Mouth wide shut........ :)

Job Satisfaction

2013-03-28T12:49:00.002-07:00

Job satisfaction is a myth!!! There is a lot of hue and cry about job satisfaction among working professionals.
But if one closely analyses, Job satisfaction is not just about the quality of job description but it is more on the extraneous factors like your colleagues, work culture,office facilities and suprisingly to a great extent even your personal life.

People who don't have a happy personal life are the one who gets easily upset by a bad day at office and crib about job satisfaction.Ideal job for everyone would a enjoying a sun bath in the beaches of honolulu but then best things in life has a price attached to it!!

Few people feel being on bench and drawing salary for doing nothing is the best job that one can ever have. Some other people opine having quantitative work involving intelligence gives job satisfaction. There is also a third category who think meeting people and job involving lots of travel is the best job satisfaction that one can ever have!!

Well, the point is, the definition of job satisfaction is highly subjective and it depends on the kind of person one is.Imagine a free rider as described in the first case above landing up with a highly quantitative job profile or a sales profile or vice versa.Every one is gifted with certain skill set and certain likes and dislikes.So, one must do what one enjoys doing NOT what necessarily is a better job to be happy at his job.

But people even get bored of always being happy and satisfied which leads to job dissatisfaction. People crave for spice in their life and such content, happy but monotonous life for a long time leads ultimately to boredom!

So, you see Job satisfaction is a myth, ain't it?

Trading lessons for dummies!!

2013-01-25T12:32:00.002-08:00

Well, I am myself quite a newbie in Trading arena but here I would like to jot down few lessons that would come handy for every "greenhorn" who is just getting started with Trading. I would just limit this post to stocks. I wouldn't describe the techniques of stock picking as these can easily be found in any of Trading books/related websites. I would focus on the behavioural aspects, most of which I have experienced in last few months of Trading.

First and for-most don't get emotionally attached to your stocks. It's important to book profits at the right time. Blindly obeying the fundamental theorists and believing in the adage that in long term, stocks would provide the highest returns might leave you disenchanted!

Never go for impulse purchase in case of any stocks. Impulse purchase is no less than Gambling.

One strategy I have found quite useful is to have your own benchmark for returns. For e.g: Expecting a 15-20% return before you book profits. This is a very good strategy for short term traders. Being too greedy and delaying your profit booking might be at the cost of short term liquidity of your stocks.

Buy low, Sell high is still the best strategy. Complicating stuff with intrinsic value and current market value comparison might expose you to the vagaries of artificial demand-supply dynamics.Advanced mathematics in fundamental analysis looks good in excel and makes you feel satisfied that you have utilised your MBA knowledge but these involve mutiple assumptions which might be flawed. Basic analysis like company fundamentals, whether the stock is underpriced or not, projects in pipeline etc is good enough to start with. For e.g. Most of the auto stocks have zoomed inspite of most of them reporting losses in last few quarters. Most of the analyst opine that there is a huge mismatch between the intrinsic value and current market of the auto stocks which is led by irrational exuberance.

Don't put all your eggs in the same basket. Easy profit might lure you into putting all your money into stocks but remember losses are equally likely as profits in the markets and hence, its important to diversify with other asset classes.

Invest in the industry which you understand or atleast track closely. This would help you to take an informative call and read between the lines of any news in the media.

Lastly, to get started with Trading, it's important to start with your own money. No matter how many articles or best practices you read or get hands on numerous virtual stock trading games, without experiencing the ground realities of Trading, one can't learn and grow to be a seasoned trader over time!

Happy Trading :)

Life Post MBA

2013-01-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

After almost 10 months of completing my MBA, I have finally taken the pain of scribbling in my blog.

MBA was an amazing experience and life post that is infact more amazing as well as amusing!! After 2 years of grinding, MBA grads enter job market with great fan-fare but very soon feel MBA wasn't worth it because what they are made to do post MBA is sheer crap as compared to what they did prior to MBA.

Inspite of all the disillusionment associated with MBA, I feel MBA is worth every penny. MBA makes you versatile and gives the confidence and knowledge for every damn job that's on offer!

It's not that what average pay-packets MBA from good B-schools get can't be matched without MBA degree as many smart engineering folks end up earning more but the fact of the matter is doing what you are good at and what you enjoy doing is what makes one successful.

Life's post MBA is more comfortable as well as intellectually gratifying. It's not fair to seek intellectual gratification from just routine job. One has to be really lucky to land up in a job which challenges your wits every day but there is life beyond your office hours. Tracking the market, beating the analysts forecast, analysing the fundamentals of a stock , putting your hard earned money into market(however small!) and see it fetch returns makes you realise all that you have read isn't waste!! Even habits like reading a business newspaper every morning and staying abreast of latest happening is something which is by-product of MBA. We put up many small little habits which has the potential for big changes in the way we see and approach every day problems in life.

It's not that MBA produces people with only "fire in the belly" :)
It also produces people who realise that it is equally important to enjoy your life, take care of health, give time for family, do what you like doing, sleep like a corpse, work hard....instead of being single mindedly be career oriented, realising when you grow old that you haven't enjoyed your own wealth and success!!

The curious case of Year Books...!!

2012-04-09T22:17:00.005-07:00

Yearbooks are a fairly recent phenomenon in Indian Campuses.Before yearbooks,it was slam books which ruled over all the campuses.Then yearbooks replaced them by collating the information of the entire batch in a booklet.But in today's era of social media,they have in a way have become redundant.Well,this post doesn't intent to discuss the relevance of yearbooks but rather discuss the crazy stuff that goes into it!

In my engineering yearbook,each person had to write about what his philosophy of life is and what he would remember the most about the college.People used to copy some catchy lines from internet and paste it in the yearbooks.Banal statements like "I believe in "Work hard..party harder' ...I believe in "Working hard..honestly..respecting elders..bla bla bla..Strangely such statements used to come from people who actually didn't even work hard or party..just wrote for the sake of it.The design of the yearbooks used to be very rudimentary.In our days,even a guy with basic knowledge of Photoshop used to be dubbed as "Design Guru'.Things have changed a lot these days with the popularity of SLR cameras and social media whereby more people are taking up designing.Using photoshop, people make even a street dog look royal and beautiful :)

The B-schools yearbooks are much different from that of engineering ones.The design is outsourced to some specialized firms who are into the business of designing and printing.As any other activity in business schools,even this doesn't come cheap.It does cost a bomb to design and print yearbooks for the entire batch.The designs are much fancier than the engineering ones but they aren't changed every year.Even the introductory words by the top administration of the institute is the same every year.The content of the yearbook comprises of testimonials that your batch mates write about you.These testimonials are much boring than the content of what you see in the engineering yearbooks.People write the same crap for all!

Girls have starting lines like "She is a happy-go-lucky girl spreading happiness all around her and bailing humanity out of gloom and morose"

Other banal statements would be " She is beauty with brains...don't get fooled by her tough demeanour..she is like a tender child from inside"

Guys would have statements like "He is a honest..harworking and believes in high thinking..low living...most eligible bachelor in the batch....a perfect connoisseur of good food..Tom Cruise looks bla bla bla..."

Slam books in schools did a much better job as the person filling it was much more candor about the person to whom the slam book belonged.When the stuff gets distrubuted with the entire batch,it's when it all starts get boring!

The truth is when you turn the pages of yearbook and go through the pages of your batch mates,they look all the same..like the candles burning at the altar of a church!!

Malai Kofta

2012-04-06T21:26:00.006-07:00

Ingredients

For the Koftas:

1 cup paneer crumbled;1 tablespoon maida,a pinch of baking powder,2 green chillies chopped,

2 tablespoons coriander chopped and salt to taste

For the gravy:

4 medium tomatoes,1 cup milk,1/4 cup cream,1 tablespoon kasuri methi,1 tablespoon oil,salt to taste

To be grounded into a paste:

1/4 cup onions sliced,3 cloves garlic,2 green chillies,2 dry red chillies,2 teaspoons

coriander seeds,1 teaspoon cumin seeds(jeeera);1'' ginger piece;2 cloves(laung),1'' stick cinnamon(dalchini)

For the garnish: 2 teaspoons chopped coriander

Steps:

For the koftas:

Mix paneer,plain flour,baking powder,chillies,coriander and salt.
Shape it into 8 small rounds and place them on a greased microwave safe plate.Microwave on HIGH for 45 seconds and keep aside.

For the gravy:

Pierce the tomatoes lightly with a fork,place in a microwave safe dish and microwave HIGH for 4 minutes.Remove and cool.
Blend the tomatoes to a smooth puree and keep aside.
In another microwave safe bowl,add the oil and the ground paste and microwave HIGH for 5 minutes,stirring once after 2.5 minutes.
Add the tomato puree and microwave on HIGH for 5 minutes stirring once in between after 2.5 minutes.
Add the milk,cream,kasuri methi and salt and microwave on HIGH for 2 more minutes.

How to Proceed: Just before serving,add the koftas to the gravy amd microwave on HIGh for 2 minutes.Serve hot garnished with coriander.

Some of the Pics

Source of recipe: Samsung Book of Indian Microwave Cooking by Tarla Dalal

Besan Ladoo

2012-04-06T21:01:00.005-07:00

Besan Ladoo is an extremely simple sweet item that can be made in just a few minutes.

Please follow the steps religiously else ONLY you would be responsible for the gastronomic disaster :)

You would need:

1 cup besan
1/3 cup ghee
1/4 teaspoon elaichi powder
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Steps:

In a microwave safe bowl,add the besan and ghee and mix well.Microwave on HIGH(750W) for 3 minutes,stirring after every 1 minute.

Reduce the power to 70% and microwave for another minute stirring once after 30 seconds.Remove and let the mixture cool completely.

Add the elaichi powder and sugar and mix well.

Divide into 10 equal portions and shape it into laddoos.

You can then garnish it with pista badam or anything else as you find suitable.

Source of recipe: Samsung Book of Indian Microwave Cooking by Tarla Dalal

Newfound Hobby--Cooking

2012-04-06T20:52:00.005-07:00

Out of terrible "Vellapanti",I have discovered a new found hobby Cooking.It's extremely easy to cook.Cooking a great dish involves 3 simple steps:

Google for some delicious recipes like Paneer Tikka,Besan ladoo etc.
Follow the step by step approach as outlined.Don't use your creatively in tweaking the proportion of ingredients else that would be a recipe for disaster!
Enjoy the delicious food with your friends and family :)

In the next few blog posts,I'll share some of the mouth watering recipes of dishes that I have tried myself and have proved to be a great success :)

Invictus

2012-04-01T04:55:00.004-07:00

What I really liked about this movie is that it bears a clear testimony to the brilliance of Nelson Mandela as a Leader.Morgan Freeman almost flawlessly plays the character of Nelson Mandela.The movie is based on the backdrop of Nelson Mandela serving his first term as the president.Even after spending 30 years in prison,he wasn't myopic to favor his black countrymen over the whites.He had a clear vision of seeing South Africa as one of prosperous countries of the world.For that he would need the support of the whites.Although the whites were the minority they controlled the majority of the South African economy.Instead of single mindedly focussing on creating political goodwill among other countries of the world,he chose something(Sports) which had the potential to bridge the divide between the Blacks and the Whites.He strongly backed up his country's rugby's team and shared the secret of his success with the captain of SA's rugby team,played by Matt Damon.The success was finding inspiration among other things and inspiring your team to exceed their own expectations.It was his inspiration that helped his country's rugby team to beat the mighty New Zealand in the finals of the world cup and achieve the impossible.What followed was what brought tears in the eyes of Mr.Nelson Mandela.He was moved to see the bonding between the whites and the blacks while celebrating the success of the country's rugby team,the team that was written off at the start of the tournament.

It was the compassion and the ability of Mr. Mandela to forgive the whites for the greater goods of the country that played the trick for him.Compassion,Forgiveness and Inspiration were the pillars on which the leadership style of Mr.Mandela was based upon.

This was indeed a refreshing movie for me after series of movies on insider trading,NDA and collapse of wallstreet in 2008.

MBA from rearview mirror [Part 2]

2012-03-19T23:23:00.002-07:00

In this post, I’ll focus on the non-academic aspect of MBA.

B-schools are a very different place than engineering colleges. There are a lot of festivities, DJ parties and lots of other recreational activities. There are numerous interest committees which most of the people take, not because of interest but because of C.V value. There will be a committee for every damn little thing from finance to cleaning bathroom!! In every committee or in every group assignment, Pareto principle can be seen in practice.20% of the members would be doing 80% of the work.

You would find three classes of people in a B-school.

Class 1: Over enthusiastic guys, may be, haven’t participated in any extracurricular activities in their undergraduate college and want to make up for it or have been the same over-enthusiastic in UG days and want to carry the same form in B-school.

Class 2: Do everything for the C.V value. Even if they give “bakshish” to the mess worker or bathroom cleaners, they would do so for the intention of C.V value. Even if they help a blind person cross a road, they will immediately come back to their room and update their resume with this.

Class 3: “Care a damn type”. These classes of people are usually the intelligent and studious ones and think such activities as sheer waste of time. They would have talked to some close friends in their senior batch who dispels the myth that involvement in committees has no C.V value and quote examples of numerous seniors who walked away with the most coveted jobs on campus without getting involved in any extracurricular.

The truth is that one should be involved in an interest committee only if one has interest in that else it would be a recipe for disaster!

The culture at a B-school is very open, much different from an engineering college. Students as well as some of the faculty members use slangs with a lot of freedom. Ironically, for some slang is a litmus test to know if someone is cool or not.

B-school is a place where everyone preaches honesty and ethics but almost none practices it. I seriously feel the pedagogy for subjects like ethics should go for a complete transformation. Such subjects are indeed extremely crucial in today’s world of greed but I feel it’s difficult to teach such thing to grown up people. Such value system should be instilled in school else we land up with the current scenario where everyone talks about in public in fancy conferences and lectures but none put to practice. Such state of affairs is indeed pathetic!

Although B-schools is a place of intense academic rigor, they are a great fun place too! It’s an amazing finishing school!!

With this I'll put an end to the series of posts on Business schools,guess I had too much of it :)

MBA from rear view mirror[Part 1]

2012-03-19T22:50:00.001-07:00

During my two years of MBA,I always felt that one needs some considerable amount of time for self-introspection and to be in total control of the situation but MBA doesn't gives you that privilege. Now time has taken a complete U turn.MBA is over and you are grappling to find something worthwhile to do at home. I do realize that it’s going to be the last "long" vacation of my life. One has plenty of time to look back in time and understand what MBA was all about!

In this post I would only look at the academic part.

Before joining a Business school, the three most important parameters for any aspirant for judging a B-school is

Placements
Industry Interface
Faculty

Almost all B-school rankings are a mere mockery and are in some way "paid listings" just like the paid ads that you see in the Google search page.

Every aspirant craves for loads of industry interface but when on campus, he’s bogged down by the sheer quantum of alumni talks and other CEO talks held in campus.

Before joining a B-school, every guy who thinks he has some grey cells aspires to be an i-banker and makes up his mind of majoring in finance. In the very first term with much fanfare people register for CFA exams. Registration for CFA exams is a sure shot way to be christened as a "fin stud". The fear of failure for some make them go underground and register for it secretly, fearing that they might lose their reputation if they fail, as if they have lot of it!

But only a couple of terms are enough to hook people back to the ground. Floundering grades and diffidence gets people on dusty ground. CQPI maximization becomes the only goal in life. People take up subjects to maximize grades even if they have no interest in those and learning is almost zero!

As a rule of thumb, be it engineering or MBA, always the sub-standard faculty bestow lavish grades for hiding their incompetence and winning the confidence of the students. Students give them good feedback in return for generous grades and the incompetent faculty survives at the institute with ease. This is a huge lacuna in our education system.

Whether grades are important or not in B-schools is a million dollar question. Seniors drum it into your heads that running after grades is a waste of time and extracurricular is what matters. Summer placements are like a trailer of final placements. After summer placements and having more information of final placements, somewhere in term -3, most of the students are stupefied to know that grades does matter in short listing. They start to panic, curse their seniors and take up papers which are of no value other to maximize grades! In final placements, apart from a couple of firms, none of the others shortlists only on the basis of grades. Your class-10, 12 and engg. Academics matter much more! Situation in top 5-6 campuses might be different where management consulting and i-banks come for recruitment, which categorically looks for the toppers.

Some of the firms even go for random short listing. Even a guy in bottom 5-6 percentile of his batch and no great pre-MBA academic record or pedigree finds his resume shortlisted and a guy from a top notch engineering college with an enviable pre-MBA academic record and work-ex is shunted from further evaluation. This might be boon for many but definitely not a scientific way of selection!

In placements anything can happen. Toppers' dreams might be put to dust while the underdogs might walk away with the most coveted jobs on campus. I believe placements are not completely in your hands but what you learn in 2 years is something on which you have control. So, the focus should be on learning. After all we are in a knowledge industry and we are paid commensurate to the skill set that we have!

Getting placed in a big brand with differential profile and pay is worse than getting into a not so exclusive brand company which treats you in league 1.It's the nature of work that you do that matters and not the company for which you work for.

If you track the career of any of your former classmates or any other acquaintance from a premier institute, you would find most of them end up fighting their way to the top. Campus placements are just a launch platform. One has got the maximum bang for his bucks only he has maximized his learning.

Cheat sheet to survive the rigour of a Business School

2012-02-27T09:43:00.008-08:00

Here is a cheat sheet which encapsulates few ways to survive the rigour of a business school and yet come out of the journey satisfied and rejuvenated.

Most important of all..don't worry too much about final placements...they just happen..you can't plan it out.If your peers sneer at you,show your middle finger,ignore and keep trying.

If you feel you are in the bottom 30-40 percentile of the batch..don't worry.You have higher chance of landing yourself with a envious job than the toppers.

Randomness is the truth of life.When a Professor gives you random grades..never question it.Nature has been designed that way.The job that you get,the first crush that you have,the girl that you marry and the way you'll die is highly likely to be a random phenomenon.

If you haven't landed up with a cool summer internship...there is reason to cheer.A small analysis of historical figure will prove that in general the guys to be placed last in summers are the ones who are the first to be placed in final placements.

If you don't have the skills to do DCP(Desperate class participation)..don't panic.People doing DCP rarely top.Go to the last bench and watch these monkeys performing and have fun!

Don't have too many attachments with worldly objects.Have a peaceful 10 hours of sleep everyday,go for 4-5 kms of jogging and do what you feel like.

No point running after girls if that's not your core competence.Stick to what you do best...be it sleeping..watching movies..reading..coding..researching etc.

There are numerous ways to earn pocket money while your still in college.Instead of killing all your time doing non-value activities,look out for part time work or other free-lancing opportunities in your cities.It's a cool way to have industry experience and make enough money to have a lavish lifestyle while still in college.Other way is to win competitions but then not all end up winning the big ones!

Always remember its about 16 years of education that matters,not just 2 year of MBA.What you are today is the culmination of the quality of school and engineering college you have attended.B-school is just a finishing school.

Disclaimer:Try at your own risk :)

NIT Hamirpur(H.P) campus

2012-02-27T09:12:00.006-08:00

250 acres lush green campus of NIT Hamirpur(H.P) ...arguably the most beautiful of all engineering campuses in India.

All is NOT well!!!

2012-02-26T09:03:00.010-08:00

Term 6 of MBA is the most awaited term for any B-school guy.You get placed and the feeling of

having successfully survived the rigour of the B-school and landing up with a cool job gives you a

high...bole tho on cloud 9.Like any one else,I also had planned a lot many things to do in term 6 like sleeping 12-15 hrs a day,2-3 movies a day,atleast 2 trips a week etc.But from the day I am placed,nothing going right.I am extremely satisfied with the job that I have got but all my electronic gadgets seem to have suddenly revolted.

The first big gadget to have given me nightmare is the one with whom I spend most of day and night,to whom I am committed like no one else...that's my laptop.But my laptop ditched me with infidelity.Just when I needed it the most to watch all the sitcoms and movies,the sound stopped coming either from the inbuilt speaker or the headphones.My laptop didn't support windows 7.At first it really looked like a chronic driver issues but it was not.For the next one week all I was doing was to download the drivers and trying other various version of windows and ubuntu.(linux).I had in a way gobbled up all the threads of forums which discusses sound issues on compaq laptop with windows.Even linux proved equally unfaithful.It wasn't a sound processor issue as the drivers in device manager looked ok.Finally I upgraded my BIOS and went for some tricks like removing laptop battery discharging the laptop completely and then plugging in again and reinstalling the drivers.Now this step worked! Though my speakers didn't work but my headphones did!I was relieved! But again after a few days,the holder of LCD cracked and I had to patch it with a leuckoplast...a typical home made desi solution! Don't want to shell even a single penny on my laptop...till buy a new one!

The very next day my one of the prized possessions,my android device,Samsung galaxy fit GT-5670 gave in.It's just 6 months old and it's been infested with hell lot of problems.It faced a charger problem and I had it replaced from the service centre.Just a week after that again I faced a similar issue.Now this time the service centre guy gave me a shocker.He said the mother board needs to be replaced and it would cost around 75% of the cost of my Samsung galaxy fit.After talking to the manager,I finally was assured the replacement would be done free of cost.But its been close to 3 weeks,I haven't got my device back.The service centre people are grossly unprofessional and have no service metric in place to judge how efficient is their customer service.Till now I have been a very well behaved customer but I guess its time to change colors.

I had been pick pocketed twice in 2 year in Mumbai in which I lost 2 cell phones in 2 years,too much for poor software engineer.It needed a lot of guts to buy a smartphone in next 1 year but again it proved to be piece of junk! I had got it from from letsbuy.com at a discount of 10% but the experience till now has been horrible.The most satisfying experience so far has been that of Nokia 1208.

Really simple things in life are beautiful and faithful.Just like human beings,so in electronic gadgets all that are flashy and a piece of beauty eventually ditch you!

IT industry ain't bad!!

2012-02-25T08:07:00.006-08:00

It's a fad in B-school to look down up jobs offered in IT.In the first year,every one wants to join an i-bank or work for a fmcg major or work for the management consulting biggies!!

But then everything that you want is not what you get!

Lets face it! More than half of the engineering and management graduates would be jobless had there been no hiring in IT industry.It's more of a fad than a conscious decision to work in a given industry or a given profile.Most of the people don't have the leeway and privilege to work in their dream profiles and companies.

Seniors are like preachers and juniors are like disciples.They blindly take whatever is thrown at them from their friends,seniors or some distant relative working in some profile and industry

and making big money.

The truth in most campuses(other than the top 5) is:

Some big banks come but they hire you in some backend crap profile and market the job as an essential part of the company's existence. Candidates with CFA and FRM or even a major in finance are definitely overqualified for the job.It's really amazing how a person majoring in HR and a person majoring in finance with all the fancy certifications end up with the same profile :)But then as students we fail to appreciate the importance of a job if its not what we studied or lacks any quantitative stuff!But if you closely track the career path of people who have gone in such profile are also doing well because as a manager you really have to manage your people and your project,though in the initial few years getting along with the monotonous no brain type work is challenging.
Every time there is an alumni talk by a any alumni from sales/finance side,at the drop of the hat they try to project IT job as a "commodity" and "nothing special" type.But not all engineers doing MBA would like selling under wears,handwash,coldrinks etc.In fact majority of them don't.Again most of the people get lured because sales/marketing career offer faster growth and is seen as sure shot ticket to a future CEO post.But then most of these don't become CEO.

The truth is IT is a cool industry to work.Sit in a KT-you have diet coke,imported tissue paper,your favourite cream and butter biscuits.You get to dine in the best 5 star and 7 star hotels during the annual town hall meetings,you get free tickets to essel world and you have 2 days a week off to chill and watch your favourite movies. You get to travel exotic places and get to work in the best work environment.

It's again a myth that if you are in IT you can't break into the CXO type jobs as if you see many cases of IT firms which are headed by people who joined as a MT or a s/w engineer and went on to become a CEO.

It's important to do what you are good at than what you would like doing,just because other are doing the same.Being mediocre one has to fight to remain afloat.Excellence fetches money not a particular industry!!!

The footnote is IT ain't bad...it's just projected to be so!!

"Employees First,Customers Second" approach to business!

2012-01-28T09:32:00.000-08:00

The "Employees first,Customers second" is a radical initiative adopted by HCL technologies under the leadership of Mr.Vineet Nayaar,Vice chairman and CEO.

I feel this concept really makes sense and sooner or later is going to be embraced by other service firms,not just limited to IT.

When I joined my first job after engineering,during our induction program,a lot of focus was on drumming the fact into the trainees's head that "Customer is God". But there wasn't any focus on motivating the trainees to treat customers as God.In a service business,the quality of your services is lot dependent on the employees.So,if the employees aren't genuinely happy about their job and aren't motivated enough to serve the customers better,customer centricity philosophy couldn't be put into practice.

Employees are like ambassadors of a company and are the face of the organization.The customer sees the organization through the eyes of the employees.If the employee is well engaged and motivated,his productivity would be increased by a significant margin.Improved productivity would mean greater business for the company.

The employees first approach can be implemented by having an extremely decentralized organization where the accountability and decision making power is pushed down the hierarchy.Every employee has to be feel that he's accountable for his actions and his actions have bearing on the company's topline.After all the biggest assets are the company's employees and they are instrumental in generating the cashflows for the company.

Some random observations!!

2012-01-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Some of the observations that I've made as a student :

In engineering colleges,being a topper or one of the toppers can be a crime! You are outcasted as an anti-social homosapien and are ridiculed by the victims of the bell curve who live no stones unturned to make the topper's life miserable.Even if a topper is seen peeing in the toilet,one of the below average/average "smart" guys mocks saying "Abe time waste mat kar,jaa ke padh le! ".This might sound amusing,but such incidents does happen!In B-schools,its a bit different though :D

Not the best of students get the best of jobs on campus but then life is great leveller.Eventually,most of the hardworking/talented guys get what they truely deserve in the long run.It's important to turn a deaf ear to sarcastic comments and focus on the task at hand.

There definetely IS something called as "luck" but then bad luck can screw up things for you only in short run.Life's extremely fair.In long run,your returns are commensurate to your abilities and investments.

Most of the so called "Campus heroes" who are always in the limelight and seem to have an habit of showing off their smartness at everything aren't the ones who fair the best in their lives.Such breed of people are brilliant multitaskers but are great frauds too! They try to compensate for their incompetence/lack of preparation using all sort of unfair means.I've seen many down to earth humble guys maintaining a very low profile on campus doing much better than these "oversmart" guys.

Blunt bottomline: "Humility and substance matter"

Students madly drop years after class-12 to prepare for getting into top engineering colleges but in retrospection it would look really stupid.Most of the engineers eventually try hard to get into top B-schools where you have junta from some ordinary private college to IIT/BITS/NITs and other premier institutes.Also,it's fascinating that in terms of quality,the private colleges chaps are as talented as the premier institute guys and many end up performing much better than the premier institute guys.Surely,no dearth of talent in India!

Nothing goes waste in life.Very often it's said academics don't matter much in life but that's really a misconception.Its true only if one is really gifted and can outsmart his/her peers.But such cases aren't many.Look at the selection procedure of any B-school or any other higher education institute,academics play a very important role in selection process.Needless to mention,many coming to hire in top campuses,shorlist candidates on the basis of past academics.

Summer interns or bluffmasters??

2011-06-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

Every intern tries to potray his internship profile as a great learning experience even if that involved selling "reused" eco-friendly underwear in delhi streets.Whatever be the profile,if someone is asked about his profile,that person will proudly dub his profile as "Strategy" or"Consulting" as these are two of the most loosely defined terms.By dubbing his profile as "strategy" he indirectly mocks at the other guy saying..."You Moron! Unlike yours,my job profile is to formulate a strategy and implement a robust sales channel based on segmentation of the target consumer group.Your job is to ensure that the consumer actually buys that underwear and also wear that underwear to office everyday".

Now lets look at some sample facebook updates of interns in FB during summer internship:

"Getting awesome food to eat and awesome place to stay,everthing at company's expense.Really a great learning experience"

"Sitting beside the CEO in the cabin,hell yes!! cabin..not cubicle...Escorting CEO everywhere from boardrooms to washroom.Amazing learning experience"

"Online from Honolulu :) "

"Successfully positioned green colored underwears as "Eco-friendly" and created a blue ocean strategy to tap a vastly unexplored market for males"

Its still an enigma why does an intern markets his organization as a "great learning place" and "awesome work culture" among his fellow batchmates who are well aware of the peanuts type stipend that he gets and that the type of stuff that one has to sell from itch guard creams to eco-friendly underwear.

Few of the other interns understand their true purpose of life in the middle of internship and give up all wordly interest in business and money.They realize some things are outside their "circle of competence"(all thanks to Warren Buffets for giving this theory) and hence they shouldn't put forth their resources(read time) into the assignment.The result is that they end up "investing" time on sick FB updates to generate maximum likes and comments from their female friends.

Disclaimer: The content in this post is fictional and/or extrapolation of some true events :)

Never ever Assume..!!!!

2011-06-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

One fine day as I was doing some odd routine work at office,I started vizualising the delicacies cooked at home by my mom.There weren't any train tickets on offer on irctc.com and and I was too lazy to go to the bus depot for booking my bus tickets.

I thought of giving a try to booking bus tickets online from Bhubaneswar to Rourkela.I had booked bus tickets online from Mumbai to bangalore before but had never given it a try in Orissa. I booked my tickets by makemytrip.com and I assumed that all the buses which were partnering with makemytrip would be good ones.I randomly clicked on a bus called XX Travels(initials undisclosed as my blog isn't supposed to be hate blog) and booked one of the two tickets available,which gave me a feeling of achievement.

The bus ticket had the departure time of "9.30 p,m" and I rushed to the bus stop by 9.00 p.m as I was all geared up for a trip to home to gratify my taste buds.What followed next was one of the "horrible" journeys of my life.

I was kept stranded at the bus stop for the next 2 hours.Buses came and went but mine one didn't turn up.The other passengers waiting for the bus were loosing their temper and went to the ticket counter,held the person at the counter by the collar and punched hard on his face.I got some entertainment after having waited for 1 hour.The person at the counter really deserved this as he had deceived all of us by saying that bus would be arriving in next 15 min while the truth was that the bus had punchered its tyre.

Finally the 9.30 pm bus arrived at 11.30p.m.I felt like setting the bus on fire but some how I kept my anger in control and boarded the bus.When I entered the bus,I was shocked! The aisle was filled with large cement bags carrying vegetables,steel rods,stinking dry fish.To worsen my conditions,there was a drunken idiot sitting behind my seat who was murmuring some oriya slangs and was cursing the entire system and the world.It looked like the entire villagehad boarded the bus with all their bagging and was migrating to some other place.Deeply frustrated,I closed my eyes and started frantically praying for the bus to reach my home place ASAP.After 9 hours of third degree torture,I reached my home.

The moral of the story is that it can be damn risky at times to "assume".Had I not assumed that all buses partnering with makemytrip.com were good service providers,I wouldn't have gone through all this trauma.Its true that "Assumptions is the mother of all goof-ups".

First operation of my life-appendectomy!!

2011-06-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

When life seemed its all about attending never ending lectures,appearing for online quizzes,desperately fighting to stay afloat in the my sinking ship of poor grades,I was struck by appendicitus!

Appendicitus is the inflammation of appendix which leads to severe pain in the right bottom of your abdomen! Pain is like real bad and it strikes like lightning-suddenly!I decided to go for operation as that was the only permanent solution.Now here comes the experience of a life time!

The pain had subsided after a couple of days and after consulting with doctor,I gobbled dozen of antibiotics and was again back to normal.But still thought of going for operation as never wanted to take any chance!

The operation day arrived.I went to the operation theater dressed as if I am going for hanging out with my friends--spykar denim jeans and a wrangler denim shirt.I had the impression that a laproscope would need a few inches of space to be inserted,appendix would be removed and I would get back to jogging(for obvious reasons) the very next day---that's what the doctor at my campus had said!! Whatever I had been told to say yes for operations was sheer non-sense!!

My operation was scheduled on 8.30 p.m and I wasn't allowed to even drink a single drop of water the entire day,also no food.All I was given was few bottles of antibiotics mercilessly injected into by bloodstream by some long needles pierced into my veins.

The abdomen area was shaved off,my denim jeans and shirt stripped off and was given some depressing operation gown.The gown had strange pattern of stripes and it was half open on the other side.Hospital was filled with gloomy creatures ,some depressingly old faces with imbecile behaviour,nurses dressed in white seemed to have heard the death bells of patients and preparing them for the death bed.Such sick atmosphere made my feel for a moment my NIT degree and XIMB MBA was all wasted.I started feeling the futility of leading a materialistic life.
Life was not about matlab codes,gabor wavelets,NPV or any shitty academic subject.Laproscopy is a very minor operation,0% risk.But the very feeling of undergoing at an age of 25 made me feel nervous.

I was taken to the operation room.I could observe the colorful bulb and the tick-tock timer that I had seen only in movies.The entire body except my head was made numb by anesthesaia.My body started feeling heavy and I felt weighting a ton!The surgeon entered the room in a green gown with some strange looking instruments.

Afraid at the very sight of big machines in the operation room,I closed my eyes and started frantically praying!Strangely I could hear the doctors and his entourage gossiping in the operation theater about what color they should paint their new upcoming hospital,which made me more nervous!There were even phone calls inside the theater and I heard people taking to their friends on phone.
"...man tho kar raha tha..kade hokar ek ek chata jama doon..sab par!!!"
but.....my body was numb.I thought may be laproscopy was too minor an operation for the surgeon and his team.Later i knew that that particular surgeon used to do some 10 operations every day.

After operations I was on liquid food for 5 days.Thanks to GSK for coming up with a healthy product like horlicks drink and biscuits.Lived on Nariyal paani and horlicks for 5 days.Horlicks biscuits was one of my fav..so had no issues eating it 3 times a day for 5 day :)

After 10 days of bed rest,I was back to normal!! I could drive..I could eat "most" of the delicacies!

Now when any of my friends ask about operation,I give them a wry smile and say "Life mein sab cheez ka experience lena chahiye....operation was one of the things missing..so decided to go for it!!"

In some way it was fun."Aaram se bed mein pade rao....your relatives come to you with a misleading sad face and some goodies.Your family members treat you like a baby.....you say it..you have it in a flash!!!

Altogether it was a "very-different" experience gave me a lot of time for self introspection!

Back to blogging arena

2011-06-02T10:22:00.001-07:00

After 1 year of mental torture(read MBA-1st year) and 1 year of hiatus from blogging,I am back with brand new stories!!!

Software Industry Through my Binoculars!

2010-05-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

During my college days,I used to see IT field as a ticket to quick money as there were of numerous tales of people going onsite and earning in euros and pounds.When I actually joined IT,I came to know that the truth was far from reality. It is such a kind of industry where you can need "DIVINE PROVIDENCE" in order to strike gold.Here are the 3 pros and cons of IT industry.

Pros:

1)Air conditioned offices with coffee vending machines, high speed internet connection, some worldly "beauties" to stare at and flexi timings!

"When you feel like working,the whole office environment conspires against you to make you sleepy"

What else do you need after an engineering degree?? :D

2)Travel around the world(if your lucky) and interact with people around the globe.Only a service industry can give that amount of exposure.

3)You master the art of "Googling". :)

Cons:

1)You are just another brick in the wall.Almost every btech guy you meet turns out to be a s/w engineer.

2)No use of brains in most the projects(support/maintainance types),though common sense is an absolute must!

3)If you stick to the same company for long even your colleagues will doubt your calibre and you would see your package increasing in Arithmetic progression where the common difference is in fraction!

Inspite of all the all the odds,I feel an IT job is a very good option for the tech freaks.Its better to fix null pointer exceptions sipping cappuccino than sweat it out in some odd field job!!!

I would definitely like to join back IT firms in some business consulting role post my MBA.

Registered in Technorati

2010-05-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

I registered today in Technorati.com,the most popular blog search engine.Last few steps to get my blog listed :)

PickPocketed....once again!!!!!

2010-04-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

After the gruelling B-school season,I've turned a lazy pig.I gormandize,sleep,watch movies,sip capachinno at office and look back at life in retrospection like a philosopher.

Like any other typical day,I left my office sharp at 6.30 p.m,ogled at some techie beauties outside for some time to give respite to my tired eyes and then grooving to the music on my cell,I boarded the "The Red Beauty"(pun intended :)) a.k.a Best Bus of mumbai.

It was as packed as a bee-hive.I sometimes wonder how do ladies and old people manage in such over crowded buses when people like in their mid 20's find it so stifling.Kicking off everyone on my way,I managed a seat and that give a sense of achievement coz. I am used to getting kicked on my back.I peeked outside the bus window,then suddenly the song on my playlist changed...
"I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don't know where it goes But it's home to me and I walk alone"
This song always makes me feel how lonely I am in a place everyone's is trying their best to save their own as@%# .My mood sinks in and I think missing my home place and good old school and college days.
Then suddenly the song changed and it was "Ajab pyaar ki gazab kahani"....."Kaise bataye kyu tujh ko chahe yaara batana paye baatein dilo ki dekho zubaan ki aankhen tujhe samjhaye Tu Jaane Na Tu Jaane Na
Then I started thinking "kashi meri bhi ek GF hoti..............".Suddenly the driver gave a sudden break and I bumped against a lady sitting infront of me.Gosh!She gave me such a dreaded look that I felt she would file an FIR against me for harassment.I quickly took stock of the situation and said "Sorry Mam".

I then got close to the front door of the bus to get down at the next stop.Suddenly avril started humming in my ears " Chill out what you yelling' for? Lay back it's all been done before"
I told to myself.."Chill out..itna tension lekar kya milega"

I casually got down from the bus.Just when I got down,suddenly the music stopped.when I looked back at the pocket,there was nothing.Once again my mobile had been pick pocketed.

I asked one of the persons standing on the bus stop to call up but I couldn't trace it back.

A few stats:
Out of my 4 roomies,almost all have been pick pocketed 2 mobiles on an average
In my office,almost all have atleast once lost(pick pocketed) their mobile in buses/trains.

Today I got a brand new cell..guess what..its Nokia 1202..for just 1100 bucks.I've vowed to never again buy a costly set until I am using public transport.

B-School Mania!!!!!!

2010-03-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

After working in a non-rewarding IT profile for 1 year,I planned to venture into the rat race for a seat in a coveted b-school.
I spent almost half a lakh rupees for preparation and buying the forms.Slogged my a@# for 1 complete year and at the end of 1 year had eggs to hatch,all credit to the 3lakh strong "frustu" indian candidates.Luckily,I managed 3 calls XIMB,SP Jain and IIM Shillong by virtue of some academic/extracurricular stuff.

Before call:

1)Open pagalguy.com everyday in office
2)Open timesofindia.com,beta.hindu.com,livemint.com,nytimes.com in office.
3)Come back to home,slog like a donkey.
4)On weekends,waste your time on "stupid"coaching classes because you have paid for it.
5)After may,write aimcats every week and get screwed every time,no matter how much you prepare.

After Call:

Shit!!!Now,I realize,MBA is completely a different stuff,not just about QA,DI and VA.
Why MBA?Why IM?Why not MS?What are your long terms goals? such deadly questions start haunting you after you get a call for any b-school.You start showing deep interest in Indian Socio,economical,political,legal and technological issues.

The call ratio will leave you completely dumb!!!

SP Jain:10:1 ratio...for 40 seats in Information Management,400 calls.
XIMB:180 seats...900+calls....ratio much better...........
IIM Shillong:20:1 ratio...60 seats..1100+calls(seats supposed to double this year....)

Lady luck helped me crack XIMB but SHE wasn't very generous with me today.
Today,I got kicked off from SP Jain group interview........no clue why???????

With 1 year of efforts,I have just one egg to sit on and hatch and that's XIMB.

Really never thought of in cl-12 while giving AIEEE exams that engg degree is good for nothing!!!!!

But feeling really happy........I won't have to give these "stupid indian entrance exams" any more in future!!!!!!!!

Social Investment

2010-03-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across the concept of "social investment".If you think,it's something to do with charity,then your absolutely wrong.It's a novel concept of offering micro credit to those who need small amount of money to start up a business or any other means of livelihood,mostly in rural areas.

Charity as a concept is not sustainable in a vast country like India where almost 42% of the population lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day.We need some sustainable solution through which the poor people can be offered financial help.This is where the concept of social investment crops in.

One of such non profit organization that allow Indians to help their fellow Indians is rangde.Visit
http://www.rangde.org.
Under this concept,you are supposed to invest in multiple of hundred rupees(you can also prefer to invest hundred rupees).You get to see the profile of the rural entrepreneurs who need money and you can choose to select any one you wish to help.This money is then sent to the borrower through an NGO which partners with rangde.
Now comes the interesting part,unlike charity,you will get your money back and that too with interest.This money will be repaid by the borrower in a period of 1-2 years(even earlier than this).You can choose to invest your interest that you earn or put forth more money.It's more like the investment that you make elsewhere but the only difference is that you are helping fellow poor Indians and you also get a small amount of interest on the money that you invest.

I really liked the business model that these people have followed.You can read the details of their business model on wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rang_De