Saturday, May 29, 2004
Second post of the day! Whoa! At work on a saturday means, I have exclusive access to the only PC that has an internet connection to blogger.com. So, I get the time to check out the newly redesigned blogger.com and find out that, among other things, I can e-mail my posts.
This free time also gave me the time to look back at my blog. Gosh, all so many serious entries that I feel like I have been working my a** off and changing the world for good. So here goes something other than work.
I finally get a chance to visit some of the blogs I have always wanted to frequent. Kanishka, is at his humorous best though it seems the HLL workload means infrequent posts. Thanks to my friend Sudha, I am now reading two other ones. Divya's blog makes interesting reading. No one topic in particular but kept me interested all through. The second one is about London, a dream city in my book. This one makes absolutely interesting reading for me because of my liking towards London.
Talking about London, I have been there for just one night. The easter weekend in 2001. but it was one unforgettable night. I had 16 hours in transit time on my way back from boston to chennai. Rather, I programed my flights that way to get the one night stay in London. I forgot it was going to be easter and was hoping to catch up with some London night life, albeit all alone. ;)
Having checked in my luggage all the way to chennai, I easily got the transit visa (pre 9/11 days :). I was badly craving for some Indian food for dinner, having got none in boston, that I asked the help desk, about where I could find some. Trafalgar square, I was told. So I catch the tube (the underground train), get there and get out of the station. I do not know what it is about London, may be the architecure or the old world look and charm of the buildings, but it captivated me no end. That combined with the narrow roads, the parks, trees, the bustling nightlife, the 3 deg chilly night breeze, and the london buses and taxis set up a picture I wont forget. I walked around pubs, discs, movie theaters and just soaked in the place, the people and the city in itself. I caught up with an Indian restaurant called "The Taj". Tasty butter naans, kashmiri pulav and dal makhni... After that wonderful satiating experience, I still had an hour to go before I could catch the last tube train back to Heathrow. I kept walking in circles trying to figure out where trafalgar square was. Walking around the St.Martin's church, I crossed the street and there it was.
The architecture of the place, the tall column guarded by the 4 lions and all the space around it, the St.Martin's church and the National Gallery, buildings of amazing stature and the other such around it create an ambience thats unbeatable. The only regret is that I did not have a good enough camera along with me to capture these moments. I sat around in awe for as long as I could before catching the tube back to heathrow.
If that was an amazing experience, what followed was unforgettable for other reasons. I had to go back to Heathrow terminal 4 for the BA flight. Terminal 4 is in the south side, removed from the other three terminals and the best way to get there is the tube. For some reason, being the easter weekend, and this being the last train, it was halted at terminal 3 and I was stranded there at 1 am and no way to get to terminal 4. being a holiday weekend, there wasnt a bus or taxi in sight. I had absolutely no clue what to do and it was freezing. So I walk upto the bus stand, hoping against hope and I find a few sardar's chatting. I thought I would have a way out but they too told me that being easter I had indeed run out of luck. The only way was to sleep in terminal three, on the floor or the waiting seats and get up early in the morning to catch the first tube back to terminal 4, that would be just in time for my flight.
This was the first time I was stranded and having to sleep in an airport terminal not knowing if it was safe or permitted or whatever. For the first time, I felt a bit scared, for I certainly did not want to be stranded on a transit visa in london. Thankfully, inside terminal three were a few other people sleeping on the seats and whatever infrastructure they could find. I hardly slept that night. Probably for the first time in my life I woke up at 5:30 in the morning without an alarm. I was there when they opened the station and was the first passenger into the heathrow express. I made it just in time to terminal 4, and into the flight. Relieved but one hell of an experience. All said, if there is one city I would want to visit again, it is London.
Almost every trip of mine abroad has had an incident that has made it scary, interesting and unforgettable. I have been caught over speeding and under speeding (is that what u call it?) on the same day, fined and almost jailed in the US, lost my colleagues in the Boston airport and have been stranded without the address of the hotel. I have lost my way in japan, where I walked around in the middle of the night, searching for a building that was hidden behind a few others. Only a miraclous coincidence, when my friend, dressed in a salwar, happened to come out to dispose the garbage at the same time when I walked past the front of that building, saved me.
If that is any trend, the adventurous me does look forward to the next trip abroad. Guess I have really trolled on this post. Enjoyed it though.
This free time also gave me the time to look back at my blog. Gosh, all so many serious entries that I feel like I have been working my a** off and changing the world for good. So here goes something other than work.
I finally get a chance to visit some of the blogs I have always wanted to frequent. Kanishka, is at his humorous best though it seems the HLL workload means infrequent posts. Thanks to my friend Sudha, I am now reading two other ones. Divya's blog makes interesting reading. No one topic in particular but kept me interested all through. The second one is about London, a dream city in my book. This one makes absolutely interesting reading for me because of my liking towards London.
Talking about London, I have been there for just one night. The easter weekend in 2001. but it was one unforgettable night. I had 16 hours in transit time on my way back from boston to chennai. Rather, I programed my flights that way to get the one night stay in London. I forgot it was going to be easter and was hoping to catch up with some London night life, albeit all alone. ;)
Having checked in my luggage all the way to chennai, I easily got the transit visa (pre 9/11 days :). I was badly craving for some Indian food for dinner, having got none in boston, that I asked the help desk, about where I could find some. Trafalgar square, I was told. So I catch the tube (the underground train), get there and get out of the station. I do not know what it is about London, may be the architecure or the old world look and charm of the buildings, but it captivated me no end. That combined with the narrow roads, the parks, trees, the bustling nightlife, the 3 deg chilly night breeze, and the london buses and taxis set up a picture I wont forget. I walked around pubs, discs, movie theaters and just soaked in the place, the people and the city in itself. I caught up with an Indian restaurant called "The Taj". Tasty butter naans, kashmiri pulav and dal makhni... After that wonderful satiating experience, I still had an hour to go before I could catch the last tube train back to Heathrow. I kept walking in circles trying to figure out where trafalgar square was. Walking around the St.Martin's church, I crossed the street and there it was.
The architecture of the place, the tall column guarded by the 4 lions and all the space around it, the St.Martin's church and the National Gallery, buildings of amazing stature and the other such around it create an ambience thats unbeatable. The only regret is that I did not have a good enough camera along with me to capture these moments. I sat around in awe for as long as I could before catching the tube back to heathrow.
If that was an amazing experience, what followed was unforgettable for other reasons. I had to go back to Heathrow terminal 4 for the BA flight. Terminal 4 is in the south side, removed from the other three terminals and the best way to get there is the tube. For some reason, being the easter weekend, and this being the last train, it was halted at terminal 3 and I was stranded there at 1 am and no way to get to terminal 4. being a holiday weekend, there wasnt a bus or taxi in sight. I had absolutely no clue what to do and it was freezing. So I walk upto the bus stand, hoping against hope and I find a few sardar's chatting. I thought I would have a way out but they too told me that being easter I had indeed run out of luck. The only way was to sleep in terminal three, on the floor or the waiting seats and get up early in the morning to catch the first tube back to terminal 4, that would be just in time for my flight.
This was the first time I was stranded and having to sleep in an airport terminal not knowing if it was safe or permitted or whatever. For the first time, I felt a bit scared, for I certainly did not want to be stranded on a transit visa in london. Thankfully, inside terminal three were a few other people sleeping on the seats and whatever infrastructure they could find. I hardly slept that night. Probably for the first time in my life I woke up at 5:30 in the morning without an alarm. I was there when they opened the station and was the first passenger into the heathrow express. I made it just in time to terminal 4, and into the flight. Relieved but one hell of an experience. All said, if there is one city I would want to visit again, it is London.
Almost every trip of mine abroad has had an incident that has made it scary, interesting and unforgettable. I have been caught over speeding and under speeding (is that what u call it?) on the same day, fined and almost jailed in the US, lost my colleagues in the Boston airport and have been stranded without the address of the hotel. I have lost my way in japan, where I walked around in the middle of the night, searching for a building that was hidden behind a few others. Only a miraclous coincidence, when my friend, dressed in a salwar, happened to come out to dispose the garbage at the same time when I walked past the front of that building, saved me.
If that is any trend, the adventurous me does look forward to the next trip abroad. Guess I have really trolled on this post. Enjoyed it though.
Friday, May 28, 2004
When in ISB, we had a course called management of organizations. It was the first course in organizational behaviour. Prof. Huggy Rao from Kellogg took a full session on networks in organization, where in he talked about the various kind of networks that get formed among people in an organization. One of them was the trust network. If one were to map the trust network in a firm on paper, the person at the center of this network becomes a sort of a pivot in influencing the way people behave, especially when they are under pressure. Someone at the center of this network can weild a lot of positive influence as she is trusted by the crowd around her.
At Verizon India, the three of us who have joined are the first MBA campus recruits. Its interesting as the organization tries to adjust itself to these three new characters, who seems to belong to a different genre of employees they have not seen before, but have to be fit into an organization, that at times it seems, is growing too fast for its own comfort. We are three new employees who have this stamp of a business degree in an organization that otherwise breathes only hardcore technology 25 of the 24 hours in a day.
Given that we are these new species, that too higher up the ladder, it is all the more important for us to first gain the trust and respect of the people we manage. Only if we manage that can we think of then building a trust network around us. Building a trust network is extremely important for us here, for one, we are in a very people centric organization. Besides the nature of work, the very fact that we are small and growing fast means that a lot of the success resides not in processes but in people. If our ultimate aim is to stay with this organization and play a significant part in its growth towards what it is potentially capable of, then we will badly need that trust network. And to begin towards that goal, we start with our own team, which, apart from invariably comprising of people elder, is also extremely technically oriented.
The implication of such a technically oriented team is that, respect is born, not out of your knowledge of how capable you are of identifying new market segments, but how capable you are in developing a complicated new feature, not out of your understanding of the consumer market, but out of your understanding of the technical design, not out of your ability to talk about the GDP, currency fluctuations, market research and statistics, but by your ability to talk about .NET, J2EE...
The requirement is to find the balance between the two. You need in depth knowledge of the technology, not just to understand the product but to be able to articulate that and get your team to work towards it. You need to be at the same time, aware of the customer perceptions and use case scenarios. I dont know if its as complicated as I make it sound but still, is extremely interesting and challenging.
At Verizon India, the three of us who have joined are the first MBA campus recruits. Its interesting as the organization tries to adjust itself to these three new characters, who seems to belong to a different genre of employees they have not seen before, but have to be fit into an organization, that at times it seems, is growing too fast for its own comfort. We are three new employees who have this stamp of a business degree in an organization that otherwise breathes only hardcore technology 25 of the 24 hours in a day.
Given that we are these new species, that too higher up the ladder, it is all the more important for us to first gain the trust and respect of the people we manage. Only if we manage that can we think of then building a trust network around us. Building a trust network is extremely important for us here, for one, we are in a very people centric organization. Besides the nature of work, the very fact that we are small and growing fast means that a lot of the success resides not in processes but in people. If our ultimate aim is to stay with this organization and play a significant part in its growth towards what it is potentially capable of, then we will badly need that trust network. And to begin towards that goal, we start with our own team, which, apart from invariably comprising of people elder, is also extremely technically oriented.
The implication of such a technically oriented team is that, respect is born, not out of your knowledge of how capable you are of identifying new market segments, but how capable you are in developing a complicated new feature, not out of your understanding of the consumer market, but out of your understanding of the technical design, not out of your ability to talk about the GDP, currency fluctuations, market research and statistics, but by your ability to talk about .NET, J2EE...
The requirement is to find the balance between the two. You need in depth knowledge of the technology, not just to understand the product but to be able to articulate that and get your team to work towards it. You need to be at the same time, aware of the customer perceptions and use case scenarios. I dont know if its as complicated as I make it sound but still, is extremely interesting and challenging.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Over the past couple of weeks, I am realizing how much your mindset has to change when you have to move from being one of those engineers who are managed to the one who manages them. As an engineer, your mindset is so much tuned towards a world of your own, where your only bother is that problem in front of you that you have to tackle, solve to make things work. Of course, you work with a team, help each other, talk to client but all that is again centered around the problem to be solved and the technology around it. But, once you are responsible for a team of such engineers, apart from the problem solving, the necessity to be honest and sincere to each one of them, a genuine interest to get to know each one of them is so important. This may seem very straightforward and cliched, but for an introvert like me, who liked achieving things in my own world, having your "achievements" depend on another set of people, these words hold a lot of meaning.
It is so important to go beyond what is normally expected out of you, take initiative and drive things when you go up the responsibility ladder. I am seeing it as part of my day to day activities. There is competition, tough competition when u move up the ladder. You generally find only self starters and those who love starting something on their own up here. So, unless you are one who goes beyond what is obvious, you will find out of sync many a time.
So, when you join a new place, it becomes extremely critical to come up to speed with the reality as soon as you can, judge people as quickly as possible, separate the wheat from the chaff, so that you find yourself a fit in the scheme of things, make that clear to others, establish your domain and start pushing that extra bit that hasnt been happening until then.
Well, looks like I have been extremely abstract... I dont know how much of this makes sense, but these are kind of the summary of what I have seen and experienced in the first two weeks...
When I get my PC at home set right, I hope I will have the time for better posts...
for all those who are taking time off to read this and putting through comments, thanks a lot... :)
It is so important to go beyond what is normally expected out of you, take initiative and drive things when you go up the responsibility ladder. I am seeing it as part of my day to day activities. There is competition, tough competition when u move up the ladder. You generally find only self starters and those who love starting something on their own up here. So, unless you are one who goes beyond what is obvious, you will find out of sync many a time.
So, when you join a new place, it becomes extremely critical to come up to speed with the reality as soon as you can, judge people as quickly as possible, separate the wheat from the chaff, so that you find yourself a fit in the scheme of things, make that clear to others, establish your domain and start pushing that extra bit that hasnt been happening until then.
Well, looks like I have been extremely abstract... I dont know how much of this makes sense, but these are kind of the summary of what I have seen and experienced in the first two weeks...
When I get my PC at home set right, I hope I will have the time for better posts...
for all those who are taking time off to read this and putting through comments, thanks a lot... :)
Thursday, May 13, 2004
The first one week at Verizon has been a mixed bag. Without going into too many details, let me just say that I faced some intriguing issues and people that I had to handle. Its been interesting and challenging. I am a freshly minted MBA in an environment that is not totally used to such people. So, I disturb the mindset of many people who are set to one way of working. Handling all of that, finding your feet, getting to know the company and defining your own rsponsibilities in such an environment has been, to be frank, a little too challenging for me in just the first week. But thats probably because I did not anticipate this. I was subconsciously looking for a cushy and planned orientation, considering myself to be the blue eyed boy who needs a bit of little hand holding before being allowed to go out and win the world. At least on one occasion, I took a break and told myself, "Welcome to the corporate world", though I am not sure if I said that for any reason other than it being a situationally appropriate cliche.
Ok, thats the state of mind I am in as I go into my first weekend. I look forward to these two days when I recount the week gone by, regroup and plan out my next week. I hope to catch atleast a couple of movies in between and of course, meet some other friends from ISB who have joined work recently in chennai. All you people, have a great weekend and keep smiling :)
Ok, thats the state of mind I am in as I go into my first weekend. I look forward to these two days when I recount the week gone by, regroup and plan out my next week. I hope to catch atleast a couple of movies in between and of course, meet some other friends from ISB who have joined work recently in chennai. All you people, have a great weekend and keep smiling :)
Monday, May 10, 2004
This is after a three day weekend where I went around chennai house hunting. Im looking to move into a larger house and its been a nightmare searching for the ideal apartment that can have everything that my family wants. I got info late into friday about the work I am going to do. It involves process transition and new feature development for a new product. It sounded exciting and so, I spent the rest of the weekend doing my homework before my meeting today. The habit of getting up early for classes at ISB helped a lot today as I woke up to my alarm at 6 and was at work by 7:15 to do my preparation for the meeting at 9:30. Add to that free open roads, nice-not-so-hot-yet chennai morning weather and no rush hour traffic, its been a nice morning. Touchwood.
I still :( dont have seamless access to the net and my own e-mail.
I still :( dont have seamless access to the net and my own e-mail.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Joined work. First two days have been a mixed bag. Got to meet the Exec Director on the first day and had a chat with him. Spoke to another from the US office on the second day and things are being sized up before I start work. Otherwise, there has been a lot of induction, filling up forms and procedures to follow... none too exciting. There is a lot of flux here as Verizon is in the process of shifting to its own campus in Guindy. So, I am kinda shuttling between the old office at Tidel Park and the new one to meet people. Thankfully the weather in chennai has turned lovely in the middle of may, with a sprinkling of rain. Otherwise, travelling during the day in mid may can be scary. The exciting part has been meeting people and trying to figure out where they fit in into the scheme of things here. I seem to have a choice of sorts about the work I will start with, which has made this even more interesting.
I still dont have the freedom or the time to blog or mail freely. Once things settle down and and I get on to something concrete, this blog should be a nice extra half an hour of relaxation towards the end of the day. Until then, godspeed :)
I still dont have the freedom or the time to blog or mail freely. Once things settle down and and I get on to something concrete, this blog should be a nice extra half an hour of relaxation towards the end of the day. Until then, godspeed :)
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