Office philosophy

As a person from the Engg background I have always taken pride in looking at everything from the technical standpoint and trying to make choices based on logic and reasoning but sometimes a simple event in life appears in such unguardedmoment that you feel disparaged and often times begin to admonish your inability to comprehend things or even worseyou defy your own very code of decision making process.

It is 10am and very bright and beautiful Friday morning outside my office window and in one of the rarest moments I am feelingquite motivated to work and as a consequence I happen to write an email to one of my colleagues and wrote quite a good email consisting of marked down questions in bold bullet points trying to exhibit myself as a very analytical and quite focused on my work but of course in my vain attempt. I finish typing andreview the mail and feel good that I wrote quite a crisp email and I begin to press ‘send’ button. But there comes a momentwhen I hit send button a new window pops up like the one below

  

And here I am sitting utterly confused, totally clueless and frozen thinking what the hell on the earth am I supposed to do. Imight decide one of the easiest options of not making a decision and just click OK irrespective of what outcome I will get but the moment I drag my mouse near the ‘ok’ tab I get this metaphysical question ‘Am I ready to defy the wisdom ofmaking a decision based on logic and reasoning just because I am lethargic or have I come to an agreement that the cost ofanalyzing an outcome like this in particular (what output format my mail will be) does not justify the time and effort.

In either cases I have sufficient reason to believe that either selective applied reasoning  is also a part of qualitative reasoning or a more radical approach would be is to believe thatmay be reasoning is not always a good choice to make a decision.

In this case, I don’t know what does each option mean and I don’t think that most people know or want to know and not even sure why there is an option to bring more complexity in life of a common working Man. My question to you is this not a mockery and an arrogance by ‘IT fiefdom’ laughing over the situation they put a normal pc user everyday and making surethat we rely on their world of obscurity.

As I sit down more writing about it I am tending to gravitatemore towards philosophical question that isn’t obscurity and complexity creating more polarized society and disintegratingthe whole social fabric into chaos and linguistic challenge. I metpeople from different industry and I feel is true. The more we think the more challenging and pertinent questions we face.

For the moment I will give in to the trap which has been laid out for me and will agree to be a victim of somebody’s sadistic pleasure by clicking ‘OK’ and then clicking ‘OK’ again when it prompts me a new popup ‘Are you sure you want to proceed?’.   

Greece Crisis -A complete picture

I did't knew that in my lifetime I will have to hear that an entire country is on sale..Yeah that's not a surprise question..we all know I am talking about Greece..The economy of Greece is really in shambles so much so that if the govt is unable to pay off it's debts then they have to sell their property.As I am writing this,the govt has already auctioned its railways,beaches,casino,airports,hotels,water,electricity and every unimaginable thing.If this slurry would keep on going then we would very soon see a private country.A country which is a fragmented and owned by private organizations.
I am honestly trembled to think about tte magnitude of crisis which is getting unfolded.To put it simply ,if Greece fails to pay it's debt then the whole world will distrust the bond markets and everybody will be in Mad hold to pull out their investment thus triggering a systemic crisis and destroying the value of Euro.If this happens then the wealthier countries like France and Germany will be in huge loss.They will never want to see this day and hence they will ensure that people Trust Europe and continue to hold their investments and hence keep the euro strong.So these countries have two options,either let Greece pull out of the euro zone or never let Greece fail.Greece would never like to pull itself out of Euro zone because of it's exclusivity and benefits.If the euro countries decide to throw Greece out of the club then other unstable economies like Italy,Portugal,Ireland and Hungary would follow suit thus making euro club very unpopular and weak.
The best and only option is to never let Greece fail.To make this happen Germany and France would have to bail out by giving shark loans and they will do so only if they are sure that greece is able to a back them and only if their country will support this decision.People in Europe are against it because it's unfair to bail out other country at the cost of their earned tax.On the other hand Greece is not sure if they can pay back the amount to them or not because it's condition is really like a begger.To get the loan they would need to bring tough austerity measures and tax people heavily ,the population is bitterly against it but govt has no option if it has to save itself..
As the crisis is unfolding There are several big questions which is on everybody's mind...Will the govt be able to pass these austerity measure? Will govt be able to repay back the money in near term even in the face of highly unpopular policy and skepticism?Will the govt display the leadership at this juncture and able to contain the widespread unemployment and hatred.Will investors trust the Euro market and most fundamentally,Is the capitalist economic model which these govts are pursuing in the face of over leveraged capital markets a sustainable one or it's the slap on the face due to excess greed.?
I don't know these answers and I don't Even think that anybody at this time knows it,time is the biggest teacher and we all will see things soon.

Hangover in SIngapore

Okay here is a bold revelation by me about what happened on Saturday night .How crazy can one expect to be on Saturday night with anyone in Singapore.I guess we just achieved a new height of our craziness .Read below.
I met with 2 of my friends at East Coast Park and we planned to have some drinks at an Irish cafe.We drank and drank the whole bottle of Chivas Regal,two of us flirting with the philipino waitress and ending up taking her email address.This much was still not enough and we decided to go to Orchard Towers.One of my friend is a very decent guy who is doing his exec MBA from here and he has never seen the dark side of this city so we decided to give him the real taste of what it is.for those of you who don't know what this place is about,allow me to explain you about it. This place is a 4 storey mall full of strip clubs,pubs and discotheques..All in all you can see the most weirdest things happening right under this building under the blanket of dark night.The moment you will enter the building you will be swamped by hookers and strippers all drooling over you and asking you to buy them a drink..After bit of finding a happening joint we entered into a disc whih was highly illuminated with flashy neon lights with provocative display of nudity outside.When we entered inside we saw so high volume ear deafening rock music ,darkness everywhere,drinks flowing ,lots of sleaze ,lots of censored situations but somehow we struggled to manage a corner table close to the pool table.The moment we took out seats we found girls sitting next to us and trying to flirt around.
I knew it very well the trap and didn't wanted to get into this thing for whole night so I took my beer and couple of tequila shots ,sat listening to music and playing pool with some drunk german guys over there..we must have spend some hour or so time passing like this and when I came back at our Tavel ,I saw of the our friends(d one doing MBA ) who was supposedly one of the most shy and sheedha Sadha was flirting around with this girl,doing all those crap things..me and other guy were just sitting next to him and trying to understand what's happening with him..we had only one job here..he would buy tequila shots for himself n her girl and we would simply sign the cheques..
Anyway to cut long story short,after long drama this guy was so so drunk that he was totally unconscious n asleep.We literally had to drag him on the floor and dump him into the taxi.I took him back to his college ,and there he puked right in front of his administrative building at 5am and somehow I took him to his hostel room.
Next morning he called me and asked me what did i do whole night and how did I came to my hostel room.I was laughing over the entire episode that what we had been throughout the entire night.
Moral of the story:never let a guy get drunk so much when you have to sign his booze bills.

Disclaimer:I am not trying to be any smart ass or some kind of very decent guy but truth is I just went there,had my beer ,played some pool and that's it..I find it more enjoying to have somebody do the things and me laughing over the whole act of foolishness..I feel that's more worthwhile rather than being an Ass..What say?

Indian education policy

I am visibly frustrated.Not on myself but on the kind of policies are being shaped up in India that is making India not a global leader but just a fine example of crumbled empire with myopic ideas.
I want to highlight which is really bothering me from last few days.Day before I was reading newspaper and I got to know that in private schools it has become mandatory to enroll 25%lower class students.I am imagining a case that suppose the poor children are being put up in a school where there are very rich children,would it not make them introvert,would It not make them filled with inferiority complex,I think so.More importantly it would also slower down the pace of the learning of the class because it is very obvious that the kind of exposure and the environment the well to do kids would get will be vast different from what the poor kids will attain.
So I Believe that instead of enforcing a policy of this kind it makes more sense for the govt to open up more public school,privatize the administration and make it regulated so that our young children can get access to free and fair open education to get the right kind of environment which is needed for their grooming.we would be amazed that only 9-11%of children between 19-21year old can enrol themselves into the university.This is a shame on us.we have the highest population of young people in our country and we are such a miser to leave them untapped.What is government doing after all?When will they grow up and think about things other than worrying about some fasting babas?

Work & Workarounds

And its weekend again. If you have to ask me, how were the past 5days, i have only one word for that...i survived. Yes truly. Last 5days were very rigorous and streesful.each morning when i sue to wake up and read Hanuman Chalisa i use to just pray please help me survive today. And yippy the whole week has past.btw sometimes i really feel that there is a lot and lot of room for my improvement. There are a lot of people around me who work really more than i do and still never show any sign of irritation on their face and my boss is my biggest motivation.

This evening when i went out with him for a coffee he told me that he's got to have his dinner now because he might need to stay in office for quite long in night and besides the fact that he has not seen his son from last 3days.its then it makes me ask myself ,what the hell am i doing in life...is this my commitment towards my job, and if i am going to pursue this infatuation with this luxurious life then it might become my habit and i would never be able to sustain long..All in all, I know one thing very well that i need to rethink the way i see my work and bring bit more energy and output to my job. If not I’ll be ruined soon.

I have couple of takeaways form this week:

·        Take work very seriously now.

·        Always get the work done, no matter how long i need to work, just get it done anyways.

·        Looks does matter, so always make your reports very presentable and with excellent formatting.

·        Try to keep your ego in check, there will be lots of ego clashes and sometimes you need to compromise, but that’s part of work especially when you're working in a team.

·        Last and most important.....never lose your focus and concentrate more well on work.

At last I am home, on Friday evening with next two days ahead and nothing much to do. The question of the day is how I am going to utilize this time. The biggest hazard of weekend in a new country is you can at  times be very lonely  and once you're struck with this bug in mind then you go into a kind of loop and that’s what i need to avoid. So I’ll be keeping myself occupied with reading books, watching some movies ,reading some more, watching a little more movies, shopping ,having my scotch(yes, it’s made in Scotland) and may be going out on beach alone with music as my companion..

Singapore Elections- Lessons to be learned

I witnessed the general elections in Singapore yesterday. I followed very closely the campaigning by contenders and how the election process took place and paralleled with how it used to happen in India. I was amazed to see the way elections are handled in a developed economy. Couples of important things that separate it out are:

• The party in power is PAP (People's Action Party) and it is in power since last 56years under the mentorship of Singapore’s architect Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. Imagine a country with a stable govt with reformist and progressive policies, curbing inflation and providing better quality of life to Singaporeans since all along.
• Till last year there were many constituencies where there were no elections held because there were no oppositions, people were just too happy with the present govt to ask for an opponent party. Only this year there has been an increase in no of opponents.
• Out of all the constituencies, only 1 constituency won the seat in parliament which is Aljunaid.the ruling party is scared because the no of voters against the PAP were 6%.
• People here stand for hours to vote and people across all sections of society do vote right from the newspapers vendors to the business tycoons in their BMWs.they don’t think voting as a part of some compulsion but they treat it as a responsibility. Veterans who have had heart surgery, people who can’t walk even they have come for vote and they say that it is an important thing to vote.
• The government is giving each adult individual $800 because they have collected enough money from citizens from GST and they want to return them the favor.
• Everything in elections is automated. Each voter identity is recorded ,complex graphical analysis are made, voting takes place in one day and by the end of night the results are also out.
• The politicians are not school dropouts but eminent lawyers, judges, academicians. They are the people with the most prized degrees under their belt.
• There are overseas ballot rooms in other countries so that Singaporeans living in other country can also exercise their voting rights. For e.g. in US, Washington area there was a ballot room in their embassy, people drove for 15hours all the way to Washington to vote.
• Every part of fund collected from the supporters for election rallies are accounted and remaining money is returned to them even to the accuracy of $1.

I am seeing the way Singaporeans think, the way they patronize the govt and i cannot stop myself from drawing relevance that how we would be in India if some of the good things our Indian govt adopted.

Life - An Alternate Perspective

Every morning when i get up and go to work i usually come across these short duration random thoughts and get these scarce philosophical bytes. How much have I changed so soon? There was a life which i was leading was filled with so much of randomness, filled with so much of eagerness, carelessness, reverberating with chaos and there is a time when my life is so predictable, routine, cagey, so focused that sometimes i still feel that i am a person who is trying to juggle between two lives.

At one time, I am living a life where you have to wear a mask and play a conscious role and there is a life where you were what you were but you try to bring that life into this present life, even though you can't but you try to live a part of this all the time because you cannot agree to the fact that that part of live is a bygone era.

At times ,i ask myself ,who am I ,what is my absolute purpose in my life, what does this life mean to me and for me what is happiness ,what is sadness ,what is success and what is failure. To me today it looks like i was in a cocoon where my perspective was limited to my nest and all of a sudden my abode is the open sky. Hence the terms have changed, the definitions have to be redefined, the mission has to be laid out and most important I have to hold on to a vision.

I think i have got the right word.VISION.It is very important.Today,when I go to work every morning day in day out ,when i ask this question to myself why am i doing all this, what is my purpose ,what is my ultimate drive, I feel that i am diving inside an empty vessel. A right question needs to be asked to find the answer. What do i want others to remember me as when i die?

What is the meaning of life?

Every morning at the MRT station while boarding the train, I see a blue dressed turban wearing 60years old MRT employee standing at the left most corner exactly at same spot giving exactly same smile with the same effort of hiding his inability to overpower his ego.

Every morning i see this humble and frail old Indonesian lady overtaking my way exactly when i am going to step on the escalator and using her tissue paper to wipe out dust from the trail bars of conveyor belt.

These are just some random observations which have no meaning in my life but when i see them i don’t know why but somewhere somehow leave an impression on my mind and leaves me for asking again and again "Is this what is life worth for'?

But I step inside my office and see a pseudo life  with the humdrum of business, see people running here and there to escape boss' wrath and  then I tell myself, Saurabh the game has begun, time to wear your mask!!!