movie :) ...
awesome book.. really liked it.. so went ahead and watched the movie.. thought the movie doesnt do justice to the book.. but a good movie anyway..

The book talks of US Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule who are at Ashcliffe Hospital to investigate the disappearance of a patient Rachel Solando.. But then Ashcliffe is something very different than what it remotely seems like..

the plot is brilliant.. keeps you hooked on till the end...Go ahead and read the book.. its totally worth reading..

something new ..

visited my forgotten blog page today and decided to change the design template for the blog.. as always told my self that i need to write more often.. will try and stick to that this time around...and since the rains are just around the corner the new look seems just perfect..

yet another saturday !

today is just another saturday.. last week same time was chilling at my friends place.. cant believe a week has gone by already.. cant even remember what i did over the weekdays.. just remember rushing to work in the morning and coming back home dead tired...

so quick update on whats on my playlist for this week :) ..

1. two lovely songs from the movie Ishiqiya: " dil to baccha hai" and " ab mujhe koi " .. soulful !
2. kelly clarkson- all i ever wanted
3. robbie williams- you know me
4. drops of jupiter - train
5. if youre gone - matchbox 20
6. lost- coldplay
   

looking forward to a super lazy sunday !

change is good

how many times have we heard people say "change is good"? why do we resist change? i think its only because it breaks the monotony.. its an irony that we hate monotony but dislike any change..

hope 2010 brings in some good change :)

Happy New Year

wishing everyone a very happy new year :)
have a fantastic year ahead !