Things I am learning from my boss...

I recently read a blog post that started with a tale of a lousy supervisor doing a truly horrific job of relaying negative feedback to a subordinate. It got me thinking about how some bosses can be so miserable. Not wanting to linger too much in negativity, I tried to conjure up some of the points from the various bosses and managers I see around at my workplace. A good manager is hard to find, but when you have one, you often get to learn valuable lessons.
Here are some things I have learned from my boss. 

• Maintain a blame-free work environment 

Finger-pointing is a highly toxic and counter-productive behaviour, but there is more to it; in a relatively new organization it is essential to move forward at a fast and efficient pace. A no-mistakes pace is simply too slow. To survive, we have to move at a speed that guarantees a certain rate of error. We must accept the fact that mistakes will be made and corrected on the fly, simply because a pace that yields no mistakes will not bring us to takeoff before the end of the runway. 
In a typical organization where a culture of “no mistakes” prevails, everything is gold-plated to death. Time is regularly wasted on unnecessarily perfect performances, and on cover-ups when things didn’t go according to plan.
“No blame” does not mean “no accountability”. My boss has clearly spelt out, “It’s OK to make a mistake and you will not be judged for it. Making a mistake and not learning from it is a different story”. 

• Don’t confuse “urgent” with “important” 

You plan your day, week and month. You focus your efforts in a calculated effort to achieve very specific goals. Then someone rushes in screaming that the sky is falling and all progress is put on hold until the oh-so-urgent issue is resolved. There’s a hero’s aura about riding to the rescue and saving the day, but when the day is done, you are still a day (or a week, or a month) behind your schedule. The fires you are putting out may be real, or they may be artificial emergencies conceived to manipulate your priority list. Don’t let the moment’s glory distract you from executing your plan for too long. It may not be as urgent, but it is far more important. 

• Manage your personal productivity 

Productivity is a complicated issue. First off, the disparity between individuals is huge. It is not uncommon for a star performer to be 3-4 times as productive as an average, good employee. On top of that, there are many subjective and even random factors at play; the estimates that we use to measure productivity are always partially subjective. 
Improving your personal productivity is a great way to get better at what you do, but as an individual, you are the only one who can tell how productive your day is. You can expect your manager to measure your productivity over time, but when it comes to your day-to-day personal productivity — you’re on your own. You’re the only one who can do it, and you’re the one to benefit from it.

Cleverly tackling a South Indian meal

This post is not my creation ,neither my imagination of which i have described it in my own words.Infact i came across this post through random surfing but dint controlled myself to share with all of you. Go through it and i bet this will be the most memorable post which u all have ever read. So tighten your seat belts and get ready. Here it goes.

I get so nettled when I see people getting stuck with a South Indian thali looking clueless. It pains me when I see a north Indian at Sarvana Bhavan ordering extra rasam in the form of an insinuation i.e “Get me that maroon coloured liquid with low viscosity”. The waiter promptly gets a bottle of coke in response. To relieve you of all this delirium, I have now set upon a task of providing you the knack of going about a South Indian meal.

To consume a good South Indian meal, visit any restaurant that ends with Bhavan. Be careful though, ordering a meals token at Raj bhavan will only fetch you a night in  jail. After you enter the Bhavan(Sarvana/Vasantha/Adyar/South Indian deity names), look for a seat. Here is where influence might help. Do not try the over-used “I know the IG” trick. It does not work (*rubs wound on shoulder). Remember, getting a seat at Sarvana Bhavan around noon is tricky. You need to persist with tenacity.

When you find your seat, grab it at the earliest. Plan your handwash prior to the meal. Also, no combing in front of the wash basin mirror during the hand wish.  Get back to your seat and have a look at the menu card. 75% of the menu card is filled with the location of various branches of the restaurants. Sarvana Bhavan has so many branches that it is rumored that Neil Armstrong had a ” 2 Idly 1 vada” plate as soon as he landed on the moon. Conjecture is that he said “2 Idlis for man, a medhu vada for mankind” whilst sipping a filter coffee. I am not sure about water in the moon, but there definitely must be Sambhar. Getting back to the point, choose any item that satisfies the regular expression “.* South Indian .* meals”.

As you spend time watching the plethora of people walking around the restaurant, the waiter gets your thali. A south Indian meal typically has 2^7 katoris around the rim of your plate, a bowl of rice and a appalam covered by an oil barrel over the rice bowl. Spoon will not be provided. North Indians, kindly use your hand for eating  without saying “Abeyaar”. Its not a sin, really. If you have misplaced your hands, contact the hotel manager.

Now spend some 5 minutes to pull out your bowls and place it meticulously around the plate such that it is in your zone without touching your neighbour’s plate, the salt shaker and sauces bottles on your front and the jug of water along your diagonal. Pretty tough, I know. But its worth it.

Lets look into each of these bowls in detail. We typically have a bowl of Sambhar, some reddish oily spicy liquid that appears extra terrestrial, a bowl of kootu, a bowl of rasam, curd and vegetable curry. Some restaurants provide chappathi too. Do not mistake it for a hand-kerchief. Getting to the dishes themselves, we all know about the Sambhar. The mixed vegetable kootu is generally a semi-solid mixture of several stuff. My guess is that it contains several vegetables, plants, memory cards and old iPod shuffles crushed into semi-solid paste. The reddish stuff is called “Kara Kozhambu”, which has  such a generous layer of oil coated on it that it resembles a gulf oil well. Make sure all the liquids are thoroughly mixed with the rice before consumption.

Carefully plan your appalam so that it is equally distributed throughout the course of your meal. Maintain the order as you consume the stuff i.e Sambhar -> reddish oily stuff (Kozhambu) -> Rasam -> curd. The kootu could be used as a side dish or mixed with rice. Violating the order makes you liable for prosecution. Also, please note that the Rasam in the bowl is generally an optical illusion. You find an entire tomato and coriander leaves inside the bowl. When you remove them, all you get is 3 drops of rasam (Remember the crow story). Do not feel shy to ask for more “red coloured liquids”. You are free to feel guilty though.

Consume the sweet provided after the rasam. Now you are done with the meal. You may go wash your hands. Again, no combing in front of the mirror, ok?

P.S: A nap after the meal is most recommended, ensures pure bliss and a pot belly.

What really happened this evening !!!

To be honest i've had my trysts with emotional moments. That day when i took a catch  in a losing cricket game for VI-B in school. That night my grandma asked me to give out two blankets to the children of construction site workers in the locality. That day my sister brought in a pup, in our house that already had a dog ( including the author). That day when one of my best buddies in school slipped and broke his collar bone and missed his NDA joining. That look on my fathers face when for the first time he got my report card that had no red in it. That day when one my roommate in college looked me in the eye and lied to me, as convincingly as he could, as to how it was not my fault. Many, to sum it up. But nothing really ever broke me down.

Not until today evening when I went to that small shop in the neighbourhood that buys old newspapers and stuff. Packed a whole lot of old magazines and newspapers in a bag and brought it to this shop. A kid, presumably of the guy who runs the place, was playing around in the grime, with used plastic bottles and some covers of old books. Little by little the guy started putting the papers on the weighing scale. Something caught the kid's attention. He ran towards the scale, gently pulled out a few sheets of paper when his father was not watching and took them to a corner. It was a single room shop and there was no place for a child to hide his treasures but he did his best to keep them out of sight of his father. Brought a scissors from some where and started cutting a picture of Dhoni from an old 'The Hindu'. The father saw this, slapped him, snatched the few papers, put them on the scale, told me the weight and paid me. At that moment something snapped. All that emotional control and fake manliness came down in an instance. I called the kid, took him to the nearest newspaper stand and bought him todays edition of ToI and then came home and cried. Like actually shut myself in the bathroom and cried. For minutes.

I am an asshole, and I know that. This is perhaps the first time i did anything for a total stranger without hope of anything in return. Why, I have no clue, but with tears rolling down my face it dawned on me. I was euphoric and felt proud like never before but on an emotional scale it was very intense intense.

Its not about our position in the world or proving ourselves. Heck its not even about pride or self confidence or patriotism or nationalism. Well may be it is but mostly its about giving hope to people who can afford nothing but dreams. People who cannot even afford a recent newspaper to see a picture of their heroes lift the cup. That kid i met today, well he could be the next Dhoni or the next Sachin or may be not and will just end up like his father. Point is, at this moment, to him at least, anything seems possible. And you with all your secured incomes and insurances and what have you, how many times, if at all, have you felt like you could do anything or be anyone?

I used to brag to one of my friends, about how i am biologically incapable of shedding tears and how even a victory in the world cup finals or the news of announcement of Sachin's retirement, will bring me to tears. Well, it did, not directly. But i think i owe him a confession .

Notes from Bangalore

its been a month and calling it a giant coaster ride would be like saying they've got lots of sambhar& rasam here(which in turn is like calling Sachin a rather good cricket player). make no mistake, when i made up my mind on coming here, i knew very well what i was signing up for. A great weather though but, higher cost of living, expensive food food, cheaper but longer commutes, shitty traffic etc. it was all accounted for. what i got however, was plenty more. i guess thats what Bangalore is good at. its a bit like facing a new spin bowler. just when you think you've got him all figured out, he bowls one that makes you look like an idiot.


house hunting. well, let me start by saying i'm not the most faint hearted, but this thing literally brought me to the verge of crying like a little girl. apparently, almost all the property dealers in bangalore have a house that is fantastic, absolutely matching your requirements, ready to occupy, owned by very good at heart people, at just 4-5k away from your workplace but always more than your budget. this is a norm. see, if you're an average person my dear reader, i've met more property dealers in the last one month than all your family members have in all their lifetimes put together. so when i say its a norm, it is, my brothers and sisters, a norm. i think the key to successful house hunting in bangalore, is to realize very early that you will never get the house you want. not in your budget anyways. so just pick one that is secure, close to your office, in your budget, has a decent water supply and, though this one need not be a deal breaker, preferably without the owner living in the same building complex.


food. everything has essence of sambhar. everything is spicy, oily and unhealthy. most of the kannada food is cheap, the rest dirt cheap. most of it is tasty, the rest is heavenly. the only problem is one's got to be choosy here. if you're new to bangalore, take it easy. be selective and soon you'll be gobbling down dosas at the speed of light and loving every bit of it.


commutes. long is the word but not necessarily all uncomfortable. volvo is a godsend really. especially in summers, the air conditioned buses, though more full of people than a pencil lead is full of carbon atoms, are a real gift. but i like it more for the exercise it gives to the upper part of my body and the conversations i get to eavesdrop on. there are girls complaining to their boyfriends about how they don't give them flowers any more(though i never understood kannada or telugu or malalayam or tamil, but still conjecturing). there are guys talking about how suspicious their mum-in-laws are. there are women discussing their rockstar kids in schools, dads discussing their hopeless 25 year olds.. you get the drift right. wonder how it affects ipod sales in bangalore.


more from bangalore later. right now i'm hungry so ill just go out and get something spicy, oily and full of cholesterol (and cheap). and if thats not unhealthy enough, ill also get some butter along with it. later then.

A SUNDAY with my 'ALTER EGO'

Sit tight. Its a long one. Expletives are aplenty so please read this with patience and not forming any bad image about me.

I have this old friend of mine (arjun, lovingly called as 'anna') who has this inclination of constantly improving his resume which promises a very useful support for his ideal career came to bengaluru to appear for his level 2 CFA exam on a sunday morning and leaving me behind to celebrate and enjoy this super sunday alone.

Thanks to my vague dreams i woke up late and had very wisely managed to utilise these morning hours.But the question still remains intact...how the fuck am i goin to spend this sunaday. before i plan out nething an inner voice within me shouted.....

" i am your saner half".....

The part that got the better of you when you were about to show the middle finger to the interviewer in a B-school placement agenda. The part that stopped you from saying 'Sir thats an easy one, even for me' when certain proffesors gave you quiz for internal marks . So you recognize me right.

Well its the time of the year when you'd open up that shitty diary of yours and write in ten resolutions regarding office and work for the coming half year year. I must say I like the diligence with which you have been undertaking the endevour every year since your first job and continuing during your B school . You know the whole exercise of writing in ten points, then adding the numbers instead of *'s in front of them, then again scratching the numbers and making them huge dots to save yourself from writing extra curves that expose your poor handwriting and then when struck by the fact that it all looks so shabby, you write it on a fresh page turning back to see what you wrote previously and then it occurs to you how tough those things are and so you mellow it down a bit..

you get the point right. So yeah well heres the thing, dont do it this year.. okay?

just take this remaining year easy. Do not fool yourself (further) by doing all this shitty stuff. Just live it as it comes shobhit (you fuckin moron) . Isnt that what you do anyways (u fat ass)? I mean lets see what happened the previous years. Did you stop sledging?. Did you fix your lifestyle . Did you wake up early this morning, did you remember all your cousin's bday, did you go to all your friends' marriages, did you save 50% of your income, did you improve your eating habits, did you hit the gym today for burning your voluptuous extra calories by exercicing...did you.....oh this is my favorite.. go to the temple twice a week..hah, did you resumed your reading habit..... hunh? anything? I guess you did however learned to watch more movie and TV and ofcourse wasting a lot of time. So please just save me this embarrassment this year. Cause you know what, unlike you, I do have to retrospect and I do have a conscience thats not a complete dick as you are. Just don't do it.

After that things became pretty normal and it Was a wonderful day. Had a good andhra meal in ages and boy.. was it satisfying! In ages because i was on the cruel diet of curd rice for the last 2 days.Its such a great moment i tell you, when tiny droplets of ghee intercourse with the generous helping of rice and then collide with dal and gunpowder causing orgasmic carpet bombing inside the stomach.. aah what beauty.

I have been instructed by my doctor to increase my liquid intake by at least 2 times and no wonder i have done just the opposite by increasing my diet 2 times.. I have a desk job in a comfy well air conditioned office and I rarely feel thirsty enough, but since i must, I have to be reminded several times during the day to do so. But as explained above i never obeyed my own rules.

Seven things I love about BENGALURU

1. Neer dosa - You have to have it to know the feeling. Words cannot describe it.

2. Saar - The fact that everyone addresses everyone else as Sir. From autodrivers to bus conductors to waiters to the owner of  ciggarette counters next to bars, all are addressed as Sir. The best part is people here don't even have to make a conscious effort to do so, it comes to them naturally.

3. Women everywhere - Wait before you react to this. in Bangalore, women are everywhere. As restaurant managers, shopkeepers, bus conductors and even as bus drivers. i have lived in four different states in this country (a good mix of north, west and south) and i have not seen women so active in undertaking jobs that were traditionally thought to be mens' anywhere else.

4. The weather - This is such a universally loved fact about Bangalore that those who have never been to this city, would be wondering what it must be like to go on the terrace and sip on beer in the evenings. Well, you know the feeling of being asked by your boss to stay back and finish a few testing scenarios on a friday night right? Well, its the exact opposite of that.

5. Kesari bath - A big sweet lover myself, i absolutely adore the kesari bath. it was three years back i had it first(in chennai) and it was a love on first bite. to say it in the foresquare lingo, it instantly became the mayor of my gastric gaspot.

6. BMTC - Not an inspiration for punctuality, the public bus transit system in Bangalore is still too good. i especially love the slightly expensive volvo buses that are swift and comfortable. with the traffic of bangalore (aka traffuck) in such a, well, fucked, condition it is, it offers a nice way to chill and let someone else do the driving, while you read pointless tweets on your cell phone.

7. Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium - if this list was in any order whatsoever, this item would have been right up there. i always love to live in a place that has a regular venue for cricket matches and here i am continuing with it after indore, chennai, mumbai and now bangalore (akka bengaluru).

Shadows

I have a realization that I may have to stop writing for a while. I think I could be upsetting people. Thought what I write seems to be philosophical, they are all inspired from my experiences in life. But I've been downright nasty with some of my posts, raising fingers directly or indirectly. I'm probably showing up the more thoughtful, horrible side of my nature and giving people all the reason they need to stop talking to me.

It's been an odd week so far, damn hectic and stressed out. It feels pathetic when you cannot talk to your close ones for an elongated period.  A few posts earlier I wrote about experiential learning, and exposure. Now, given how strenuous it can be, I fail to find time for myself, and end up frustrated.


Unintentionally, one day, through my wrath and hateful words, I will push away everybody those matter to me. Then I'll be alone and will be forced to surrender. This thing, this confinement to a shell, rules my life, and haunts me at times. It subtly tells me that the worst is inevitable and that the only way to avoid all the pain is to just give up. But I don't want to let it win. I want to make my success plausible.


The part of me that exists without shadow looks only for a bright future. Sadly the clouds are gathering and everything remains in shade. But soon I will return with my positive self, tearing apart the clouds of dejection, cheerful and progressive as always.