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??". ]

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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.

~~~~~~~~~
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??

Check the meaning ........ OR .... Check the meeting.......

Few years before, there was a song which I loved. The song was " Check the meaning " by a band called " The Verve ". Awesome song indeed. A perfection in itself... But what s the song got to do with this post..

Here s the story...

Well, today I was in a scenario where in, I was caught actually in a wrong mood, wrong foot, wrong tone [that is what my team mates / colleagues said].

I was actually on my own, blabbering stuffs (in a meeting) , which I was not sure about, expecting something which would actually may or may not happen. In other words, I did not check the meaning before making sentences. What was the outcome ??

The outcome was that the meeting was infact nothing, as the direction of the meeting went wayward. And many of my friends were quite unpleased with the turn of events. Infact, they were strongly opposing my point of view. Morever they were not impressed, coz of the time wasted by making my bullshit point of view clear...

Actually, once in a while, I do really lose control of what I am speaking and become very demanding.. Saying "I want this, I want that"... But I often forget the point that, the world is really really not the way I want. I need to behave in the way the world is and will be.

Going ahead I need to make sure, I need to be very careful about meetings. One wrong line or one wrong quote, the whole focus drifts, turning the outcome of the meeting to be inconclusive or rather leaving many attendants angry.

Somewhere I read that 90% of all the meeting are just waste of time. After attending many meetings over a period of many years, I could well agree with the above mentioned thing.

What say

~~~~~
Cheers

Postcards from Andaman....







Dont ask me the source of the photos, but I can surely tell, I do own them.. so no issues over here...

I was kind of moved when I saw these pics of the cellular jail. Such a harsh treatment meted out to the freedom fighters...

Here s a big salute going out to all those people who have participated in the freedom struggle and who have made me enjoy independence.

Every day of my 25 years of existence, is because of you guys. Hats off...

TZP , SDM

When the movie Slum Dog Millionaire bagged so many awards, I was a kind of a happy man.. Wow what a movie.. I was indeed exclaiming that even without watching the movie.

Next day I came to know that, Taare Zameen Par, had run out of Oscar Contention. I was kind of low.

I thought TZP was a superb movie and deserved an Oscar.

I was just wondering how did SDM bag awards, while TZP was not even in contention.

> Was it because of the director / producer.
> Was it because of the fact that it showed India on the backfoot, instead of a progressed well developed nation. (remember the dialogue in Namastey London, " India , a land of snake charmers ")

No clues as of now..

~~~~

Cheers..

Daily Soaps .... A cause of sever headache

Everyday my parents watch 2 serials from 8 30 pm to 9 30 pm.

I tend to keep a low profile during this one hour of the day, trying to retire in my room or go to the terrace or whatever, because I want to avoid, watching or even catching a glimpse of those serials.

My only cause of concern is, why to give a thought of the troubles faced by unreal characters?

I was watching ["Name of serial removed "] one day and was shocked at the seris of co-incidences happening. After many episodes, one lady appears as the wife of a person, all of a sudden , who also turns out to be the manager of the lady whose her husband has a crush on.

My gosh, so many co-incidences?? To be honest first time I am seeing so many co-incidences, never mind, its fiction after all....

The two serials which I adore as of now are,

" Hello Kaun Pehchaan Kaun "
" MTV Roadies "

~~~~
Cheers

New Show on Radio Indigo....

Its 2 weeks since, a new show has been launched on Radio Indigo.

I am waiting to listen to it, right from the word go, but have not been able to, courtesy my laziness, my schedule, my forgetfulness, you name it, you have it.

But what is so special about this show???

1. Its a retro show, (classic rock + some legends + some trivia)

2. Hosted by (Guess the RJ) , (sounds familiar name is it?)

I was a huge fan of this particular RJ during my engineering days, way back in 2002, 2003. I enjoyed " The Late Show " weekdays night 10pm - 12 pm and " The Retro Show " Sundays 7pm - 9pm.

But hoping not to miss this Sunday, let me see. The show is " PlayBack " Sunday morning 9am to 12 pm...


~~~

Cheers

After a break....

Hey there .... here I am ... blogging after a lil long time..

I was facing some internet problem at home, so could not login since almost 5 days..

I have loads of things to write about, not sure where to begin from.... Few of them include...

> What I did not understand about Slum Dog Millionare.

> Daily soaps on NDTV Imagine (Mein Teri Parchayee Hoon and Radha Ki Betiyaan).

> My new orkut testimonial.

> New show on Radio Indigo...

I can also write about loads of things, which I am expecting to happen in the near future. But let it happen... So let me write about the above mentioned things in subsequent posts...

~~~
Cheers.

New theme for 2009

Going into 2009, I thought let me put a new theme, so finally finalized a theme, which included white color.

Nothing particular about choosing white, just hoping to purify my thoughts and throw away any negativity which resides within me.

I think, the picture of Mahatma Gandhi on a white background looks amazingly supercool.
[Gosh, I could have put in white a little before, never mind, better late than later ]

Also forgot to write much in the last weeks of 2008. I have found a show on TV very interesting, its MTV roadies, audition. Some cool questions, some supercool interviewers. I wish not to view Roadies, but the auditions look pretty cool.

I also happened to watch MTV Vaults on VH1, which featured U2 - MTV Vaults. I just love U2, their music and any program on or about U2, just peps me up.

I can say one thing for sure, I have known U2 all my life, and I just love their music.

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Cheers

Pep me up !!!

One of my goals for the year 2009, is to read more and more books. So I started to re-read a book which I had last read in 2005, when I had joined my first company.

The book is "Tough times never last, tough people do". As I began to read the book, I just found a new punch line, which I thought of pinning down in my blog title, [which infact I did].

I can also say, going into the new year, I found that line too inspiring, to keep on blogging more and more.

So here goes the line " If you dont have any advice to give, share your own story".

Then I thought, here I am sharing my own story . [Not everything, but atleast some and one more thing, I do not intend to do this for the sake of audience. Its for my sole purpose. To turn the focus light more towards myself.]

Let me hope I will write more than what I did in 2008.

~~~
Cheers

#1 for 2009

Here s my first post for the year 2009.

Firstly I have to thank none other than god for keeping me alive and kicking .

Second thing is I too have some things which I would like to do in the year 2009.

~~CHeers

Awesome song - Inspirational or Mushy ????

Off late, I have been listening to a song again and again. I am trying to figure out what the song has to say. But I haven't yet. Again its a classic of the 1980's. The song is " You can do magic " by a band called "America". They performed live in Bangalore, sometime in Dec 2007.

Some backdrop ::: [ I am a huge fan of this song, thinking it is a very inspirational song. People always criticize me for being a fan of western music, esp rock. They indirectly ask me " Are u angrez key aulaad?". (Well whatever, who cares, btw?). But the truth is, whenever I listen to some super cool english songs, they just pep me up, to do better, to go an extra mile. ]

When I first listened to the song, I felt it is a inspirational song, but when I checked out the lyrics, I found a mushy edge to it as well. Whatever may be the case, it occupies #3 position in my all time favorite list of inspirational songs.

Well, if you want to know, which songs top the list of my all time favorite inspirational songs ...... here it goes...

#1 and #2 no doubt belongs to U2.

#1 Stuck in a moment - U2
#2 Walk On. - U2
#3 You can do magic. - America
#4 Welcome to wherever you are - Bon Jovi

Dollar Bahu

One of my TODO s for the year 2009 include read as many books as possible. Technical books, I do read, but I am especially particular about fiction, autobiography, travelogues and books like these.

I think during the year 2008, I started to read a lot of unwanted books (mostly non technical). In the middle or the last part, of some of the books , I totally lost interest in the book. I do not know why. But somehow, it all went wayward.

Now in the last month of the year, I thought let me read a bit more. And all of a sudden I found two new books within my reach.

They were.
1. Dollar Bahu by Sudha Murthy
2. Nandan Nilekani 's book

I thought, lemme read one first. So went ahead and read Dollar Bahu.

Now I am thinking of reading one more book before 2009. Let me see, how it goes.

~~~~
Cheers

My new orkut testimonial

Incidentally, I happened to receive a new testimonial. It was from my honeywell friend/colleague, Muthukumaran.

I had written a testimonial for him around 4 months back. One of my friends who visited his profile immediately asked, is it barter system? I really do not think so. But it is to the outside world. What can I do?

So the testimonial had an important point which I would like to highlight of blog about. My friend says, " I have a good sense of humor ". I agree with it, but at the same time I also disagree with it.

How?

I have a good sense of humor, only when my going is good. When my going gets tough, my sense of humor just vanishes. I tend to lose patience / temper, if not often, but atleast sometimes atleast. [Gimme a break guys, I am a human after all, I tend to make mistakes, lose patience. Its all in the game].

After reading the book by Robin Sharma 9 times, I still could not come up with a way where in I could exhibit, " Grace Under Pressure ". Forget, exhibiting " Humor under Pressure". Its totally difficult. The guy who does it is a " REAL DUDE ".

One of my key goals in the year 2009 would be to improve myself on this whole issue. I do tend to lose humor, patience, under pressure. I wish I could handle pressure in a better way. So that I can get more out of that situation as well.

PS: Why am I writing about this topic is, I recently lost patience, and it took me a little while to be back, doing what I love to do the most.

~~~~~
Cheers

100th post for the year 2008

Can't imagine about this one.. 100 posts for the year 2008.. In the month of December.. I openly admit 2008 has just gone by. God has been graceful in giving me loads of things. But I have not been up to the mark, when it comes to growing with age. It is something which I will take up seriously in the new year.

But 100 posts, when I look back, how on earth did I manage to write about 100 bakwaas topics. [I feel some of them are repeated , may be 5-6]. But overall nice feat... Pat on my back..

I had many takeaways' this year ...

--> cousin's marriage, met loads(mark my words) , loads of relatives.
--> new company, new colleagues.
--> different schedule altogether.(less travelling)
--> continued going to the gym for most part of the year.
--> went on a trip with my cousins to Ooty, which was the best of them all.
--> Read lots of books ( may be 12-15 overall, small in number, apart from technical ones)
--> Wrote loads of code in 2008.
--> Tried to learn lots of things in the last quarter of 2008. (have infact overburdened myself).
--> Got a little bit more health concious.
--> Kept blogging btw...
--> Found solace in loads of inspirational books and writing..
--> Last but not the least, laughed my heart out, many a number of times, more, than in 2007.

I have a list of things which I could not do or did moderately.. In other words.. somethings which I regret.

--> Not regularly listening to the radio. Lesser radio play during 2008.
--> Could not meet Nitin or Kranti many a times during the year 2008, for whatever may be the reasons.
--> Less books read... I need to read more..

I would like to thank god, for keeping me alive and kicking all through the year 2008.

One more thing worth mentioning:::
My first post for the year 2008 was a song by Simply Red::::

You make me feel brand new... Wow.. I dint notice till today. What an amazing song it is.
What a way to begin a new year blogging calendar.. Whacko !!!

~~ Cheers

Thank you for the music

I was listening to a song by ABBA today. ABBA happens to be one of my all time favorite bands. I think its a 4 piece outfit. I have grown listening to ABBA. Even as a child who dint know English correctly, I used to sing " Fernando ". (Aint that awesome).

I thought let me put a lyrics of a song which is so meaningful and also thanks something in the most beautiful way. I think this song is more than 24 yrs old.

The song is " Thank you for the music". The lyrics goes... [Incomplete though]


Im nothing special, in fact Im a bit of a bore
If I tell a joke, youve probably heard it before
But I have a talent, a wonderful thing
cause everyone listens when I start to sing
Im so grateful and proud
All I want is to sing it out loud

So I say
Thank you for the music, the songs Im singing
Thanks for all the joy theyre bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me

Songs, Music does bring a lot of joy to me, absolutely true. ABBA songs, all I can say is it just reminds me of the wonderful 80's. Aaaah.. Its so beautiful... (80's and my childhood days)

~~~~Cheers