Aviation is a customer service business more than anything else. Most companies have similar aircrafts, equipments and infrastructure available to them. It is only customer service that enhances quality of experience and makes an airline preferable over other.
This experience taught me some valuable lessons in what NOT to do in customer service. Here are the top 7 mistakes in customer service:
1. Not smiling enough
2. Not listening and not communicating
3. Lying to your customers and not fulfilling your promises
4. Sticking to your policy and ignoring problems faced by the customer
5. Going inaccessible when customer wants to talk to you
6. Passing the buck to someone higher in the order
7. Forgetting the basic courtesies: Smiling, saying “Thank You” and “Sorry” does not cost a dime but it shows that you care.

* 7 a.m.: At a time when most top executives would be finishing their morning run and beginning to get ready for work, Wim Elfrink is already an hour into work, virtually meeting his colleagues…
* 9 a.m.: A few hours meeting with colleagues in the US and Europe and initiating meetings with his team based in India…
* 3 p.m.: After several hours of meeting with colleagues, customers and visitors, Elfrink heads back home… “You don’t need to commute to compute,” he often tells his staff
* 6 p.m.: It’s time for another bout of work for Elfrink, as he once again logs on to the TP system and catches up with colleagues in North America just as they are about to begin their workday. As part of the globalisation process, Elfrink often works through the weekend (since some countries in West Asia like Saudi Arabia have differing weekly holidays) and takes a few days off after working for 10-12 days

What is global culture? It is respect for different time zones. If my boss in the US organises a meeting on Friday afternoon, I have to step in and say no because for me it is a Saturday morning. In Saudi, weekends are on Thursday and Friday. In Dubai it is Friday and Saturday. Execution around these simple things, I live it every day. I am the Number Two man at Cisco and so I have to be vocal about these things. You can’t put it somewhere under the carpet. This is how global companies will have to operate five to 10 years down the line. People should speak at least three languages because they would have lived in different continents.
But not everybody can have an open mind, or are willing to move around and learn. So, we are formulating a policy for that because we need to groom future leaders and a percentage of top talent should move around.

# have slowly but surely changed their thresholds for hard work (it’s easier than ever before), spotting bullsh*t (they can tell it a mile off) and getting up early.
# have stopped blaming history and can’t remember the last time they used the phrase ‘I don’t have time’.
# have zero tolerance for cynicism. They simply ask of people: make it work or move on.
# absolutely definitely believe that a professional does what is necessary even when he/she does not feel like it.

राख कितनी राख है, चारों तरफ बिखरी हुई,
राख में चिनगारियां ही देख अंगारे न देख।

You just gave an important talk about a new initiative. Maybe 40 employees were there, all "key players," you called us. I was the guy in the back of the room with the curly hair…If my opinion really mattered, I'd tell you what I liked about your presentation to your face. I probably wouldn't mention what I didn't like. But here, why not lay it all out for you? You can take it or leave it.
1. I arrived early, and I appreciated that you were ready to start on time. The fact that you spent the first 12 minutes making the rest of us wait for our bosses to show up? Not so much.

हो गई है पीर पर्वत-सी पिघलनी चाहिए, इस हिमालय से कोई गंगा निकलनी चाहिए।
आज यह दीवार, परदों की तरह हिलने लगी, शर्त थी कि ये बुनियाद हिलनी चाहिए।
हर सड़क पर, हर गली में, हर नगर, हर गाँव में, हाथ लहराते हुए हर लाश चलनी चाहिए।
सिर्फ हंगामा खड़ा करना मेरा मकसद नहीं, मेरी कोश‍िश है कि ये सूरत बदलनी चाहिए।
मेरे सीने में नहीं तो तेरे सीने में सही, हो कहीं भी आग, लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए।

If fiction provided the consolations of the mask, nonfiction provided, per Annie’s idea of it, the sensibility underneath the mask, irreplaceable and potentially of great value. The literary essay, as she saw it, was a moral exercise that involved direct engagement with the unknown, whether it was a foreign civilization or your mind, and what mattered in this was you.
You are the only one of you, she said of it. Your unique perspective, at this time, in our age, whether it’s on Tunis or the trees outside your window, is what matters. Don’t worry about being original, she said dismissively. Yes, everything’s been written, but also, the thing you want to write, before you wrote it, was impossible to write. Otherwise it would already exist. You writing it makes it possible.

So here is my list of top ways to find joy at work.
10. Identify long-term personal purpose. Write a personal mission statement, to review often.
9. Be an entrepreneur from anywhere. Even if you don't start a business (now), imagine starting a project that will improve your current job, workplace, or community.
8. Discuss the idea informally to find others feeling the same way. Enlist them in the quest…
7. Get a Big Name to endorse giving it a try.
6. Negotiate out of demands that don't contribute to the goal. Keep doing what you must to keep your job, but simplify.
5. Find every supporter a task, however small. Show that you're working for their goals, too.
4. Widen the circle of the informed. Involve people not usually included.
3. Remain positive…
2. As the bits of the cube start moving, keep communicating and coordinating.
1. Celebrate each "Rubik's Cube" moment of accomplishment. Share the joy to multiply it.

want so much from this column, I thought about not writing it, so that what would be left was a beautiful blank space that readers could fill with their most cherished fantasies. I thought about just thinking about it.
But, on further reflection, that struck me as too Rive Gauche for some of my American readers, although certainly not for my good friends in Stockholm (peace be upon them).
A virtual column, waiting to be written, poised atop the vortex, is one filled with infinite possibility. With each word I write I am confining it. The way reality encroaches on fantasy is terrible to bear. But that’s the human condition we share whether we are black, white or — increasingly — brown.

Art for children should be scary. It needs to be scary. A children's story often starts and ends in the comfort of home, sure. But nothing's at stake if the story never leaves it. Rattle your memory. What are the books and films that are deepest rooted in your imagination, the memories with the strongest flavours? Do you remember laughing merrily at the pantomime dame? Or do you remember, rather, being scared of King Rat?…
Ever since the Brothers Grimm set about mutilating their way through the Ugly Sisters, storytelling to children has been all about the disturbing allure of the deep, dark woods. And there's nothing mild about the peril they contain.
The prime ingredient – the thing that gives art directed at children its kick – is fear. It goes straight to the hindbrain. And the nature of that fear is unlike the adult sort.

are little ideas that no one killed too soon

Our exclusive gallery of images from the British Library's Points of View exhibition shows how 19th-century photographers brought the world back to Britain, sparking a surge of interest in foreign travel

half of our population is experiencing decreasing net happiness and satisfaction with life. When we look at what makes people engaged and fulfilled with their lives, everyone…seems to agree that the feeling of self-efficacy, feeling valued and effective and in your "strength zone" is critical–that the happiest, most successful people are those who have figured out ways to play to the best of themselves in each part of their lives…
There are two causes (…of dissatisfaction and unhappiness in life). One is an excess of choice…The second is that the advice given is misleading..If your goal in life is balance, you will be forever disappointing yourself.
Women are told to be good jugglers…supposed to be able to keep everything up in the air at once…challenge becomes, "How do I not drop anything?" The solutions offered are ideas like "better time management," or "learn to put up boundaries" or "learn to say no."…all of that advice is bad. The core skill of juggling is throwing

Questions about my future do remain unanswered, though that seems to bother other people more than me. It's funny how much some folks focus on numeric milestones: 90 days, 6 months, 1 year. Markers like those certainly have descriptive value when you look, after the fact, across a large number of people; interesting patterns emerge. But using those found patterns to dictate how I shape my own future is an inorganic endeavor in which I choose not to engage.
At the one-year mark, I still believe in the process of self-discovery, one that I hope never ceases. A process that, despite its open-endedness, doesn't preclude practical decision making when the moment is right, even if the call I make is thoroughly out of sync with the numeric milestones. A process that does not belong exclusively to people who have quit (or want to quit) their jobs.

when sensational things like Arundhati Roy justifying the reign of terror unleashed by the Naxals…happen then I am forced to break the silence…
The argument as to who is a "terrorist" and who is "misguided youth" is a never-ending one…that has been fought over so many times that it is not worth going into again. However what requires comment is that Naxals are anything but the "little guys fighting for justice pushed into a corner" that their PR people like Ms. Roy would have us believe. They are an organized army-like entity with a leadership structure whose principal goal is the destruction of the Indian state and the rule of law. They terrorize the populations they claim to protect, extort and appropriate resources from the dispossessed and engage in violence against people who do not represent the state. Their arms are sophisticated, they are financed by India's enemies and they are allied with SIMI tapping into their organization and their funding channels.

Having a strong password goes a long way in helping to protect your data, but there are a number of additional steps you can take to help you keep your Gmail account secure

The law consists of abstract rules because…as human beings, judges are unable to foresee all of the long-term consequences of their decisions and may be unduly influenced by the immediate, visible effects of these decisions. The rules of law are designed in part to strike the proper balance between the interests of those who are seen and those who are not seen. The purpose of the rules is to enable judges to resist the emotionally engaging temptation to relieve the plight of those they can see and empathize with, even when doing so would be unfair to those they cannot see.
Calling on judges to be compassionate or empathetic is in effect to ask them to undo this balance and favor the seen over the unseen…if the difference…is that the bad judge focuses on the visible effects of his or her decisions while the good judge takes into account both the effects that can be seen and those that are unseen, then the compassionate, empathetic judge is very likely to be a bad judge.

In case you’re confused about your religious beliefs, the awesome flowchart below, created by the good people at Holy Taco, should resolve all doubts…
False gods are everywhere, of course, and I’m sure you’ll find a vendor to customize one to your needs. May we all be cult.

There are institutes where students walk in with their eyes open and know what to expect. And there are those where they walk in, blinded – misled, misguided and misinformed, by a campaign where media, regulatory agencies and academia become willing accomplices…
As we scanned the ads, spoke to experts, affected parties and counselors, we realised that one name cropped up the most – IIPM. We decided to investigate…What our investigation unravelled left us cold. Here is an institution that enjoys all the privileges of an academic institution (according to IT authorities, it claimed exemptions citing Section 10(23C) (VI) of the Income Tax act, 1961) with zero responsibility and accountability. Here is an institution that brazenly uses its power and reach to make unsubstantiated claims that play with the lives of students and parents alike.

When I got to Bombay, I found similar stories from among the business journalist fraternity; I once worked with a colleague who, first thing each morning, sifted through the invitations to press conferences and called up the PROs to ask what the ‘gift’ was. He had refined the thing to a fine art — he would attend only those PCs where there was cash or gift cheques on offer.
At some point, newspapers figured out that journalists were making money while managements earned nothing — and lo, Page 3 was born and with it, a cash-and-carry business paradigm where social climbers paid newspaper managements, who in turn meticulously chronicled their appearances at various inane parties [there is at least one party animal on the Mumbai circuit I know of, whose 'celebrity status' is entirely a Page 3 concoction].
So I guess this story merely reflects the logical culmination of the space for sale aspect of journalism.

When I look at the responses, the common theme is that starting a startup was like I said, but way more so. People just don't seem to get how different it is till they do it. Why? The key to that mystery is to ask, how different from what? Once you phrase it that way, the answer is obvious: from a job. Everyone's model of work is a job. It's completely pervasive. Even if you've never had a job, your parents probably did, along with practically every other adult you've met.
Unconsciously, everyone expects a startup to be like a job, and that explains most of the surprises. It explains why people are surprised how carefully you have to choose cofounders and how hard you have to work to maintain your relationship…It explains why the ups and downs are surprisingly extreme…But it also explains why the good times are surprisingly good: most people can't imagine such freedom. As you go down the list, almost all the surprises are surprising in how much a startup differs from a job.

As Tom Watson, the founder of IBM said:
"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure — or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you will find success."
Here's another way to think about it. Once I was trying to fix a toilet and water began to blast upward from a fitting. The building Super, who was watching me, commented, "You know the difference between a professional plumber and an amateur?"
"No," I said, frantically searching for a towel.
"The professional makes as many mistakes as the amateur," he said, swinging a wrench onto the main valve and closing off the fountain, "The difference is, a professional fixes them faster."

If you have some space in your home or office premises, it probably makes lots of sense to grow these plants because research says that there is a 42% probability of increasing blood oxygen by 1% if one stays inside a building housing these plants for 10 hours.
And Kamal isnt the only person saying this. Earlier, a study conducted by NASA also suggested that certain houseplants (including Bamboo Palm and Snake Plant) can remove as much as 87% of indoor air pollutants within 24 hours.

Doniger’s work has been challenged for years by the Hindu rightwing…Perhaps what really disconcerts and offends those who throw literal or metaphorical eggs at the professor is that she lays claim to a far wider corpus of knowledge than is commonly found to be acceptable…
Doniger is threatening because of her immense scholarship. She’s the “outsider” who knows as much, and in many cases, more, about the Hindu scriptures and traditions than her most fierce opponents…
“This is a history, not the history, of the Hindus,” Doniger emphasises; and this is perhaps why she is seen in some Indian circles as so dangerous. By its very title, The Hindus: An Alternative History suggests that Hinduism has several competing histories rather than one sanctioned version. For today’s religious fundamentalists, this is a terrifying idea that threatens the authorised version of history they would prefer to preach, uphold and impose.

So far the new technology has been called the "e-reader," a term obviously picked by engineers, not poets. In literary terms it's a transbook, by which I mean that it is the book which can contain all books. Why are so many writers so afraid of this staggeringly wonderful possibility? A book is a singular object that can contain many voices, but the transbook has the potential to be a singular object containing all voices. It is not just another kind of media; it is the dream of ultimate text.
We are still in early days, but it is obvious where the transbook is headed: It will eventually provide access to all text that is non-copyright, and to the purchase of every book in or out of "print."..
Kindle 2 isn't really about what we may or may not want as readers and writers. It's about what the book wants to be. And the book wants to be itself and everything. It wants to be a vast abridgment of the universe that you can hold in your hand. It wants to be the transbook.

It’s 4pm and you are fidgeting in your seat, trying to ignore your growling tummy. A colleague passes over a couple of burfis, adding 280kcal to your day. Resistance is evidently futile. So you think you might as well take a tea break.
“There are three main reasons (why) people feel hungry in the afternoon. They missed lunch or it was not satisfying; they are bored and want to munch mindlessly; or someone else is snacking,”…
“Snacking per se isn’t bad,…it won’t make you fat. In fact, snacking can increase your metabolic rate and stimulate your body to burn more fat.” As long as you are smart about it, you can avoid gaining weight…
What you want is 100-150kcal with a good balance of nutrients. “Print a list of healthy snack options and keep it handy. So that when the craving strikes, you know what to order,”