My cute little angel

My little angels ... my favorite persons in the whole wide world ... my sister and my niece arrived on Friday. Even though I met them in December ... it seemed like I haven’t seen them for ages. I was particularly waiting for my niece ... who recently celebrated her first birthday. She is a non stop bundle of joy ... an absolute cutie pie. Now that she is little over a year old ... she is now able to express her thoughts via words of gestures. Like when she is feeling sleepy ... she would say “Ninu”, which is a cuter version of the word “Neend” (sleep). If she doesn’t like anyone ... she would simply waive her hand .... gesturing bye bye ... ahahahahaha.

I like to snap pics of her ... and it’s really easy to get great pictures of her because whenever I point the camera towards her and the camera’s red light falls on her face ... she smiles ... laughs ... and you get an absolutely adorable Kodak moment. Unlike other kids ... she don’t like to play with dolls or toys ... she likes picking up stuff and then throw them away ...like spoon or coasters. She does it when anyone is watching her ... she would simply pick up the spoon ... will wait until anyone is watching her ... and when she knows that she is in spotlight ... she would throw it away ... and smile in such a fashion that even a rock would melt. And boy ... is she smart or what ... I took her outside the house (its on the first floor) ... and as soon as I got down the stairs ... she stopped smiling ... I roamed on the neighborhood streets and she started crying ... mommy mommy. Funny thing was, when I get back in front of the house she started smiling ... I was amazed ... she is so small and she has barely gone out of the house but she still recognized it. She knew mommy was inside the house. However instead of going in the house ... I walked straight and she stopped smiling again ... started crying for her mom. I turned back and again when I was passing my house, she pointed towards it and started smiling ... I was just floored. She likes to climb the sofa ... the bed ... anyplace which is little high ... but she is so careful that whenever she is struggling to get on or off the high place ... she would start crying for help. She would jump from there only if she sees that someone is there to catch her ... ahahahaha.

She just keep all of us busy ... the entire weakened I didn’t went out ... and didn’t even felt like going out ... the two days went ... in a flash. I just can’t wait for the evening ... darn office .... Grhhhhhh

Cost cutting gone too far

In every office ... every where ... you hear a term – cost cutting – it is omnipresent. Today when I was pulling out the paper hand towels after taking a leak in office washroom, I was shocked to see the quality. I had to use twice as much to dry my hands ... and I started to wonder ... is this measure any good. How will the office save money ... if in place of 2-3 paper towels, people start using 4-5? Sometimes cost cutting just goes too far ...

You know when the cost cutting measures have gone too far, when ...

• you need the entire roll to wipe ...


• urinals are made – pay per use


• you are given a hand-held fan ... just in case


• phones are made – pay per use


• you are given candles and match sticks ... just in case


• attending the “various uses of sun light” presentation is made mandatory


• office internet is charged on hourly basis (initially) ... eventually by minutes used


• you are charged for incoming calls on office phone


• the admin and HR team calls you 100 times ... each


• all the options in coffee machine produces hot water


• the soda machine goes out of service ... mysteriously


• you are told to use your hands to drink water


• the fountain in the office lawn is the only source of drinking water ... the fountain has an “excellent” recycling system though


• the office cab breaks down ... mysteriously ... on every weekday


• “packages” are sent via e-mails


• on any special occasion like birthday, instead of a bouquet, you are given a pass to visit office garden ... you are not allowed to pluck flowers in the garden though


• the admin team looks for an economy ticket – in DTC bus


• at the time of appraisal, you are actually given a pack of peanuts


• you are charged for that peanut pack


• you are told to do “pair programming” in literal sense


• you are allowed to play Holi ... in MS Paint only


• instead of office décor for Diwali, the IT team runs a network job to install “Lightening” screensaver ... the day before Diwali, the screensaver is activated


• the X-Mas tree is decorated with all the unclaimed lost/found items


• you see street food carts in your cafeteria


• the salary slip PDF is actually an unparseable XML file


• amount, equivalent to your monthly salary, is “mysteriously” wired to your office

I urge you all to contribute to the list (in the comments section) ... I too will keep on adding new innovative cost cutting measures ... cheers

SuperStar Night

Its been long since I had any fun ... until Ganja called me on Wednesday and we planned a usual SuperStar night out. I asked Gaurav and Payal about having a Friday night out ... Gaurav agreed instantly. However, just like me, he too was kinda sceptic about the plan ... because last time when we all met, we planned for some kinda outing ... which didn't materialized because of Ganja and Payal's "official" problems.

Anyhoo ... on Friday, Ganja informed us that he won't be able to make it because of some "office work". Well ... what can I say ... I wasn't surprised by this last minute bailout ... its becoming a habit of Ganja and Payal. Speaking of Payal, she too said that she would only be able to join us at 9ish. I was obviously angry ... in the meantime, Gaurav called and asked what to do now. I asked if he is ready for SuperStar ... he agreed. He asked me to meet him outside GL at 6:20. I reached GL on time ... Gaurav and Mansi (Gaurav's wife) came out of the office and we all got in the car. Garuav dropped Mansi at the CSM mall where she went for a movie ... and we 2 went straight to SuperStar.

As we entered, the waiter there recognized us and we asked him for our usual sofa seat. The seat was already reserved ... but since it was us ... he said we can take it. WOW !!! We ordered beer and some food to eat ... and asked for the pool table. The table was free ... but since it was far from our seats ... we asked the waitor to shift us to the table near the pool table. We played pool ... drank and ate ... and suddenly we realized that its almost 9pm. So I just called Payal ... she said she won't be able to make it. Huh !!! Anyways ... I said OK ... no problems ... and we played some more pool ... drank few more rounds. I lost the pool games ... 6 to 2 ... well the fact of the matter was that we had fun. In the meantime, Mansi called and told Gaurav that her movie was over. So we got out ... picked her ... and went to home. Gaurav dropped me to the Metro station ... and I reached home at 11pm.
Although ... it wasn't the usual SuperStar night ... but it was still fun.

Solar powered LIGHT TORCH !!!

Consumerism at its best

Who needs a analog-cum-digital clock? This is a moron proof watch ... the time in both the cases would be same though ... ahahahaha

Buy blue and white (!!!) shirts? Where is the freakin' pink one? What on earth is goin' on here ... ahahahaha

Solar powered light torch ... ahahahahahahaha ... go on ... make your own jokes ... deadly ... ahahahahahaha

Funny English

Happy Holi (belated)

Yesterday night, I saw Outsourced on Star Movies. Recently, Star Movies have started to show Indian themed movies. This was my second such movie (watched The Namesake a month back). Outsourced was your typical Hollywood’s outlook on India and outsourcing. Like most of such movies, this one too was a comedy movie. Most of the humor is based on Indian people ... especially their accent and lack of Americanized English knowledge. There were couple of scenes which just had me in splits ... like the one where the protagonist (Todd ... everyone calls him Toad ... even the driver holds a placard at the airport with Mr. Toad written on it ... ahahaha) goes out of the house on Holi (obviously he didn’t knew about it) ... some kids throws color on him and his office colleague (named Puro) comes to his rescue. He says ... you should not have ventured out on the day of Holi ... and the protagonist answers ... Holy what .... Ahahaha ... I laughed so hard that I almost woke up the entire neighborhood. The other scene which made me laugh my arse off was the climax scene where Todd wishes Puro best of luck (Puro is going to China for training the workforce there) ... Todd tells him ... break a leg ... Puro asks what does that phrase mean ... Todd explains to him that he is wishing him well ... to which Puro replies ... I wish you break both your legs while going back to US ... ahahahahaha ... hilarious !!!

I know that stuff like this seems very filmy ... but believe me it is not the truth. You may be wondering that how can an educated BPO guy didn’t know about “break a leg” ... I know of few people myself ... who are well educated ... working in IT (in fact they are in US right now) ... and still their lack of English knowledge is outright funny. Lemme quote few of hilarious nuggets of one particular person ... I won’t name the person I’m talking about ... but for writing sake lemme call him MadMax.

• MadMax calls his Mocha ... MoCHA


• Whenever he doesn’t understand anything, instead of saying “What’s that” ... he says “Wassup”


• Instead of saying ... we are going for shopping ... he always says ... we are going for PURCHASING. In fact, many people terms shopping as purchasing ... ahahahaha ... just like calling a wallet ... purse


• Once MadMax referred Barista as a pastry shop


• Once MadMax and a gal pal were just hanging around ... they saw a person wearing cool shades ... the gal pal says ... “Nice shades” ... to which MadMax said ... “Yeah good colors ... yellow and green ... (he was refereeing to that guy’s T shirt). Obviously, the gal pal stopped hanging with him after that .... Ahahahahaha ... Deadly !!!

Fun in work ... not fun at work

Just came out of a meeting with the center head. He called a meeting (basically a presentation) with all the new joiners at ION. The presentation was meant to discuss the work culture and management expectations.

Like every organization, we were told to work hard, be professional and diligent. There were few things that made sense to me. First, he (center head) told all of us to have fun in work – not fun at work. He said he can’t understand the concept of people having fun at work. Stuff like, playing games or just hanging around. We all are coming to office to work ... and we are getting paid for our time and services. So if we are working fully and giving high quality stuff, we justify the salary or any increment/bonus thereof. If we don’t work hard ... or don’t have much work, then we should assess the situation and act accordingly. He also added that if people don’t have much work, then they should escalate it. There is no point in wasting their time in office ... they should simply raise an alarm and go home. This way they would make a statement to the management and the management then will have to plan better. Also, he said that he cant understand the concept of “fun at work” – stuff like frequent team outings, playing games in free time, personal interaction with people ... etc ... etc. He emphasized on having fun in work ... and said that this fun at work concept is a conspiracy of big organizations that have to retain the people of bench. Firms like Infosys or TCS have a good number of people “on bench”. So to keep them motivated, they need to have such fun filled policies.

I agree to most part of the presentation, except for the last bit. I don’t think that fun at work is a conspiracy or any such thing. There might be some truth in it that people do need to be motivated/chilled when they don’t have much to do. I hate to admit it, but the truth is truth ... its bitter. We all are simply getting paid for the services we sell. The organization buys our services in return of salary. Its simple economics. When we go out to buy apples in market, we try to choose the best apples. Even if there is a spot on any apple, we chuck it out of our basket. So if the same logic is applied in organizational level, firing underperformers doesn’t seem such a drastic step. No one wants bad apples ... in it. Also, we get irritated with the fruit vendors if he tries to charge extra ... because it is our money. Similarly, no organization is paying the salary just for having fun ... except a few like entertainment ... ahahaha. Trust me ... I am the one who believe in having fun in and at work ... but the economic downturn is throwing bitter truth pills ... and like it or not ... we all need to digest it. It’s for our own good.

Stomach blues

It’s good to be back ...

For the last 4 days, I was almost bed ridden due to severe stomach problems. On Friday night, I attended a friend’s wedding ... and you know Indian wedding is all about food and rituals ... I ate the oily and fat rich food and my body reacted badly to it. When I was going back to home, I felt sick in the car itself. I knew it something has gone wrong ... but was not worried since the next two days were off due to weekend. Strangely, things were not so bad in the weekend ... but when I was about to leave for office on Monday, my stomach started acting really badly. So I decided to skip the office (yippee...who likes Monday anyways). Well ... all hell broke loose ... I spent the entire day to/fro the bathroom. Tuesday came, and again I got ready for work. I boarded the bus ... after 15-20 minutes I felt nauseated and was sweating really badly. So, I asked the driver to stop the bus. I took an auto from there and came straight to home ... went to the nearby clinic to measure the BP ... it was low. Things were not looking good ... so I spent the entire day on the bed (watched the India-NZ match as well ...which was a bonus) ... took couple of medicines and hoped for a better tomorrow. Luckily, when I got up this morning, I felt OK ... and here I am in the office ... doing hard work ... and some blogging too ... ahahahahaha

Cheers