halo

Meetings meetings meetings. Every time in meetings the equation evolves. First came the cell phones. People used to keep their cell phones on. Now these days it is generally seen as a thing to be frowned upon. Then the guys started putting their cell phones on silent. But they started picking the calls while standing in the corner of the room, yet disturbing everybody. Now they too have learnt. The acceptable practice is to walk out of the room if you have an urgent call to take. Then you had the blackberry revolution. People accessing mails on their phones in meetings. The problem is so chronic that in some meetings one boss of mine started asking for cell phones to be deposited in one corner so that no is disturbed by them. You cant access the phones at all. Cool nah!
But one specific development has to be the most blatant one of them. The humble laptop. Actually it’s the arrogant laptop with wireless net connectivity. Bloody hell. Today in a meeting at least five guys were with their laptops open. How arrogant can you get? So you blatantly work on your mails or anything while a presentation is on. How on earth is that acceptable? To my mind its worse than a cell phone ringing. You are in a meeting only physically while mentally you have compeletly switched off.
While I understand this happening in really long meetings but today was a two hour meeting with specific agenda and matters were being discussed that added value to a business instantly. Dam it. They use the laptop screen as a charade in front of your face. It probably hides the dumbness of person in question and attempts to look smarter than one actually is. Sometimes a laptop is usefull when everybody is discussing numbers and everyone has a number to refer to or some sort of thing like that. but most of the time its nothing.
There is this one guy that I see all the time in every meeting with a laptop in front of him. Even small meetings. What does he do on it? I am curious. I am sure he is not writing the minutes. I guess it’s his security blanket. He never contributes in the meetings. He is silent and staring at his laptop screen. I assume he thinks that the glow from his screen in a dark room will add a touch of halo to his persona.

ab tu chilla ke dikha... chilla....

There… I have my office desk all set up for blasting the dam music. I was inspired by this ted talk by Julian Treasure on how sounds affect us all, especially in office productivity.

Nah. actually the answer is elsewhere. We had this huge set of Logitech speakers at home to connect to the laptop so that we can watch movies / CD’s. It was quite a pain, large unwieldy things with multiple wires getting entangled all the time. Two speakers with some sub woofer boofer something. A real irritant. they look nice and sexy in the photos here but they must show all the wiring in the photo as well. no one will buy it then.

Then we came across these really tiny speakers (x minimax) that could be connected to the laptop. They had inbuilt batteries that could be charged and hence no constant electric connection as well. Hence the big ones have no where to go but office. they each must no more than 2 or 2 and a half inches tall.

So now I have this huge ugly (but nice and clear) speakers set up in office. I also sit in an unusually noisy section in the office with one particular lady who handles 3 peons. She keeps shouting at them. In fact she keeps shouting at the four poor junior reportees she has. She reminds me of the Egyptian pharaohs whipping their slaves into building the pyramids. She is like one hunterwaali all the time. Add to that a screeching voice. It all makes for a noisy atmosphere.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for a noisy fun filled office. Go ahead shout loudly, crack jokes, play music, but… if one goes on as a nag all the time then it does create some issues.

That’s what I also try to avoid whiling reprimanding someone. Use voice to get effect but use it sparingly. Even if I scream at Jispa. It will be one loud short scream, then your tone must go down, you must talk less, you must communicate exactly what you want in soft measured tones. Being a constant machine gun is a nuisance for all.

So now I am all set for war. Loud noise will be greeted by louder soothing sound. I have to somewhere get the chants that play in every music shop in Rishikesh. The beautiful soothing chants (dev prema – I think) playing along the Ganges while you are sipping hot lemon mint tea at devraj coffee corner while flipping through your William Dalrymple “city of djinns”; with the Lonely planet at your side; over looking the bustle at Laxman jhulla.

A ha… kya vichar hai aapke… prabhuji.. aap dhanya ho. Nahin nahin…App Dhaniya ho..

slow down dude

Yesterday I got a new laptop from office. What was wrong with my old one. Well nothing really. You see it was a very impressive sony vaio which I had got around three years back. With 256 mb RAM it was a bit underpowered, but it never gave me any issues and it had a top class screen. Which is what I wanted in the first place. In my job screen resolution matters.
Then the company decides to go in for an encryption software. This protects the contents of my laptop in case it’s lost. Great. But it slows the dam thing. Then they install even better anti virus. Even better, but now it begins to crawl. Then the new anti virus scans every time I on the piece. This one is dead. Where do I bury it? I am sure some guy scared the shit off the company and recommended that we go in for the latest soft ware, which is good, and I don’t object to it. But I ma sure they would have been quite on the hardware upgrades required. In fact they would definitely not anyone that some of the older laptops would not get hardware upgrades as their motherboards are now obsolete and incompatible. Software upgrade can never be at the cost of productivity decline. I would come in the morning at 8.30, switch on the piece. Post which I would then read the newspapers, even the highly superficial Bombay Times. I would reflect a bit; have enough time to think of a blog post. The comp would purr in to life by 9.15. I would then click on the icon for outlook. Than I would click on the word icon. Word would load relatively faster. I would write my blog. Slowly as the scan completes my outlook would start working. In time for the office which technically starts at 9.30. I would post my entry and start my day. Give or take a few minutes.
In the meanwhile I got my requisition for the comp. I had asked for a 15 inch screen, laptop which weighed a brick but was fast and had decent resolution. They called for it. It came with vista home edition. It wouldn’t work on the LAN. Then they installed the XP operating system. Now the screen resolution drivers wouldn’t work. This lasted for 3 months post which I gave up and settled for the current smaller piece with a small screen and ok resolution. I am told it’s got 2 GB RAM. Wonder how long that should last before we upgrade the scanning software.
Now life is not the same. It’s like working in Goa for a year and then asking to adjust to the hustle bustle of Mumbai. I come in and switch on the comp and it’s started. I was confused. I was well adjusted to the relaxed routine. Now I really want to be a luddite.

rail gaadi rail gaadi, chug chug chug chug chug chug chug chug

Traveling in the trains, especially long distance is probably a good way to get familiar with the changing Indian demographic and psychographics. In Diwali last we had a trip to Rishikesh. This involved traveling by the Rajdhani train to Delhi and then on by another train to Haridwar.
Diwali is a time for a lot of young employed to head home. You could see tons of twenty somethings, lugging their laptops and heading home. A lot of them had their girlfriends and boyfriends to see them off at the station. Women with laptops that are carried in a shoulder sling bag is such a dangerous thing. One shoulder the laptop, other shoulder heavy purse, heels and then the ubiquitous mobile phone conversation happening with the shoulder hunched. High probability for spondylitis. The reports of increasing incidence in younger working women getting all sorts of back injuries will definitely come in.
In any case every one seems to be on the way home. The railways have done some good things by having charging points inside the train compartments. They are useful for charging your cell phones, but the flip is that they result in constant chatter through out. There is great signal almost throughout the journey. The plug points also result in the loud Indian male groups watching movies or listening to music from their laptops. Scant regard to those around them. Music is also played from their mobile phones as if it’s a dam radio. Cell phone music is a phenomenon picking up in local trains as well. So dam irritating. Keep your music to yourself. One of these days I am going to pick up a fight with some of these characters.
Another thing I noticed is that all the women in the train (A/c compartment) exclusively use face wash as opposed to soap. The soap dish, popular in our times and seen with our type of families is now completely an endangered species. It’s a soap free world. Women use it more though but the men will not be far behind. I saw one guy who was washing his hands for more than five minutes and then was washing his face, carefully scrubbing one skin flake at a time. He must have at least 10 minutes to wash only his face. I am not exaggerating. He was clearly taking care of himself and loving it.
My wife too uses face wash and the culture seems to be spreading to Jispa and me. One wise one I once cracked – my wife uses only soap free stuff and I use only free soap, the ones I flick for free from the hotel rooms