What's Cooking in Office????

What if for One day – we get our co-workers to cook and enjoy the experience... Wouldn’t it be relaxing?

It’s not just for pleasing the palates but also lift the spirits of all participants. It will make up for a wonderful team building activity. Imagine the usual scenario of going to one of the best restaurants spending on an average of Rs 500 per head and yet not satisfied with it completely.

For a team of 20 people, we would end up spending Rs 10000 which is like monthly grocery bill for a family of 4.This does not bring any value for money and also not contribute to any sort of team building rather than a small chit chat. Also Post lunch it ends up in piling calories and a sleepy afternoon. How Unhealthy???

Imagine you end up cooking some simple recipes with your teammates. Instead of project deadlines, we will have cooking time lines... Mistakes will not go through software iterations. Mistake will end up in a nice laughter which will remain a lifelong memory. Helping each other will always be some of the best moment spent together.

So why don’t we have corporate live cooking as a team building activity????

A Raju Rastogi(3 Idiots) among us.

Who can forget the blockbuster movie 3 idiots. The huge popularity of this movie is mainly because of the social message it conveys “ Follow your dream, Success follows”.

But how many of us are fortunate to follow our passions. First of all, how many of us know our passions.

The current education system atleast in India doesn’t focus on any of the co –curricular activity to be developed and instead identifies intelligence with those who get the highest for a set of questions from a prescribed book.

Will this trigger out of box thinking???

Here is my friend who like Raju Rastogi joins engineering and eventually tries to search the big purpose of life..

Over to the experiences of my friend Sandeep (in his words).

THINK.TYPE. SMOKE

“You name Sandeep Kumar?”

“Yes, sir”

“You name here. Volvo in placed.”

“Oh thank you, sir”

“Don’t sit for placements. Other students get job.”

“OK, sir”

And that is how 4 years of book – related monotony converged to a single moment of ecstasy and finality. Four years. Not an engineer (yet), but with a job. That is the Indian dream.

“Mera beta engineer banega” (My son will become an engineer).

The goal is set. No, no. Don’t get mislead. The goal is not to become an engineer. But the job, that follows the degree. Nobody actually cares for the certificate you receive.

Package, location, job, certificate.

Yes, in that order.

So the day came. July the 13th. The elusive joining date.

I did not particularly enjoy my college days. I had begun to detest the course towards the end. The hope in what it was to be, and the reality of what it truly was. To mug is to rule.

So this was my fresh start. A change of scenario. I began work.

A year has passed. The student has transcended to a professional.

But old ways died hard. The transition has not been smooth sailing.

The first day we were told, we had to put in 9 ½ hours of work per day. NINE AND HALF HOURS. The words were like a prelude to a gore horror movie. Horrifying and far from comprehension.

Training for 6 months. Oh man, 6 months. 6 months? Holy mother of cow, 6 MONTHS!!!

Permission for holidays. Woah. You got 2 optional leaves for all festivals. But college had taught me to embrace the joy of all festivals. On the bed!! Till noon!!

Eventually you receive your workstation. Never has a machine made man feel more empowered. This is my cubicle, my zone. I am going to make it big. I’ll be team lead next. Then MD/CEO. I’ll settle for one of them.

Your team lead bombards you with training material. The habit of skipping units kicks in. Do you have to go through all this stuff? Oh gosh, there is so much. Damn, no nerdy kids to help you out. You are all on your own.

No more peering into rooms, looking for friends in the classroom. If you got the mail, be there.

You hold your own meetings now. Experienced, bored eyes strained at you. With eagerness, you push through. Why was conducting a seminar in college so difficult?

Your deadlines start coming in. You find yourself working into the night. Questions pour in, answers stutter out. Soon you are shooting out answers, asking the questions.

Then a bomb is dropped. You are to give training. Holy Monkey! Me give training? Why me? Because, you can. I smile. You could burn my degree certificate for all I care. I finally feel like an engineer. I am an engineer.

It’s been a year to remember. So much change. Learned, so much. And this is only the beginning. For there is the next year and then the next, then the next. Things ought to continue to change as time passes by. But two important fundamental things which will align everything else in life are responsibility and accountability. The two things, which cannot be taught in any training.

As I look forward to have a future in the corporate world. With expectations rising. With potential being moulded into talent. I cannot help but think about the college kid that I was. Things can be learnt form that kid, I say to myself. The desire to learn, to prove a point, to change. And to have the greatest ability to just let go and enjoy. To keep that kid alive might just be the biggest challenge I have faced.

So with that note. I’ll stop. Too much nostalgia for a day. Need a smoke (What? The college kid needs it. Ironic, I have to smoke to keep him alive). Pooh – Pooh. Ah that’s the stuff.

How men and women handle bad bosses??

Background of the situation:

Sarah is an experienced engineer with good knowledge of her working domain. She gets into an organisation and starts a new journey. Being quick and independent, She completes the assigned tasks with in the prescribed time and contributes positively to her team.

Charan is an experienced engineer basically from research background and works under the same manager as Sarah but in a different project work.

Sarah and Charan reports to a same manager.

During the appraisal, Sarah gets good feedback from her manager about her work.  When asked about her concerns, She informs about the increase in pay and possibility of being moved to other teams gradually over time.

This is not well received by her manager who in turn negotiates that she is paid to industry standards and anyway since she is married , she need not expect more hike.

Sarah is very upset about this attitude of her supervisor but ignores it and continues to do her work.

Meanwhile there is a new project which has shorter deadline and Sarah is asked to complete her task at an assigned date and moved into the new project.

This makes Sarah even more upset as she is not given enough time to be settled in new work and she has no means of providing her feedback as her manager is not open to her concerns.

Charan is assigned a task which he doesnt like very much but since he do not find any other project he tries to do justification in best possible manner to his assigned work.But all his ideas are neglected by his supervisor which in turn upsets Charan because he do not have a road map for himself in the current project.

As Sarah learns the new work on the job, She tends to do mistakes initially. This is not well received by her manager and he in turn humiliates her for bring bad quality into work.

As Charan's work do not have direct impact on production programmes , his work is always looked down up by his supervisor.

These issues pile up over time and One Fine day , it erupts as follows:

( One on One meeting between manager and Sarah)

Manager: You had been working well in the past but of late looks like you have a problem. Your work is not very good.

Sarah:   Everybody needs some time to settle down in new job. Evaluating before this time is not correct on your part and You cant assign my work to another new graduate based on his qualification because it is experience that matters to handle issues.

Manager: You dont have to tell me about what to decide and whom to give work. Since you didnt complete your work on time , You have integrity issues. Also , You must be knowing team mate's salary which is again an integrity issue , thats why you had asked for good hike.  Also , I heard last year one day you left office at 3pm with out informing me. I know why ladies leave office in between. I didnt take all those in to your merit considerations.

Sarah:  Please do not assume things. I dont know any one's salary, As I am in the industry , I have fair understanding of where I stand. Also wrt timings, I didnt leave office any time before office hours. Please check the swipe timings. Also you should have brought that matter immediately and not this late after a year.

The conversation continues and Sarah breaks down in tears and walks out of the meeting.

From next week, She is on a job hunt and decides to leave the organisation as she has not received the expected merit from the organisation and due to bad rapport with her supervisor.

( One on One meeting between manager and Charan)

Manager: Your work do not have any impact at all. I think its waste having such an experienced resource.

Charan: You do not understand the sincerity and hardwork , I have put in this work.

Manager: I think you are not correct fit in my team.

Charan: If you are going to talk all this, lets go to HR and higher boss.

Manager realizes not to exaggerate the issue and puts and end immediately to the conversation.

Charan continues to work and informs higher boss about his moving out of the team over time.

Sarah finds another offer and leaves the job.

This situation has many learnings:

1. First of all , Manager is not matured to handle delicate situations and his way of talking is very rude and arrogant rather than addressing his employee's concerns.

2. Sarah must have immediately informed higher boss/ HR instead of being in the conversation for so long.

3. This also indicates that women tend to give up things more easily even though they may not be at fault.

Although Sarah continues her career in another new organisation, This is an important lesson on why many women fail to reach higher management in the orgnisation.

The above scenario is just an example.

Request all those especially ladies reading the post to send in your comments.

@ Coffee Table Conversation -> Campus to Corporate.

Its been many years since I started working in the industry. But the thought of my initial days of career is still fresh in my memory.. Of course no one can forget their first job and their first pay check.


Here is a conversation with Binoy, my friend who has just joined the industry and his thoughts on campus to corporate. Hope it brings back the good old memories of being a fresher .

Me :What is office life according to you?

Binoy: This July the 13th marked 1 year of corporate life for me. I get asked very often what it’s been like making a transition from college life to the corporate jungle. In my very honest and unbiased opinion it’s really not that different.

I mean true in college you could bunk whenever it became just too cold in the morning to wake up. But then we had to maintain a 70-75% attendance record to be eligible for our exams. Here in the corporate world we have the corporate term for it- ‘sick/emergency leaves’. When it seems just too difficult in the morning to wake up I call up the project lead and say -

“Hi, (cough cough), I’m not really keeping well today (blow nose, sniffle), I don’t think I can make it today (sneeze-acchooo), I’ll try my best to come in the afternoon if I feel better (cough, cough)”.

This works every time.

Me : So what kind of similarities you find between both of them?

Binoy : Appraisal meetings and Vivas aren’t really that different either, we bullshitted our way through most Vivas in college, its pretty much the same scene in the meeting room. Unshaven faces and checked formal shirts (always worked in college lab exams by the way) are replaced by clean shaven faces and crisp neatly ironed shirts Louis Philippe or Van Heusen shirts. When questions are put forth we’ll talk about everything but the subject of the question.

Me :What about deadlines?

Binoy: Project deadlines and last minute preparation for exams is pretty much the same thing. We curse ourselves over and over again saying we should have started before, we then begin to grab whatever resource we have and try make do with it. We take the name of every god in our memory and bribe, cajole or yell at him/her to make this result successful. When ‘D-day’ comes we prepare like warriors going into battle, give our loved ones a longing gaze in the morning, make whatever religious sign we follow, remind our god’s of our deals and then we go ‘Charge!!!!’ And when it is done we act like we’ve scaled Mt. Everest with only one leg.

Me: And Dresscode…..???????

Binoy: In college we went crazy with hairstyles, from Mohawks to spikes to ghajini inspired hairdos. In the corporate world since hairlines are receding or starting to recede there’s not really much room for experimentation in that department. So we move into a new area- Body art or tattoos. Now the experimentation is on how colorful, big and attractive and daring the tattoo can be.

Our circle of friends has changed no doubt but our habits haven’t. In college it used to be hanging out near the chai shop outside college or under some shady tree (if you were among the lucky ones that went to a college with a large campus). In the corporate world it’s the cafeteria or food court or the allocated smoking zone. Whenever our lecturers passed by we’d immediately bend our heads and pass some comment about him/her. Similar scenario in the corporate world, when we see our managers pass by, only now the language is more colorful.

Your final say about college life….

I do really miss the number of holidays we got in college, I mean for any festival under the sun we’d shut shop. In the corporate world it’s restricted to just 8 holidays with two optional (read complete nonsense) holidays thrown in. True since we are being paid we are expected to work and not sit reminiscing about life love and failures (that we do anyway during the weekend drinking sessions) but would it kill the management to raise that number to at least 15-20.

I guess when you really come down to it campus life and corporate life aren’t really that different. Lecturers are replaced by bosses, classrooms are now cubicles, and exams are now review meetings, vivas made us just as nervous as appraisal meetings do.

At the end of day when we receive our appraisal letters we open them with same amount tension we felt as we searched for our names through that long mark sheet in college. If the appraisal is good we celebrate just as we did when we saw a “pass” next to our name. If the result is bad we hang our heads in shame mope around for a few days and then finally say -

“Next year is always there”.

A New Beginning!!!

Udyogam purusha lakshanam..

This is a saying in Sanskrit which means Work is the identity of a Man (woman).A job doesn’t just mean an office kind of work but anything that brings out a passion and meaning for oneself.

It would be hard to imagine oneself without a job. As a human being one should always strive for growth. Growth includes physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social. Most of the time, it is the work we do that brings out the emotional, mental growth.

As an experienced engineer, here I am at the doors of Volvo looking forward for challenging opportunities to make me a better person in terms of all round growth.