Everything in life has a beautiful ending. If it isn't beautiful, then be sure its still not the ending. Its just the beginning.
Just a thought: A man who spends some time on his knees for prayer infront of GOD, does not fine it difficult to stand on his feet in his life!!
A true friend is one who knows you are crying & finds your tears even when you are walking in the rain.
God's blessing may come as a surprise & how much we receive depends on how much our heart believes HIM. May you be blessed beyond what you expect..
Sometimes the smallest of gestures go right to the heart...
* A smile from a stranger when you are lost in the crowd,
* An old friend calling from a distant land just to say "I MISS U",
* The touch of your mother's hand on your brow when you are unable to sleep,
* A meassage from a friend, asking whats wrong when you thought none noticed,
* And a hand on your shoulder when it feels like the world is against you,
* An unexpected hug,
sometimes its the tiniest of things that brings a smile...
Everything about the future is uncertain but one thing is sure, GOD has already arranged all our tomorrows and we have to act accordingly to it..
3 things in life once gone never come back
1. Words
2. Opportunity
3. Time
3 things in life are never sure
1. Dream
2. Success
3. Luck
3 things in life that makes you great person
1. Hardwork
2. Sincerity
3. Success
3 things in life are most valueable
1. Love
2. Self Respect
3. Friends
The richest man in the world is not the one who still has the first dollar he ever earned. Its the man who still has his first friend, he ever made!!!
Luck has a peculiar habit of favouring those who dont depend on it..
Never search your happiness in others which will make you to feel alone. But search it in yourself, you will feel happy even when you are left alone!!
Time can make us forget some memories. But there are some memories which make us forget time. And those memories make life sweeter ;-) ..
Life never seems to be the way we want it, but we live it in the best way we can. There is no perfect life but we can fill it with perfect moments.
Speak less to people whom you love the most, because if they cannot understand your silence they will never understand your words.
I cant really choose people who come into my life. But I can always choose those who should stay. Because I know they are worth keeping. Just like U.
Beautiful pictures are develpoed by negative in a dark room so if you see darkness in your life then assume that GOD is making a beautiful picture for you.
Follow 2 things in life for best LOVE and AFFECTION,
1. Dont talk if you are angry.
2. Dont take the word seriously from the one is angry.
Expectations are the cause of disappointments. So, never expect anything in your life. Just accept as it comes & be happy.
Dont search love, let love find you. Thats why it is called falling in love, Coz you dont force yourself to fall, you just fall & there will be someone to catch you.
Do not expect much from others & get disappointed, but do not disappoint whose who expect much from you.
Give the oppurtunity for someone to love you the most, you will know how special you are!!
Take the oppurtunity to love someone the most, you will know how wonderful life is...
Life is not a rehearsal. Each day is a new show, no repeat, no rewind, give your best shot in all your acts, as the show goes on & on.
Some of the best moments in life...
> Lying in bed listening to the rain outside,
> Thinking about the person you love,
> Taking a long drive on a calm road,
> Finding money in your old jeans just when you need it,
> Giggling naughtily,
> Holding hands with your friend,
> Getting a hug from someone you love,
> The moment your eyes are filled with tears after a big laugh...
You learn to love someone when you find out what makes them smile but you can never truly love someone until you find out what makes them cry.
Life doesnt give you the people you want. Instead it gives you the one who need to teach u, to hurt u, to love u and to make you exactly the way you should be the best.
If you keep waiting for just the right time, you may never begin. Begin from where u are, with what u are & with what u have..thats life.
Be careful to whom you give your heart, coz when you give your heart to someone, you are not only giving that person the right to love you, but also the power to hurt you.
Last but not least...
Dont care for someone to an extent that you miss that person...but care to that extect that the person doesnt wish to loose you...
Monday, February 26, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
IT Survivors - Staying Alive In a Software Job.... Written by Harshad Oak
Before I started working for myself, I spent some years in some of the top IT companies in India and still have many friends working in various software companies. I wrote a blow recruiting like crazy, about the same time last year about how Indian companies are recruiting like there's no tomorrow and the possible consequences. However I was avoiding writing this particular piece as it seems like an unpatriotic thing to do, to tell the world how bad the working conditions in software companies in India have become. And there 's always the risk of excerpts being used out of context to bash up IT in India .
I am now writing this because I just keep hearing horror tales from the industry and it doesn't seem like anything is being done in the matter, so I thought I will do my bit and write.
First and foremost, before stereotypes about India kick in, I would like to clarify that I am not saying that Indian software companies are sweat shops where employees aren't being paid and made to work in cramped uncomfortable places. The pay in software companies is very good as compared to other industries in India and the work places are generally well furnished and plush offices. India being a strong democracy, freedom of expression is alive and well and Indians are free to express their opinions and voice their concerns. Yet, I say that the software industry is exploiting its employees.
IT work culture in India is totally messed up and has now started harming the work culture of the nation as a whole. Working 12+ hours a day and 6 or even 7 days a week is more the rule than the exception.
Consequences:
·A majority of IT people suffer from health problems. As most of the IT workforce is still very young, the problem isn't very obvious today but it will hit with unbearable ferocity when these youngsters get to their 40s.
· Stress levels are unbelievable high. Stress management is a cover topic in magazines and newspapers and workshops on the subject are regularly overbooked.
· Most IT people have hardly any social / family life to talk of.
· As IT folk are rich by Indian standards, they try to buy their way out of their troubles and have incurred huge debts by buying expensive houses, gizmos and fancy cars.
Plush offices, fat salaries and latest gizmos can give you happiness only if you have a life in the first place.
The reason I feel this culture has emerged, is the servile attitude of the companies. Here 's a tip for any company in the west planning to outsource to India . If you feel that a project can be completed in 6 weeks by 4 people, always demand that it be completed in 2 weeks by 3 people.
Guess what, most Indian companies will agree. The project will then be hyped up as an "extremely critical" one and the 3 unfortunate souls allocated to it will get very close to meeting the almighty by the time they deliver the project in 2 weeks. Surprisingly, they will deliver in 2-3 weeks, get bashed up for any delays and the company will soon boast about how they deliver good quality in reasonable time and cost. Has anyone in India ever worked on a project that wasn't "extremely critical"?
I was once at a session where a top boss of one of India’s biggest IT firms was asked a question about what was so special about their company and his answer was that we are the "Yes" people with the "We Can Do It” attitude. It is all very well for the top boss to say "We Can Do It "... What about the project teams who wish to say "Please....We Can't Do It” to the unreasonable timelines...I was tempted to ask "What death benefits does your company offer to the teams that get killed in the process?". I sure was ashamed to see that a fellow Indian was openly boasting about the fact that he and his company had no backbone. The art of saying No or negotiating reasonable time frames for the team is very conspicuous by its absence. Outsourcing customers more often than not simply walk all over Indian software companies. The outsourcer surely cannot be blamed as it is right for him to demand good quality in the least cost and time.
Exhaustion = Zero Innovation
· How many Indians in India are thought leaders in their software segment? - Very few
· How much software innovation happens in India? - Minimal
· Considering that thousands of Indians in India use Open Source software, how many actually contribute? - Very few
Surprisingly, put the same Indian in a company "in" the US and he suddenly becomes innovative and a thought leader in his field. The reason is simple, the only thing an exhausted body and mind can do well, is sleep.
I can pretty much bet on it that we will never see innovation from any of 10000+ person code factories in India .
If you are someone sitting in the US, UK ... and wondering why the employees can't stand up, that's the most interesting part of the story. Read on...
The Problem
The software professional Indian is today making more money in a month than what his parents might have made in an year. Very often a 21 year old newbie software developer makes more money than his/her 55 year old father working in an old world business. Most of these youngsters are well aware of this gap and so work under an impression that they are being paid an unreasonable amount of money. They naturally equate unreasonable money with unreasonable amount of work.
Another important factor is this whole bubble that an IT person lives in.. An IT professional walks with a halo around his or her head. They are the Cool, Rich Gen Next .. the Intelligentsia of the New World... they travel all over the world, vacation at exotic locations abroad, talk "American", are more familiar of the geography of the USA than that of India and yes of course, they are the hottest things in the Wedding Market!!!
This I feel is the core problem because if employees felt they were being exploited, things would change.
I speak about this to some of my friends and the answer is generally "Hey Harshad, what you say is correct and we sure are suffering, but why do you think we are being paid this much money? It's not for 40 hours but for 80 hours a week. And anyway what choice do we have? It' s the same everywhere."
So can we make things change? Is there a way to try and stop an entire generation of educated Indians from ending up with "no life".
Solutions
1) Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week.
Recently, in an awards ceremony at a software company, the manager handing over the "employee of the month" award said something like "It 's unbelievable how hard he works. When I come to office early, I see him working, when I leave office late, I still see him working".. These sort of comments can kill the morale of every employee trying to do good work in an 8hr day.
Companies need to stop hiding behind the excuse that the time difference between India and the west is the reason why people need to stay in office for 14 hours a day. Staying late should be a negative thing that should work against an employee in his appraisals. Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week .
2) Estimates:
If time estimates go wrong, the company should be willing to take a hit and not force the employee to work crazy hours to bail projects out of trouble. This will ensure that the estimates made for the next project are more real and not just what the customer has asked for.
3) Employee organizations / forums
NASSCOM (National Association for Software and Services Companies) and CSI (Computer Society Of India) are perhaps the only two well known software associations in India and both I feel have failed the software employee. I do not recall any action from these organizations to try and improve the working conditions of software employees. This has to change.
I am not in favor of forming trade unions for software people, as trade unions in India have traditionally been more effective at ruining businesses and making employees inefficient than getting employees their rights and helping business do well. So existing bodies like NASSCOM should create and popularize employee welfare cells at a state / regional level and these cells should work only for employee welfare and not be puppets in the hands of the companies.
If the industry does not itself create proper forums for employee welfare, it 's likely that the government / trade unions will interfere and mess up India 's sunshine industry.
4) Narayan Murthy, please stand up
Top bosses of companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc. need to send the message loud and clear to their company and to other companies listening at national IT events that employee welfare is really their top concern and having good working culture and conditions is a priority. Employee welfare here does not mean giving the employee the salary he/she dreams of.
Last word
I am sure some of my thoughts come from the fact that I too worked in such an environment for a few years and perhaps I haven't got over the frustrations I experienced back then. So think about my views with a pinch of salt but do think about it.
I am now writing this because I just keep hearing horror tales from the industry and it doesn't seem like anything is being done in the matter, so I thought I will do my bit and write.
First and foremost, before stereotypes about India kick in, I would like to clarify that I am not saying that Indian software companies are sweat shops where employees aren't being paid and made to work in cramped uncomfortable places. The pay in software companies is very good as compared to other industries in India and the work places are generally well furnished and plush offices. India being a strong democracy, freedom of expression is alive and well and Indians are free to express their opinions and voice their concerns. Yet, I say that the software industry is exploiting its employees.
IT work culture in India is totally messed up and has now started harming the work culture of the nation as a whole. Working 12+ hours a day and 6 or even 7 days a week is more the rule than the exception.
Consequences:
·A majority of IT people suffer from health problems. As most of the IT workforce is still very young, the problem isn't very obvious today but it will hit with unbearable ferocity when these youngsters get to their 40s.
· Stress levels are unbelievable high. Stress management is a cover topic in magazines and newspapers and workshops on the subject are regularly overbooked.
· Most IT people have hardly any social / family life to talk of.
· As IT folk are rich by Indian standards, they try to buy their way out of their troubles and have incurred huge debts by buying expensive houses, gizmos and fancy cars.
Plush offices, fat salaries and latest gizmos can give you happiness only if you have a life in the first place.
The reason I feel this culture has emerged, is the servile attitude of the companies. Here 's a tip for any company in the west planning to outsource to India . If you feel that a project can be completed in 6 weeks by 4 people, always demand that it be completed in 2 weeks by 3 people.
Guess what, most Indian companies will agree. The project will then be hyped up as an "extremely critical" one and the 3 unfortunate souls allocated to it will get very close to meeting the almighty by the time they deliver the project in 2 weeks. Surprisingly, they will deliver in 2-3 weeks, get bashed up for any delays and the company will soon boast about how they deliver good quality in reasonable time and cost. Has anyone in India ever worked on a project that wasn't "extremely critical"?
I was once at a session where a top boss of one of India’s biggest IT firms was asked a question about what was so special about their company and his answer was that we are the "Yes" people with the "We Can Do It” attitude. It is all very well for the top boss to say "We Can Do It "... What about the project teams who wish to say "Please....We Can't Do It” to the unreasonable timelines...I was tempted to ask "What death benefits does your company offer to the teams that get killed in the process?". I sure was ashamed to see that a fellow Indian was openly boasting about the fact that he and his company had no backbone. The art of saying No or negotiating reasonable time frames for the team is very conspicuous by its absence. Outsourcing customers more often than not simply walk all over Indian software companies. The outsourcer surely cannot be blamed as it is right for him to demand good quality in the least cost and time.
Exhaustion = Zero Innovation
· How many Indians in India are thought leaders in their software segment? - Very few
· How much software innovation happens in India? - Minimal
· Considering that thousands of Indians in India use Open Source software, how many actually contribute? - Very few
Surprisingly, put the same Indian in a company "in" the US and he suddenly becomes innovative and a thought leader in his field. The reason is simple, the only thing an exhausted body and mind can do well, is sleep.
I can pretty much bet on it that we will never see innovation from any of 10000+ person code factories in India .
If you are someone sitting in the US, UK ... and wondering why the employees can't stand up, that's the most interesting part of the story. Read on...
The Problem
The software professional Indian is today making more money in a month than what his parents might have made in an year. Very often a 21 year old newbie software developer makes more money than his/her 55 year old father working in an old world business. Most of these youngsters are well aware of this gap and so work under an impression that they are being paid an unreasonable amount of money. They naturally equate unreasonable money with unreasonable amount of work.
Another important factor is this whole bubble that an IT person lives in.. An IT professional walks with a halo around his or her head. They are the Cool, Rich Gen Next .. the Intelligentsia of the New World... they travel all over the world, vacation at exotic locations abroad, talk "American", are more familiar of the geography of the USA than that of India and yes of course, they are the hottest things in the Wedding Market!!!
This I feel is the core problem because if employees felt they were being exploited, things would change.
I speak about this to some of my friends and the answer is generally "Hey Harshad, what you say is correct and we sure are suffering, but why do you think we are being paid this much money? It's not for 40 hours but for 80 hours a week. And anyway what choice do we have? It' s the same everywhere."
So can we make things change? Is there a way to try and stop an entire generation of educated Indians from ending up with "no life".
Solutions
1) Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week.
Recently, in an awards ceremony at a software company, the manager handing over the "employee of the month" award said something like "It 's unbelievable how hard he works. When I come to office early, I see him working, when I leave office late, I still see him working".. These sort of comments can kill the morale of every employee trying to do good work in an 8hr day.
Companies need to stop hiding behind the excuse that the time difference between India and the west is the reason why people need to stay in office for 14 hours a day. Staying late should be a negative thing that should work against an employee in his appraisals. Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week .
2) Estimates:
If time estimates go wrong, the company should be willing to take a hit and not force the employee to work crazy hours to bail projects out of trouble. This will ensure that the estimates made for the next project are more real and not just what the customer has asked for.
3) Employee organizations / forums
NASSCOM (National Association for Software and Services Companies) and CSI (Computer Society Of India) are perhaps the only two well known software associations in India and both I feel have failed the software employee. I do not recall any action from these organizations to try and improve the working conditions of software employees. This has to change.
I am not in favor of forming trade unions for software people, as trade unions in India have traditionally been more effective at ruining businesses and making employees inefficient than getting employees their rights and helping business do well. So existing bodies like NASSCOM should create and popularize employee welfare cells at a state / regional level and these cells should work only for employee welfare and not be puppets in the hands of the companies.
If the industry does not itself create proper forums for employee welfare, it 's likely that the government / trade unions will interfere and mess up India 's sunshine industry.
4) Narayan Murthy, please stand up
Top bosses of companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc. need to send the message loud and clear to their company and to other companies listening at national IT events that employee welfare is really their top concern and having good working culture and conditions is a priority. Employee welfare here does not mean giving the employee the salary he/she dreams of.
Last word
I am sure some of my thoughts come from the fact that I too worked in such an environment for a few years and perhaps I haven't got over the frustrations I experienced back then. So think about my views with a pinch of salt but do think about it.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Start the week with a joke...
Mischievous Brothers
Two little boys, ages 8 and 10, are excessively mischievous. They are always getting into trouble and their parents know all about it. If any mischief occurs in their town, the two boys are probably involved.
The boys' mother heard that a preacher in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The preacher agreed, but he asked to see them individually.
So the mother sent the 8 year old first, in the morning, with the older boy to see the preacher in the afternoon.
The preacher, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly,
"Do you know where God is, son?"
The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.
So the preacher repeated the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God?!"
Again, the boy made no attempt to answer. The preacher raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed,
"Where is God?!"
The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him.
When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, "What happened?"
The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time”.
("I just LOVE reading next line again and again")
GOD is missing, and they think we did it!
Friday, February 9, 2007
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Who is missing whom...think!!!
Once, there was this guy, who was in love with a gal.
She wasn't the most beautiful and gorgeous but for him, she was everything.
He used to dream about her, about spending the rest of life with her. His friends told him,
"why do you dream so much about her, when you don't even know if she loves you or not?
First tell her your feelings, and get to know if she likes you or not".
He felt that was the right way. The girl knew from the beginning, that this guy loves her.
One day when he proposed, she rejected him.
His friends thought he would take to alcohol, drugs etc. and ruin his life.
To their surprise, he was not depressed.
When they asked him how was it that he is not sad, he replied,
"'why should I feel bad? I lost one who never loved me & she lost the one who really loved and cared for her."
She wasn't the most beautiful and gorgeous but for him, she was everything.
He used to dream about her, about spending the rest of life with her. His friends told him,
"why do you dream so much about her, when you don't even know if she loves you or not?
First tell her your feelings, and get to know if she likes you or not".
He felt that was the right way. The girl knew from the beginning, that this guy loves her.
One day when he proposed, she rejected him.
His friends thought he would take to alcohol, drugs etc. and ruin his life.
To their surprise, he was not depressed.
When they asked him how was it that he is not sad, he replied,
"'why should I feel bad? I lost one who never loved me & she lost the one who really loved and cared for her."
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