Sleep@Work

The time on the bottom right corner of the computer screen reads 1pm indicating that it is lunch time and we need to have our daily dose of food and gossip in the workplace cafeteria. After spending an hour at the cafe, discussing the performance of the Indian Cricket team, talking of the new girl in the office next door and of course the usual management bashing ( in between all this you are also stuffing something in the mouth apparently called food), it is time to head back to the workstation for the actual work. Check your mailbox for an elusive mail from your friends and then you try to immerse yourself into your work.

Couple of minutes into work, the eyes seem heavy and you don't seem to be able to concentrate on work . You feel drowsy and dull ..... Nothing to panic.. Just that the afternoon siesta is calling you :) . And you start wondering, I wish my work place had a policy whereby I could sleep for 1 hour post lunch and then get back to work. Even better the office should make it mandatory for all employees and arrange for chairs which could be designed to converted into beds . Or arrange for a sleeping room much like a sports room, meeting room, conference room.

Well if you are the typical Office worker who can easily connect to what is happening above, you now have a solution in Nap pods . A company now provides a new service where employees of a company can take a siesta in a specially designed chair called NAPpods. The new addition to the pod family will improve productivity ,claims that the company manufacturing the sleep pods . ( Any surprises that the idea originated from an Indian :) ) . So first we had Free Lunch/Coffee, then we had recreation room, then Gym and Fitness trainers and now nap pods ......what can be the next thing on the improving employee productivity/satisfaction? Well Beer on the house everyday instead of the usual Water cans/Coffee maker ? :) .... The men will surely queue up for this one.........

Organizational Fundas :X,Y and Z

Company X : The company wants to recruit only the best in class people in order to bring out the top of the breed solutions to manage businesses and clients. So the company only hires those who have "consistent" Academic performance right from school . A lot of them outside (and even inside) the organization X scoff at this eligiblity criteria and say this is crap and education does not matter in the real world and it is the experience and skills that matter

Company Y : The outside people who criticize the company X includes people working in this organization. This company believes in hiring for skills and attitude and cares a damn about the educational qualifications, the reputation of the school/college.The only thing it looks for is : Can this person work for Project A which upcoming and is in urgent need for resources.

Now person Z joins company Y from Company X( having been recruited by X based on the "stringent" conditions) thinking that probably the "outside" people are right and all that one needs is the right skills. (Can't blame Z . The grass always appears greener on the other side).

6 months into company Y, Z realizes the importance of what X is doing. X by virtue of recruiting consistent individuals( the criteria though is debatable) ensures that it has a homogenous set of people who are willing to work hard for success thereby reducing the managerial overheads. MORE importantly Z realizes that X company has a vision , has leaders whose foot steps can followed to move up the value chain. This is because the people whom X recruited as consistent performers are the ones who have turned out to be effective leaders and are willing learn from anyone and anybody to succeed against all obstacles. ( in short they are the fire in the belly kind of guys ).

Why is Z thinking of all this ? Well, Y company has a bunch of experienced folks who call themselves leaders and managers and are trying to lead the way. Unfortunately there is no vision, no direction and no proactive future planning. The basic tenet a leader must have is the ability to think ahead and proactively forsee the problems. Alas.. the leaders of Y do not have any of this and even the middle management starts thinking .time to move on...... .This leaves Z thinking Should I move back to X ???

PS : X is easily recognizable, Y and Z are confidential for obvious reasons.

Jahnavi Kapoor Et al.....

The most celebrated wedding in India's modern history finally got over and the poor Media frankly did not get much sound bites thanks to the Amitabh ji decision to keep the whole affair private. But media is well.. media,and so it finally got the sensational bite needed when a little known "model" and "actress" Jahnvi Kapoor barged into the media conclave near Partiksha, the home of the Bacchans and claimed that Abhishek was indeed her beau. Now don't ask me which movie or ad has this person acted in. (Apparently she danced in the movie Dus with Abhi, did we even notice?)

So what happens to people like Jahnvi Kapoor ( or Naina or Haya god knows how many names she has) who forsake everything they earned so far ( not that she had earned anything substantial money or otherwise) for a 2 day fame/publicity. Over the next 2 days, the media will go gaga looking for her antecedents and precedents, try to prove/disprove her claim, some will come out in support of her, others will mock her. But after the initial brouhaha is over, Jahnvi kapoor and others like her will once again lead the life of obscurity with a lot of the people trying to avoid her and not wanting to do anything with her. Her Sobriquet would change from "one who acted in the Movie Dus" to " One who claimed to the actual bahu in waiting" to Bollywood's first family.

So is it all worth it ? If there is some truth the claims made, then it is truly worth it. Remember Udit Nayaran ?He had to accept that he indeed had another wife in Ranjana Jha and had to accord legal status to her. But the Abhi-Jahnvi case here mostly does not any ground. So long Jahnvi... if all you needed was some publicity and fame, you have got it from Aaj tak, TimesNow and the hundreds of blogs like this one.

The Karan And Sweta Nanda Gimmick

Last month NDTV started a new series "NextGen" ,hosted by Sweta Bachchan Nanda, the daughter of apna Bollywood's first family. The only bachchan not to have faced the arc lights as yet, I guess simply could not resist it anymore . So the first show had her interviewing Karan Johar which must have a ploy by NDTV to make Sweta comfortable since the Johars and Karan in particular are known to the Bachchans since the 1970s. Sweta I feel needs to fine tune her interviewing skills, but she did ok for a first timer .

Coming to the point here, this week Sweta Nanda will be on the Koffee with Karan ( produced by KBalaji KTelefilms??), the filmy talk show hosted by none other than Karan Johar. So what's happening here ? Exchange offer?. The "I will feature in your show and you feature in my show" seems rather self promotive with each of hosts/guests trying to get the publicity and eyeballs .Or is it a larger pact between NDTV and Star TV, the one time partners who are now competitors ? While there is nothing wrong in doing something like this, atleast some of the viewers will surely feel they are being taken for a ride. I mean how can the questions asked in the talk show/interview be realistic when you the guest/interviewer have known each other since they were kids. Obviously some of the uncomfortable questions will never be asked ( Like Karan being a Feminine sex symbol. Any comments ?) ?

So when it comes talk shows, I have always loved the one hosted by another Karan on CNBC. Karan Thapar's no non-sense approach even with people of the Stature of Vijaya Mallaya makes an interesting watch.

Moods Bangalore - Hyderabad Express !!

Laloo Yadav's dream of churning millions of rupees from the eternally loss making Indian Railways has brought in yet another first time in the world innovation. Well I am talking of branded trains with the first branded train "Kurkare Express" chugging out of Bangalore last week with the Kurkare ads painted on all the train bogies,tickets and wherever possible (and profitable) . So is this yet another Laloo gimmick or does it have some commerical value ?

Well if the experiment leads to greater sales of Kurkare and many more snacks in the Rural areas, then expect many more brands like Brittania ( Tiger Express), Tata Teleservices ( Idea Express) or who knows even Moods Express or the Kamasutra Express to chug along on the tracks.The experiment could also be a godsend for passengers looking for quality snacks while travelling in trains. Currently we train passengers are subject to cheap mimics of the top snack brands with the hawkers selling us "Kukare Chips", "Milky Biks" and "Dream Treats" biscuits and Even "Amul Chasti"s. From now on, if someone is travelling in Tiger Express , he could be exclusively sold only Tiger and Brittania snacks.Also it would be a wonderful if Pizza Hut or Mcdonald can have a Pizza Hut express or McD express on sectors like Bangalore-Mysore ,Bangalore-Chennai which have a lots of trains running in the day time. At present, lots of these trains offer cheaply made idly sambars, dosas and Samosa which are not worth the money in terms of hygiene, taste and Quality. So if train branding can be combined with exclusive marketing tie-ups, I believe this will be a truely successful endeavor. Are the Food Retail chains and snackers listening ?

American Dream...

Was reading the Rita Chaudary Article in The Sunday Times of India on the Great American Dream gone sour. The crux of the article was that there are hundreds of Illegal immigrants in the US who have gone on Tourist Visa but stayed on in the hope of getting the coveted Green Card and are now working in hotels as cheap labourers. Don't want to sound racist here(In fact I am a big fan of Gujju entrepeneurship) but the names given in the article suggested that the majority come from the Dhirubhai land. Now these immigrants cannot go back to India to meet their near and Dear ones even on short term visits as getting out of the American continent implies Deportation forever. Therefore there people have stayed in the US for years now surviving on phone calls and Pictures.

What was surprising was the tone of the article sounded as if the author was sympatizing these immigrants for not having met there kids/parents for years. But do they really deserve this sympathy ? I mean what is making these people enter legally a country and then stay on illegally for ever ? Who is responsible for there illegal status ? Certainly not the United States government. It is they themselves who came in on the Tourist visa and decided to stay on by doing petty jobs. Agreed that some of these illegal immigrants have made it big in the Land of Opporunities my owning Hotel/Motel chains but that is a miniscule percentage. ( I can vouch for this personally as I have visited motels in the US where the caretakers/room cleaners are all migrants from India legal or illegal with the Americans/Desis managing/owning the hotel) .

So let's not sympathize with these illegal migrants ( mind you I have no issues if you about migrating legally by taking the H1B-GC route). BUt I cannot vouch for Indians who work all night in gas stations at the minimum wages and aim to stay on in the hope of making it big once the "Green" signal is given by the US immigration Authorities. While this could have made sense in the 1970s , the current economic environment in India provides enough oppurunities to the willing entrepeneurs . So let us not waste our productive years in dreaming to make it big in the land of opporunities. Rather let's make the land we are born in the NEXT land of Opporunities.

Buses, Beer and Brawls :)

Had the chance to board a City transport bus (aka Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation bus in Namma Bengalooru, BEST in mumbai) after quite a long time yesterday. It was a late night (by Bangalore's standards) trip at around 10pm and as usual the occupants of the bus included people who had just had the daily dosage of Beers and spirits . Add to that the bus was jam packed with people jostling and strugling for every inch of space.

So in comes the conductor ( not as in the Music bands), the quintessential khaki clad Ticket issuer and money collector. ( They call him Conductor.. may be because he conducts tickets/money across the bus. ). The conductor also ensures that people don't stand on the bus doors Footboarding and also creates space(creative isn't it) by pushing and shooving the commuters together thereby aggravating already smelly sweaty situation the standing passengers are in. In his space creation endeavor, the ticket issuer (conductor if u like ), inadvertantly pushes one of the " Beer spirited " passengers . And there starts the verbal dual.

Spirited Drunkard (mostly a Migrant bhaiya ji from UP/bihar): Kyon dhakka de rahe ho bhai ??
conductor(in broken hindi) : door pe kada ho.. baaki log ko jagah do ?
Spirited Drunkard: Sarkari bus hai. Jahan chahiye wahan kade rahenge.
conductor(in broken hindi) : Bus sarkari hai lekin hum bus ke conductor hai .Jaise hum bolenge waise hoga
Spirited Drunkard: Humhe nahi hilenge
Another passenger jumps in support of our Conductor : arey bhai kyon halla kar rahe ho. Kaam karne do Conductor "saab" ko
Conductor with an Inflated Ego(saab effect) to the whole bus : pata nahi kahan kahan se log aathe hai . Dimaag ka dahi banathe hai. Khud to kaam nahi karthe, humhe nahi karne dete
Spirited Drunkard :Mumbles something to which noone is listening to

The driver on hearing the high pitch drama slows the bus and asks " Kaun hai? Yeh kya ho raha hai ?? ". By now someone in the inside the bus who is comfortably sitted has had enough of high volume shouts and chips in " Chup karo and Driver ko gaadi chalane do. Late ho jayega"

Couple of others shout their frustration on the Drunkard and ask him to keep quite. The Drunkard mumbles on, but onone cares.The bus chugs along and the conductor resumes his pushy duty.