barefoot in the park...

Chennai can get boring at times... especially when u have seen all the movies around and have no where to go except the beach... though the beach any day is good enough for me, something different is always welcome... thats how i landed up at the sivagami pethachi auditorium to watch the theatre group Evam perform their adaptation of "Barefoot in the Park" (a 1951 classic on the broadway and the silver screen). I was happy that I did. It was 3 hours of good entertainment. Evam is a talented bunch of actors and they showed it off. Karthik, playing Paul Bratter, was simply superb. So was Andrea playing Corie. However, the Karthik Srinivasan playing Corey's mom took the cake, along with Neelakantan who played Victor Velasco. Overall, a terrific performance, including the piece where they took the audience out of the audi (a neat idea) without losing the continuity or the charm of the story. This was my first real theatre experience in chennai and I am indeed bowled over by Evam. Chennai needs something as exciting as this and I only hope there is a lot more theatre on offer. I missed Footsbarn in chennai as I tried unsuccessfully to get a ticket in the last minute, but I am sure I am going to be on the watch out for something different to do over the weekends from now onwards, especially if it has something to do with theatre.

Movies and the beach (as lovely as it is) are passe!!!

The hindu review: http://www.hindu.com/fr/2005/02/11/stories/2005021102370500.htm
Evam's blog: http://evamentertainment.blogspot.com/
Some more at http://www.digantik.com/Digantik/artenglish%20theatrefeb08.htm

This one is for techies looking for a job...

Sumit, from the class of 05 requested me to post this... Here you go dude...

http://sumitdhar.blogspot.com/2005/02/tech-job-opportunities.html

For the first time, I am directly responsible for appraising the performance of my team. Given that we operate pretty much like a startup, I have the mandate to devise ways to evaluate a team that was wholly recruited by me in the past 6 months. More difficult is the task to define clear and understandable metrics that I will have to use to measure the objectives I am going to set for them for the coming 6 months.

Like many others, I feel performance appraisals are never "once in 6 months" affairs. Its a continous process. That of the employee constantly understanding what is expected of him and the supervisor constantly modifying and adapting the objectives and metrics to take care of the changing ecosystem at work. That applies a lot more in a very dynamic environment like the one I am in.

Diligent course correction of performance objectives and metrics is something I have missed seeing in most of the teams I have been part of so far. The reasons for this has been many, including a lack of understanding of the importance of course correction, lack of communication between the superior and the subordinate, lack of time and lack of the required importance to be given to this process. Often, this results in a disconnect when the actual appraisal happens, The employee thinks he has done what was needed of him very well, while the superior comes up with his expectations which were not met. Often those expectations are communicated but at the same time are not factored into the objectives and metrics in the appraisal system. Hence, the objectiveness of the changing expectations are never completely clear to the employee until the appraisal comes along.

This is going to be my first experience at giving this thing a shot myself. Its going to be ineteresting.