Wondering why ???

I am kind of having a perfect weekend. Perfect weekend for me means, getting to do things which I love to do.

It includes a bit of television, whole lot of reading, time to spend with myself all alone, and a bit of blogging just to tingle some thought process in my mind, (Idle mind is devils workshop, so why let it idle??? :P)

Here I am reading 3 awesome books, simultaneously, trying to finish them as soon as possible.. I am not reading one book to completion at a time, coz I am finding it difficult, I am rather juggling between these three books at the same time, reading few pages from one book for sometime and the other and other.

If you ask me which are those three books ... They are:
> Business Maharajas
> ********************************* [Name removed due to some reasons]
> Greatness Guide 2 by Robin Sharma.

Time and again I try to analyze and re-analyze my reading pattern. I am trying to find a defect in the way I read a book so that I can correct myself, but its still elusive.

There are some books which I can finish within 3 hrs, the writing is so good, I just cruise through the book in no time.

There are some books which I start reading but 3/4 through the book, I find that, this book is not for me and totally abandon it. (Though these are very small in number, may be 1 in every 15 books I read, its still a bad sign of losing interest easily or bad selection.)

There are some books which I reading completely but not at a single stretch. ( I have no regrets about that. )

Now I am wondering why my reading speed cannot be same across all the books I read? I am still trying to find an answer to this particular question.

But I did find one clue today while I was reading the book The Greatness Guide 2. In 3 hrs of continuous reading I could only cover 68 pages (The page content was not too much though) . You may be wondering why. But I have an answer. The book is so good that, I ended up thinking and thinking. Instead of reading the book to completion, at the end of each chapter I ended up doing so called reverse engineering. I started wondering whether " Have I been in such a situation? Have I done this before". That reverse engineering went to that extent, that, I started pondering over my childhood days, days as a 4 year old may be....

After all, this is what I expect from a book, a lot to think about, a lot to ponder over and above all a lot to learn and improve upon.

At the end of this post, all I have to say is, there is no pros and cons of reading a book quickly within no time. I feel reading it slowly has its own say.

For example,

>How do you feel when you find yourself in Wonderland amidst Alice, while reading Alice in Wonderland.
>How do you feel when you recollect those precious moments in time that you have spent with loved ones while reading a book from Sudha Murthy.
>How do you feel to be in the jungle while reading the Jungle Book.
>How do you feel when you figure out the lessons learnt from mistakes you made previously, while reading a book by Robin Sharma.
>And not to forget, How do I feel, when I re-read the post I put up few months ago, about being @ Bandipur forest @ 2 am in the morning!!!!!

Just priceless. Ain't the feeling just beyond my dictionary of words of description... It is.. May be I am losing the time over here, just to feel the feeling, instead of running through the pages. ("Feel the feeling", Phrase courtesy - Arvind.)

Thats what reading some books give me or do to me.

So now its time for " Hello Kaun Pehchan Kaun " on Star One and then back to Robin's book. I have some more moments to relive... Yippy ... What a weekend...

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Cheers


PS: Sorry guys the post was meant to be something and it ended up being something, coz in midway I just got a whole new idea, courtesy the super books I am reading, couldn't resist putting it here, else I may forget. So now the post is like inconclusive.

PPS: And regarding my reading pattern. Who cares or may be some other time , I am enjoying the book wholly, reading it as slowly as I can, re-reading the same thing again and again and pondering over those golden moments.....

PPPS: May be, that is why I have read the book by Robin Sharma, 10 times and I will sure read it again and again may be in multiples of 10, just to ponder over those golden moments, again and again, involving, the wonderful people and those mistakes which I have made, who / which have helped me, to be myself and tune myself into, what I am today. Miss you guys..

IT industry - Dilemma at its best..... Judgement @ its worst....

Disclaimer - Whatever I have written in this post, is completely my own individual opinion and has nothing to do with any individual, any company in particular. I have no hatred against anybody as such. If the reader finds some co-incidences relating to a particular individual or a company I can only say its fictitious. I do not want to put even myself as the actor in the scene.

So please keep in mind this post is just an elaboration of a thought which struck me in the middle of the night, when I was finding sleep hard to come by, since I had slight fever and a sore stomach, acidity or gas, I do not know.

The title of this post may add a little bit to the reader's thought process. But I am sorry this is the only title which I can think at this moment of time. Pls excuse if I am wrong...


Introduction to characters -

X -

This is the imaginary IT company in picture in the post.

PersonA -

He is a software engineer by profession, who is relatively new to the IT company. Joined less than a year ago. He earns his bread by coding and introducing new bugs (of course :P).

PersonB -

He is a manager by profession. He is a veteran in this Imaginary Company. He earns his bread by managing people, projects. (There may be an additional source of income which you will come to know later in the post.)

PersonC -

He is a system administrator by profession. He is also quite new to the imaginary IT company. He earns his bread by managing the computers in the Imaginary IT Company.


End of introduction -


Typical day to day routine of PersonA and PersonB

PersonA - codes and debugs for most part of the day. He has some songs to keep him company, just to make his coding experience a better one. He listens to songs mostly through online streaming. There are some sites available which provide the user to listen to songs online.

PersonB - Manages people and projects, gives updates to the management, makes top notch decisions about the project / projects. He is an active investor in stock markets, investing and selling on a regular basis. Even though he might not be investing, he might be actively monitoring the markets, BSE/NSE, whatever. Here comes the additional source of income. He is trying also to make a fortune out of stocks and shares.

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On one fine day PersonC approaches PersonA.

PersonC: "I would like to seize your desktop."

PersonA: "Could I know the reason?".

PersonC: " For listening to songs through streaming, which is not allowed".

PersonA: " But the mp3 website is not blocked. Hence I thought it to be valid".

PersonC: "No Sir, it takes most of the bandwidth, so its not allowed".

PersonA: " So what is the next course of action ".

PersonC: " Immediate meeting with your manager, followed by an integrity + ethics training + test".

[ PersonA in his mind : "Now what ... I think I should fall on his(managers) feet for this one .. err??". ]

***************************************************************************

Sitting few rows to the side of him is this particular manager who is actively monitoring the stock market, investing money doing everything which is not allowed, but still at the end of the day, its the coder who gets screwed.

[Ok Ok, you may be wondering, whether listening to mp3 while working is ethical or not. I feel its unethical, or may be I am trying to make excuses via this post, I accept that, but the fact is why only few people hog the limelight for wrong reasons. Why do some people just get away or does every organization encourage to have an additional source of income via share trading?. I do not know, but inequality just hurts..]

There might be loads of people in a company who are investing and selling / buying shares, but ... you are in trouble only because of the bandwidth issue. May be the bandwidth occupies higher position than the Ethics , Conflict of Interest and Integrity or may be there is another twist.

I want to know what is the reason.

> Does the person s loyalty to the organization come into picture. If a person is in a organization for 10+ years does it mean he can attend conference calls on his speaker phone from his place.. whilst disturbing others (OF COURSE YOU DO Mr).

> I feel its the person who at the leaf node suffers whatever may be the case. I sincerely feel it. In most cases such people are relatively new to the organization and are highly vulnerable.


POST ENDS HERE ***************************************8

I have nothing against any person in this world. As I have already mentioned, this post is nothing but imaginary. If you strongly feel you as a person has been depicted in this particular post, please leave a comment, I would either remove the post or edit it as per your suggestion.

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Cheers

PS: I never imagined this post would end up being so long. Now I need to use different fonts else everything looks scary and unreadable

PPS: I ve added to the visitor count by editing and re-editing the same post again and again. It shows up in the FeedJit thing. Also to the visitor from Gurgaon. Do I know you. Can you please introduce yourself !!! (just getting curious :P)

Talking behind a person's back or straight on the face ???

I was watching Jab We Met with my relatives over the last weekend. I ve seen the movie 9 times but still cannot get enough of it.

During the latter half of the movie, one can see, in the Shimla hotel, Kareena shouts at Anshuman, using a foul language. Well foul language may come second in this particular context. I want to focus more on the aspect of taking out your anger on a particular person.

You can also observe, Kareena feels a little bit better after she finishes shouting at Anshuman.

I have seen orkut profiles of many people, they say, they hate people who speak behind their back.

I have so many observations against such messages:

> Firstly if a person is humble, down to earth, unbiased, I bet, no one will talk behind his back. If a person thinks people can speak behind his back, he must be getting it wrong somewhere or the other. Right?

> Secondly, as you can see from the movie, Jab We Met, if speaking behind back (atleast not on the face) can make you a bit relieved off tension/headache, what is stopping you then?


Part 2 of the post...

In this part of the post I just try to give a thought whether to speak behind the back of a person, or straight on his face..

I think both the sides are equally balanced.

You speak straight on the face or speak behind the back, you end up being a loser on either case.

Firstly, if you speak straight on the face, you may end up losing your job (at the max).

If the person, is doing wrong and you remain silent and speak behind the person's back, you may end up being a silent spectator and may even get screwed up once that guy gets noticed.

Whatever may be the case, just make sure, your head is free from such silly stuffs..

And regarding Jab We Met, the movie rocks !!!!

Conclusion::: In a corporate world, if you want to survive, then I feel, keeping mum is a better option.

~~~
Cheers

I love TWITTER...

I think I just love twitter. There is no doubt in that. As I was glancing through many blogs over the internet, over the past few months, I noticed many bloggers had a link saying " follow me on twitter" in their respective blogs.

I generally used to open those twitter pages and in my first few instances I could not make out what TWITTER was all about. You may call me a dumbo. But the fact is I was more interested in the bigger blog posts than the few character twitter updates.

But somehow all of a sudden, a thought struck my mind, why not me also on twitter. Frankly speaking, TWITTER is just awesome.

Sometimes random thoughts flash across your mind. You may not be able to blog them, as you may find them silly or you may not find suitable title for them, or may even forget them. There comes TWITTER into picture.

This whole new thing of microblogging has just left me fascinated. Let me see, how I keep posting on the blog as well as TWITTER.

From now on you can follow me on twitter at :::

https://twitter.com/sandepku

PS:: Twitter Rocks...

Upset with myself

Sometimes in life, you feel as though you are caught in the middle of nowhere. I was in one such situation over the past weekend. The house warming function at my place was organized for 14 Feb and 15 Feb. So you can expect a lots of preparation to go into that.

In the first place, it is my parents who have taken so much of tension and headache to construct the house, I thought let me atleast do a bit for the housewarming function. But things did not go my way.

I am very happy and sad at the same time.

I am happy firstly because I got leave on 14 Feb and 15 Feb which happened to be Saturday and Sunday, secondly the function went well, really well, by the grace of god. I met loads of relatives who turned up to the function,. I thank all of them, coz it was just through the telephone that my parents had invited them.

I am sad because, I went to the office till 13 Feb, could not apply for leave even a single working day. So all the preparation to the function had to be done by my parents. And that is something which I am not able to digest.

I can recollect the song by John Mayer - No Such Thing where in he sings

" And all of our parents
They're getting older
I wonder if they've wished for anything better " ..........

I may have helped my parents with some monetary stuffs, but I think I should have done better, worked a little harder at office and taken a leave well in advance. I wish such a thing does not happen in future

By god's grace everything went very well.. Thanks God.
~~~~
Cheers

Are you busy @ work ,, or are you pretending... ???

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Disclaimer ::: The content written in this post are not meant to contradict any person or individual. The person in picture is none other than me. I have no hard or harsh feelings against any particular individual, (IT Guy or non IT Guy to be more specific). All the views expressed here are from my point of view.
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Frankly speaking, as a programmer, I spend almost 9 hrs in front of the computer @ my workplace. I still have one question which haunts me.

" If a software engineer says he is busy, I wonder, whether
> is he really busy or
> is he just pretending to avoid people
> or may be he's just passing time as he may be on bench (no assignments)" .

Its very difficult for me to have a convincing answer for this question, frankly speaking, I do not have answer, nor want an answer, coz, I myself have been in one of the three situations one or many times.

But let's take the a non software engineer's point of view.

Assume if I was a mechanic, if I would be repairing cars (which I would love to have done if not IT), and if I say I am busy, people around me could clearly make out that I am busy, coz I am performing some mechanical task.

But consider me as a software engineer now. If a person unaware of software / IT, asks me, are you busy and I stay " yes ", he believes it.

I am not tightening any screws but at the same time I may not be doing anything productive as well. But how does the poor chap come to know (that I am actually not busy). What if another software engineer asks me the same question without peeping into the monitor or what if I do not lift my head for 8 hrs and keep on typing something ?

People really think I am totally busy, with a donkey's workload.

But how do they know what the truth is, I may be
> Playing Solitaire
> Investing in shares via online trading / telephone trading.
> Chatting with friends over a messenger.
> Checking / Forwarding personal mails.
> Listening to songs (this one is visible.. )
> Browsing the internet for no reasons.
> .. and many more.

What made me write this post ?? No idea..
But I just wanted to bring out the IT guy's idea of being busy when seen through the eyes of a non IT guy.
[Finally a non IT guy like a electrical maintenance guy would always feel I am busy, since I am peeping into my monitor and typing or reading something. I wish they too could find out how busy we actually are.]

PS:: IT Guy tells another IT Guy " I am busy, with work / in a meeting " .. I would appreciate if you could peep into the monitor and look as to what he is busy with or ask for MOM (Minutes of Meeting).

The new ad on television

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Disclaimer ::: The contents of this post are not meant to contradict any advertisement / individual. Its just a take from my point of view. It is not meant, to prove out a point, esp related to the advertisement. All the views expressed over here are purely my opinion and from my standpoint and nothing to do with anyone else.
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I am currently watching bits and pieces of the ongoing cricket matches between India and Sri Lanka. I was kind of attracted by a new ad shown on the television. It was the new Tata Safari ad - Reclaim your life.

Immediately one thing that came to my mind is - one of my colleague in my previous workplaces used to say " Dont burn yourself out by working too much, try to freak out more.. "

I felt this ad reflected or re-iterated the same thing..

I also immediately felt, I also need to reclaim my life. (Though I am relatively new to software industry close to 4 yrs now). I also got a thought, how about reclaiming my life, the way, depicted in the new Tata Safari ad.

Then there was an abrupt end to my thought process.

Could you guess why?

Forget owning a Tata Safari, I do not have money even to pay for its road tax + insurance.
I have to burn myself out may be for some 2-3 years in a row, save money, then think of owning one vehicle like that.

So the better option (standing in my shoes) is ....

1. Forget about the new ad... As it does not make any sense to me.
2. Do not burn yourself out, and then think of reclaiming my life.
3. Try to reclaim your life. (I insist). but may be a second hand Maruti 800 is a better option (err??)

PS:: I have one doubt -> The ad does not target people like me... or does it ???

PPS::: Going by the salary we get, with the job security in mind, I think owning a Tata Safari
will take me another good 7 - 8 years.. May be the ad is targetted at people of those age group, or may be the richer folks .. what say ???

PPPS :::: Can you guys check out the post time??