Some work Lessons by Keyur Thakkar...

If you want to look good in front of your boss, we have some lessons for you. Following these shall not guarantee you to get anything extra, but might end up impressing someone. The lessons are collected and compiled by Vani Patel (who is excellent fashion designer and a Software Executive) which is inspired by our own "Vadil" (Elder) in B'lore House, Keyur Thakkar (The most busiest person in town, after CM). I am becoming the medium for them to express their feelings.


Lesson 1:
Never walk down the hall without a document in your hands. People with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they're heading for the cafeteria.

People with the newspaper in their hands look like they're heading for the bathroom. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.

Lesson 2:
Use computers to look busy. Any time you use a computer, it looks like work to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail, calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work.

These aren't exactly the societal benefits that everybody from the computer revolution expected but they're not bad either. When you get caught by your boss--and you will get caught--your best defense is to claim you're teaching yourself to use the new software, thus saving valuable training dollars.

You're not a loafer, you're a self-starter. Offer to show your boss what you learned. That will make your boss scurry away like a frightened salamander.


Lesson 3:
Messy desk. Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you're not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace.

To the observer, last year's work looks the same as today's work; it's volume that counts. Pile them high and wide. If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you'll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when he/she arrives.


Lesson 4:
Voice mail. Never answer your phone if you have voice mail. People don't call you just because they want to give you something for nothing-- they call because they want YOU to do work for THEM. That's the way to live. Screen all your calls through voice mail.

If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour. That way, you're hardworking and conscientious even though you're being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ the method of screening incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is there, this will greatly increase the odds that they will give up or look for a solution that doesn't involve you.

The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is "Ignore my last message. I took care of it." If your voice mailbox has a limit on the number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach that limit frequently. One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages. If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages.

Your callers will hear a recorded message that says, "Sorry, this mailbox is full"--a sure sign that you are a hardworking employee in high demand.

Appraisals - Fit in wrong curve

I am a student of a leading business school in India and we have the best in class professors to teach us things. Currently I am studying an important subject for organization, i.e. Human Resource Management. While studying that, I came across one topic called “Appraisal”.

I have been an employee of one of the major IT Service Company in India. During my working time, I went through my appraisals. And at that time I heard a new term, “Curve Fitting” for appraisals. I think this was one of the way companies are doing appraisals and this may not apply to other sectors.

The process of appraisal was something like this. Initially person has to do “self appraisal” and then his assessor will do his appraisal and give him a rating. Reviewer will also confirm it. We were given 5 point grade according to our performance in previous year.

Now interesting thing comes here is after everything is done and results are sent to HR person for rest of the things, HR person changes the rating. And that change is obviously on the negative side. The reason was given as it was because of curve fitting and due to that everybody’s grade might get affected. At that time I did not take care of these things as I was getting top rating and also was into lot of work. But now while studying things about HR management, now I am getting what was happening.

Let us go to the basics first. Now in the image below, you can see three types of distributions.

• Normal - Where maximum density is in the middle and low at the ends
• Positively Skewed - where more density is at the left hand side and low on right hand side
• Negatively Skewed - where more density is at the right hand side and low on left hand side

Now in the normal distribution, as we can see from appraisal point of view, maximum (around 60%) people will be at the middle. That means maximum people will be having average performance and few (around 10%) will get higher grade.

So companies will try to fit the performance grades of employees in to this curve by changing the grade of the people. By changing the grade, they made most of the employees “average” employees.

If we see from company’s point of view, it wants to have best employees and wants them to perform better. Also they want to retain only those people who have above average performance (if not all, most of them).

Then, my question is, why they give less while expecting more? Isn't it fair to have a negatively skewed curve than normal curve when more people are performing better? In that case good performers will get more. But they are not doing this; and the only reason I could get is, they want to maximize their profit (for growth and other things) even though that profit has come by the hard work of the employees only.

Now you have to decide whether it is right or wrong. You are free to put your comments.

Non-Value Added Activity - Bhasad

Bhasad.

Its a word which I heard first time when I came here. But after that, I was overwhelmed by it. I found it all around me.

People do it everywhere. In class, near pond, in mess, more specifically on IPMSG and now they have started on emails also. I am trying to find a way coming out of it. Because there PEOPLE JUST SPEAK and NOBODY DOES ANYTHING. May be pointing to someone or rather pointless discussion. But they say something as somebody is forcing them to say anything even it is worthless.

Its a innovative way of spamming...

Any idea how to come out of it?

PS: If somebody knows how to block someone on IPMSG please let me know.

Flu is in the air: More panic than disease

Nowadays a new word is fuming around with lot of energy and anxiousness. This is called “Swine Flu” or “H1N1”. And unfortunately it has caught our campus also last day. L

From a long vacation of “Rakshabandhan” people came to the college yesterday and I could even felt that they are still in the mood of vacation and attending long classes are still being pain to them. Still somehow people were managing to attend classes and managing to be awake in the class and show their physical presence in the class!

Suddenly there came a spark came in the usual talk and somebody utter a word that NITIE has got few cases of SWINE FLU!!! That’s it. It was enough for the mass show their creativity and level of professionalism and calm. Here are the few points which I found in last 24 hours.

• The number of positive cases were not known, but there was a quite a good number of speculation going on by the experts. And the number was ranging from 1 to 10. Lastly we found that there was a person who had similar symptoms like flu (may be swine flu) and sent to hospital for further check-up and treatment.
• I went out near our college gate for taking money for paying mess bill. I found around 80% of people were having mask(!!) and that too made up of hanky! I don’t know how a hanky can stop a virus coming in to you.
• It was a good day for the chemist and general stores owners. Their sells shot upto 3 to 5 times than regular days and people were mad to buy hanky(!), dettol, maks (that too regular one which is used in the pharmacy lab), paper dishes, fruits(!), and many more things. Even people were asking about the “Tamiflu” medicine at the chemist shop and want to take even they don’t have any symptoms.
• Whole campus was covered in to this hysteria and you see people everywhere under stress and fear of swine flu with special masks and doing KD (Knowledge Display) of swine flu.
• It was very well known that flu can be spread by the air and mask can be helpful. But you should also avoid touching your face and nose and due to fear people were holding their hanky in hand and covering their face/nose and giving more chance to flu to catch them.
• Suddenly people were become so expert about H1N1, complete material about the matter is read and spread across the campus. And as usual IP Messenger was filled with the “Bhasad” (Spammed discussion where conclusion is zero) about it. Also there were demand of cancelling of classes and closing of institute (from a week to a year!).
• In this unfortunate event we have missed 2 tests and 3 classes, which we have to compensate in the letter stage were time will be more critical. People have started moving to their home. Don’t know where they are more secure, in campus being isolated or in trains and places where more people will be there and more chance to get exposed.
• Now there is a common view in the campus: meetings with masks being at distant with each other, people wearing mask and eating in mess (I don’t know how), If someone sneeze, it’s the sign of panic.
• Some of the good takeaways from this incidents:

o People have started having good health habits: sleeping early, taking bath regularly (!) And washing hands every time before having meal(hopefully it will be continue)

o Management have suddenly starting cleaning of premises and water arrangements (to stop flu!!)

o Food quality has been improved suddenly and fruits are also being served in the lunch time (hopefully this will also continue)

o Management may have check-up for everyone in the campus

A meeting place under Flu!

Regular view at mess! (Scene Recreated)

Hopefully this hysteria will stop early and we can start working normally. And I am preying that we wont have any cases of H1N1 in our campus now and also in future.

Come out!

This incident happened to me few weeks before. When I was heading towards the classes at 8:50 in the morning (class starts at 9 and late comers are not allowed), I saw a cute nice puppy chasing the people. Just out of curiosity it was following the people there. When a person stops there, due to fear it was moving back and then once again trying to get close to the person. Then slowly it was going to that person and tries to play with him. The people were also giving them something to eat. I was moving towards the class, but as I had some spare time I went near that puppy. Puppy was very small and barely able to walk and run. So when I went near it, somehow it managed to run and come towards me. Looking at this I also moved forward and tried to play with it. It was cute, white, with small little eyes and full of energy. As I also had to go to class, I spent few minutes with it and started moving. While leaving it I thought to catch these cuties after the class. So I walked towards the class. While leaving the place I decided to keep something for this puppy and feed it in the evening as it was looking hungry.

When I was going to class, one of the employees of the college who saw me playing with this cutie told me that its mother is very weak and not able to feed them properly. They are total seven puppies and they are staying nearby place. At that time was being late to the class so I just listened was he said and rushed to the class.

After reaching the class I found sir would come little late. I took my seat and sat and then again wondering about the puppy and its family. At that time I realized that that puppy had chosen a nice way to fill their tummy. It was very small and there are plenty of chances it could be crushed in the cruel world. But for the survival (was hungry and could not get enough food) it came out and tried to draw attention of us towards them. By chasing the people and playing with them, it successfully gained some of their potential feeders! They found doing this they are getting something to eat now! It was not easy job for them. There was a plenty of risk for them and some of people whom it was chasing could harm them also and some of them just place with them and never turned back. But due to restless efforts it was trying to gain something for it and its family.

That day was very hectic for me and I was not able to go to them. The next day when I was again rushing to the class, to my surprise, I saw another puppy, doing the same job what was done by its brother last day. It was also chasing the people and was trying to get attention of the people towards them. But this time I was late and couldn’t afford to spend some time with them. So I moved on. I found the whole exercise was a team effort. I saw the puppy which was playing was sleeping now and other one is doing the job now. Due to team effort now work was easy and still they were achieving their goal – food. I wonder who has taught them these theories…. Team work, risk taking, calculated risk, innovation, doing for others and in all entrepreneurship.

Now here comes the second part of the story. Some days ago put an article, 15 reasons why you should you not become an entrepreneur. But on the next day while I came back to my room, I was thinking about the puppy and that article; and was also trying to relate them. I found that those 15 reasons have less importance when there is a question comes to your existence. When there is a situation of life and existence, you will not think of the risks and trouble you will face. Same is the case with people who is having a passion and that too comparable with the need of existence, you will find ‘success’ there.

I am not drawing any conclusion but I think it’s a matter of one’s choice and his situation.

15 Reasons Not To Be An Entrepreneur

I know by looking at this title, you might be thinking what is this man trying to say? But read this one and see why it is written like this. This is inspired by someone's thought.

While successful entrepreneurs may tell you that starting your own business is hugely rewarding, and that everyone should pursue entrepreneurship as an ultimate goal, there are a substantial number of reasons for why entrepreneurship may not be the ideal choice for a large number of people. So before you ditch the salary, consider what it takes to be a successful and effective entrepreneur. Here are fifteen reasons why you should not be an entrepreneur.

15. Long Working Hours - Working under someone else, you can expect to work a set number of hours and very rarely any more. When you become an entrepreneur, you have to work an endless number of hours. The days stretch on and you may have trouble getting home often if at all. Work will also come home with you, becoming a focus of attention in your home life.

14. Sacrificing Quality Time - As a new entrepreneur, you will find yourself sacrificing time with your family, your friends, your favorite hobbies and past times, and many other aspects of your life. Your new business will consume you for long periods of time, likely to the point where you go from the red to the black, which could actually take a number of years.

13. Hard Work - As an entrepreneur, you will find that the work load never ceases, no matter how many hours are in the day, or how many employees you bring on for assistance. Growth always leaves room for “more” - so don’t think that success will allow you to kick back. Furthermore, the more people you bring on board to take over you own responsibilities, the more people management you have to do, thus reducing your own productivity. You’ll want to find good, passionate workers who can manage themselves.

12. Difficulty Finding Investment - In order to become an entrepreneur and open your very own business, a substantial investment will be required, and many new entrepreneurs have difficulty obtaining financing on their own. Now that we’re in the middle of an economic downturn, investment deemed high risk may be even more difficult to find.

11. Uncertainty - Simply put, entrepreneurship is an uncertain endeavor. Even if you go into the process with planning, anything can happen and you cannot be prepared for it all no matter how you try. The entire entrepreneurial process is about hoping for success, but never really knowing where things will turn. While there is some level of certainty in business, there is also a large amount of discomfort for hopeful entrepreneurs who do not know where things will lead.

10. Dealing With The Problem Of Inconsistent Income - Startups typically are backed by cash, but there isn’t a never-ending pot of gold on tap just for you and your company. The fact of the matter is that you and your bank manager will probably become quite well acquainted. If you have poor skills in dealing with the intricacies of business finance then setting up your own company is probably not such a good idea (unless your father happens to be rich and altruistic).

9. Risk Of Failure - The problem with investing capital into a new business is that if the business tanks, you will lose all that money. If you had to take out a bank loan, or a second mortgage, in order to come by the money that you required, then you will have to find a way to pay that money back without having a job or a business to assist you. But what can be even more damaging is the sense that you failed, you weren’t good enough, you’re idea was poorly received by peers. Before you set off on your journey as an entrepreneur you should seriously consider whether you are mentally resilient enough to cope with the possibility of failure.

8. Lack Of Reward Begats Lower Motivation - When running your own business, there really is no telling when you will be rewarded or even how you will be rewarded. You may hope for a bigger bank balance or aspire to develop an industry leading product, but that can’t happen without motivation and drive. Becoming an entrepreneur essentially means taking risks in hope of receiving reward, but without ever really knowing when the reward will come. If that’s something you can’t deal with, then starting your own business is not the ideal choice.

7. Personality Problems - So much of being a successful entrepreneur relies solely on your ability to generate buzz, to garner a following, to create something out of nothing. If you are a quiet and introverted person, you’ll probably find yourself at a disadvantage compared to a seasoned and confident businessman.

6. Finding Good Staff Is A Challenge - Any budding startup is not much more than an idea backed by people. You could outsource the development of your service or product to 10 average offshore programmers, but they still won’t be as good as one excellent (and more expensive) programmer who believes in the product and can come into the office each day. The trouble is, brilliant programmers are hard to find and even more difficult to keep.

5. Dealing With The Possibility Of Failure - If your business fails, you will be losing much more than a way to pass the time. You may lose your home or other vital assets if you cannot meet repayments. Any unsecured debt that you have accrued on cards or loans will still need paying, which means your credit rating will take a beating. There’s also the potential damage to your self confidence, which will make it more difficult to start another business in the future.

4. Working With A Tight Budget - Raising the financing that you need as an entrepreneur is not simple. If you are a first time business owner, you will have difficulty convincing a lender to work with you, which can make entrepreneurship quite difficult. So when it comes to kitting out your office you’ll need to think of every possible way to save and get the most out of every single cent.

3. Managing Cashflow Is Tricky - Without knowing when your next paycheck will come, and with bills, loan repayment and other expenses looming, becoming an entrepreneur can be financially demanding.

2. The Lack of Benefits - By becoming an entrepreneur you will lose out on the 401k, health benefits, life insurance and other benefits that working for a normal company would grant you. You can acquire them your own self, but usually for a much greater cost.

1. Dealing With Negative Feedback - Who will you turn to in times of stress? Who can you trust? As an entrepreneur, you have no real support system to turn to, which can spell disaster for many budding businesses. You need to create a culture where negative feedback is a good thing, in fact, it should be encouraged and fostered into acceptance. If you want your product to be taken seriously then it has to be great, so there’s absolutely no point burying your head in the sand any time someone points out a flaw.

Apart from these points some of the points found are:

1.       If you are leaving your job because of your ‘boss’ and want to become your own ‘boss’ then you will definitely have bosses around you. These will be customers, competitors, suppliers, lenders, bureaucrats from regulatory agencies, employees and partners.

2.       Possessing insufficient management skills. Each skill you lack must be contracted to someone else. Will you be able to generate sufficient revenue to pay these costs?

3.       Harboring the slightest doubt in your commitment to succeed over all adversities.

Admission – Mission to add!

During this season of admission at my institute (Mar – May 2009), I was a part of the process and I watched every part of it from short or longer distance. There were few incidents which I think I will not forget for a longer time and so I am putting them all in front of you. It is a quite serious process and I respect it from all aspects, but to keep things in lighter note I am putting all the humorous incidents here.

• From this year only we started on-line form filling and submission of the application form. And in the initial phase only I got some shocks as a start of the mission. Being in IT team of the institute I was given a chance (Chance!!?  – Punishment!) to create an online admission portal in 2 days!! Somehow we (I with my team mate) managed this sock and completed that thing and showed to the respected officer for further process. After the initial meeting we came to know that another programme people are also having admission with us and we also need to create portal for them also! …and that too in next 2 days (again!)! I had no idea about the programme and its rules and process for admission. I contacted many people regarding that and also managed to complete the portal for them also in time. And after that on the day when it launched to public we found that our initial management was not so bad and site was running properly. J
  
• Now as these few incidents before starting of the process, I was very sure that the ride is going to bumpy and I am going to have lot of socks till the completion of it. Site was running properly and my module final exams are also approaching. So I was doing both the tasks and somehow maintaining the balance between two. After some days I came to know that some of the students have some queries regarding the admission and I had no answer for them. I forwarded them to the concerned officer and then passed the answer back to the student. In this task I was fortunate to have couple of more guys to work with me and make life easier. Somehow we managed to solve most (I can’t say all as you can’t satisfy all!)
  
• When the form filling process was going on, we found one guy is abusing our course without having bases and making other students away from the course. So we had to devote our time to solve that matter. I was fortunate enough that in this matter I was not much involved but few of my batch mates had to scarify their precious exam preparation time to see this matter. After that we came to know that that same guy had apply for the course and somehow he does not want others to join this (strange! but true). And he also used wrong name in the community to spread this message so that he would not get caught! But we had better sniffer dogs! They have sniffed him and found his real identity and then caught him red handled. And guess what, he has been selected in the final list and we are so happy that we will get a chance to meet him and work with him for next few months.
  
• We had created a system where candidates who have some doubts can call us and we can solve them. In the list my name was also there along with four other (poor chaps). After the shortlist has come for the people for the GD/PI process, I started getting calls (at least 10 per day). And this has become the funniest part of the process. And during those days our internship was also started. So calls can come during any time, meeting, presentation, discussions… but we have to manage them also along with our daily routine. I am putting some of the incidents here for you to enjoy!
  
• One fellow called me at Sunday night at around 9 and here goes the conversation:
  

X:  (After failed in initial trial of speaking in English – which I could not understand) “Hello mein X bol raha hun. ”

Me:  “Haan, bolo.”

X: “Pehchana Mujhe!? Mein pehle phone kiya tha…”

Me: (I get 10 calls a day and how in the world I will remember each and every one’s name) “Nahi. But bolo kya baat hai?”

X: “Arre mujhe tu yeh bata, ki yeh shortlist kab lgane wali hai?” (It was on the site 2 days before only and almost everybody is knowing it)

Me: “List to aa chuki hai site per.”

X: (Interrupting me in between only) “Kahan aa gayee hai? Waha to nahi hai. Meine check kiya hai.”

Me: (?!!) “Nahi. List aa chuki hai aur main page pe hi link di hui hai. Aur hamne sab logo ko e-mail karke bhi inform kiya hai. Tumne apna email check kiya hai kya?”

X: “Arre Ha! Mein sab dekha hai kuchh nahi aaya, site pe bhi nahi aaya hai.”

Me: (I was going for dinner at that time, so did not want to waste my food) “Ok. Ek kaam karo. Mujhe half an hour ke baad call karo. Mein dekh ke bata dunga.”

X: “Ok.”

(After around one hour at 10 in the night) X: “Mein X bol raha hun. Tune check kiya kya?”

Me: “Ha. List hai, main page pe hi hai. Tum apna application number batao. Mein check karke batata hu abhi.” (After he gave his number) “Tumahra naam hai aur tumhe 15^th ko aana hai. Tumko hamne e-mail bhi kiya hai tumhare address per details ke saath to usme dekh lena”

X: “Aisa kya? Thik hai. Arre tu abhi office mein tha kya?”

Me: (?!!)“Office? Abhi Sunday ko raat ke 10 baje?”

X: (With his same style laugh) “Arre ha.. ha… Mujhe laga ke tu office gaya hoga… tune bataya tha na ki tu internship kar raha hai…. Mein to bhul gaya tha ki aaj Sunday hai… thik hai chal. Bye”

Thank god! Call was over. I am amazed that people like him also applying for the course and praying that he should not get selected for final admission process!

• One of our batch mate whose name is “Akaknsha Mittal” has sent mail to all candidates,  explaining the process and gave some tips to them. And here come a reply from a person “Y” which is legend in the admission process. He started with “Hi Mr. Akaknsha Mittal Ji” (Even in the Chinese world where people would be having confusion about the name, how could he write like that?). Then he wrote (all CAPS where on in the mail):
  

“HI MR.AKANSHA MITTAL JI

THIS IS Y.

1.MY ALLOTED DATE IS 15TH MAY,2009

2.MY PREFERABLE DATE IS 13TH MAY,2009

3. REASON FOR CHANGE IS ON 15TH MAY I AM HAVING FINAL SEM EXAM .

MORE OVER I WANT ACCOMODATION ON 12TH,MAY AND HOWEVER I WILL BE LEAVING ON 13TH EVENING TO CST TO CATCH THE TRAIN. I WANT ACCOMODATION FOR ONE PERSON ONLY(MYSELF). ”

There are several of this type during those days.

• I also remember a conversation which I had with a lady on one fine day in the morning. She was an MCA having good score and applied for the course. But as per our institute standard, we are having only engineers to study. Now knowing all this she applied but could not make in the GD/PI list. And then as my number known to her, she called me as she has become the victim of “global atyaachaar” and she wanted me to change the institute rule (!! The rule which has created by directors from last 40 years can be changed by a student!! I never know that! J). As being a girl she had power to talk for hours. And using that power she did not allow me to say a word for 15 minutes! At last I had to break my silence and explained the situation in firm words. Then only she realized the situation and said ok, but from next time you people should take care… (!!)
  
• Days passed and date of GD/PI cam closed. Then I came to know that the person, who has used his nights and money (that’s me) will have to move out of Mumbai due to project work. I was apart from the physical admission process as I was away from Mumbai, but somehow was getting information from other people. And one day I managed to come back for a day in Mumbai for my mid-term project review, I decided to go and meet people and talk to them for a while. I talked to them and was coming down to go to my office. While walking down the ‘famous’ stairs, I met one girl. She was looking at me from a distance and she had some kind of doubt on her face. I thought she might be new and want know about the admission place. I asked her if she want to go to the place. She told me she knew the place but…. “aapke bag pe label hai… usko aap nikal na bhool gaye hai…” (She was talking about the Jet Airways security check label which was there on my bag as I came from airport directly.) I was speechless and walked away.
  

There are many more to add, but don’t want to make this one lengthier. Apart from all these incidents there were many genuine and serious doubts which we took and solved also. But this are there in my mind on the top.

So this was our mission. Mission to add people in institute. “Mission Admission”.

Are we coming out?

Are we coming out of recession or its just a small child which is going to die soon?

Thoughts are coming into my mind is because of few things. From last few days I am getting following news:

• Rupee is getting stronger
• Inflation is going down
• Crude is going up
• Exports are going up
• Stock market is going up    
  

So is it end of it or just a light which is going to end soon and we have to wait for more or just a feel good factor because of poll? 

If you have some points to put or thigns to comment, please do it.