It was my 12th standard board examinations. I knew I had every chance of maxing my computer science test. But when the results came in, I was 11 marks short. That changed my life. If I had scored a full, I would have built a Sandcastle becoming the greatest computer hacker in the world and as a consequence I would have enrolled myself into computer engineering.
So I went on to study Chemical engineering and Physics and learnt some valuable lessons for life; one of which was life lesson 2.
Life lesson 2: Physics in college is not the same as physics in school. Generalising the rule: The subjects that you thought you liked and were good at, at school will be the subjects that will make your life miserable at college and thus the subjects you will come to dislike.
Computer programming turned out to be one of them. It will be an understatement if I said I was hopeless. I never made double digit marks, could never write one error-less line of code (One instructor remarked in an open book test that if I had opened the book during the test, I could have atleast got one basic line correct. I started off the program with an studio.h instead of stdio.h. Studio seemed logical to me than the stdio gibberish.) and at most times managed to make the default marks for attending the test.
Now, here is a confession. Many young and attractive married women have been asking me how an intelligent, gifted, sensitive and capable man such as I am never had a girlfriend at college.
Because I was having such a good time entertaining everyone around me at the computer lab with my ingenious logic and computer vocabulary, some guys who were jealous of me printed several copies of my programs and distributed them among the ladies.
If you can not write programs that can not run or atleast amble, you don't get a job. If you didn't get a job you don't have money. If you didn't have money you don't have me.
And so I didn't have a girlfriend till the end of the second year and therefore I didn't have a girlfriend all through college. But what about my 3rd, 4th and 5th years? Don't come to a conclusion until you have understood life lesson 127.
Life lesson 127: All women you desire are taken before the end of second year of college.
Later that year, word spread that someone had hacked into the university network and went to places never gone before, seen things never seen before and touched things never touched before. In a matter of hours there was a Robin Hood, a Mr. Anderson and a William Wallace; all simmering in one body - mine. I was the world's best hacker I would have dreamed about. I received more than 700 love emails in the most exquisite and gratifying language I have ever seen women write.
My account was seized. My activities were monitored. I was bullied to submit in closed room interrogations. My weekly long distance telephone calls with my parents were tapped. But they couldn't move a muscle in me. They were all exasperated and almost given up when one genius in the group had the brains to look at my computer programming test marks. None about nine. They let me free.
Life lesson 1983: Everything happens for the good
It was then I decided I will no longer have anything to do with software. And so for four years since I started work, I managed to hide myself in power points and spreadsheets until a few days ago.
BB: So Raja, you are the best man around here for numbers and spreadsheets. We would like to built an excel based tool that will be programmed to turn all our bad businesses to good and good businesses to better. And I would like you to work on it.
Well, they say life is a circle! Should that be my life lesson 0?
BB* - Boss's Boss
30 July 2009
25 July 2009
Insider view
I had great respect for guys who said, 'Don't judge people by the outside, look inside', until it dawned to me after many years what they really meant ;) The respect has now turned to adulation.
23 July 2009
Gun culture
A Word of caution: I have been diagnosed as suffering from gender insensitivity. Therefore, the content below might seem vulgar to readers suffering from gender hypersensitivity. I caution those readers to stop reading the post right away.On the other hand, if you are suffering from generosity, please email me your bank account details, so I can use your money to treat my condition.
It was my first day in the UK and I went to the office bathroom for a leak. No sooner than I went inside, I heard gunshots that I had to crouch and take cover under the sink. It seemed like a battlefield with ammunition hurtled relentlessly. I ran out and dialed 100 to call the police. 'Adyar Police station'. Only then I realised that you can not dial 100 to call British police.
Later that afternoon, at lunch, I understood why there was gunfire in the toilet. Britishers eat large portions of meat, particularly cows and pigs. If you are a one-movie-a-day person you might have seen Mangal Pandey. The movie shows British bullet cartridges made out of cow skin and pig fat. If those small bullets, when fired,can make such ear deafening noise that resonates for miles, imagine what these large portions of meat could do.
It is fortunate that many Indians are vegetarians. If the 1.2 billion and growing population was meat eating, we could be firing so loudly that our neighbouring countries could think we are on a war with them and throw nuclear bombs at us. But I have been concerned for some time that many are turning into non-vegetarians; which is why I moved countries. I already look mutated and do not want to aggravate it any further with nuclear exposure. But that's not the only reason why I moved homes. India has tripled its population in the last 50 years. And if we grow at this rate, one day the ground beneath India might give in and we would all make our way to the centre of the earth and be burnt like roasted chicken.
p.s.: Chuchi's facebook wall said a minute ago that there was a tremor in Bangalore, so says Thekri. I am convinced it's not an earthquake but it is the ground beneath that is cracking up.
It was my first day in the UK and I went to the office bathroom for a leak. No sooner than I went inside, I heard gunshots that I had to crouch and take cover under the sink. It seemed like a battlefield with ammunition hurtled relentlessly. I ran out and dialed 100 to call the police. 'Adyar Police station'. Only then I realised that you can not dial 100 to call British police.
Later that afternoon, at lunch, I understood why there was gunfire in the toilet. Britishers eat large portions of meat, particularly cows and pigs. If you are a one-movie-a-day person you might have seen Mangal Pandey. The movie shows British bullet cartridges made out of cow skin and pig fat. If those small bullets, when fired,can make such ear deafening noise that resonates for miles, imagine what these large portions of meat could do.
It is fortunate that many Indians are vegetarians. If the 1.2 billion and growing population was meat eating, we could be firing so loudly that our neighbouring countries could think we are on a war with them and throw nuclear bombs at us. But I have been concerned for some time that many are turning into non-vegetarians; which is why I moved countries. I already look mutated and do not want to aggravate it any further with nuclear exposure. But that's not the only reason why I moved homes. India has tripled its population in the last 50 years. And if we grow at this rate, one day the ground beneath India might give in and we would all make our way to the centre of the earth and be burnt like roasted chicken.
p.s.: Chuchi's facebook wall said a minute ago that there was a tremor in Bangalore, so says Thekri. I am convinced it's not an earthquake but it is the ground beneath that is cracking up.
20 July 2009
The General & her Prisoner of War
I went on a trekking trip last Saturday with a friend. We eventually reached a village called Shere (pronounced Shear) after playing lost and found in the woods for 6 hours. 6 hours is a long time. Especially for my bladder. Especially when it was holding the 12 JDs I drank the previous night. The JD had misplaced priorities. Instead of working on my head it was working down there and I had to get rid of it.
After 3 hours of arduous battle I let go of it with a smiling face. I have acquired the habit of posing for pictures these days and I was sure there was some hidden security camera relishing my act.
Shy Eyes (that is her name translated into English) called me disgusting. How can it be disgusting? Rather, it is disgruntling to me. I water the plants but they still ask me to pay at the supermarket for the fruits the plants bear.
Not wanting to offend her anymore (she had the map and the money) I tried to entertain her with some witty jokes I stole from some of the blogs I read. She asked me to stop talking and walk quietly or she would leave me stranded in the woods. I think the blogs I read are not very witty or clever. If I had read Hansel and Gretel instead, I would have brought a bag full of pebbles with me.
Unable to do anything about my situation, I tried to keep quiet and follow her until civilisation. I managed to keep my mouth shut by sticking my upper and lower front teeth with the chewing gum she offered me a while ago. But she did not offer me anything to keep my brain shut. So my brain continued to rattle the usual nonstop nonsense, some of which are below.
1. Why should I be silent to observe nature? Every right comes with a responsibility. If I have the right to observe nature, is it not my responsibility to let nature observe me? How will it observe me if I was quiet? Or am I not part of nature? I am definitely going to hunt squirrels and wear itchy leaf underwear for coming up with this.
2. If she left me stranded, and I called Shaktimaan, will he come here to rescue me? Or is his jurisdiction only within the coverage area of Doordarshan? If so who is responsible for the UK? James Bond? James Bond will not help me as I have been calling myself James Bond when I answer the phone these days and he is mad at me. That leaves me with Austin Powers. But has he returned from the 70s with his mojo? Wish I knew what happened to him. I should not have slept in the second half of the movie.
3. The earth rotates at an angle. All these years, I have lived close to the equator for the angle to have any effect on me and things around me. But now that I live close to the pole, the tilt should have an effect. Will that mean the uphill climb now will be a downhill slope in winter?
4. Are bubble gums biodegradable?
5. Most women I know tell me that the female species is a superior species to men. I grudgingly agree. But why does a superior species always want to mate an inferior species and make babies? Are they not bringing down the intelligence of the offspring by half? So if that half life continued for generations, will there not be a time when the male and female species be equally intelligent? Or stupid? I think the English are approaching that phase. Look at their spellings and you will understand. Shere (Shear), Gloucestershire (Glostersher), Edinburgh (Edinburah)...
I write anymore than this I am going to be hack-saw-ed. But why do people berate me for writing such trash but continue to read them anyway.
15 July 2009
Project managing a half marathon
'So Raja, the project management course that I sent you to. Was it useful?'
'Very much.'
'Why don't you brief the team this Friday on what you learnt, so it will be a refresher for a lot of them?'
Where did my manager come from? Does he not know that courses are attended to use up department budget and not to learn something. The manager can tell the management the money given to him was all well spent so he could get more money next year (the more budget the manager has the more commanding his position is in the authority matrix) while I get free lunch and drinks for attending the course.
Back at my desk, I thought really hard to see if anything I do is ever close to project management or can be put into the frames of project management. Luckily, I had one.
Earlier in the previous evening: Ha ha, you are going to run a half marathon!! I bet you can not do that.
So that will be the project that I will manage. I will run a half marathon.
(I don't really remember where I left my course material, so I do not expect to follow all the steps one would in real project management. In between making rubber band bullets, playing sudoku and all the chattering my ears randomly picked up a few terms in the class which I will use here extensively and interchangeably.)
Project Statement: Run a half marathon
Terms of Reference: (what, where, who, which, how, when)
What am I going to do? - Run a half marathon
Who will run? I will run
How am I going to do? - That is my job. I will figure it out
When should I complete? - Before winter. (Running in winter means buying special winter running clothes. That costs money. So I save running in the summer. (This is an example of some of the best practices of project management: Save where you can))
How long should I take to complete the marathon? Nobody told me how long I should take. So I will assume I can take as long as I want as long as I complete before end of summer.
How much should the whole exercise cost? - It should not cost you more than your salary because you have no other means of income.
Where will I run? Run in the gym
What was not defined was how many times I could stop and how long my stoppage between runs could be. So I have decided to run one kilometer everyday in the next 22 days and complete my half marathon.
My budget:£ 228
Running shoes £ 80
Running t-shirt £ 15
Running shorts £ 15
Running underwear £ 8 (I figured out that I will have to wear a running underwear as I live in the UK. UK has more security cameras than people and I will not be surprised if there is a camera at the base of the treadmill.)
Pre-run meal 22 X £ 2
Post-run pizza 22 X £ 3 (Motivation is key to success. Unless I am motivated with a pizza at the end of the run I will not be able to get through the whole distance)
Stakeholders:
Get to know my stakeholders:
High influence - high support: Boston: 'Right-o'. He has completed 2 full marathons and always complains about his aching leg when he finishes the race. He comes from the stone age. He has no Internet connection and nowhere to live. There is rumour that he currently lives in his cubicle.
High support - low influence: David: 'Hey, how you going!'. David is my housemate. We eat pizzas together. He will be more than happy if I tell him our meal every evening is going to be a pizza for the next 22 days. I intend to give him a 2% stake in 'lazy-man inventions'. He invented the idea of piling up used plates and dishes until we use up everything in the house and wash them just once a week instead of spending an hour daily at the sink. He is trying to convince me to buy a bathtub so we can fill it with used plates. But as you would have seen, he falls in the low influence category and so we are not buying a tub in the near future.
Low support - low influence: Jinku: 'Darling'. He is Indian. I am Indian. He can not lift 5 kg dumb-bells, which automatically means I can not lift 5 kg dumb-bells. Or he will at least say so. His life revolves around women (2D & 3D. Do not mistake the Ds for the 'Ds'. The Ds stand for dimensions. A 2D woman is anyone on print and Internet while a 3D woman the one that walks around in flesh and blood), although he has not spoken to a single female species in the last 8 years I have known him.
High influence - low support: My other me: 'Hello, James Bond.' My other me likes to wear suits and sunglasses, drive super fast convertibles with a cigar in the mouth and 3 lovely ladies in the 3 other seats in the car. So he does not like to wear shorts and run in the gym. And unless he runs, I don't run. That explains his high influence - low support tag.
If you looked at the pictures of the stakeholders, you will observe the high influence people always look up and the low influence people look down. This should help you identify the high influence and low influence people in your offices.
Critical path analysis:
Critical path analysis tells you how you tactically manage running the 1 km. Once you have had your pre-run meal, pick a treadmill that is right behind that pretty girl in short shorts and tight t-shirt chugging along in the cycle. 1 km is a long distance and so you will need all the motivation you can take to complete and pretty ladies are good motivation.
The first 250m: Walking is slow running. So start with a walk but keep swinging your hands up and down so it creates an impression that you are running hard. Try to adjust the elevation to either a flat or negative slope if you can. ( ♫ Its another day in paradise)
The second 250m: Try to run this part. This part is going to be the hardest. Mysteriously, however long you keep your chin up and run and finally look at the time passed, it will not be more than 15 seconds. So start with your usual style of running. You must be able to cross the first 100m this way. To cross the next 100m, imagine yourself to be Arnold Schwarzenegger and try to imitate his style of running. When you come close to completing this 100m you will come to know that even Arnold Schwarzenegger feels tired after running 100m. So muscle does not work at all times. Try the no-muscle run for the next 50m. Run like you have no bones or muscles in your body and let every joint go in every direction. But the time you get used to running this way the next 50m would have also passed.
The third 250m: When you have reached this stage you have crossed half the distance. Although you will want to throw the towel and walk away, you must hang on. ( ♫ I will survive) And I know just the way to hang on. Hold on to the bar in front of the treadmill and let the treadmill drag you for the next 250m. Let your tongue out and pant as hard as you can to keep yourself cool. Dogs hang their tongues out and pant to keep themselves cool. You will by now have noticed that the girl in front of you would have also found you to be cool as she stares at you without blinking her eyelids for the next 30 seconds.
Last 250m: Whenever you run long distance, it is advisable to cool down. Cooling down after you finish your 1km is waste of time and energy. So I suggest you cool down in this 250m. So bring the speed down and start walking again until you hit the 1km mark. Job well done for the day! and its pizza time.
I do this for 22 days and I finish the half marathon. By putting it all down on paper, I have proof that I listened hard in the course and can put theory into practice. My manager will be happy about this when I brief the gathering with the same material this Friday.
'Very much.'
'Why don't you brief the team this Friday on what you learnt, so it will be a refresher for a lot of them?'
Where did my manager come from? Does he not know that courses are attended to use up department budget and not to learn something. The manager can tell the management the money given to him was all well spent so he could get more money next year (the more budget the manager has the more commanding his position is in the authority matrix) while I get free lunch and drinks for attending the course.
Back at my desk, I thought really hard to see if anything I do is ever close to project management or can be put into the frames of project management. Luckily, I had one.
Earlier in the previous evening: Ha ha, you are going to run a half marathon!! I bet you can not do that.
So that will be the project that I will manage. I will run a half marathon.
(I don't really remember where I left my course material, so I do not expect to follow all the steps one would in real project management. In between making rubber band bullets, playing sudoku and all the chattering my ears randomly picked up a few terms in the class which I will use here extensively and interchangeably.)
Project Statement: Run a half marathon
Terms of Reference: (what, where, who, which, how, when)
What am I going to do? - Run a half marathon
Who will run? I will run
How am I going to do? - That is my job. I will figure it out
When should I complete? - Before winter. (Running in winter means buying special winter running clothes. That costs money. So I save running in the summer. (This is an example of some of the best practices of project management: Save where you can))
How long should I take to complete the marathon? Nobody told me how long I should take. So I will assume I can take as long as I want as long as I complete before end of summer.
How much should the whole exercise cost? - It should not cost you more than your salary because you have no other means of income.
Where will I run? Run in the gym
What was not defined was how many times I could stop and how long my stoppage between runs could be. So I have decided to run one kilometer everyday in the next 22 days and complete my half marathon.
My budget:£ 228
Running shoes £ 80
Running t-shirt £ 15
Running shorts £ 15
Running underwear £ 8 (I figured out that I will have to wear a running underwear as I live in the UK. UK has more security cameras than people and I will not be surprised if there is a camera at the base of the treadmill.)
Pre-run meal 22 X £ 2
Post-run pizza 22 X £ 3 (Motivation is key to success. Unless I am motivated with a pizza at the end of the run I will not be able to get through the whole distance)
Stakeholders:
Get to know my stakeholders:
High influence - high support: Boston: 'Right-o'. He has completed 2 full marathons and always complains about his aching leg when he finishes the race. He comes from the stone age. He has no Internet connection and nowhere to live. There is rumour that he currently lives in his cubicle.
High support - low influence: David: 'Hey, how you going!'. David is my housemate. We eat pizzas together. He will be more than happy if I tell him our meal every evening is going to be a pizza for the next 22 days. I intend to give him a 2% stake in 'lazy-man inventions'. He invented the idea of piling up used plates and dishes until we use up everything in the house and wash them just once a week instead of spending an hour daily at the sink. He is trying to convince me to buy a bathtub so we can fill it with used plates. But as you would have seen, he falls in the low influence category and so we are not buying a tub in the near future.
Low support - low influence: Jinku: 'Darling'. He is Indian. I am Indian. He can not lift 5 kg dumb-bells, which automatically means I can not lift 5 kg dumb-bells. Or he will at least say so. His life revolves around women (2D & 3D. Do not mistake the Ds for the 'Ds'. The Ds stand for dimensions. A 2D woman is anyone on print and Internet while a 3D woman the one that walks around in flesh and blood), although he has not spoken to a single female species in the last 8 years I have known him.
High influence - low support: My other me: 'Hello, James Bond.' My other me likes to wear suits and sunglasses, drive super fast convertibles with a cigar in the mouth and 3 lovely ladies in the 3 other seats in the car. So he does not like to wear shorts and run in the gym. And unless he runs, I don't run. That explains his high influence - low support tag.
If you looked at the pictures of the stakeholders, you will observe the high influence people always look up and the low influence people look down. This should help you identify the high influence and low influence people in your offices.
Critical path analysis:
Critical path analysis tells you how you tactically manage running the 1 km. Once you have had your pre-run meal, pick a treadmill that is right behind that pretty girl in short shorts and tight t-shirt chugging along in the cycle. 1 km is a long distance and so you will need all the motivation you can take to complete and pretty ladies are good motivation.
The first 250m: Walking is slow running. So start with a walk but keep swinging your hands up and down so it creates an impression that you are running hard. Try to adjust the elevation to either a flat or negative slope if you can. ( ♫ Its another day in paradise)
The second 250m: Try to run this part. This part is going to be the hardest. Mysteriously, however long you keep your chin up and run and finally look at the time passed, it will not be more than 15 seconds. So start with your usual style of running. You must be able to cross the first 100m this way. To cross the next 100m, imagine yourself to be Arnold Schwarzenegger and try to imitate his style of running. When you come close to completing this 100m you will come to know that even Arnold Schwarzenegger feels tired after running 100m. So muscle does not work at all times. Try the no-muscle run for the next 50m. Run like you have no bones or muscles in your body and let every joint go in every direction. But the time you get used to running this way the next 50m would have also passed.
The third 250m: When you have reached this stage you have crossed half the distance. Although you will want to throw the towel and walk away, you must hang on. ( ♫ I will survive) And I know just the way to hang on. Hold on to the bar in front of the treadmill and let the treadmill drag you for the next 250m. Let your tongue out and pant as hard as you can to keep yourself cool. Dogs hang their tongues out and pant to keep themselves cool. You will by now have noticed that the girl in front of you would have also found you to be cool as she stares at you without blinking her eyelids for the next 30 seconds.
Last 250m: Whenever you run long distance, it is advisable to cool down. Cooling down after you finish your 1km is waste of time and energy. So I suggest you cool down in this 250m. So bring the speed down and start walking again until you hit the 1km mark. Job well done for the day! and its pizza time.
I do this for 22 days and I finish the half marathon. By putting it all down on paper, I have proof that I listened hard in the course and can put theory into practice. My manager will be happy about this when I brief the gathering with the same material this Friday.
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