7 years : time for a pat on the back

7 years : time for a pat on the back

This day, in '99, Vivek started his career with ITC at Bangalore. I complete mine on 5th July. I'm not sure why I'm writing this but on my ride back home today, I was just contemplating on what it has taken us to reach here and what lies ahead. Sometimes, when things go well, you take them for granted. 7 years is probably not a big accomplishment to write about, maybe it is. For you know, before we realize, it would be time to plan for retirement and calculate pension funds.

The vision of success will always be farfetched based on what you perceive as one. The parameters change with time but despite that V's career graph has been interesting to me - came with it unpredictable moves and risks. Its time to reminisce some of the decisive moments that catapulted the growth.

When everything was going exceptionally well for him at US, he decided to give it all up and move back to India. I wondered why? He has a way with words and reasoning that is convincing so long he is talking ..always has been that way :) "A house in the suburbs with white picket fence, a '93 Honda/Toyota to drive, a nomadic life with a consulting job, shopping in Walmart, aspirations for green card, 2 yearly ritual of traveling back home to visit eager parents and kids born in the US is not what my idea of a life is. I feel stifled with no growth path. Make your money and get out.", he said then and still maintains.
I found my answer recently through this post -
Time to quit? Seth writes beautifully it is time to get out when you start feeling comfortable. Which is exactly what happened then!

Calling it quits is perhaps the most difficult decision to make when you don't have to prove yourself anymore and feel secured. But then you've also hit the glass ceiling then!

Fostering relationships : I've known a very few people who would volunteer for a cut in their pay package to keep the team spirit alive. Again, I thought to myself "who does that? Why be so philanthropic?" Time just proves that I'm not mature and don't see the big picture. I've heard this often from him, "Businesses are built on people. And they need to be happy and passionate about what they do. That is the business of business. After a period, its not how much you know, its who you know." So I said to myself, "Well, its all about the relationships, stupid!"

Passion : Money matters. But its not always about the money. When passion takes precedence, everything else does not matter. My disenchantment with corporate life is no secret. So it remains a mystery how one can be so passionate about work all the time. Perhaps, freedom and authority is part of the answer. But it didn't come on a platter. For me, it has been nothing more than job - a means to get a paycheck every month. It goes way beyond that for him. And amazingly none of this has ever interfered with personal life. Call it work-life balance or whatever!


The journey continues...

Categories: work, career, relationship, passion

It's a GOAL !!!

In less than an hour, the hosts of World Cup 2006 meet Argentina in the first quarterfinal match. A big day. Will it be Argentina's moment - in revenge for the finals of 1990 World Cup?

This is going to be another Sports weekend. What with the World Cup quarterfinals, The Indianapolis Grand Prix and Wimbledon going on, its all about swapping between ESPN and Star Sports.

8 teams, 7 matches (not counting the third place) and 1 cup to win. The big question - who is going to be the winner on July 9th of World Cup 2006?

My predictions :

Germany vs Argentina --- Germany
Italy vs Ukraine --- Italy
England vs Portugal --- ???
Brazil vs France --- Brazil

I think the final showdown would be between the hosts and the reigning champion - Brazil. Slated for a repeat of 2002? Unlike last time, I don't want Brazil to win this World Cup. Germany is my all time favorite this year! Lets see if Klinsmann can make his boys pull the magic. Don't ya miss..catch the action.

Categories: 2006, worldcup, germany, fifa

5...4..3..2..1..Time to go home

5..4..3..2..1 My countdown of the hours left to go home starts everyday at 1:00 p.m. immediately after lunch. Poorly designed (not remotely ergonomic) chairs have made sitting for 9 hours impossible. Lack of basic facilities such as a microwave or fridge at workplace have made my pregnancy at work all the more pleasurable. This daily ritual seems like a self inflicted torture and is likely to continue for the next couple of months before I finally call it quits --ssshhhhhh and stay home forever.

4 years and going strong!

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary! Like I said last year, the cycle ride has been fun all along with its uncertainties, unpredictabilities, lots of changes this past year - the only difference being we are peddling a lil faster than before to keep it going. Sometimes, it takes days like this to remind you life is short and occasions such as these are far and few to celebrate. Without these days, life would be too mundane! And what a shame to treat a wonderful day such as this just like any other...

It has been a quiet day today unlike the past years. An uneventful day at work. Since I'm not allowed to have outside food, even the luxury of a nice dinner outside is off the table this year.

Categories: anniversary, marriage

Getting things done

"Getting things done" – easier said than done. The transition of my role from a technical/project lead to taking ownership of the PMO (Project Management Office) has brought a sea change in my job profile and responsibilities. It happened so quickly that one day I was monitoring the status of projects, resolving queries on Portfolio Management, muttering Java jargons and before I knew I was swarmed with metrics collection tasks and documents to courier – alright I’m not an administrative assistant, if that’s what you think!

The text book definition of "Project Management Office" is quite different from what I do in reality. Establishing, defining, monitoring and enforcing project management processes in an organization / project is for the guys who write books on PMO. In addition to all of this, in reality it is all about number crunching, a lot of coordination and getting things done from people. If there’s one thing I’ve learned these past 3 weeks, then it is how to be organized. All the GTD rules apply. And believe me, getting data from PMs is not easy. No amount of reminders work as walk to their cubicles.

I’ve not been much of a social person around here. This new role has got me out of my comfort zone a lil bit. The one thing I love about this job is the freedom, virtual teams, making presentations – in the style I want to and other things which I would have never got to do like reviewing contracts! On Presentations now – this time I experimented the Seth Godin / Lawrence Lessig style and was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Quite non-conventional- black/white color schema sans bullet points and a lot of visuals to reinforce my point – it’s not the B-School ishtyle.

Categories: pmo, presentation, gtd

Chaats - Eat healthy, live healthy

Chaats- read: fast food and healthy living just don't go together. But who cares about the calories when it tastes yummy! That's exactly what I did tonight - indulging in home made Pani Puris. Pune is very famous for its street corner shops that sell mouth watering Pani Puris and Bhel and I developed a taste for it. However, I prefer to keep a distance from anything cooked outside.

All I hear these days is this/that food is healthy, so much so that I have gone to averse to anything that comes in a nice packaging and is so called good such as "plums", "apples", "sprouts" ..you know the sorts.

Categories: food, healthy, living

Bringing kids to work?

Just for the record, I'm not on a frantic reading spree going thr stuff about to-be-moms and babies. Atleast not yet. Stumbled upon this link by chance Bringing kids to work? via Positive Sharing. Now, bringing babies to work does not seem like such a bad idea, if you like the place you work at or you need that paycheck desperately! Can't help thinking the reception such a policy would get in an organization like mine that houses close to 3000 odd people. Such a humanitarian thought and that too at cost to the employer is a possibility here? - STOP day dreaming and get back to work!