Spectacular show

General

After more than a decade, Indian cricket team is in Pakistan. Any thing between Pak and India evokes lots of emotions on both sides, some good and mostly bad. However, with all the recent white-flag-waving between leaders of two countries, this time people seem to have matured.

When the game goes, both sides are damn good; yes, for a change even Indian players play well. Last Saturday, Indians scored victory and yesterday Pakistanis won the match. Both games were full of high energy. Such games pump up adrenaline, even for a casual spectator like me.

However, there is one unpleasant point – not for players, not for viewers but for TEN sports which got exclusive distribution rights for any cricket match in Pakistan. Now Indian courts have ruled that the game be shown free in the national television. Though viewers would be glad, it hurts business and brings down the confidence of the business community. Hopefully even this will be resolved amicably.

Ironies of life

Life is like that

I am sure every one has moments of puzzle in their life. I have quite a bunch of them. Of late so much seems to puzzle me. When I returned from Belgium, after being away from home for so long, my brother-in-law suggested, I stay closer to home – meant in Madras and if possible near their house – so as to build good relation. That sounded good for me. So I stayed in Madras and in fact stayed in their guest house. It was indeed a good time – I enjoyed staying closer to relations; we went out couple of times together; and they showed me parts of city that I didn’t know before.

But here comes the irony. In the middle of February, I got a call from a head-hunter asking if I am looking for a job. I said, I am not and introduced my sister. Boom! She got offers from Accenture, IBM and couple of others as well. Now she is in IBM, Bangalore. Today I got a call from my brother-in-law saying he has got into Accenture, Bangalore. I am glad for the progress in their career. But I am left in awe, how times changes and here I am in Madras because I wanted to stay closer home but those whom I wanted to be with are not here.

Baffled, I feel the pain of loneliness – again.

Jack, straight from the gut

Books/Movies

After a long read, today I finished the autobiography of Jack Welch, ex-CEO of the legendary firm in corporate America – General Electric. It is his only company, joining as an executive he stayed with GE for 41 years to retire as a CEO. He had three wives, but worked in a single company. Man! he is different from anyone I know.

One principle that hit me was, “Build great people, they build great products and provide great services”. Ever since I read these words, I try hard – it is really hard in a company culture which thinks otherwise – to follow them. I see it working among the six guys for whom I am responsible for.

However, I find it hard to take another of his philosophy. He advocates to eliminate the lower 10% of employees, on the basis of performance. I am not able to comprehend how this would suit Indian software firms, where the biggest population is doing production support. You don’t need to be a genius to do that job. In fact out of 120 members in our project, there are around 5 spectacular developers and one or two managers worth working for. That is less than 10% on the top side!

The book makes an interesting read, how he became a CEO and then after 21 years how he spent sleepless nights to choose his successor out of three of his best boys. In between these pages, there are lots of info about deals, acquisitions, firings and so on and on, typical events of any big company. But the writing style isn’t as mesmerizing as, ‘The beautiful Mind’, the story of John Nash. Probably Jack and his author would disagree, but that is how I feel in my gut!

Sun sign matches

Life is like that

I am not much into sun signs, astrology or similar things. But you know, how and what emails get forwarded! I got one with subject – ‘pick your sign’. Man! it describes me.
For a long time, I wanted to write ‘About me!’. Now I don’t have to. You can just read through this.

Taurus

Yes, I choose rather to fight than to switch. How else, I would be with this firm? And it is true that I can eat anything, well almost. Otherwise, could have I taken so many trips? And am I romantic? I will leave the answer to the gal(s) who get a crush on me!

High expectations

Life is like that

I love the month of March. Not without a reason. After struggling to get a decent job, in March ’96, I got into a consulting job for a well-known cardiac surgeon. My prime responsibility was to computerize his department and to develop a patient management software. I was there for two years, and these days laid a strong foundation for functional analysis and user interaction.

Two years later, in March, I joined a software consulting firm. Initial days were pretty vexing and I was plotting, so often, to leave the firm. But a year later, again in March, I left to Belgium, where I had such a good time of my life.

Now tell me, wouldn’t I be attached to March?

There are some advantages too

Nothing official about it

For the past 4 weeks, I have been doing night shift. In the beginning, it was difficult to cope with it. Especially whenever there were escalations, as a team lead, I was called to the office thereby making my working hours more than 15 hrs a day.

But then as days went by, I found that it is better to come in the night. There are definitely advantages. There are not lot many people in the night, in fact out of around 100 people in the project, only 5 come in the night. So it is quite calm and you are left to do your work in peace. (Of course there is a danger of falling asleep). But most importantly I can skip those scores of unproductive meetings. This for me is a major relief.

But from Monday, I will be back to day shift.

Social networking & A new search engine

General

I registered in a social networking site called, Ryze. Registration is free. Within few hours of creating my website, I got couple of entries in my guest book. Hopefully my networking will increase in the coming months.

I came across a new search engine named, Vivisimo. It just don’t provide the search results, rather it groups them in categories. I am yet to test the effectiveness of this categorizing, but it seems an interesting concept.

Production support

Nothing official about it

In this 8 years in IT, I was never in production support. For the first time, I am into it and I can tell you, I don’t like it. I am in a two member production support group, supporting an application in California, USA. Also I am managing 4 member team supporting two more application for the same client.

This week, I came in to office at Thursday night and left home only on Saturday morning (Okay, I did sleep in the dorm for few hours). When I went home, I was dead tired and fell asleep. Some time later when I wasn’t even aware that I am alive, my pager starting beeping. Ideally my team mate, who is in day shift, should have responded, but he didn’t. So the issue got escalated. With escalation, the pager was continuously beeping. My sister woke me up to face the music. After few frantic calls, I got the situation under control. To resolve the issue, I came to office in the night. Instead of having a candle light dinner and a dance on a valentine’s day, I am here sitting and fixing the issue (I don’t have any one to go out is another issue, never getting escalated).

Night shift

Nothing official about it

As part of production support, I have been coming in the night shift from Monday. The application is not a critical one (atleast in my view), yet I have to come in the night. Whatever I am doing in the night could be done during my day time and given back to the client.
There are enough of facilities for those who come in the night – there is a dorm where one can rest/sleep; night snacks are provided around 1h30; house drop in a car; little bit more money. But there are other negative side-effects of coming in the night, importantly the psychological factor. One feels left out of the main crowd. The managers are indifferent as well.

In my case, I feel that I have fallen out of grace and that hurts a lot.