Book Review!

I recently finished reading two equally good books and here go their SMBRs.

To Sir, With Love – SMBR: 4.5
Author: E. R. Braithwaite
Category: Fiction

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – SMBR: 5
Author: Ken Kesey
Category: Fiction

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‘Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there’s a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won’t let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he’ll let the humor blot out the pain.’

The above lines are the best lines I have read in a really long time. If the entire book could be summed up in a few lines, these would be them. The book is so lucidly written that it makes you realize the folly of harboring antagonism and silly prejudices. You got to live every moment and not only enjoy it but also bask in its glory, for every passing moment holds so many surprises for you that you would be wasting away your years spitting and mulling over the circumstances rather than enjoying the joys and sorrows accompanying them. How many times have you felt the anger and resentment, for someone, overpowering you and when have you also felt the urge to resort to some kind of violence, no matter how minimalist, just to quench your desire to take revenge? I would say, often! The key to your being supreme in the end is to stay calm. Your flash of anger would die away as quickly as it came about. Your calmness in that fleeting second could actually pave the way to your happiness.

The book is primarily a satire on the way things were managed and run around in a mental institution, bordering on the tyranny of a one-woman show. It was under the care of Miss Ratchead, the Big Nurse, who was running it on behalf of the all-powerful combine with its ever-widening grip on the society and its ways. And then came along Randle Patrick McMurphy, who with his jovial & good-natured personality, calm demeanor and guileless effrontery not only won the lost battle for the forever-demoralized and eternally-subdued inmates but also made the Big Nurse look silly in front of him.

The book is an amazing read and more so for its plot which is heroic yet tragic and humorous yet pensive.

‘..one flew east, one flew west! One flew over the cuckoo’s nest..’

P.S. For more information on SMBR, visit Blink.

Au revoir

Narrow & Bottom-less Mindedness!

I have never been so much angered by someone as I was just a few minutes ago that I wished if he was in front of me that very minute, I would have slapped him hard even if he happened to be the CEO of the company I worked for!

I whole-heartedly agree with the fact that basically we all are selfish to the core. I also agree that most of the times we do not only have to put up with so many pretensions but also put on some airs of our own in order to survive efficiently and hence to grow without any hindrance. But what is of relevance here is one should always make sure that his/her growth should not impede others’ growth or rather be instrumental in the decline of others’ prosperity. I detest those people who’ll be all smiles in front you but they’ll be working hard overnight just to make sure that you go nowhere. They are the egotistical fools who despite being millionaires themselves just can’t accept the fact that someone low in the society, who has had the ill-fate to ever come in contact with them, is able to do good for himself/herself. I just don’t and can’t understand the simple fact that why can’t people be just concerned about their very own affairs? Why these perverted and debauched people, unworthy and unfit to remain in the society, are ever ready to jeopardize others’ careers and lives too, and at the first available opportunity despite having been abundantly aware of the reality that the person, whose life they are trying to put in hazard, was never and hopefully will never be in a position to influence them or their ways in any significant manner? The word ‘significant’ is just a farce; the reality is that that person can’t affect them or their ways. Moreover, why should he? Because, if he does that he would also be a party to the same gang. Frankly speaking, in my view one should always be concerned about his own affairs only. He should definitely work hard and smartly towards His success or realizing His goals but definitely not at the cost of trampling other people’s (read friends, co-workers, employees or relatives) careers. In my 24 years of existence, one of the things I have learnt is that you might get temporary relief/satisfaction, say monetarily or egotistically, by doing things which were outright immoral or unjustified in the terms of giving undue agony or monetary loss to the other person, which in all probability could and would have been avoided only if you had wanted to in the first place; but you cannot escape reality. For, everyone is fooled by randomness and so are you. As they say, life does come around!

“Ankur if you don’t respond to me I will have your job at [my would-be company] taken away as well”, now what can you expect from a person who sends this message on your IM. Well, I think not much! :o)

This person heads the same company I talked about in my last post, Anatomy of a Small Company and a few posts before that in 6 Golden Rules at Your Workplace.

Au revoir

Anatomy of a Small Company!

Capitalism: is a situation where the ownership of the means of production is privately controlled either individually or by a group of individuals.

Capitalist: is the individual or the group of individuals, who owns and manages the alleged means of production.

Labor: is the common intelligent/unintelligent folk working for the capitalist.

Pseudo-capitalist: is someone who thinks capitalism is good as long as one is the capitalist but not otherwise.

Today, I think I am in a position to think about these heavy words and probably also write something about them. For that, I will try and dissect into the entrails of a small enterprise and write something about the anatomy of a successfully & shrewdly yet imprudently run and efficiently yet incompetently managed company, which is being artfully yet torpidly dragged into the future. I used the term ‘small enterprise’ as the company in question has the employee strength of only 70.

A company can be successful and growing at the same time, only if its employees are happy because only then will it be able to retain them, who in turn will contribute towards its growth. On the other hand, it’s not necessary that a successful company will also be growing. It has been successful only because at any point of time it has had the good fortune of having hired talented and hard-working employees, who chose to stay in the company for sometime, say, for a year or two. And so, it struggles to grow for exactly the same reason i.e. a high attrition rate. Another driver, which contributes towards the company’s profitability, is the wage. The lower the wages the more profitable a company is and vice-versa. The capitalists of the world will always argue that they have always been paying more than what their employees deserve. The workers will always complain that they have always been underpaid. I know this is an interminable debate but the divide can at least be tried to make as narrow as possible. On top of that, I think it is almost a sin to justify the lower wages. The owner of the company acts chicken when he does that. Either he should be bold enough to say that his company is simply unable to give proper wages or it is clearly against the company policy to pay someone his/her due. He even goes on to say that as the company recruits most of its employees directly from different colleges, they shouldn’t really be concerned about their wages. Instead, they should only care about the learning from their first job i.e. whatever they can get to learn and leave all the money matters entirely to the employers. Another reason cited by him is that the company provided them with their first big break in the mean and exciting corporate world, so instead of grumbling about the work or the pay package they should actually be thankful to it. When in fact, this might be the first big break for some of them but for most others they had at least two jobs when they chose to join the company. The company says that they needed it but it was the company also that needed them as badly otherwise it wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. In other words, they should burn the midnight oil for the company without expecting anything in return, of course except the miniscule paycheck.

If the company is really into some exciting stuff, I think it would almost never have to advertise itself to attract the talent pool; rather, its employees would be its best promoters and at no extra cost. But since that is not the case, before and during the entire recruitment process, this company never ever actually reveals what it really does and what little does it acknowledge is only what does it intend to do in the future and that too with all the garnishing. The reason for this disguising of the facts is that the work here tends to be so monotonous that you would get to know whatever there was to learn, say, in the first six months and this is the time when you really start looking for a change.

The company runs on a hire & fire model in the true sense of the words with the only difference being that ‘fire’ is replaced by ‘forced voluntary resignation’. The company model is such that it doesn’t want to hold any employee for more than a year and half or maybe two at maximum. The reason being very simple that a two year old employee has too many expectations from the company both professionally and monetarily and as already mentioned above, it is against the company policy to pay someone according to his/her mettle and experience. So, anyone in the organization who is nearing to be 18-24 months old employee is simply put out of the job i.e. he is stopped given any projects or projects worth doing. Instead he/she will be given the choicest aka the most boring thing to do. So, in such a scenario, the only thing left for the employee is to take the cue and start looking for a new job. And fortunately, almost all who have left the company in the past have gone to good companies and at much better pay packages.

When it comes to retaining employees, the employer of this company likes to be a Neanderthal. He still believes in the bonded labor. Being very much aware of the high attrition rate, anyone who joins the company is made to sign a one-year bond with the company. And as ludicrous and preposterous it might seem, the employee is made to sign another one-year bond with the company on his promotion, otherwise he is outrightly denied the promotion and the accompanying pay-hike. Another interesting fact about the employer is that he is overly sentimental i.e. he develops a kind of bonding with his employees, which almost borders on maniacal affinity. Irrespective of the fact whether one has completed his contract period with the company or not, most often than not he will definitely be denied the experience certificate aka the relieving letter, which most of the companies require when they hire a new person if he was previously employed somewhere. The guy’s very much laidback too. He and his cohorts, unfailingly, somehow happen to think about someone’s welfare only when he would go and present his resignation papers. They would do all the imaginable sweet talks like, ‘Oh, you know, we had so many plans for you. We were so much happy with your performance that we were planning to give you a double increment this time.’ or ‘Think again about the decision you have made because, you know, we were planning to make you the project leader and you would be handling not only one but 4 projects simultaneously.’ or ‘Think of the opportunities that you are going to lose because we were planning to put you into some real analytic projects.’. The only problem is that all these fancy talks come to their heads only when a person is about to leave the company. Moreover, one can be assigned any ‘real’ analytic project only if the company has one. All said and done, if the same employee is still smart enough to leave the company, the employer of this madhouse makes it his personal vendetta to see that the employee is not able to get a better job somewhere else. The owner of this company has so many tricks up his sleeve that he never fails to amaze me, for he is also adept at forecasting the would-be ex-employee, for most of the times that unfortunate labor is also denied his last month’s pay. So much for doing so much for the company!! Now, this is what I would say blasphemy.

I am sure that any capitalist reading this post will definitely term it as a hate-post wrote by some disgruntled employee. On the other hand, I am also confident that many will extol it. But that is not what is relevant here. A far as amassing wealth and money is concerned, I would say, the employer talked about in this post has done incredibly well for himself and after all he is running a company! But the question is, for how long? He thinks that through his primitive thinking he will be able to contain the attrition rate but that is exactly which is not going to happen. The talented employees have been moving and will move at the first better opportunity despite having been bonded to the company (the bonded labor is illegal in India). Secondly, it might give the employer some satisfaction or the egotistical high after denying a month’s pay to his employee but in my view, he is only paving the way for his company’s untimely demise. I would say, giving low wages is not immoral but giving no wage is entirely unethical and unrighteous, which only a debased and a corrupt human being can do. For I am a pseudo-capitalist and wouldn’t mind making money for myself.

Au revoir

My 5th Speech

This evening I delivered my 5th speech at the local Toastmasters Club. The speech was all about '5 Golden Rules at your Workplace', ofcourse I couldn't have taken up the 6th rule :) I overshot the alloted time by 2:18 i.e. I took 9:48 to complete the speech. And following are the comments and suggestions that I got from the fellow toastmasters.

Very well prepared. Very good topic selection. Well-organized and humorous. The objective was very clear. Could have kept the time under wraps. There was scope to use facial expressions more effectively. Body movement and facial expressions could have been more animated.
- Arun Pujari

Great topic. Very good humor as always. Nervous body gestures - could improve. Take care of the time limit. The ending should have been more strong - this was something that I found lacking in your earlier speeches too. Good content. Well organized. Hope to see you improve further in your next speeches.
- Divya Goel

I like your use of humor (twice as dumb/dislodge the person etc). A bit too much pacing. Timing very much too long. You have a very good speaking voice.
- Janet Chawla

A very good topic. Time is something you definitely need to work with. Too much of shifting weight on your feet. Pace yourself when delivering any speech. You choose good topics and your enthusiasm is infectious.
- Vikram Mall

Very good opening. A clear road map. Great use of humor. Your eye contact was just straight ahead of you. You had your hand clasped together most of the time - you needed to use more gestures! Don't move too much - it's distracting.
- Deepak Menon

Well presented. Very confident. Good use of words and end well articulated. Good voice modulation. Avoid words like 'idiot' - doesn't look very respectful. Control your swaying and body movement. Need to look into your objectives - I could sense some gaps.
- Shailaja

Excellent visual. Peppered with humor. 5 points explained well. Things to take care - time and restricted body language.
- Manu Maudgal

I liked all the 5 golden rules you taught us. Good use of words. Drink lots of water before your speech. You were repeating some of the words/phrases. You can overcome this glitch by practising more & more. Take care of timing too.
- Tajinder

Very innovative project. Very organized speech. Body language/gestures were very appropriate. Used very effective words with innovative ideas. Overall a very good project, which met the objectives of the speech. Time management was the only problem. Congrats.
- Joseph Thomas

Very good material. It seemed that you were adding pauses deliberately. Reduce them and you will be on top.
- Atul

My observations: As I have deliberately stopped rehearsing just to improve on my spontaniety, I am impressed with the way I delivered the speech. According to me I lost out on two counts, too many pauses and flimsy time management.

Au revoir