Things to be done...

1. White water rafting
2. Sky diving
3. Para Gliding
4. Para Sailing
5. Scuba diving (btw I don't swim ;))
6. Skiing (I had a chance.. stupid me.. ut let it go..)
7. Mountain biking..

Public approval rest disposal - lol

Oflate, I have not been following Tamil movies (or any language for that matter).. But this morning, I happen to glance at the movies section of the newspaper, when this side line caught my eye...
"Public approval rest disposal .." This beats Vijayakanth-flick side lines too..

Who comes up with these lines.. How can they be sooooo imaginative, innovative...
Had a good laugh early morning..

Laid off ... Travel... someone's suggestion

Laid off? The one thing you absolutely need to do on the first day - a really nice article... I like the tone...

WTH I am still on the job..

BTW.. even if I am laid off.. I wonder whether I would have $1000 to spend on travel.. I suppose so.. should be very interesting.. Although my parents would not be ok with me taking off to Bangkok for 10 months ... lol

Off dreaming about Singapore, Malayasia, Thailand, Cape town..... One day!!

Sense of humour..

Humour... ability to crack joke is single most important talent... I have this colleague.. I am totally awed, his ability to crack jokes.. damn.. How does he manage this.. If I am in a critical situation.. it would not be hard to guess.. one look should tell the story.. But this guy... We were in deep waters and were to run a query.. but feared that would make the situation worse.. But this guy joked about this single query ending his career in office.. definitely lightened the place..

One does not have to be stand-up comedian like Russel Peters cracking quality jokes.. as long as the jokes are not too vulgar or out of place, is definitely welcome..

Few cracks here and there.. makes the work place more fun...

Popularity - Directly proportional to sense of humour.. Wah!!

Drowning in work...

"Once a upon a time, in a city called Bangalore, there lived a girl called Ramya Krishnan.. She constantly cribbed about lack of work and being bored......."

I think I cribbed too much, and someone up there took it a little too seriously. Right now.. am so caught up in work.. If you guys are wondering , why I have not called you/ come on gtalk/ am I still alive?, the answer is, yes I am still in this world and very much alive...


Now, I hope this is just a passing phase, I can't take this constant huge pressure...

Damn, I have been to gym, only twice last week.. I already feel I have added a few pounds...

I need to get my life back..

Trip to Pilani

I have been bitten by the travel bug. I enjoy travelling more than anything. I love loitering around airports, gazing at people from different communities. Or making on the fly decisions about the commute or a place to stay. There is a kick in all of these.

For the past 2 years, I have been working on a MS distance education with BITS Pilani. Every quarter I would have to slog (ok not slog, I start studying 3 days before the exam). Twelve holidays in a year - gone for exams.. sad. Thankfully, I jumped so many companies, I never had to worry about these holidays.

We booked our tickets about 3 weeks back. Four of us had to travel. Lakshmi, Balaji Riyaz, friends from Sify. We flew to Delhi, with no plans for travel, from Delhi to Pilani. Riyaz had one phone number, Delhi cabs. We called this guy, not knowing what to expect. After a few calls, we rounded on air conditioned WagonR Rs 8 / KM plus bata. Proud of our deal, we told him to come to Indira Gandhi International Airport. We were frying outside Delhi domestic airport while our hero, the driver, was waiting for us in the International airport. The driver deserves a special mention. He does not understand Hindi, English or any other language. In spite of our brilliant effort to converse in Hindi, this guy barely understood it. Apparently he was a tourist guide who helped foreigners in Ninital.. lol..

We had a decent lunch in Haldirams, a hotel on the Gaurgaon highway. The roads in Delhi, I have to say a few words. I am seeing 6-way/8-way lanes for the first time in India. Flyovers that stretch over few kilometers, simply out of the world. Others had a good time ragging me, while I was appreciating the good roads..
I can't imagine travelling in city buses from Delhi to Pilani.. Delhi-Gurgaon-Dharuheda-Riwari-Narnaul-Singhana-Chirawa-Pilani is the best route to Pilani. Except for occasional bad roads, the route was smooth. Rustic country side from an air conditioned car was quite pleasant. We reached the campus around 6.30 PM (five hours drive), checked into vfast hotel within the campus. We expected to see sand dunes, cactus. What we saw was forrested flowering campus. Worn out by the travel, we had an early dinner (as some fellow lady students described and we had to rag her.. awesome food)..

The next day.. the introduction session lasted for around an hour and we were encouraged to take up Phd.. ofcourse none of us were even thinking about a Phd... All our dissertations ended around 4.30 PM. We fried in the burning sun the entire day. The campus is huge and the professors believed in quality of education.. a refreshing difference from my under graduation college. The professors were knowledgeable and pretty interesting.

We celebrated the evening with I eating a Cornetto all by myself. We started back to Delhi, early 6.30 AM. With a few hours to spare, we decided to visit India Gate. A magnificent structure. Only crib should visit these places in winter. On the whole a great trip..

Ultimate guide to 'Drive depression out'

I come up with brilliant plans to drive the blues away... Be it, freaking horrible day in office.. or u just learnt, your latest crush already has a girlfriend...

These have definitely worked for me..

1. Shopping: This most definitely works.. Greater the depression.. More the bill.. I spend mostly on clothes.. then on gadgets.. I think its the excitement of trying something new..
2. Chocolate ice cream: I believe, there is now, scientific evidence that, chocolates have a lot of anti-depressants. Crap I don't need a research organization to tell me that. I knew it, from the day I was born. There is something to it..
3. Movies (in theatre, even better): You get so involved in the movie.. you tend to forget the rest.
4. Drag a friend out for dinner..
5. Blasting music out of the speakers in your room..
6. Office/open source work also helps big way..
7. Last but not the least.. Empty beach.. Thank god I live in Chennai..

Nothing else works..

Back to Chennai

It is almost a year and half, since,I left Chennai. When I came to Bangalore , I had hope. I had a dream. I had the conviction, that I can get things done. Last few days have been little hard and I seem to have lost my ground. Hopefully, Chennai would help me see through this phase...

My trip to US of A (Part 3 Concluding)

If you had read my previous posting, you might be wondering, did this girl ever made it through.. Well, the fact that I am writing this blog is a sign that I am doing fine.

There were some red pills that I had to swallow in the middle of my trip.. It completely shook me and now I am staggering back.. I forced myself to think away from my career and enjoy what was offered.. The fall out, I roamed about the city, mostly on my own. It is so much fun to walk into stores like Nordstorm, Macys.. trying to familiarize with the brands.. recalibrate and try to estimate what is expensive and what is not. There is a kick in walking around the city, with a map, at 8.0 PM, temperature 0 - 5 degree celsius. When you have someone to show you around the place, you miss minute details like, do I turn this left or the next. You are forced to read directions from map.. Your understanding of the layout improves.... Maybe the loner in me, jus unleashed herself.. Watever..

The journey back was even more interesting. I was booked on British Airways (Seattle - Heathrow - Bangalore). As luck would have it, there was a problem with luggage scanning machine in terminal 4 of Heathrow and BA pilot strike. Little did I know the madness had just started.
Seattle - Heathrow (BA around 10 hours journey)
Heathrow (9 hours stop over)
Heathrow - Bombay (Jet air 10 hours )
Bombay (2 hours stop over)
Bombay - Bangalore (Jet air 1 hour)
Bangalore (3 hours stop over)
Bangalore - Chennai (Paramount 1 hour)
That totals up to 36 hours of travel straight. Almost 2 dayz.. no shower .. unbrushed teeth.. at the end of the trip I felt like a pig.

Since this was my first trip, I am not complaining (atleast not as much as I should be). The trip till Heathrow was uneventful. I landed in Heathrow around 12 noon terminal 4, and were to board a flight from terminal 3 at 9.10 PM. Only when one takes the shuttle from one terminal to another, does one realize how big the airport is. In terminal 3, airport passenger screen is so detailed. It is kind of embarssing when you are asked to remove your belt, when there are twenty men behind you in a queue. Not that they care. Its just odd. But if this is going to save me from terrorists, so be it.

With nine hours in hand, I hit the duty free shops early. For the first time, I was wondering around a full fledged liquor shop. This seemed so cool. I was looking at brands and associate the percentage alcohol content(hopefully I should be able to make a better decision ;)). I finally decided on two bottles of Chivas regal 15 .. a cool offer buy 2 for 30 pounds. I picked up the two bottles carefully and laid them on the counter. I was asked to produce my boarding pass. The women in counter shook her head and said, I should not be buying them. She went on to explain, I was not going straight into Bangalore and liquor was not allowed as hand luggage in Bombay-Bangalore flight. My heart sank as I gave up my carefully picked up bottles at the counter. Crap!! Dejected I walked out. (Later, in Bombay, I saw people shoving bottles into their check-in luggages)

As I was strolling around the shops, I saw an Indian woman, who was travelling with me from Seattle, and looked like she was going to Bangalore as well. We had a round of self introductions. She was carrying a 2 months old baby and was struggling to cope up, with the journey. For some reason, I began to admire her from the very begining. We went around the shops, got more chocolates and had a quick lunch. Then she said, she worked for Microsoft... I was zapped.. I am so into Linux, that when someone say they work/worked for Microsoft, I react strangely. I have cursed Windows so many times, for so many reasons. Offlate I seem to talk to a lot more people associated with Microsoft.. So many sane people, who work for Microsoft. Surprising ;) ... probably the pay..;). Just kidding. We boarded the plane, came to Bombay, breezed through customs, got our baggage back, checked it in again, boarded a shuttle to domestic airpot and finally boarded the flight to bangalore.We said our good byes and parted, admiring her courage yet again, for taking the tedious journey.

Once in Bangalore, I decided I needed to be home. A friend helped me book a flight to Chennai waited for another 3 hours and finally reached Chennai. Phew.. That was one helluva experience.. I have no regrets what so ever for taking this journey. The Seattle city made it worthwhile.. Amen..

Lost it all..

I tell myself "Things would improve. Things would not change for better on its own. It's you, who would have to steer it for better." But off late I my trust in this is eroding and eroding fast. Every decision that I take has been for worse, sometimes hurting people I love.

Why is it that I take goodness in people for granted.
Why is it that I never seem to learn from my mistakes.
Why is that my rotten luck never leaves me.
Why is it that I always end up as the person, who has to be handled appropriately, when I want to help them..


When I strive to help, make situation better, dream big.... everything just gives in. With no one trust, no one to confide.. Life goes on, yet again..


Note: Please don't try to reach/call/message me and embarrass me more . I would like to be left alone for sometime and trust me I shall come back.

My trip to US of A (part 2)

Yesterday was pretty interesting.. Well I am still severely jet lagged.. I woke up at 3.30 in the morning again, extremely hungry.. We finally left the hotel at around 11.30. The hotel has free drops to many locations and one of them is Seattle center.
I. Our first stop was Seattle space needle center. The building is 500+ feet high. This is a tall thin structure and on top, is a view deck. Below the view is a revolving restaurant. The elevator takes you up to the deck at a speed of 10miles/hour. The elevator is glass fenced allowing people to see outside as they travel up or down. With every passing second up, the view becomes better. From the deck, the view was magnificent, and one can spot all the important places in Seattle downtown, if not with the naked eye, through binoculars. The temperature was pretty low and there was gusty cold winds, that forced us to retrace our steps back to the elevator. Certainly worth a trip.

II. Second stop was a sci-fi museum and music museum. I am not sci-fi person. If you ignore border line horrible sci-fi movies, the only sci-fi movie that I have seen is Starwars. So a person who is more into sci-fi movies and books would be able to appreciate the place much better. The one thing that interested me here is a video, that talks about how the weird space capsules in movies were made. The molten glass is knead at high temperatures into the interesting shapes, that one sees in movies. What is interesting is:
a. The tools used to cast the glass in different interesting shapes.
b. The final product is extremely small(maximum 1 cubic feet) that are magnified to be shown as huge space shuttle, stars and planets.
The music museum again was something that I could not do justice too. My interest in hip hop, classic or any western music is extremely limited and hence was not able to appreciate the place.

IV. Our next stop was IMAX theater. IMAX theater has been on my list for quite sometime now. There are very few of this kind in India, one of them being Hyderabad. We almost made it to the theater, in a college trip, when a few severely disoriented people wanted to eat hyderabad biriyani, instead of sneaking out of the hotel and catching a show. Sad. I never got over this serious let down. Anyways, the movie that was being shown yesterday was not a 3D picture and hence it is as good as watching an ordinary movie and extremely large screen.

III. The coastline near the Seattle center is interesting. The coastline is riddled with boats some pretty.. some not so pretty. After a couple of minutes here, we headed towards Pike Place market on foot.

IV. The most interesting place in the Pike place market is probably a shop that sells fish. When people buy fish from here, the undressed huge fish certainly weighing a kilo or two is thrown at the customer. The men at the shop and the crowd cheered a woman who bought a fish (dunno wat kind that was). A fish weighing easily two kilos was thrown. She did a decent job catching it mid air and everyone cheered.
Finally we headed back home tired.

My trip to US of A (part 1)

I have never traveled outside India all my life and there was no burning desire to do so. I guess I have missed out on quite a lot. I am starting feel that not pursing higher education was not such a great decision (of course sify was a great place and so is Amazon.com bangalore).

So this is how the 15 days trip started.. I had a visa interview last Friday and was expected to travel this Wednesday (6th Feb). Since my passport took sometime to be delivered, my travel plans where confirmed till 5th Feb. With super efficient support from office, we were able to get forex, tickets (had to go through a confusing itenary) and insurance. I also had to buy loads of warm clothing and shoes, as I have never seen temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius( Weird that here people use Fahrenheit , miles, pounds.. I am so bad at converting all these and cannot comprehend without converting).

So this is how the trip started.. I had a flight to Heathrow airport at 7.00 AM for which u need to start at 3.30 AM ( I know insane). So I met my friend who was traveling along with me at around 4.00 AM. He has traveled before to US of A and was very helpful through out the journey( I wouldn't know stuff like online check in, change the food menu on board to asian vegetarian).

The flight was delayed by one hour. We feared that we might miss our connecting flight in Heathrow. So we finally boarded the flight (Boeing huge aircraft). Seeing an onboard entertainment system, were you can actually stream movies I went berserk. I started watching Shawshank Redemption. But then, they had issues with the system and the movie was interrupted. So I ended up watching friends, two and half brothers.. Food was not very bad.. certainly not great..

We managed to reach Heathrow airport in time for the next flight with around an hour or so in hand. Since it was week day, lot of seats were not occupied. I had the aisle seat and there four seats empty next to me.. I just pushed the hand rests up and slept 8 hours straight to be woken to have food. I survived on orange juices in these flights.

So we finally reached Seattle at around 6PM.. drizzling chilly.. Immigration and baggage collection took about 1 hour or so.. Finally we were out and was picked up by my manager. Being my first time here, number of things hit me hard..
1. Freeways, the traffic is so disciplined. I, for the first time, see people sticking to their lanes and being extremely careful when they had to switch.. If you had to park the other side of the road.. you would have to circle the block.. Because the pavement is always on your side parallel parking seemed lot more easier.
2. Huge and deafening freeways.
3, Seattle is a very scenic place. The night line is marked with skys scrappers and lights blinking everywhere.. beautiful lake.. well maintained footpath awesome!!
4. Cold.. If we had not gotten into the car in another 2 minutes I would have froze.

We decided to grab something on the way and then check into the hotel.. We went to this place called Serious Pie and had some really nice pizzas.. and I had white wine for the first time.. I think it had very little alcohol content. I was not even close to getting on a high. Then we checked into this hotel Marriott spring hill. nice comfortable... good net connection..

I always teased my friends who complained about jet lags. I would try to pull their leg calling them show offs.. Well now I realized what they actually meant. I was wide awake, extremely hungry at 2 AM in the morning (silly me .. I should have slept in the first leg of the flight and stayed awake on the second).. I brewed myself coffee.. (I don't like coffee) for the first time and it turned out to be yuck. I probably dint add enough creamer. We had breakfast at the hotel and booked a cab to my office. Holy lord, the cabs are so expensive.. it takes 12 dollars plus tips to travel a distance of say 3 kms (not converting to miles). Despite serious warnings, that I shouldn't multiply every time I spend into Indian currency.. I cant help wondering how expensive it is... We can't even walk as the weather is so chilly and with strong cold winds..

I had neat morning work and lunch. Post lunch I was seriously jet lagged. Around 3.30 PM local time, my body was at 4 AM felt like a night out. My eyes started drooping.. I caught myself sleeping when typing a word... So left office little early... got dropped by my friend's manager. I had decided to splurge all I could, at dinner. We went to this pizza place called Romeos. I cannot believe I am saying this.. but in a couple of days I might get bored with cheese... I also had red wine(marlot something). By the time we left the place, it was around 8.30. I was little shaky because of the drink. I spoke to a close friend here for about 40 minutes and slept like a baby. But wide awake at 3.30.. Could not stand to be in bed by 4.30, typing this blog for the past one hour...

Lets see how the rest of the journey is..

I have not yet clicked a single photo yet.. so no photos to upload..

Jab we met - Exceeds expectation

I have never been a fan of Kareena Kapoor. I thought she was overly dramatic (K3G). She was on top of my worst actresses list. Shahid Kapoor, I never took him as a serious actor. Jab We Met definitely changed all of these. Before sunrise, Serendipity, Sleepless in Seatle kind of movie.

Positive aspects of the movie
1. Punjabi mixed hindi is so sweet to hear. Surprisingly both were able to pull the stint. Not that I am any expert (I can barely follow Punjabi), I was able to appreciate the dialogues.
2. This movie can easily be their best performances in their respective careers.
3. Songs are a definite plus. Wonder why they are not played on cable that often. I have to definitely download some of them to my phone.
4. Shahid dances really well. Kareena can barely live up to it. Especially the closing song sequence.
5. Good comedy.. good dialogue delivery by both.
6. Good screenplay for a not so original story line.

If you have to choose between Om shanti om and Jab We Met, you can definitely pick the second and you would leave the hall without regret.

Foss.in and some general observations

After much deliberation, I decided to attend foss.in this time. The reason for this deliberation is not the content, but inability to take so many days off. The venue turned out to be pretty close to my office, and there was company to shuttle between office and the venue for certain talks.

Some pluses and minuses, registration was too slow (at some point in the queue, I wondered, whether, I would be playing with my grandchildren, by the time the registration completes). I had just one lunch in the event (excluding tomorrow). But food tasted (much)+ better than what was dished out last time. And the queues were much faster.

Coming to the main event..

Few days back, I had an argument with a friend. His point was, for some reason, Americans are better off making presentations, compared to their European/Far east counter parts (definitely not talking about the quality of content). I had vehemently opposed the view and argued they were baseless.
But now, I think I see his point of view. I think the ability to mix (quality) humour with the content is what sails them through... Whatever..

Rusty Russell, I enjoyed his talk the most. I dint imagine the person who wrote netfilter / iptables to sport such a good humour. His talk made the whole event worthwhile. Going back tomorrow to his talk on talloc.

Wish I could attend au.conf..

Ubuntu Ubuntu Ubuntu

I know I am mixing a totally non - technical blog (atleast i intended to keep this non technical), but cant help it...

Few days back I was a hard core Fedora distribution fan. I was not ready to look at any other distribution and took pride in writing spec files for rpm. ( I am not disowning it, I still don't mind working on a fedora/redhat distribution). But for the past few days I am head over heals with Ubuntu. Here is the story..

My first laptop __ever__(Dell Inspiron 6400), bought out my hard earned money. The Dell package is little heavy. I lug the package home at around 8.30PM. Unpacked the laptop, booted into Vista(preinstalled crap..), installed ubuntu in 15 to 20 minutes. It was love at first sight. I wanted to readjust my disk partitions and so reinstalled it couple of times until it was satisfactory. Logged into gnome.. and guess what, it listed all the wireless networks in my area.. I was just taken aback.. This just exceeded my expectations.. And then speakers.. they worked too.. And then package installation .. got around package distribution commands after a few tries(now have to write a package of mine so I understand things better- Ofcourse Debian style).
So what makes it better
1. Good collection of packages
2. Packages working out of the box(So damn neat)


4 months still with Ubuntu and going strong
Installations: Laptop, Office Desktop(Much to the irritation of my manager ;))

Chang Indian Idol fame..

Courtesy

I never used to watch any soap and I really fear tuning Sony or Star Plus during prime time. Living in hostel I have little choice. So I was just digging certain articles in the TV room, when the girls in the room where going ga ga over a guy. A ching(Chinese origin) with eyes hardly visible. I couldn't understand the craze and actually dared to question the hungama..

Well now I am sitting and writing this article after watching a repeat telecast(I have an arrangement, hostel mate would call me when Chang sings). Well yesterday, his performance was AWESOME... "hosh udha dhi" "stole my breadth away".. I was in the same state as the hostess and the Alisha..

This is one of his previous shows on youtube. Leave the first few seconds.

A dentist by profession.. Handsome and fit enough to be a model.. He sang Dil kya kare out of the world performance (The ending ouch...in the hostess words.. "Water" catching our breadth).. left us captivated for ever..

Narasingapuram street aka Ritchie street

I needed to get a wireless router at the earliest. I knew very few reliable shops in Bangalore and so I decided to come down to Chennai to get one. I usually give the specs of the electronic items, I need to my bro, who would then wade through this __ritchie street__ and get them for me(sometimes a better configuration or price). But this time, my bro was little preoccupied(still not forgiven for the same ;)) and denied the services he rendered. But life is miserable without wireless and I can't get through one more week without one. So the onus of going to this street and getting the router on my own, fell on me.

My mother was apprehensive about me going alone to this street and she decided to come along. We parked our car, on Mount road(trust me finding parking space was difficult - as difficult as pondi bazzar). We parked bang outside Khadi. After enquiring, how to go to this street in a small beedi stall, we took a left.

Picture: courtesy : http://www.chennaibest.com/discoverchennai/citylifestyle/bazaarbuzz/ritchie.asp

We reached around 12.30 and the place was buzzing with activity. Man, we stepped into a small road that was filled with all kinds of gadgets(clock, movie CD, DVDs, CD pouches). Each shop had zillion DVD players on display. My mom, reminiscent of the days of VCR and VCD, apparently I cried for an entire evening for a VCD player which costed about 16000 back then.

Every shop either played Jhoom bhara bhar jhoom or the inevitable Sivaji in very good quality speakers. The ground was littered with movies DVD (X-Men, Blood diamond...). To add to this chaos, pamphlets advertising range of processors, where strewn all over the place.

We were strictly given orders to look for a place called Supreme Computers Private limited. I was really comforted by the fact that my mother accompanied me, because there where not many women around. After little struggle, we actually found this place. A small dilapidated building with an old board, I was not really optimistic. Anywayz went in to just see a total reversal of opinion of this place. It was a small place (15 * 15 room)filled with people. Mostly college students, eager to assemble a computer, had a long list of items that need to be purchased with serious budgetary constraints. The array of items on display was damn impressive. Wireless routers, bluetooth keyboard, sony viao laptops.. I was drooling all over the place.

Dizzied by the items in display, I was considering a lot more items to buy than I intended to. My mother, guessing from the excitement in my eyes, quipped lets buy the router that we came for and leave the place. Left my mom to sit on the couch and moved in the general direction of the counter. I told my specification to a cute looking northie with broken tamil a Linksys router WRT54G. He said I would have to wait for 5 minutes and I was more than willing to do the same. I was standing near the counter watching people take orders at the counter. It was interesting, as the college students asking these people whether this device would fit on this motherboard, or whether there are any other company gadget that would fit this budget. The guys behind the counter where also impressive pulling quotes/specification from air. They would have easily made sale of 75000 bucks in a matter of half an hour. Boy their business model is strong and they have managed to establish their brand value among college students.

My router arrived as promised in 5 minutes. I would not mind standing at the counter, watch people buy gadgets for another hour(this is no way related to the northie guy). Guessing that I was amateur, he asked me whether I would pay by cash or card and I promptly replied card and he went on to explain there will be 2% charges on card. Then it dawned on me, why people pay tens of thousands in cash. I had little choices and I payed by card. (Lesson learnt: take cash when you go to such places). Finally left the place after enquiring about the price of Transcend USB 150GB disk.

Boy I would happily work in this place. You get to play with latest gadgets and help students build their configuration and the end get paid for it... Can life get any better.

Returned home with the loot and exhilarating experience and kulfi at the Bombay sweet house. My day was made.

Bhai.. machan.. Two strong words..

I notice in the last few posts, I have been doing nothing, but, crib. This post hopefully reverses that.

I find that men folk bond very easily. Last week, a colleague and I where assigned a task, where in, we have to interact with this person X and get the job done. So I decided to be smart and walked up to him and tried to discuss it with him. All through the conversation, he was very uncomfortable and mostly negative. I discussed the situation with my colleague and he offered to see what he can do. I wanted to see how he handles the situation and hence was overhearing their conversation across the bay ;) (so much for decency.. don't blame me, I just happened to be around). The way he started the conversation changed the whole scenario.. "Kya bhai.. kuch problem hai kya". Words like bhai (Bro in Hindi), machan(brother-in-law, I guess, in Tamil) are very strong words. Its a male thing that I would never understand I guess. Two strangers, relate to each other immediately by simple words like these. They start acting like long last friends. Unfortunately, no such words are available for use with the other gender.

Socializing becoming an issue..

Off-late, I find socializing fast becoming an issue. I find that I cannot relate to most of the conversation that happens around me. Many of these discussions put me under a scanner, that I would want to disappear from that face of the earth. Have dinner with bunch of people, with whom you have nothing in common, to discuss, act like you are concentrating on your plate or come with a stupid conversation.

Whoever invented 'work from home' concept should be crowned(though this not an option in my current employment). You don't have to get up, get dressed appropriately, board/drive any mode of transport(biggest pain), then wish meaningless 'Good morning' to loads of people. What a waste of precious time and energy in this era, where there unlimited broadband connection available at residences. If at all communication is required, there is always mails, messengers, conference calls, and lastly go to office only to attend meetings.

But I hail from a `service industry` and I should not even think about such luxuries. Hopefully things change or I change things..

Managers...

Managers these days, need to sit by the side of team leaders and developers, code along with them(I mean do vi of a file, edit, compile..), to completely understand the state of the project and define the direction of its take off. Managers should not confine themselves to just defect matrix collection or calculation of number of hours spent on the project. Managers need to think beyond excel sheets(nicknamed excel sheet managers ;) ) and just expertise in M$ tools would not get them anywhere.

Most managers would consider themselves successful, if they are able to retain the good programmers on their team. Most of these programmers have poor communication skills(either they are challenged or just not interested to speak). To first identify them, the manager has to work along with them. A person may resolve 'n' bugs but might still not be the best person on the team. But a person would have resolved a single bug over several weeks but that does not make him a bad coder. I did rather solve a serious memory issue over several weeks than correct several spelling mistakes in printf statements..

When things drag and the developer is not able to zero in on the problem, fear creeps in. Problem with most outsourced project is the customer is billed by the hour. So the customer has to be answered on the time spent. The developer fears the worst and that is not going to help him in any way. Sometimes for reasons like these, product companies is better than service industry, you just have to answer your company and not multiple companies.

Most of all, the manager has to be well informed and should encourage his team members to work on new tools or explain interesting stuff. When stuck, he should be able to suggest work around/ solutions and not just yap around. When the team member solves a problem this way, the project manager understands the problem well and hence he is able to keep track of the state of the project better.

If you are working for a project manager with all these traits and the job pays well, consider yourself extremely lucky.

Note: The above entry is purely observations made over the past three years and does not refer to anyone in particular. These conclusions are drawn by observing and interacting with several people. Hence the author cannot be nailed on the same ;)