A software professional luks forward to very few things in life .. 1. Salary hikes 2. Year end Bonuses 3. Public Holidays 4. WEEKENDS .. (well this consensus has been taken from ppl who cud be categorized in the 'i hate to work but luv the paycheck' kind .. )
My education at NIT calicut has taught me many things .. miniature fonts to inculcate the whole syllabus in a piece of paper, work distribution( read as copy the assignments .. ) , proxy 'settings' (u do mine today .. i will do urs tomm .. ) .. but all this leads to the bigger picture .. SHIRK work .. i have to admit I am not the best at 'shirking' work .. my roomie is (Manjeri.. ) I am still learning the art from the maestro .. *grin*
enuf of the ramblings .. well we were (as usual) luking forward to yet another weekend of nothingness, laziness and yes of course - the CARLING cup final between Chelsea and Arsenal .. (these matches have a special significance at our abode coz Sharat is a 'die-hard' Arsenal fan and I am a ' not so die-hard' Chelsea fan ..
but to spoil the whole build-up, the Electricity board decides to do some maintanence work on THIS very Sunday .. and we are left in the 'dark' for the whole day .. we tried to 'kill' time .. play cricket, go to corner house (to see the birds) .. came bak home at 7 .. (the expected time for the game to start . )
no flickering lights .. no street lights even .. this power failure was getting under the skin. We decided to have dinner in a place where we could watch the match .. and off we went to all pausible and plausible places .. either no current .. or no cable .. we even tried the TATA sky showroom (to do some 'window fuball watching' .. but there it seems there is no Zee sports .. :(
we had almost given up hope .. wen suddenly the whole 'airport road' was illuminated .. and voila 'there was light' .. the first half was already over ... with the score .. 1-1 .. (drogba for chelsea and walcott for arsenal .. )
Once you reach a much sought after summit .. u kinda lose interest in that thing .. or suddenly it does not mean that much to u anymore .. (ever felt lik that ?? ) .. but no .. this time ..every minute was nerve-wrecking .. and exciting ... well to cut the long story short .. CHELSEA won ..2-1 .. (what else did u expect .. I wud not be blogging abt this otherwise ..*grin*!!)
Afterthought : Arsenal has some great talent coming up .. but lets hope they dont spoil the chelsea applecart anytime soon .. *fingers crossed* ..
Monday, February 26, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
Blood(y) diamonds
Well the past few days I have been pretty busy with preparation for my interviews .. I think I have learnt (read as by hearted) more abt EEE during these days than i did during 4 years in colg ..(but the profs always find a way to screw me up ..i guess thats wat a management degree can do to u ...) anyway i am digressing from the point ... well I decided enuf is enuf! lets go watch a movie ..
and before I knew whats happ .. I was in PVR buying tickets for the movie BLOOD DIAMONDS ..
Well i must admit that I was genuinely surprised (jealous) to see so many couples thronging the place to see this movie, wen there were so many 'boy meets girl-fall in love-parents fight-boy doesnt relent-hogi pyaar ki jeet ' kinda movies there .. Once the movie started the reasons were staring at me from the tinsel screen .. but more on that later ..
Well for people who have not seen the movie its abt illegal diamond trade (a very profitable business) and all the bigwigs in nexus to keep that trade route going, which requires them to indirectly create a civil war in Sierra leone .. has some pretty gory scenes .. (which i njoyed!! *grin) but all in all a Must watch movie ..
well back to the movie .. at a certain point of time in the movie, DiCaprio says " its people like the star eyed American woman who wants a diamond necklace for her wedding (and her subsequent aniversaries also !!) that creates a market for these diamonds " --- and that is the time when one amongst them .. (them = all the guys who had dilligently brought their girl friends along) decided to stand and state, " the next time you ask me for a diamond ring, I am goin to have to kill u" .. the whole crowd is amused and a lot of giggles all around..
spare a thought for that guy ... for all the bravado, he might have just shot himself on the foot .. forget the blood diamonds buddy .. one thing is for sure .. you will have a 'bloody nose' by the time you get home .. *grin*
So all guys who are not 'single' , hope you get the msg .. (coz i did not) and if not .. do go and watch the movie .. (for obvious reasons .. ) .. and for all the guys who are single, go watch the movie .. (the girls i mean !!) .. njoy !!
and before I knew whats happ .. I was in PVR buying tickets for the movie BLOOD DIAMONDS ..
Well i must admit that I was genuinely surprised (jealous) to see so many couples thronging the place to see this movie, wen there were so many 'boy meets girl-fall in love-parents fight-boy doesnt relent-hogi pyaar ki jeet ' kinda movies there .. Once the movie started the reasons were staring at me from the tinsel screen .. but more on that later ..
Well for people who have not seen the movie its abt illegal diamond trade (a very profitable business) and all the bigwigs in nexus to keep that trade route going, which requires them to indirectly create a civil war in Sierra leone .. has some pretty gory scenes .. (which i njoyed!! *grin) but all in all a Must watch movie ..
well back to the movie .. at a certain point of time in the movie, DiCaprio says " its people like the star eyed American woman who wants a diamond necklace for her wedding (and her subsequent aniversaries also !!) that creates a market for these diamonds " --- and that is the time when one amongst them .. (them = all the guys who had dilligently brought their girl friends along) decided to stand and state, " the next time you ask me for a diamond ring, I am goin to have to kill u" .. the whole crowd is amused and a lot of giggles all around..
spare a thought for that guy ... for all the bravado, he might have just shot himself on the foot .. forget the blood diamonds buddy .. one thing is for sure .. you will have a 'bloody nose' by the time you get home .. *grin*
So all guys who are not 'single' , hope you get the msg .. (coz i did not) and if not .. do go and watch the movie .. (for obvious reasons .. ) .. and for all the guys who are single, go watch the movie .. (the girls i mean !!) .. njoy !!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
L - lady to the rescue !!
hmm .. with all the feverish preparations and all the mock GD's at TIME and the mock(ing) interviews that my friends took for me .. it was time for destiny to play out its cruel hand .. (dont mind the overdramatization ...
the interview was to happen at Brigade Road .. (of all places in blore .. the place where a guy with a shirt and a tie sticks out like a sore thumb !!)
I always imagined myself as being the anamoly, the defector(the II types as they call them .. ) I entered the hall expecting the Einsteins and the edison's to be falling over one another .. but there sittin in front of me wer ppl whom I thought I could see only in the last benches of my alma mater .. NIT Calicut .. :D
The topics that we discussed sitting there in that half hour ranged from the abstract to the absurd .. but I must say, I did relish the conversations .. it was stress relieving ..
well to the GD .. it was topic based .. abt "Universities are what colleges become when the faculty loses interest in the students " .. talked around 4 times .. it was a 20 minute GD ..was almost asked to summarise .. (wel he asked number 5 to summarise(ME) .. then said .. no no .. number 6 .. :)
The interviews got under way pretty fast .. they seemed to be in a hurry to get rid of us .. I was the fifth to go in ..
Interviewer(s) : hello Raghav, please take a seat.
me: thank you sir. *phew* (this was not going to be a stress interview .. )
Interviewer: You are currently working at Motorola .. what do you do there ..
me: tell him abt my team and put in Vodafone and H3g .. hoping they wil ask me abt the Hutch deal .. but to no avail .. :(
I : who are your major competitors ?
Me : Samsung, LG and ofcourse Nokia, they are number 1 now but we plan to overtake them in another 234 days .. *watever*
I : [interested] how do you plan to do that ?
Me : give them a lot of BS abt low tier phones and Mid tier phones .. value for money .. customer satisfaction ..
I : why dont you want to enter the High tier ?? dont you think Indians can afford it ?? (insulted luk on her face)
Me : no no .. take for eg the Nokia N series .. its a 3G phone and half the features cant be used by a customer in India .. so there is no value for money for those phones in India right now ... once we have the 3G network up and running inIndia .. we wil challenge Nokia on that frontier as well ..
I : when will India get the 3G license ?
Me : [At last they ask me what I wanted] .. explain in detail .. coz i had prepared for this stuff..:D
I (male) : ok .. I want to know how many people in India would be owning two handsets ?
Me : sir .. err ...ballpark figure ?
I : [rephrases] ok .. if I pick 100 ppl in India at random, how many would have 2 handsets ?
Me : sir .. err .. out of the whole population ??
I : Yeah ..
Me : sir .. the 99.95% prob .. ZERO ..
I : ok, then among the populace that has a handset ??
Me : hmm .. again I think maybe out of 100, zero .. coz the whole market in India is for Low tier and Mid tier and these ppl do not have a use for their second handsets !!
I : [not to be outdone.. takes a paper and hides it .. and says] .. I have a survey with me which tells me the name of the country where the % of ppl who have two handsets is the highest .. can you tell me which country it is ?
Me : hmm .. if you take the whole populace .. I would think JAPAN . coz they are the pioneers in 4G ..
I : [huge grin on his face] .. NOPE .. your answer is wrong .. [luks at his counterpart .. to my dismay she was also njoying the joke .. ]
I(male) : ok .. you have learnt MATH .. in engg .. so you must have learnt Statistics .. ( a sense of deja vu anyone .. !!)
Me : [cautiously] .. yes sir .. I have learnt a little bit ..
I : ok .. tell me the diff between binomial distribution and Poison distribution ..
Me : [oh shit .!] .. hmm .. sir .. we have not learnt abt these distributions .. i know Normal, Chi Square ... and Students T distribution ... *thats all that I know abt distributions .. *
I : how is that possible .. Normal is derived from Binomial and Poisson ..
Me : (i am dead) .. well sir .. we learnt only to use Normal in practical situations like .. finding the errors .. levels of significance .. and explained abt 'alpha' and all .. and brought in 6 sigma into it .. [i dont remember how that dropped in though .]
I (female ) : [steps in] .. so who are the majors in 6 sigma .
Me : (bak to familiar teritory) ma'm .. MOTOROLA is the pioneer in 6 sigma .. other companies lik Honeywell et al also got it later on ..
I : ok .. can you name some non tech comp which is famous for 6 sigma ..? [giggles]
Me : [ I join the giggle] .. hmm .. [put up a show as if I am thinkin ] .. and yeah . i do .. is it the Bombay Dabbawalas ...
I (male) : [cuts in].. ok .. tell me what are the 14 principles of management ?
Me : [where the hell did this come from!!!] .. hmm .. err . . sirrr .. I dont remember them sir ..
I : how can that be .. you had a course on Principles of management !!
Me : hmm.. sir I cant recollect them right now ..
I : [scowl on his face..] .. ok tel me what is marginal utility ?
Me : hmm .. give him the definition .. (extra satisfaction got from that particular utility)
I : now .. wat is utility ??
Me : anything that satisfies the need or requirement .. eg.. a glass of water .. a candy bar..(smile at the female ..hoping she will rescue me .. )
I (female) : ok .. why do u want to do an MBA ..
Me : [thankful smile] .. loads of BS ..
I : who are Motorola's major partners ..
Me : talk abt Freescale and Beatnik .. and all .. both are disinterested .. and after some time .. they cut me off .. (frankly i did not want to stop .. didnt want any more acad questions .. )
I : thanks a lot .. you may leave and ask the next person .. ( by this time I am already at the door .. my hand on the door knob .. ) .. to come in after 3 minutes ..
Me : yes ma'm I will do that .. thanks a lot ma'm (and sir) !!!
so that was the end of that ... all in al . Lucknow was ok .. my friends had a lil bit of stress .. but they have the knack of catching you off guard by asking you things wen you least expect it .. lik askin a 5 year work ex guy abt his ACADS .. and a 6 month work ex guy (lik me ) abt my comp ..
Once outside the Hotel .. it was Valentines Day .. and I had a mission at hand .. to find myself a jailers daughter .. (not that I wanted to be a modern day Valentine or anythin .. but then seein all the chics all dressed up and cooin with their bf's at brigade can get your hearts racing .. )
I ended up spending the rest of my day at office .. so that explains how gud a 'valentine hunter' I am rite .. *grin*
the interview was to happen at Brigade Road .. (of all places in blore .. the place where a guy with a shirt and a tie sticks out like a sore thumb !!)
I always imagined myself as being the anamoly, the defector(the II types as they call them .. ) I entered the hall expecting the Einsteins and the edison's to be falling over one another .. but there sittin in front of me wer ppl whom I thought I could see only in the last benches of my alma mater .. NIT Calicut .. :D
The topics that we discussed sitting there in that half hour ranged from the abstract to the absurd .. but I must say, I did relish the conversations .. it was stress relieving ..
well to the GD .. it was topic based .. abt "Universities are what colleges become when the faculty loses interest in the students " .. talked around 4 times .. it was a 20 minute GD ..was almost asked to summarise .. (wel he asked number 5 to summarise(ME) .. then said .. no no .. number 6 .. :)
The interviews got under way pretty fast .. they seemed to be in a hurry to get rid of us .. I was the fifth to go in ..
Interviewer(s) : hello Raghav, please take a seat.
me: thank you sir. *phew* (this was not going to be a stress interview .. )
Interviewer: You are currently working at Motorola .. what do you do there ..
me: tell him abt my team and put in Vodafone and H3g .. hoping they wil ask me abt the Hutch deal .. but to no avail .. :(
I : who are your major competitors ?
Me : Samsung, LG and ofcourse Nokia, they are number 1 now but we plan to overtake them in another 234 days .. *watever*
I : [interested] how do you plan to do that ?
Me : give them a lot of BS abt low tier phones and Mid tier phones .. value for money .. customer satisfaction ..
I : why dont you want to enter the High tier ?? dont you think Indians can afford it ?? (insulted luk on her face)
Me : no no .. take for eg the Nokia N series .. its a 3G phone and half the features cant be used by a customer in India .. so there is no value for money for those phones in India right now ... once we have the 3G network up and running inIndia .. we wil challenge Nokia on that frontier as well ..
I : when will India get the 3G license ?
Me : [At last they ask me what I wanted] .. explain in detail .. coz i had prepared for this stuff..:D
I (male) : ok .. I want to know how many people in India would be owning two handsets ?
Me : sir .. err ...ballpark figure ?
I : [rephrases] ok .. if I pick 100 ppl in India at random, how many would have 2 handsets ?
Me : sir .. err .. out of the whole population ??
I : Yeah ..
Me : sir .. the 99.95% prob .. ZERO ..
I : ok, then among the populace that has a handset ??
Me : hmm .. again I think maybe out of 100, zero .. coz the whole market in India is for Low tier and Mid tier and these ppl do not have a use for their second handsets !!
I : [not to be outdone.. takes a paper and hides it .. and says] .. I have a survey with me which tells me the name of the country where the % of ppl who have two handsets is the highest .. can you tell me which country it is ?
Me : hmm .. if you take the whole populace .. I would think JAPAN . coz they are the pioneers in 4G ..
I : [huge grin on his face] .. NOPE .. your answer is wrong .. [luks at his counterpart .. to my dismay she was also njoying the joke .. ]
I(male) : ok .. you have learnt MATH .. in engg .. so you must have learnt Statistics .. ( a sense of deja vu anyone .. !!)
Me : [cautiously] .. yes sir .. I have learnt a little bit ..
I : ok .. tell me the diff between binomial distribution and Poison distribution ..
Me : [oh shit .!] .. hmm .. sir .. we have not learnt abt these distributions .. i know Normal, Chi Square ... and Students T distribution ... *thats all that I know abt distributions .. *
I : how is that possible .. Normal is derived from Binomial and Poisson ..
Me : (i am dead) .. well sir .. we learnt only to use Normal in practical situations like .. finding the errors .. levels of significance .. and explained abt 'alpha' and all .. and brought in 6 sigma into it .. [i dont remember how that dropped in though .]
I (female ) : [steps in] .. so who are the majors in 6 sigma .
Me : (bak to familiar teritory) ma'm .. MOTOROLA is the pioneer in 6 sigma .. other companies lik Honeywell et al also got it later on ..
I : ok .. can you name some non tech comp which is famous for 6 sigma ..? [giggles]
Me : [ I join the giggle] .. hmm .. [put up a show as if I am thinkin ] .. and yeah . i do .. is it the Bombay Dabbawalas ...
I (male) : [cuts in].. ok .. tell me what are the 14 principles of management ?
Me : [where the hell did this come from!!!] .. hmm .. err . . sirrr .. I dont remember them sir ..
I : how can that be .. you had a course on Principles of management !!
Me : hmm.. sir I cant recollect them right now ..
I : [scowl on his face..] .. ok tel me what is marginal utility ?
Me : hmm .. give him the definition .. (extra satisfaction got from that particular utility)
I : now .. wat is utility ??
Me : anything that satisfies the need or requirement .. eg.. a glass of water .. a candy bar..(smile at the female ..hoping she will rescue me .. )
I (female) : ok .. why do u want to do an MBA ..
Me : [thankful smile] .. loads of BS ..
I : who are Motorola's major partners ..
Me : talk abt Freescale and Beatnik .. and all .. both are disinterested .. and after some time .. they cut me off .. (frankly i did not want to stop .. didnt want any more acad questions .. )
I : thanks a lot .. you may leave and ask the next person .. ( by this time I am already at the door .. my hand on the door knob .. ) .. to come in after 3 minutes ..
Me : yes ma'm I will do that .. thanks a lot ma'm (and sir) !!!
so that was the end of that ... all in al . Lucknow was ok .. my friends had a lil bit of stress .. but they have the knack of catching you off guard by asking you things wen you least expect it .. lik askin a 5 year work ex guy abt his ACADS .. and a 6 month work ex guy (lik me ) abt my comp ..
Once outside the Hotel .. it was Valentines Day .. and I had a mission at hand .. to find myself a jailers daughter .. (not that I wanted to be a modern day Valentine or anythin .. but then seein all the chics all dressed up and cooin with their bf's at brigade can get your hearts racing .. )
I ended up spending the rest of my day at office .. so that explains how gud a 'valentine hunter' I am rite .. *grin*
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