Ways to improve your office etiquette

Ways to improve your office etiquette
(and avoid being the annoying co-worker)

# Watch the volume of your voice

Keep your voice at a reasonable level. Other people are trying to work, and your voice may distract them.

# Don’t peep into your co-worker’s computer

No matter the urge to see what other people are up to, you must save yourself the embarrassment of being labelled the office’s peeping tom.

# Don’t join conversations uninvited – it’s called being a “Buttinsky”/ “Nosy Parker”

Because you're most likely in a cubicle or other open office area, you inevitably will overhear snippets of conversations other people are having. Whatever might be the urge, don’t impose upon them - it only annoys people when you simply stand next to them – uninvited and it also reflects poorly on you. When you are needed – people will ASK for you

# Admit mistakes; don’t lie or blame others

When you find yourself in a soup or in tough situations you will be inclined to lie or shift the blame of your wrong doing on someone else. If you do this, you are putting not only your reputation at stake but your job too. Always stick to the honesty policy and play fair.

# Be punctual for meetings

If you're an attendee, be on time. If you can't make a meeting or you're going to be late, let someone know. Don't arrive late and ask for a recap.
If you're the one who's running the meeting, start it on time and resume it on time after a break.

# Email etiquette 

Not every email is to be tagged as high priority. Uppercase, red fonts typically denote anger…

Best Quote from Craig Ferguson - Effect of Email

 

I vividly remember watching and thoroughly enjoying this episode of "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" where he was talking about Philately and how the word sounded like some dirty sex thing...

"What are you doing?"

"Uh?... Philateling...."


He went on to talk about how Philately is the nerdiest thing that one could do sticking their tongue to bits of paper called stamps and stick them around...

His banter continued and he started to talk about the effects of eMail... While I do not remember exactly word by word of what he said, this is roughly about it:

"
Email has totally ruined the Art of Licking...  People now do not know what to do with all the extra saliva and now have to start licking something else instead
"

I was a "Philatelist" while I was in school and I did feel offended the whole time he was making fun of stamp collectors - but its Craig Ferguson... He is funny.

What is going wrong with Kamal Hassan

I am a big fan of Kamal's. He is one of the best world famous actor who is gifted with great looks and amazing acting talents. I am sure it would be wrong to call it all gifted because it is all his hard work that has brought him through all these years to such stardom.

 

 

From his open statements on many different things through all these years he has time and again proved how solid and strong willed he is. Needless to say he has the best sense of humor and can swim through any tide with ease.

 

He is a living legend most people in his industry would be jealous of and admired by one and all. Besides acting he is a great dancer and a fabulous singer too.

 

But the past decade or so I noticed something going completely wrong in many of his movies...

I hate to say this but I disliked many of his movies. Its tough to accept to the fact but I just did. Actually I am a big fan of Ilayaraaja but that does not mean I will simply say all of his compositions or albums were the best. There are good ones, there are bad ones (more good though). I just will say I did not like it if I did not like it.

 

Back to Kamal Hassan,

 

Some of the movies I really disliked:
Dasavatharam
Vishwaroopam
Hey Ram (music was world class!)
Aalavandhan

 

Movies that I enjoyed:
Virumandi
Vasool Raja MBBS
Unnaippol Oruvan

 

Movies that were good and I am not surprised of their hits: PKS
Panchathanthiram

 

Almost all movies I disliked from Kamal where movies that he had directed. I think these are the key points that are pulling his movies down:

 

1. Kamal reads a lot and is very informative. He is trying to stuff all that into a movie and often times it glaringly shows out unable to blend with the script.

 

2. He is an atheist and is creating opportunities in the script to slip through a quirky comment and doing that over and over and over again creates a cliché.

 

3. Kamal is taking heavy global subjects that are extremely difficult to relate with by regional languages. His scripts are based for Hollywood movies and he is trying to present it to the Indian audience. Kelloggs could NEVER beat the South Indian Idly sambhar breakfast regime. What Kamal is trying to give is Kelloggs in a Sambhar sauce and it tastes horrible.

 

4. Language barriers - off late not just Kamal, due to budget constraints,  almost all top level directors attempt multi lingual ventures (mainly Hindi). The nativity is compromised in that process. I still think that Devar Maghan was Kamal's best script and movie... So was Virumandi. These fared well in South Indian languages too.

 

5. Overdoing of technology which is not yet fully settled. While I agree that someone should bring in a trend change, still doing it badly is a major blemish in ones career. For instance the DTH issue or to shoot a movie in a handicam was all in good intention but the output from the handicam was not that good. And the overdoing of make up get over through Indian, Avvai Shanmughi and then Dasavatharam was too much to fathom as one among the audience.

 

6. Kamal is caught and torn between the disparity among the divided audience and is desperately trying to make everyone happy but ending disappointing everyone. I personally feel that the tamil audience is very dumb (sorry if it is harsh). There is one section of the younger generation who have access to all foreign cinema and are trained to see movies with lesser hand holding and explaining. But the other section of the audience would get confused even when a flash back sequence is shown.

 

Kamal is fantastic with comedy and anything he attempts as an out and out comedy is  sure shot success. Only when he tries to stuff in too many things as part of a single movie he seems to lose track.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am wishing and hoping Kamal would be back to his original form and do movies like Devar Maghan, Guna, Naayagan, Aboorva Sagothirargal, Mahanathi...

World's best Dad

I distinctly remember this. I was in my 3rd standard in school. There was this big advertisement on TV about a bunch of fun and adventure board games that were available for you to get IF you collected and gave 10 or 20 wrappers of Maggi noodles.

 

There were sign boards about the same in almost every departmental store at that time. And to my eyes those games were like the biggest thing to attain in my life.

It was not a custom at my home to buy food outside and maybe noodles would be prepared twice or thrice in a year!

 

I started to plead with my Mom to make me more Maggi noodles... I kept telling her how I love to eat Maggi for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But since I had a reputation of eating almost anything, my mother would have only cared to listen if I said I DON'T want to eat something... as it would have been a big surprise.

 

With my effort in luring my mom going futile I had to device another plan.

 

Idea #1
I thought I will stand outside the department store and see if people drop the wrapper... but then it hit my morbid brain that it is not some chocoloate or ice cream for people to eat and throw the wrapper around.

 

Idea #2
Check the garbage of neighbors to see if there could be any wrappers... but my dignity and societal status prevented me from treading that route. Also, there was HEAVY competition for this and neighbors had kids too!

 

Idea #3
I calculated putting to use all the math that was taught in school to know how much money it would cost to buy 20 of those noodles by myself and it was a HUGE investment for someone who could only get to SEE currency notes and never even get the pleasure of touching them. Besides I couldn't care less about the noodles... what would I do with so much noodles?

 

With no plan plausible and nothing that could be hatched out I automatically resorted to what every other 10 year old would do... REVOLT, CRY, TORTURE YOUR PARENTS, EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL.

 

Time was running out and the offer was closing really soon... my torture techniques weren't taking effect either... hiw easily a kid's sentiment gets ignored in a family! I wish I would grow old on the very next second... I had dreams of playing those board games... that was how obsessed I was on them.

 

At the point where I was in the verge of giving up there came a mail... a courier package... a BIG

parcel that had the logo of Maggi on it... I teared it open and inside were ALL 4 games that I was craving for. My father was smiling at me and told me then that he had actually written to the Maggi company attaching some money explaining about all the tantrums I have raised requesting them to send the games to us treating this as a special consideration. This was the greatest surprise for me and that moment I knew I had the world's best Dad.

Musicals and Me

Just realized this stupid habit of mine... Any article or news or blog I read AFTER watching a musical, I try to read it in the tune of songs from that movie itself...however non-rhyming it would be.

This happened in the past with Chicago and then Sweeney Todd and now with Les Miserables. I know it is stupid and I dont know if this happens for others too but I just keep doing this for a few days until I am over with the movie

My newest lessons learnt from watching a TV show

I was watching the newest Super Kitchen/Super Chef show on Star Vijay today and saw some nice vegetarian cooking. Though not so inclined towards cooking, it is the drama and politics that I was looking out for - the one that fuels such competition and reality shows.

There was this girl who claimed she is terrible in cooking, super nervous about the show and she knows nothing that could impress the judges and I admit she did seem like she was ovedoing it a bit. Some people tend to do that - show themeslves to be below par and then when they actually deliver - voila they look like a super hero. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it would fail... I remember actor Adrien Brody in a promo for one of his movies, asked people NOT to watch his movie (hoping it would create a spur and people would flock in). But then, he never expected the people to be so odedient - actualy no one ever went to the movie after all! Ok, I am degressing...

Getting back to the kitchen show, there was this other guy who was super confident and very very experienced in cooking. And in one of the cut scenes (in-betweeners) he started ranting about this girl and called her for playing dumb. He made remarks like he has seen so many such kids before yada yada yada...

Finally he went on to become the winner of the episode and the girl came runner up.

Looking at this all, I was telling my sister who was with me watching this show that it would have been SO MUCH more better if this guy had kept quite about the girl. He won it finally, that is big enough. But if he had not made such comments it would have shown him to be more mature.

I agree that the girl was a bit too noisy and nosy and extremely talkative. Maybe this guy was irritated. Maybe she was trying to play the dark horse and come out winning - she really came close too! But STILL it would have been really really better if the guy had just not made such comments.

I try to take some management concept out of this - In my work place too, I encounter similar people with different types of attitude and intent. So given below is my personal lesson taken from this:

"If someone is irritating or frustrating you but you know that they are not worthy of your time or skills, just completely ignore them. They will make enough noise to show themselves to be stupid or not... But remember to just focus on your work and no one can prevent the inevitable success"

A nice song from 1996 tamil movie - Andha Naal

I got reminded of a song from a 1996 tamil movie called Andha Naal.

Nicely rendered by K.J.Yesudas and quite a melodious one.

When I tried hunting it down on the internet, could not find a downloadable version anywhere. So I now have it uploaded in cooltoad. The link is given below for all the music lovers:

Andha Naal Unmai Yaavume - Andha Naal (1996)

Cheers!

A timid and yet shameless sense of pride

Today, while I was uploading some music that I got hold of and wanted to share with the rest of the world, noticed the statistics on the previous music files I have uploaded. They were downloaded thousands of times and thousands of people who downloaded have also voted on those songs.

I know that those are not my creations, I was simply sharing some songs which were quite rare to get, still there was this tiny sense of pleasure to see that so many people have actually devoured them.

Carnatic Fusion - Mystic Waves

You know, sometimes you get things EXACTLY the way you asked for and immediately too - like as if your prayers were answered. Thats how I would put this - I was telling my colleague one day about how I felt like listening to some Carnatic music fused with some techno beats and percussions. He said - "I have a huge collection right now, do you want it?".

Wow! That was fast.

Anyways, for people with similar interests and for those who do not have this already, I took the time to upload them in cooltoad while watching back to back episodes of Seinfeld.

Mystic Waves - A carnatic fusion performed by various artists. My personal pick would be the Jaga Janani and BrOva BhAramA.

01 - Saraswathi Namosthute
02 - Sudhamayi
03 - Karunai Deivame
04 - Srinivasa
05 - Brova Bharama
06 - Bantureethi Kolu
07 - Maravairi Ramani
08 - Kaliyuga Varadhan
09 - Jaga Janani

Poonkatru Pudhidhanathu - Moondram Pirai

Last week one of my beloved reminded me of Moondram Pirai songs. Unfortunately I was not carrying those songs in my mobile or hard disk. I was left stranded with the song just running in my mind. I desperately wanted to listen to Poonkatru Pudhidhanathu from that classic movie - One of Raja Sir's infinite gem of a creation.

With most sites blocked at my office, I was pounding the net through my mobile and found a few links. I clicked on one of them and waited impatiently for the 3 minutes it took to download and played it only to realize that it was a karaoke version and was sung by some not so gifted yet quite so audacious, Yesudas sir 'wannabe'.

After listening to him the craving to listen to Yesudas sir's actual voice only exponentially increased in me. Its too difficult not to yield to such temptations. I strode to the internet kiosk and pulled the song from cooltoad and plugged the music into me and allowed myself to be hit by waves and waves of goose bumps...

தமிழ் blogging

எனக்கு தமிழ் நல்லா பேச வரும். ரொம்ப வேகமா இல்லாட்டாலும், ஓரளவுக்கு படிக்கவும் தெரியும். ஆனா எழுதறதுதான் கொஞ்சம்.... இல்ல ரொம்பவே கஷ்டம். Especially இந்த 'na', 'la' use பன்னனும்கரதுல எல்லாம் பயங்கர doubt. Thanks to Google, இந்த மாதிரி transliteration பண்ண முடியறது, helping people like me.

Still, என்னோட உயிர் தோழி help பண்றேன்னு சொல்லியிருக்கா, to atleast proof read.நான் இப்போ அவளைத்தான் ரொம்ப நம்பியிருக்கேன்
 
அந்த நம்பிக்கைல நானும் இப்போ தமிழ்ல கிறுக்க ஆரம்பிக்க போறேன். அங்க அங்க english use பண்ணுவேன். வேற வழி இல்ல. After all இந்த blog எல்லாமே நம்ம நேர்ல ஒருத்தர பாத்து பேசறது போல தான் இருக்கணும்கறது என்னோட எண்ணம். Besides, there is one more reason. 
நான் தமிழ் படிக்க கத்துண்டதே saloon போகும்போதெல்லாம், அங்க இருக்குற பத்திரிகைகளை படிச்சிதான்.

அதுல எனக்கு படிக்க ரொம்பவே கஷ்டமா இருந்தது எதெல்லாம்னா இந்த English words அ தமிழ்ல எழுதியிருப்பாங்களே, அதுதான்.

போட்டு கொலை பண்ணியிருப்பாங்க. நானும் அத எழுத்து கூட்டி படிச்சி புரிஞ்சிக்கறதுக்குள்ள 2 பேரு cutting and shaving முடிச்சிண்டு போயிடுவாங்க.

So, என்னோட இந்த blog ல அந்த கஷ்டத்த நான் கொடுக்க மாட்டேன்.
நிறைய எழுதனும்னு ஆசை படறேன்... பாக்கலாம்.

Cricket Craze

While at work today, I stopped by a colleague’s desk to discuss something as I noticed that he hurriedly minimized a cricket live score website after seeing me. It reminded me of how crazily I used to follow cricket once.

I used to follow cricket so much that I used to keep statistics of batsmen’s strike rates, bowler’s economy and each team’s wins/losses etc. Again, as mentioned, I USED TO. Not now; not for the past 4 or 5 years. I simply lost track of it, partly because of work and travel making cricket inaccessible, but mostly due to my sudden drain of interest for the sport. I honestly tried to watch as much cricket as I could, but I preferred playing some games or watching movies over it.

My ignorance and unawareness is so severe now that I don’t know what ‘Power Play’ is; don’t even know the names of most of the players; needless to say that I can’t even tell which country one plays for, especially with all this league teams hiring players from all over.It is a shame for me to let my sister educate me on these things.

But then I somehow happen to have the time to type and post this blog, yet, I just don’t want to google ‘Power Play’ and read about it. Clearly, that is just as much I care about it.

I remember from my school days (when I was a crazy cricket fan) on one episode of Kaun Banega Crorepathi, there was this opening question posted at the contestant. Mind you, the opening questions would be that simple that answering it wrong would be tougher than wrestling a bear down all by yourself.

If I remember right, the question was ‘Who is the current opening batsmen of Australia who opens the innings with Adam Gilchrist?’ or something of that sorts. The options were laid out in front of him which included a couple of retired cricketers in the list .

No one watching the program got excited until the time we saw the contestant not having the slightest clue about the answer. The contestant had to use one of his lifelines to get past that question.

I clearly remember cursing him and scoffing at his ignorance. Ironically, now I am in an even more pathetic condition myself, with my knowledge of current cricket affairs.
What goes around comes around…

Work and the Tea Shop...

Nowadays we have started visiting the tea shop near our office more frequently, almost 5 times a day. I wonder why… probably because our team management shifted to some new guys; probably we became complacent; or probably we just got too tired; probably all the above.

It is that phase of a project where you think you have done it all and you expect something in return besides just getting your salary paid. I personally have been given high ratings in my appraisals and have been promised a lot of special skill bonuses, so I would not crib too much.

But then, work has slowed down tremendously or that is the way I feel. The bunch of people managing our team are more focused on just taking control over things, thereby not giving us the freedom on our work and that rapidly decelerates the progress. I am sure this phase would not last for long. Things will improve… and the guy who runs the tea shop will quickly realize that when it happens.

Lesser Mortals

A couple weeks ago, as I entered my home on a Sunday evening returning from yet another weekend at office, I saw this program on TV. It was some event where A.R. Rahman had just performed. Singer S.P.Balasubramaniam was standing beside Rahman and was ushering him with blessings. It was so nice to see a genius like SPB being so humble and all. It was an all nice moment when suddenly, standing to the left of SPB, actress Suhasini spoilt the aura... She started her usual banter of how Rahman does not know the meaning of Ego, Arrogance or Pride etc.. all in her usual tone of sarcasm.


It was not just me, but I am sure a lot of other people would have frowned at this inappropriate lashing at you know who. Some lesser mortals never know how to keep their tongue behind their teeth...

Flex Time

The last 3 to 4 weeks were terribly tiresome. The application that we were building was already running on a stiff deadline and we had entered into the meat of it at this point. It was thrilling to execute everything that was earlier planned. I kept foraging my desk draw for the invaluable information I had had hurriedly scribbled some weeks back. They help me to remind myself of what exactly was discussed. Somehow, no soft copy could do that for me.

Anyways, working late night continuously has helped me gain some decent level of fluency in coding with Flex. The Java Web Services were pretty straightforward.
Also, since I was at times given company by my colleague who is from Orissa, I have learnt how to swear in Orriya. I often swear at the Flex builder for being so shamelessly slow or at some of the insipid methods or definitions in ActionScript.

Somehow a few of the bigger challenges have been taken care of. There are a few more to go before we reach the comfort zone. Of course, when the testing phase is on it could all come down – but then that is a different story altogether.

Dhoni - Astonishing

Due to various reasons I was not following cricket so closely for the last 2 or 3 years. What I missed was the big wave of the IPL 2008 and the T20 World Cup which India had won.

Along with all that I had missed the growth of Mahendra Singh Dhoni to where he is right now. I wish to hear from some of my cricket fanatic friends on how Dhoni came up to be captain surpassing people like Dravid, Sehwag and Yuvraj.

Anyways as I try to catch up with more cricket now, I can easily tell that I am not surprised a bit about his batting abilities. His level of consistency really astonishes me. When you look at the scorecard, his scores would almost always be atleast in the decent 40's.

Somehow he strongly reminds me of Michael Bevan, former Australian batsman. It will always be a pleasure to watch the game of such class players.

What real experience gives you

A good friend of mine once told me something about work, something which I already believed in and I found it so nice to know that he shared the same opinion.

To quote him:

"I take up any task at work as if it was my first assignment. It makes me cautious and gets rid of any complacency. I get my confidence to grow as the work moves on"

I pretty much do the same. It helps me in a few things -

1. It gives me room to pay attention to detail

2. When I work with someone new, they immediately find it easy working with me.

3. Chances of failure would be minimal

This is what, I think, experience had really taught me.

Now, to explain why I am telling all this. It is because of this incident that happened at work all along last week. There was a key portion of our project which had both technical and functional challenges to tackle. The requirement was not clearly defined and the scope was too vague to say the least.

We had been discussing this over and over for the last 2 weeks, and had been merely recording our discussions and kept pushing it over to the next session as it was never really nearing completion.

This is the point when this person from another team was shifted to our project. Since all the other resources were tightly held up with tasks, we decided to assign this task to this new member of our team.

He was a confident person, but anyone could easily sense the air of pride around him. He asked a lot of questions, but nothing really related to the project. But that was totally fine, as long as the work gets done.

But what stumped all of us was the first discussion we had with him in which we tried to explain the task that we had just assigned to him. He never really seemed to listen to what we had to say and quickly jumped to provide the solution. He was clearly trying hard to impress, so we could forgive him for that. But it was his tone and attitude which was totally looking down upon us which pissed us off.

We decided to hang on with him for now on the hopes that he would settle down as he starts facing the wave from the top management. Sadly, that was all one could do even if you wanted to help him.

It happened exactly as we had expected - One tech discussion were he presented his approach and he was totally ripped apart. Now, he was ready for us to work with. He is not as unapproachable as he was before. I am glad that it all went fine.

Could it get any better?

In one of my earlier posts, there was this interesting comment from a friend of mine:

“.. it is not often that people write about how wonderful their days were..”

- which I think is perfectly true in most cases. So my dear friend here goes.

1. At work, we made a presentation of a small system (which we had been building in the last few weeks) to the Finance team and they were totally bowled over by the perfect way we had trapped the system requirement in our design. Yeah baby!
   
   
2. There was this other project which had to be designed based on the R&D done over the past few weeks. Working non-stop for 2 days at a stretch, I had proposed a design architecture factoring in all scenarios – and it got approved. Fist Bump!
   
   
3. Good riddance of the cold – I am now healthy as a horse. So is everyone at home.
   
   
4. All my iPod’s are fully charged, and I am listening to ‘em as I type this.
   
   
5. My phone line is restored, internet is back.
   
   
6. I caught up with some old friends online and also some people from my previous employment. It was so nice to see emails from all of them. Fills me with pleasant memories
   
   
7. My friend who was hurting from an accident is now quickly recovering.
   
   
8. I hired another guy to get my construction work at home and that will be taken care of.
   

Funny how things can take a turn around in just a few days.

Now I wonder – Could it get any better?...

My Newest Blog - http://dreamrecalls.blogspot.com/

I am a big time dreamer. Seriously…I feel like there is this guy inside me who meticulously weaves all these vivid illusions that feel so real and authentic.

If one could compile all the dreams I have had, we could make a hundred movies on almost all genres. More than just the number of dreams, it is the sense of exactness and the attention to detail given by this guy inside me.

I decided to write about it and went on to create a brand new blog devoting it entirely for some of the strangest, funniest, erotic, horrific and mostly nonsensical dreams I have had.

While setting I up I wanted to use a nice looking template. I had to spend quite some time to get that up and working. So much so that I think I should post a note on my technical blog about it.

But anyways, please do visit my new blog extension at:

http://dreamrecalls.blogspot.com/

Could it get any worse?

The last two weeks were probably the worst days I have had in a long time now. When things go down, they go down together.

1. At work, we lost a good opportunity which came our way, due to the incessant stupidity of a few managers. They never learn.
2. At home, the construction work that we had started a couple months back went on a standstill.
3. I caught up with a terrible cold and was sick all these days, giving company to the rest of the victims at home.
4. A friend of mine met with an accident and had bruised herself so badly. Another friend of mine (who owes me money) never returned my calls.
5. My phone line at home went bust and along with that went my internet too.
6. Back to work, I was asked to help another team with some R&D on a “product” they were building and things looked a little bit, or I should say pretty much hopeless. I need to wait and see how that comes along.

Burdened with all this and more, I woke up to this Saturday morning praying to see some change of luck. My prayers were answered with a power failure, goddamnit. I called up the service guys and find out that the power wouldn’t be restored until 5 in the evening. Load shedding – they call it. Yeah I heard them right.

Not having anything to do and not in a position to go out anywhere, I had to find myself something to keep me occupied. I sifted through the newspaper but could never really focus on any news. I found this Sudoku puzzle.

I have never tried one before, so I decided to give it a shot. I realized an hour later, how miserable I was. After spending all that time and thinking that I had solved almost 60% of the puzzle, I found I was wrong all the way through. I knew I had to backtrack but I did not know from what point I had to resume. I then noticed something – Below the puzzle there were these words: DIFFICULTY RATING and beside that were five stars, of which only one, was shaded. DAMN! That was one of the easiest puzzles, and I went through with it for so long, and was left with just a messy piece of paper, pencil markings all over, so brutally treated that it would tear the next time you write on.

I did not feel like eating at all. Anything I tried to eat, tasted so bitter. I would have listened to some music if only I had charged my iPod. I picked up a book to read which I had left unfinished for almost a year now. I had to read through some of the earlier pages to remind myself of the plot and to get re-introduced with the characters. The story could not get any more predictable; at one point I even felt that I could have done a better job. The story writer just was not capable of keeping secrets. She had littered clues all over the place like a stray dog.

I then remembered where I had bought this book. It was a roadside shop near Harvard Square. I should have left it were it belonged.

I was patiently waiting for the power to be restored, wondering if a day could get any worse than this. I hope not…