Lessons from Corporate World

If you are working or you wish to work in the corporate world in future, here are some tips for your success or atleast survival :

First of all, remember that you are a smart ass.You are highly intelligent and knowledgeable person. Saying 'I don't know' is a taboo.
Most importantly you are always busy...nope..extremely busy...at least you have to pretend to be very busy. If you are easily accessible to your juniors, you don't deserve your job.
You always drink your coffee in your cubicle. That makes others realize that you are busy.
You are always working on critical and confidential projects.
You should not provide clear , detailed instructions to your juniors. That makes his task less challenging (easier in other words) and devoid him of freedom of thought and actions.
You should be attending lot of meetings. At least four a day. If you don't get sufficient meeting invites in a day, you arrange a meeting yourself. Unplanned meetings always catch attention of others and invites for the same are always precious. Meetings are always to be held in meeting rooms only. Sitting in the cubicle and discussing does not meet the corporate world meeting standards.
Global gyan is a virtue to possess and practised but should not be preached i.e. you should always discourage others from practicing it.
You are always expected to address your boss as "Mr. boss". That is a sign of respect (and a way for pampering his ego).
At least one excel sheet and one ppt should always be open on your laptop. If you are still using a desktop, you are fooling yourself (you are not the corporate guy ).
You should be getting at least 50 mails in a day. If you don't, you are facing the challenge of oblivion.
You should be really good at multi tasking. You should always take your calls while working on your system.
You ask your junior to work only when it is a super urgent task with tight deadlines. Such work pressure helps you to keep him on his toes and improve his efficiency. After all deadlines are called so because they are supposed to make someone dead if he misses it.
Appreciation is the fundamental right of your superiors and a highly sought after incentive for your juniors. Make sure that your appreciations are always based on this discretion.
The thumb rule says that in the morning, the least important person in the office should be the first one to enter it. The more late you can afford to come, more important you are.
This rule is simply turned upside down when it comes to leaving the office. If you don't work till late night, your commitment to work is questionable. Your stay in office is considered to be directly proportional to the amount of work you do, as your efficiency is always super high.
Don't forget that you are expected to be working 24X7. You also need to make sure that your juniors also work 24X7. If you can't assure that, you are not fit to be the manager.
Cynicism and criticism are essential qualities of successful corporate person. After all only experts can find out flaws.

MBA so far

I am almost through half of my MBA course as my third trimester is coming to an end. From last few days one thought has been haunting me like never before. I don't know how to express it most effectively. Anyways, here it is ..
When I came here to do MBA, I was expecting that I would experience a tiring and thoroughly satisfying Intellectual Orgasm in doing this course. However I have realised that forget about the orgasm, I am not even feeling the erection out of it ! The global meltdown and bleak, uncertain future frustrates me more. And when I think about it, I could blame myself more than anything else for this state of affairs !
Earlier I had heard many stories of MBA students slogging day and night in their libraries and hostel rooms finishing assignments and working on presentations. But my own experience has been quite contradictory. Here I am keeping my self busy by indulging in many activities apart from/other than study.
My laptop has become my sweetheart here and like a mother of a new born baby I cant keep it away from myself for long time. I almost feel like crying if it stops working. But what am I doing on my laptop?? Here is the laundry list..
The top most item on the list is Music. My laptop has helped me to transform my interest in music into a passion. Thanks to 24X7 wi-fi net access, I am downloading all kinds of songs from bhoole bisare geet of binaka geetmala days to current English chart busters.
Next comes Films. Although I was never a movie buff and I still watch less movies compared to my friends over here, its relatively quite high compared to my earlier life.
Although my real life socializing has declined significantly after coming to Delhi, it has been more than compensated by my virtual life socialising.Be it Gtalk, Yahoo msngr or orkut. They never let me feel lonely and I spend many hours chatting.
Last but not the least is my newly found addiction. It has overtaken me completely. Its the high I get out of blogging. Defying candid opinions of my friends about my blog being mediocre and boring, I keep on posting my entries. Try to attract eyeballs by adding pics and other gadgets and attempt to accidentally direct someone to my blog site by promoting it through unsolicited mails, status msgs etc. But can you really blame a guy who is inebriated due to addiction. However I am sure than I am not the only one hooked onto blogging. there are thousands others like me in this virtual world.
And what about reading online newspapers, journals, tracking sensex, preparing reports and ppts? Well those are the activities for the stereotype MBA students. Mavericks and rebels like me don't indulge myself in those morbid and mundane activities. I always rely on my self proclaimed high productivity, my extraordinary and time tested Jugaad skills and natural ability to do nonstop bakar.
Now lets return back to the real world.
Alec smart once said that most of the innovations in this world have been made by intelligent and lazy people . On this basis, I think of myself as an innovative person. However, my friends turned critics don't agree with me completely. They are not sure whether I possess the first attribute but are quite sure about the second one. They corroborate it by saying that I am a dirty bump owing to my seldom washed clothed, my bathing on alternate days and once in a week shaving schedule. But they fail to understand that I am making a style statement here. That I am a rough, rustic and austere guy. I am saving water and electricity by bathing less frequently. Besides washing clothes several times make them look old and leads to colour fading. Now some people compare my room to a garbage dump yard as my clothes and books are spread all over the place. My cup board and drawers are over flowing and the newspapers are lying all over (although I rarely read them). But such a random, non regimented and flexible system is more stable, convenient for user and keeps everything at same accessibility.
That's all for tonight. I have had enough of blogging for the day. Its 1:30am and I have to start reading for 2 quizzes on 2moro. Wish me good luck. Byeee :)

Random Ramblings

You are holding me with my arm and we are walking on the busy street..
In between I look at you and you look at me.
You smile with a blush and I stare you again.
Your eyes are beautiful and there is no pain.
Your skin is smooth and your lips are tender.
Your face is cute and your hands are silver.
You dress simple and yet look like an angel.

We cross the road and I buy you an ice cream.
You always order butterscotch which is favorite of mine.
I mess up my ice cream and you wonder every time.

We stroll into a park and see the kids playing around.
You kiss and hug a baby crawling on the lawn.
The baby smiles and you are happier now.

You tell me so many things about your life, but that goes in vain.
Because I listen to your voice and not what words you explain.
You giggle when you come to know all I done as insane.
And now you hold me again.

I move close to you body and look into your eyes.
I remove your hair band and play with your hair.
I hold your face in my hands and your heart starts beating fast.
You tell me something in my ear and I close my eyes.
you now quietly disappear from around.
Suddenly I get a feeling of deja vu in my mind.
I hear Justin Timberlake saying in the background
"What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around ".

Slumdog Millionaire is awesome !

The heightened interest of westren world in India is manifested by many films made recently by several western and NRI directors with themes based on Indians. Slumdog Millionaire is the latest one in this series. It is based on the book 'Q & A' written by Indian diplomat Vikas Swaroop. Since I have not read the book, I can not comment on whether the director, Danny Boyle has been successful in accurately translating the book into film or which one of the two is better. But Kudos to Danny Boyle for creating an awesome film ! True to his reputation, the film has been directed exceptionally well. It is a story of an impoverished slum youngster, Jamal winning on the tv show 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'. With each question of the quiz, the story takes you to different incidents of his life which have helped him to answer questions correctly. However this extraordinary success on the game show lands Jamal into trouble with suspicions



of cheating in the game. Anyways, some scenes of the film touch your heart and make you realize and appreciate what a struggle it is to live life for such children from slums. But you never feel pity about it and believe in the strength and courage of characters to handle all situations. The film has a fast paced story line and a bit of humour sprinkled in between. The performances of all artists are amazing especially the kids have done a brilliant job. No surprise that the film has won 4 Grammy awards and 10 BAFTA nominations so far !
The other films which I have seen recently include Australia, The man from earth and Taxi driver. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate them as 3, 4 and 2 respectively.

Annual perdiction: Movie time

If the first few days of 2009 are any indications of the future and specifically rest of the year, I would say I have become a couch potato (bed potato in my case) watching movies one after the other for endless time. With the economic slowdown, I guess, its natural for a person to indulge in reel world and get rid of tensions of real world. Anyways, my movie watching spree began at the end of 2008 with Ghazini, one of the most awaited and talked about movie of 2008. But the movie did not meet my expectations. I would say its a bad copy of the cult film 'Memento'.
For me it was a long movie with over stretched end with lots of crying and shouting in between. In Memento, the director has been able to turn a nonsensical story line into an extra ordinary fiction with the idea of shooting the film in reverse chronological order. That keeps the viewer engaged till end. However, Ghazini lacks this quality. It seems the director was in a dilemma as to whether he should make a total romantic or an all out action movie. In trying to conjure both, he made a film with distinctive patches of romance and action stitched together. On music front, Rehman disappointed me. Except 2 songs which I am sure will fed away from popular imagination in 3-4 months, rest songs are just ordinary and forgettable.
Next in my list of movies is one more movie shot in reverse chronological order i.e. 'Irreversible'. The dark movie with nerve wrecking scenes of a gruesome killing in the pub and 9 minute long terrible Rape scene shot in a subway, evokes extreme reactions in viewer. It reminded me of Bandit Queen, another disturbing movie. Many scenes here start with wide rotating camera in dimly lit background, triggering dizziness in your head and strain on your eyes. But the film does not loose its intensity till end and grip on viewer's attention. And the end is a pleasure for eyes with full display of perfectly carved out Monica Belucci in her most natural form :p This reminds you that you are watching a french movie after all :)
The best movie which I have seen so far this year is Slumdog Millionaire. I think it deserves a separate post. So bye for now. Will write more on tomorrow. Goodnite...

Happy New 2009

"Hey what did u do on 31st ?"
As I had anticipated, this was how I had first conversations in the year 2009 with many of my batch mates in college. And my response to this question was equally boring….It was ‘Nothing..I was sitting at home with family members and watching awful TV programmes’. But to my surprise many of my friends also had a similar experience. With friends not around you in your native place and family members clinging to you because of your short stay with them during vacations, I realised this has to be the most likely thing to do for many of us. Anyways, I started my new year in transition as I undertook my journey back to Delhi from Aurangabad on 1^st Jan. The next day, I arrived in Delhi 3 hrs late which is not a big deal for Indian railways in these foggy winter days.…or any days for that matter. When I landed in Delhi, I realised that it had turned into almost a hill station. The weather was cheating with the clock. Even at 4 pm in my watch, the weather was of 8 am. After 2 days more, I realised that its going to be the same throughout the rest of winter. Finally, the most hyped and feared’ Dilli ki sardi’ like many other things about this city, has set in the Capital and I am clearly overwhelmed by it. Doing routine activities like taking bath, which was never a routine thing for me, have become courageous acts :) Like most other people on streets, I am too wearing my cap and wrapped in my sweaters and jacketes all the time. At the night time when the mercury dips down further, sometimes you wake up with a sudden sensation of cold and numbness of your hands and feet. And your mind yearns for the warmth of someone :P

Freakonomics indeed !

This one is a really interesting article from The Economist. Many times me and my friends have jokingly discussed about this and I am happy that someone took it seriuosly..but I am not sure whether all these conclusions would be applicable to Indian scenario as it is..anyone looking for live project in Economics :)

Economics focus
Selling sex
Jan 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Economists let some light in on the shady market for paid sex

read the article here