Final Advice and Gossip

At any point of time you have two choices. One is to be yourself, irrespective of the environment or the world around you. Or become a mirror, with good people be good, with nasty people turn nasty.

One of the reasons for a sustained existence is gossip. Though I may not be present in Bombay, I provide enough reasons for people to continue existing, discussing me. Sometime back people went gaga over the rumor that I was getting married. I don't know how many hours of useful time and alcohol was spent in this endeavor. But as long as it leads to world peace, I am OK with it.

The next topic, which people are amused about is , what am I doing with my life. My throat has gone hoarse repeating that I am in a KPO, but for people back home, "it is a different type of BPO only na, what do we care what is the difference between the two, for us you work in a BPO only". Whatever. When the above fact was communicated to a professor , who taught me during engineering, she rem·i·nisces( this word intuitively came to my mind here, and though I cann't pronounce it, i wanted to use it here, at the cost of being the wrong usage, I don't know but from where all these words come, which neither can I pronounce and nor am I sure about their meaning), "you know, when ever I use to go to library to read any reference book( read foreign author ) , on the issue page I use to always find his name in the list of people who had issued it earlier. He was so good in technical, what is he doing with his life. "

I know.

Even I don't know.

More Advice

Whenever you are taking a decision, you are buying in the consequences also. Subroto Baghchi in his latest book also talks about this somewhere. Though not exactly above but something like when your kids are taking a few decisions , they need to also take responsibility of whatever consequences that decision may entail.

Why should you let someone else, an inanimate thing, like your company and it's salary let effect one so deeply.

He said, I know now that it effects you. But as you grow old, it fades with time and you stop thinking about it. Perhaps for a few, yes, for a few others, a vehement No.

But the point still is very interesting. He also said, irrespective of any thing you should be happy.

Advice

Before taking a new job, ask for two things

What is the appraisal system

How will you be appraised, frequency, details. What would be the relevant criterion.

They say the system is rotten everywhere, it is up to you to make sure that the system doesn't hurt you.

Liquidity Risk

I might just skip meeting my internal deadline to become debt free, if I do not sell infy sometime soon. In case I don't the deadline i guess will move into October, if all remains fine.

I might plan to enter the Indian equities market again, but this time I guess, I need to make an educated entry, by understanding the various sectors and the major criterion, based on which the stock prices fluctuate. I may or may not read balance sheets and annual reports, but I need to have an understanding of the sectors at the macro and the micro level, this was from the MBA within me.

A casual chat with a friend gave me these insights.

Finally a quote from Liar's Poker: Bulls make money , Bears make money . Pigs get slaughtered.

Road to freedom beckons.

Something

Since the last few times, I have inquired( wrong usage) on a Saturday or a Sunday, and when an English play is on, it is always house full. In the good old days, i could just walk over to RS and watch the play in a semi filled theater. Guess, times are changing and tis good for some, bad for me.

Small lesson in life: If you stay long enough with an idea, you either succeed or give up. The outcome of this scenario forms your prejudice or better put your outlook in life. It forms one of the many thumb rules we pick up about life, due to our personal experiences, when for all we know the datapoint we represent might just be an outlier. That's how I guess, biases and prejudices are formed, and one day if you live long enough, your kiddo is 20 and wants to explore this world for himself, you tend to impose your biases and prejudices and carve a road out for that bugger to walk.

Which usually is the reason, you end up screwing your relationship with your progeny.

The fuckers fired my boss on thursday, friday was his last day. Pretty unceremonious the whole tamasha. My speculation rests in peace here. He became a father last week and is blessed with twins, one boy and one girl. He is strong enough to take this shit and still walk on.

There is a way to fuck, a way to fire, a way to walk out, and a way to communicate. Unfortunately the powers that be in my firm do not want to understand that. Power corrupts. It's funny when you read in papers that so and so fired so and so number of people, you read the same, have superficial discussions of recession with your friends, spouses, colleagues etc. When lighting falls just on the person standing next to you, you understand what lightining is, especially when you know that person did not deserve it. He had taken a few numbers on his head and then then passed a few to me and some other to another collegue. I and my collegue did not live up to the numbers, it was impossible to and everybody knew it. Hence my boss was given marching orders. Vendatta is the name of the game.

Since I am being a bit diffident about the whole fuck up, i might be given the next marching order. The last words of a Mexican brigand were : Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.

stones, pebbles et all

After the herculean effort required to accomplish the above, i.e. find a way to put iton the blog, I don't think I have much to say. It's been a while since i wanted to accomplish the population of the fields.

A person once said to me, don't compare your life with any body else, take a glass, first put the stones, when it cannot take any more, put mud, when it cannot take anymore mud, put water aka H20, covalent bond, weaker than ionic, 108 degrees between two hydrogen and one oxygen atom. I swear to god, i remembered that and did not Google it.

So my analysis is above. First inference any donkey can make is that i need to start by quitting my present job. oops btw i forgot marriage in it. I guess, that idea is still in a gaseous stage, need to give some more time for it to condense, then we will think about it. It's funny why we use '"We" instead of "I"..blame MPD or unabomber...your pick.

Things at office are getting murkier, i have a kind of idea, what's going on, but I can't put my speculation here. Marching orders do not look very far now.

P.S. : there is a typo above in my current job, it is not 9 to 5, but i do have time for myself. two wrongs make a right.

Bitterness

I had a dream, for long that working in a start up environment will be fun, invigorating and allow me to find my peace in life. Over the past 6 months, I have let a bad experience, blur my dream from fantasy to hell. I allowed a bad experience and the resulting bitterness and rancor to change my views. I am wrong to change my views so often. The present experiment was a pure vanilla failure.

But, it may have changed a few things for me forever. There is this song from the movie Sindabad the sailor from Rock on. All it took was this song and a casual chat with a friend, though not on the above lines, for me change my outlook once more.

So often I have advised my friends, two very close ones who have had emotional break ups, not to let the bitterness remain. Ironical, that though I myself had a different experience, but I could not let the bitterness go. Back to the saying, easy said than done.

The dream lives now, along with a tinge of bitterness for now. Let's see how long before i free it up.

Yercaud

So , I am not a camera person anymore, having lost my camera a few days back.

Cities/Towns I have visited in last one and half months:

• Chennai
• Vellore
• Yercaud

Met Jayan and Pathak in Chennai, Saw the golden temple in Vellore, got drenched while boating in Yercaud, coz it rained and we were adrift.

give up

One of the easy ways to bore people is not to write for a long time, then the blog achieves its objective of being a vent to my personal frustrations and disappointments and remains personal.

Many years ago, I use to have principles. They make life a tad difficult to live, but when the going gets tough they help you navigate tougher times. Conversely, not having principles, makes life easier generally, but when the going gets tough you don't have the wherewithal to navigate the tougher times.

Expecting disappointments in my current job, as in my previous job, I had made a list of things to expect and not to expect. In a better mood, I would have given the hyperlink, but frankly sitting in my room in the afternoon, when I haven't even brushed and just woken up, i just fail to care.

The most important point in the list was that, don't care of people not backing you. That to me remains the most important point. Unfortunately , I don't have the energy to remain true to it. If I had remained true to that, in tougher times like this I would have passed through.

I feel like quitting the job today, though I have felt such for the past 6 months, but the feeling is stronger and perhaps more desperate today. I feel like going to Mumbai and finding something there. Perhaps , it's got something to do with the bhagoda gene in my body, which advices me to run away when the going gets tough. I start worrying about pay parity, loosing out the ROI race with my college peers, expecting people to back me, and feeling pissed off.

I know, i will come over it and look over to this day just to have a hearty laugh at my little problems. My problem of the moment is do I just switch off and become a vegetable and let the spark die, or keep of fending mediocrity, trying to win over it, when I have realised there is nothing more dangerous than mediocrity with a strong backing . It shreds excellence to pieces.

Excellence needs to be pure in it's own right, but can excellence stay aloof when it knows, it should win a fight, but suddenly reality knocks. Excellence rather than winning is on the verge of breaking down and it will take tremendous fortitude to merely stand and repeatedly be defeated and not disintegrate.

Ladies and Gentlemen , on subsequent thoughts, I give up at my workplace, for now. Better to kill the spark, by itself than wait till a day when mediocrity extinguishes it.

I might change my mind, it will only take a moment. But not today, not in this game, not on this field, not against the assholes I am pitted against right now.