Its 9:30 AM

Its 9:30 AM, 
DTL meeting started as usual in our team with all my fellow colleagues. As a routine each one of us brief about every day activities. I was surprised to get an update on social psychology course in one of my meetings. From a team that does core electrical work pertaining to micro controllers, it was a very different experience to understand human psychology and behaviours associated with it after work hours.

        A short face to face interaction with every colleague gives good start for the day. It’s important to come out of one's cocoon and understand others work to lay hands beyond spectrum of one’s own work.

       Many personal growth books have an overwhelming focus on efficiency which is self-focused and includes vision creation, goal setting, being disciplined but it’s only the relationship that takes one forward along with one's efficiency. As we spend most of the time around office space, it’s important to build valuable relationship that takes one beyond the length of work and create a value system and synergy in the organisation.

     

  Emphasizing a famous quote that says it all "If You Want to Go Fast, Go Alone. If You Want To Go Far, Go Together"

   As I drive to my office every morning amidst personal calls, traffic jams, pot hole filled busy honking roads, one thought continues to be in my mind, 

“Reach office by 9:30 AM”

Made My Move!!!

Thinking on what to move next, I was fully engrossed with my game of chess.

it was my second round and my opponent was Raghavendra. it was 5:22pm when the match was started and at 6:15 pm , both of us had hardly any powers left out to attack with just a horse and rook and few pawns. After 15 more mins, I got an edge on the game when my pawn was promoted to Queen and it was very close finish. Oh what a match it was!!!!

As an adage states Journey is more important than destination, i thoroughly enjoyed the game as it was being played with complete intent and focus with many of my colleagues as audience. The game just uplifted my spirits for rest of the day and I was revived of enthusiasm.

As the experience in the job increases, somewhere monotony sets in and it drains one's energy levels. At that point, we start to drudge about the regular routine work and kill our creativity in our day today hectic schedule of deliveries, meetings and more deliveries.

Once in a while a fresh breeze to instigate creativity is so refreshing and sets the tone for next set up regular activities with enthusiasm.

Appreciate the coordinators and all participants of the employee engagement for creating such an ambience.

In the beginning Woman was the Sun- Happy Women's Day 2014

Supervisor:    Where were you during lunch break?

Vijaya         : I was outside office premises to visit my 5 month old baby

Supervisor:  Who gave you the permission to step outside office    premises? Who will compensate for hours outside office during lunch?

Vijaya        : I come back within an hour during lunch break. I will apply earned leaves for uncompensated hours.

Supervisor: Who gave you the permission of applying leaves? Do you think this is school to come and go whenever you want?

Vijaya     : OK I will compensate by staying back every day extra

        Its Jan 19th 2012, Vijaya, An engineer working for an automotive MNC is all set to get back to work after her 5 month long maternity break . She informed her manager about her joining couple of days earlier who reluctantly nods for her decision. But within days of joining she confronts such words from her supervisor which makes her very upset.

       Being career oriented, she is unwilling to compromise on her job and yet strikes a balance to carry out her motherly duties. She puts her complete focus on work during the time in office and gets her job done every day. She quickly masters the skills required for the new project she is put in. She never thinks about the discouraging boss she has. All she has in mind is to give her job her best and be there for her baby. Within couple of months, her immediate colleagues recognize her potential. She gets a customer appreciation and an award for outstanding performance in her team soon. She proves her technical expertise by filing a patent in the male dominated automotive domain proving the engineer in her.

     As we unfold the year 2014 for another woman's day celebration, it is important to realize that we don’t celebrate womanhood by just a day dedicated for woman and have some activities stereotypically considered feminine. There are thousands of Vijayas out there struggling to raise the bar, break the glass ceiling to prove themselves in spite of odds and balancing to meet their bonds with the family.

    Mary Barra, the highest ranking female executive in the automotive industry leading a hundred year old pioneer proves that women have come a long way. Yahoo's Marissa Mayer, IBM's Virginia Rometty are all leading a tech savvy industry with their innovations for the next generation. With multitasking abilities, empathy for team, good consumer insights, Women form a creative work force challenging others who look down upon them for biological reasons.

Going back to philosophical roots,

'Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara and Mandodari tatha

Panchakanya smaranityam mahapataka nashakam'.

 

Meaning

Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara and Mandodari

One should forever remember the panchakanya who are the destroyers of great sin even those God cannot forgive

    They are the panchakanya's of Hindu mythology with utmost personal tragedies yet never lose their inner light, achieve self-actualization in their own terms, represent the epitome of feminism and change the course of history.

     As Nature has created male and female to be complimenting with both these forces present in all creatures in varying ratios, it is only disappointing to see the latter being subdued by the former.

    Since time immemorial as a daughter, wife, mother -> woman has shown path for generations with their thirst for knowledge, quest for better quality of life, compassion and human values. With Inner and external beauty, Woman form the epicenter of mankind.

Let me reemphasize in the words of a famous actress Deepika Padukone:

"Feminism isn't about being aggressive; it's about reaching the top yet being soft. It's about being YOU — FEMININE, STRONG and FULL OF WILL POWER.”

A Coach To Save Fuel - Going Green

Recently I came across an App which when installed in one's mobile analyses the driving pattern and provide tips to save fuel.

Just Reminds me of the Fuel Coach Feature in Quester trucks which also does a similar job.

In the Quester’s display the driver gets real-time tips on how to operate the engine for best fuel economy based on many parameters collected from the vehicle and analysing the driving pattern. The display shows the driver when to shift,brake or accelerate for maximum time in the engines optimum fuel-efficient rev range,the so called sweet spot. The system is simple to understand and easy to use. 

I wish such a system features in a two wheelers soon 

which will encourage two wheelers on road and avoid traffic jams especially in Bangalore.

Are the Two Wheeler OEMs listening?

Filmfare's Fair

Come Jan , Feb , we usually get to see Award programmes being telecast across all the TV channels in India. 

It usually starts with Best people from technical arena of film making, People behind the cameras and finally best actors, actress with loads and loads of dance and drama. Although its entertaining to watch, When I think over , the artists are being awarded for doing their job and for being good at it relative to other artists. Also there is life time achievement award meant for very senior artist who would have created a distinction for themselves in the industry.

I wonder why in no other industry is there an award ceremony of such grandeur.

An award for the best engineer, best doctor, best  teacher , best designer, best product, best architect and so on are all bound with in the organizational limits and not the wide industrial limits such as the entertainment. 

May be the fact that entertainment is more revenue generating and artists are here to entertain in the name of award functions also using different medias..

Do write your views..

 

Life Automated!!

As my day today work currently involves running test scripts, analysing NOK test cases, providing feedback reports to correct it,

I can observe the change in status on the testing productivity. Earlier if it was 50 - 60 test cases on an average, it now is 200 - 300 test cases. 

Coming from model based test development background, i could very well appreciate the difference between executable specifications and hand written code. The main intention behind all these developments of technology is making life simpler. In other words, providing intelligence to machines to help it do things for you.

I have become so technologically dependent, that i need a Google search to search something missing at home, need remote to control even switches, Automatize the cutting vegetables and missing spices also.. Although I am very sure it is not very far from such a scenario becoming real, such turn of events do indicate something.

We expect a similar approach when handling our fellow people.

We expect others to understand what we go through rather than we taking a step to understand others starting from home, in a professional setup, in a social gathering everywhere.

Expect parents to automatically understand our job pressures, peer pressures, financial situations rather than we also trying to understand them and fail to take lessons learnt from them.

Expect boss to automatically give us great work and substantial hikes rather than improving our caliber at work.

Expect our subordinates to automatically understand the big picture and work towards it.

In short, expect things in one's favor everywhere.

Are our brains so tuned to machine way of thing that it has forgotten empathy and expect inputs from external environment?

Something to Search Internally....