The Great Indian Film Industry

Attended my first 'technical screening' for a film today. Which means I get to see the film with its Producer and Director (and not too many others) sitting right there beside me. Who were also, as it were, seeing the film - in its entirety and current form - for the first time. Gee wiz... here I am. feeling all important and everything.

Welcome Mr. Bollywood

Yellow Fever

Da Da Da DaDa Da Da Da Daaa Da

D-oh

Hmmm... Chocolaate...

Donuts and Duff Beer... if ya STILL don't know what i`m talking about, you deserve this...

The simpson's movie.. watch the trailer here...



and then.. GO AND SEE THE MOVIE.
absolutely hilarious, and a great way to get introduced to the clan...

If You've seen them before, cant see why you haven't seen the film yet.
Go for it guys.

Memoirs of an MBA...

Long, but worth it...

From: UPPU (lets hope this ain't HIS story...doubt if HCL Comnet has anything to do with ball bearings...but one never knows)

July 26
Dear Diary,


I can't hold myself down. My FIRST day on the job!!
And I like it already. "Assistant Junior Deputy to the Vice
Chairman - Manufacturing". My dad was thrilled when he heard my
designation. "What the f!@#!!!" was his exact words. Oh I love it
when my parents are happy...


Need to meet HR in half an hour. I cant wait to get
My first Employee ID Card and cubicle. I hope Parthasarathy
Whatayblouse Crappers is the beginning of great things.


P.S. I have brought my favorite textbooks back from
the insti. OD, OM and HR should help me grow rapidly in the
organization. And I WILL handle soft issues before facing hard issues
here at PWC.




July 28th
Dear Diary,

Had a lot of fun with HR yesterday. The guy who had
recruited me had left a month ago. So they didnt know I was joining.
We had a hearty laugh over that one.

I'll get my cubicle in a few days time. For the time
being I am sharing a nice one with Claire. She's with Corporate
Communication. The phone doesnt work though...



August 2nd
Dear Diary,


Met my boss today. He spend a lot of time with my CV
and then asked me how I managed to get a job with them. (Even he knows
how lucky they are to get me..) He told me to review our material
ordering system in the err... umm... the... the "big yellow and blue
noisy machine section" of the plant.


Claire is working on an "Our Employees Love Us"
campaign. The office boy had just resigned. So she got me to pose with
an apron and a tray of cookies for a photo. They are going to call me
Ramon and use it for ads. I am going to be famous.




August 7th
Dear Diary,


My first breakthrough. I have decided to order
Nickel ball bearings using the EQO.. QEO... whatever formula. It takes
into account item cost, holding cost and weight of ball bearing I
think. The purchase guy gave me a funny look when he saw my annual
requisition contract form. He is obviously not an MBA...


Claire resigned today. She told me carry on with the
"Our Employees Love Us" campaign.

P.S. Lesson for the week. You cannot order 0.7564 of
a ball bearing. It has to be in whole numbers.


August 11th
Dear Diary,


I just got a shipment of 4384 ball bearings. I
Checked up with Engineering. They said that should be enough for
around 14 years of requirement. I gave them 3 and stashed away the rest
in a cupboard in my room. If prices of ball bearings go up, I see a lot
of potential savings.


I have decided to develop informal channels of communication.
From tomorrow I will spend a little time next to the coffee machine
to understand the unspoken messages within the underbelly of the firm.
(That OD book is good)


August 14th
Dear Diary,


I sent my first official letter today. It was to our
Facilities manager Merry Le Bian. She is a hottie. I told her
that the Coffee Machine takes too much time to reheat between
refills. Wrote it in a WAC format and all with a table of contents and
everything. She is sure going to impressed!! I spell checked it in MS
word and emailed it to her an hour ago. No reply yet.


They scrapped the "Our Employees Love Us" campaign. The photo
Shoot was taking up too much time, and people were being
forced to stay late without extra pay. Someone finally went and
vandalised the banner.

It now reads "Our Employers Shove Us". I offered to model
for all the snaps and videos. They called me a dickhead. I was
delighted.

Dickhead is internal slang for "Big Stud". HR told me.
Everyone calls me that...


P.S. One more shipment of ball bearings came. Again
4384. The contract can't be changed now. I dont have too much space
left in my cupboard.




August 25th
Dear Diary,


My letter came back. It had a pink post-it on it from
Merry. "Please proofread" it said. It was CC'd to my boss. How was
I supposed to know MS Word would spell check her name and change it to
Merry Lesbian????!!!! Where's natural justice?


Today five minutes before a meeting the cupboard
Door broke open. It took me ten minutes to pick up all the ball
bearings from the floor. I had to run to the board room for the
meeting and slipped on a bearing which rolled under the door. I fell on
the coffee machine and tipped coffee powder into the polymer mixing
maching tray. Noone saw anything.


P.S. Sorry for the long break. My computer crashed.
There was a mail from an old friend. She's now married into the
Welchia family I think. Crashed after that. Strange name that
Welchia...


September 2nd
Dear Diary,


My boss told me I may not last the probation period.
I was mighty thrilled to hear that. Imagine!! Permanent in less
than three months!! That should be some sort of company record.

I made a presentation to all the staff yesterday. Some 300 people
were there. I think I sent good vibes. Everyone was smiling and
nodding their heads during the presentation. Someone later
told me my fly was open the whole time. But I don't think anyone
noticed. The presentation was on "An Open Culture: Let the
feeling show!!"


p.s. 17156 ball bearings. I floated a scheme to give
each employee a ball bearing for every year of service. The HR
manager immediately convened a meeting with my boss. Every suggestion
counts here at PWC.


September 4th
Dear Diary,


I have been transferred to the office in Sub-Saharan
Africa. I will be heading the Room Heater and Hot Water Geyser
products division.

They have also told me to pay for all the ball bearings I
bought. I think it speaks much of the entrepreneurial spirit. I have
been told to leave immediately for Kujumbinana.


P.S. A foreign posting in under a year!!!


September 5th
Dear Diary,


I am in Kujumbinana. We don't have a branch
here.......

Cheers

"A career is a wonderful thing, but you can't snuggle up to it on a cold night."

One Night at the Hard Rock Cafe

Hard Rock Cafe (funny, I always thought I'd need a passport to go to one), till they opened one right here in my city.
Nevertheless, it took me a good six months to actually visit it, and I regretted it (taking that long to go there).

Fell in love with the place the minute I set foot in it. (and loved it more the minute I stepped out, but more on that later)

Don't know what it was, but the ambience, music, crowd and the overall look and feel is sooo different from anything else I have seen - not that I have seen much - but what clinched it was the eternally heady mix of alcohol and old friends.

Thouroughly recommended, and no, they haven't paid me to write this post. (although a few gift vouchers WOULD be welcome)

Hard Rock Cafe... anybody listening??

Of Shy Exhibitionism

I was trying to convince a friend to give me the URL to her blog... She refused...
Now whats wrong with this picture?
EVERYTHING, if I am asked (which is just about never, ergo - this blog)...the whole point of a blog is that you put up your knowledge, thoughts, feelings, emotions (and sometimes just cold logic) for the whole world to see. Why else would you post something that is so easily accessible to just about everybody who wants to go there... no passwords, no permissions and no restrictions to reading what's on.

Answer: Its a bit of a rush knowing that people you don't even know exist, can see whats up in your life, and have a look what you think is important and pertinent.
The problem, I guess, arises when people who you DO know... albeit vaguely, have access to that little piece of info... The one's who are close won't do anything about your personal ramblings... and the one's who aren't... CAN'T... Its the ones that fall in the middle who are the problem.

Here comes life's little paradoxes...

PS: i DID manage to get the aforementioned blog URL at the time of going to print of this post...

Cheers.

"Available" vs "Appear Offline"

Instant messaging is allowed on our office network. Agreed ours is one of the more liberal offices around (they have only just resorted to limiting one`s net connection, and that too not on the manager's network) ergo, Orkut, Gmail, Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo, Skype ... you name it, we can run it. No proxies, no web messengers, no trickery required.

Such easy access makes you wonder, isn't it great for the people you work with to have you accessible realtime, and yet with the option of shutting them out... conditional privacy.

So far as I can say, work is so much easier when people are in touch constantly... my gtalk is like a hotline to me. AND I can shut it off..AND  I can choose to ignore it...AND it is unobtrusive...(unlike my cell phone) All you need is the discipline to stay away from those frivolous chat sessions all the time (personally, I think a little bit of it here and there makes for a decent break)

To read more on it... see the WSJ's article on IM @ the workplace.

cheers.



--
"A career is a wonderful thing, but you can't snuggle up to it on a cold night."

What's YOUR Story

...thats the tagline for our current brand assignment : Filmaka

Made me wonder
what IS a story?

I did find out.. in fairly succinct terms, by way of an item in my inbox. here's the lowdown (courtesy of Copyblogger)

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
~Hannah Arendt

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.
~Robert McKee

It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is all about.
~Tom Brokaw

If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story.
~Barbara Greene

Don’t say the old lady screamed—bring her on and let her scream.
~Mark Twain

It’s not the college degree that makes a writer. The great thing is to have a story to tell.
~Polly Adler

A song ain’t nothin’ in the world but a story just wrote with music to it.
~Hank Williams, Sr.

Stories are the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.
~Howard Gardner, Harvard University

Stories tell us of what we already knew and forgot, and remind us of what we haven’t yet imagined.
~Anne Watson

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.
~Anthony de Mello

Small Car VS BIG Car Part 2

(ref. to part 1)

Here's what happens when small car FORGETS to stop in its tracks...

Green as Never Seen

Took the bus to Pune yesterday. Came back with the colour green imprinted on my cornea. There was so much of it. (when you could see through the fog, ie. )
Just like a walk, er, drive in the clouds.

Small Car vs BIG Car

Theres a Hummer in my building.. all bright and yellow.
Stopped in my tracks the first time I saw it (and the second, and the third, and so on) Now usually, I`m not a fan of the Behemoth automobiles. but what do you do if you see a mini-behemoth (this one's a baby hummer - an H3)

you guessed it... YOU STOP IN YOUR TRACKS
Absolutely stunning.

PS - Like with any other thing beautiful out there (including most women I know), I haven't been able to touch it yet. Just couldn't get myself to do it.

The Blogging Apple

Time to bite the blogging apple (and a couple of plums to boot) yet again. This here is my THIRD attempt at blogging... and consequently my third attempt at being regular at anything.

lessee how this one goes. me, no hopes from this one either...

cheerio.

PS: This time I am assisted by my trusty (and extremely capable) SE W810i. So expect a whole lot of pictures and comments on them.