While growing up I was a complan girl and was told by my parents that coffee was not good for kids. I was not a big fan of complan. During my childhood, daily in the morning I pretended to sleep even when I woke up early in the morning only to procrastinate drinking a cup of complan. However I overcame this feeling when complan mango shake was introduced. huh it was a big relief !
The yellow colored cup with a fancy sipper for complan mango shake was a good marketing magic to attract the kids then.

Slowly I started drinking 1 cup of coffee in the morning. But I always knew my limits and I also never liked drinking it more than once. When I got a chance to be part of Isha Yoga’s inner engineering program, I learnt that caffeine randomly activates our nervous system in the morning. Since I liked the program, I also had a great respect for whatever that was taught and followed it until 3 months before. But unfortunately the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, while sipping it with lot of enjoyment has made me feel extra energetic and has become indispensable component in my life now.

Most of the days I drink 2 cups of coffee. When I start my work in the morning, the first thing I do is to get a cup of coffee without which I feel my desk is empty.

I am afraid that I would become addicted to coffee and would become an
“avid coffee drinker” :(

Philosophy ?

For a while now, I have been having a lot of philosophical thoughts. My perspective towards many things has been very philosophical. I could also say living and believing practicality. Sometimes the result of extensive thinking has even lead to confused thinking.

I have this habit of looking back about how a particular day was a year back and get thrilled of all the events that take place in the due course. Today when I look back, I am very convinced that today is a gift compared to the day it was a year back. This might also be the result of thinking that everyday is a gift.

One thing that I have been wondering about life is, things that we want to happen are the ones that happen at a later point of time when we least expect them to happen. By then we get tired of dreaming and move on. Usually our mind starts to think “why did this not happen at the time we want them to happen...?” Well how nice it would be to get things at the time when we want them. The timely gift always gives immense pleasure and is also very memorable.But we know the fact that things don't happen at the time we want and when they happen at the time that we don’t want, we get mad. I have an answer for every question that arises within me. “Probably everything that happens has a good reason behind it”.

One other thing that I wonder is, there would have been times in our life when we would have missed to enjoy very small things. Those are the things that we gain interest at a later point of time and then we feel bad for having missed it before. For instance most of us are very cautious about our food habits and would have avoided eating many food stuffs. Unfortunately we gain interest when we don’t get them to eat anymore :(
I remember the days when I haven’t showed any interest in eating. Now I really miss boiled sweet potato, boiled peanuts, vazhappoo, vazhathandu, palakottai sambar(jackfruit seeds), ladies finger. We don’t realize the value of anything until we have and miss them like hell when we don’t have them. That’s life I guess!
So now, I relish everything that I have and enjoy everyday.

By having a lot of practical and philosophical discussions within myself, I realize that my perception towards life has changed a lot. When I get a feeling that I am being fooled or taken for granted or when people irritate me, I have an answer to put down my fuming feelings. I just cannot tolerate at those times but I tell to myself that it matters more what I think about myself rather than what others do. Well, most of the times this has a very good effect cuz this attitude helps me to refrain from reacting for most of the situations. According to me response to a stimulus triggers the effect to be more and this forms a chain reaction.

I am not sure why I started writing about this.

Am I confused ? May be Yes or may be No.

Am I very practical ? May be Yes or may be No.

The power of good deeds

A poor wood-cutter was on his way home, after a long, hard day’s work in the forest. On his head he carried a big bundle of wood – the fruit of his toil.

On the lonely forest track that evening, he saw a tapasvi, a holy man, coming towards him. Courteously, he stepped aside to let the holy man pass.

“Drop the bundle down!” the holy man said to the wood cutter.

Astonished, as well as puzzled, the poor man did as he was told.

“Untie the knot!” came the next instruction.

Lo and behold! As the bundle was untied, a deadly, venomous snake came out of the logs. The wood-cutter shrieked with fear and horror at the sight of the snake but it crept away quietly into the undergrowth and disappeared.

Still shaking with fright, the wood-cutter fell at the feet of the holy man.

“Master!” he exclaimed, “You saved my life!”

“You are mistaken,” replied the holy man quietly. “Tell me, did you perform a good deed today?”

“Alas master! All day long I worked hard cutting wood! It is not for humble ones like me to perform good deeds,” replied the wood cutter.

“Think again,” urged the holy man. “You must have done something special today!”

The man’s eyes widened in remembrance. “O master! I grew hungry and I sat down to eat my meal. I had two rotis with me. As I began to eat, a poor man came by. He told me he had not eaten for the last two days – poor soul! I shared one of my rotis with him. Apart from this, I have performed no good deed at all!”

The holy man blessed the poor wood-cutter.

“Brother,” he said, ‘today, you were to die of this snake. But your good deed has saved you from death, and blessed you with a new lease of life!”

Change in Homepage?

The look and feel of the Google homepage has been changed since yesterday. Did you notice the elongated search box and the keywords that we enter are in bigger font size?

When I first saw the page, it appeared as though it had a UI defect. I was under the impression that some developer had missed to apply style sheet and deployed it into production server when he was half asleep.

Later I realized that it was a ‘CHANGE’.

I don’t like it. :(

Sweet Spot

Few days back I had a technical discussion with my developer and the client on one of the critical projects that I am working for currently. My developer (hereafter referred to as ‘SA’) is a very sincere person who always aims for quality deliverable and also puts the best effort to meet deadlines. My client is a very systematic person who works in early bird schedule. So a technical discussion in the night is obviously an irritating thing for him. Unfortunately the discussion exceeded the scheduled time and SA was not convinced with the discussion. The more he was trying to clarify, the client was becoming impatient. Unexpectedly the discussion was not very fruitful.

I spoke to my SA immediately after the call and explained to him that it was right to focus on the client’s needs rather than giving a best solution for long term when the client is ready to rework after a while. I understood SA’s intentions that he wants to give a best solution rather than thinking short term solution.

A few days back I had another discussion with my supervisor. We were talking about different resources who report to me. He commented about SA that it was very tough to work with him and there were few people who haven’t preferred to work with this person. Hence he was trying to find out if I faced a similar situation. I said my relationship with my team is absolutely fine and I am satisfied with SA’s work too.

The point that my supervisor conveyed to me was, sometimes people become unhappy when the person works beyond what is expected. It was the same problem with SA. He worked so passionately that he doesn’t deliver until he is satisfied with the quality.
I said that was the quality that I was very impressed about SA and I am fine with that.

This lead to a discussion on one of the articles my CEO had written about ‘Sweet Spot’.

Here is a Venn diagram that shows the sweet spot:

The highlighted region is the sweet spot.
A- refers to company
B- refers to Personal Interests of an employee
C- refers to employee’s strengths

Sweet spot is defined as a region which helps an individual grow along with the organization's growth. A person has to have the caliber to do something; the one that interests him and is expected by the company showcases him as a talented person.

Having strengths but no interest; having interest but struggling to do a task; having interest and strengths but doesn’t meet the company’s needs are 3 combinations that make a person unsuccessful.

In the case of SA, he has high caliber and interest but most of the times doesn’t meet the expectation set by the company/client, rather exceeds them resulting in dissatisfaction.

I defended SA because I have never let down any of those who have worked with me so far. I know the fact about sweet spot but did not completely agree with my supervisor because I have been in similar situations before.

This discussion reminded me of 2 incidents in my life.

Incident 1:I had a very tough time before I found my best first job. I applied for a job position for one of the telecom giants based out of madras. There were 8000 candidates who had applied for the same job position. After having attended many interviews and knowing the time that it was a recession, I had very less expectations when I went to the aptitude test. I did my best and was very happy to know that I cleared the test. I then had a technical assessment which covered almost all the areas of engineering concepts. I was delighted to hear the results that I passed the test. Immediately there were 2 technical discussions on the same day. I was little bit nervous but slowly my expectations and confidence were building very fast. Both the interviews went on very well and I was waiting to hear the results again. Imagine the mental state of a person who had to hold the breath several times on the same day. I was informed that I cleared the interviews as well.

From the 8000 that appeared for the selection process, only 42 were selected after the technical discussions. After a weeks time, there was a HR interview and I got to know from sources that they were going to select only 35 of us. My interview went on well. I was very sure that I would be selected. But to my dismay I was told that I was one among the 7 who were rejected. Also the HR added to the point that those who were rejected don’t mean that they are not capable but their strengths does not fit in the company’s expectations J

Oh what a diplomatic way of conveying! Isn’t it? But that moment was very hard to digest and I was dejected. It took me at least a week’s time to think about the next step. But that was when I realized that there is going to be some other time in my life when my strengths would be recognized by someone else.

My thinking was true. I continued to put in my effort and was offered 2 jobs from leading companies at the same time.

Incident 2: There was a time when I used to work for a very critical project in my company. We had very odd working hours. Some of us used to work crazily and hardly had time to sleep. My superior was a person who was never satisfied with the work delivered. He was always a person who pointed out the scope for improvement. Sometimes when there was a delay in best of intentions to deliver quality product, it was often mistook as deliberate delay to let my superior down. How disgusting!

Soon after that project was completed, I moved onto a different team. Surprisingly for the same amount of effort that I had put earlier, I was appreciated at least once in a day. How funny life was!

My grandpa thought me a very important lesson to me. Tough times in a person’s life are inevitable. One has to suffer and get through those times. But when one continues to do good they will be rewarded the best during one’s best times…..wondering why? Its for the best deeds accumulated.

The lesson that life thought me many times was continued effort, good thought and good work will be appreciated one day or the other and I firmly believe it till day.

I also believe this holds good for many situations and relationships in our life.

So coming back to the original point, I planned to send appreciations for SA because one of the tasks that he had worked was highly appreciated by the client.

Pippa's song

The last time when I posted, I forgot to include these lines from Pippa's song by Robert Browning.

God does everything for a reason and we realise it later.well, there is a lot to be written here but I am not very good in expressing. Here you go and its self explanatory.

The year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his Heaven --All's right with the world!