Wassup !

"wassup" the one thing everyone seems to start the conversation with(me included).. to which I have a standard response of "nothing much, wassup with you ?".. and my response never seems to change.. at max the response if tweaked a bit would sound like "nothing much, you tell me " .. and today was just one of those days when a friend told me that nothing ever seems to be happening with me.. and that is the genesis of this post..

my typical day starts with my mom's yells replacing the alarm clock.. have you ever noticed that the louder your mom yells the more sleepy you feel.. once i recover from the shock of being abruptly woken i complete the pretty much standard routine of brush-bathe-get ready for work. 

And then the same old.. go to work..check mails.. respond to mails.. send mails.. Everyone says we are addicted to our cell phones.. I think they should add email clients like Outlook to that list. We spend half our day in front of the pc.. and all of that time our email client stays open.. sometimes when i walk around office i can see people blankly staring at the Outlook Client.. and trust me there isnt any new mail :P and i wonder what is it that they are staring at  !!  How can you possibly look at your outlook client to kill time ?!! :| :|

moving on to the rest of the day.. some part of the day is spent around the coffee machine enjoying what is now called "water-cooler moments" (just a fancy name for standing in the cafeteria and chatting) .. and then the usual meetings, conference calls, reviews blah blah.. Of-course there is logging on to the messenger, discussing absolute random things with friends, lunches, teas etc ..  And then its time to go home !

and it is now that someone will decide to spring in a "wassup".. what can i possibly say to that other than "nothing much" on a typical weekday !

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 :)

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 !

2 years ...

2 years @work... can't believe it...

Friday Vs Monday..

really funny !!!