Official Rules…

Rules are meant to be a set of guidelines to be followed so that it makes life easy for decision makers or those in charge .

We have a interesting so called rule in our office. The staff is not allowed to take copies of any document on the office copy machine. Well i do understand the logic behind this decision. The interesting part is not the rule but how the rule is actually implemented. Our staff is basically divided into 3 major parts.

  • The Gods also called the Management.
  • The semi gods also known as the HR,Accounts,Administration.
  • Last and the least, the mere mortals also know as the software guys.

Lets assume a scenario where in a copies of a personal document needs to be submitted for tax purposes

The Gods make the rules so they never face such problems. The semi gods usually help them in such trivial tasks and therefore the Gods never realise that such problem exists. Since the semi gods actually implement the rules there is no problem for them also after all they are the gods. The mortals as usual are the ones who get screwed if they find themselves in such a situation. They usually have 2 options available with them

  1. Go to the nearest local copy machine shop which is minimum 20 minutes from the office and which also would cost him 20-30 times the cost of the copy he wanted to make.
  2. Plead to the semi gods that they please forgive this grave mistake this time and let them have a copy on that divine machine.

More interesting is the fact that printer copies are free. So anybody who is especially in love with the Print button on his machine will know that he can print any number of copies without any restrictions. With the amount of cartridge and paper being wasted I bet they could arrange for 5 copy machines for the staff .

As usual the GODS don’t seem to care about such trivial things. The semi gods CANT because there is no special RULE written for it .

As long as the “copy machine rule” exists the local copy machine shop would be in good business and his kids will be able to enroll into a good college.

May be I should tell him to send a Thank You card to my office gods 🙂 .

Marriage – An end to Bachelor’s freedom

There comes a day in every bachelor’s life when he has to give up his “precious freedom” for something called marriage. There are some who are blinded by the beauty of the greener grass on the other side and hence walk willingly in to a thing ..some also call trap 🙂 . There are some who resit. These freedom fighters are tortured by everybody to the point that they also walk into the trap soon. Parents especially are genius in torturing such freedom fighters. An effective technique adopted by the parents would be to end every sentence with the word marriage.

  1. Don’t spend on that laptop…U will need to save money for your marriage.
  2. India will progress after…. your marriage.
  3. GOD will bless the world after..your marriage.

OK.OK. I am exaggerating a bit but this is the kind of torture we freedom fighters have to go through daily. Once the poor bachelor is brainwashed he will be spending a quite good money to give up his freedom in the name of marriage and celebrations. People spend money,effort to buy freedom and here this poor soul will be doing exactly the reverse.

Its funny coz all such freedom fighters know deep inside their hearts that One fine day, even they will be giving up there freedom and decide to walk in this beautiful trap but I guess thats what they call LIFE !.

You lose a part of your brain as you grow older 😉

GiveIndia.org

GiveIndia.org is a platform acting as an Umbrella organisation for other charity NGO’s ensuring that the majority of the funds which you donate reach and are used correctly.

Their website states “We do not raise funds for ourselves. We help you donate to these NGOs.
We tell you exactly where your money went and also give you proof of it through the feedback report. We ensure that at least 90% of your contribution reaches the organization you support (as against the average of 60% for the NGO sector). ”

GiveIndia.org Better world

Check out their website for more details.

They also let users create their own Pledge pages called iGive pages where in you can pledge a certain amount to your favorite charity and ask your family, friends,relatives and anybody you know to donate for your pledge . Best suited for ‘no gifts’ marriages and other occasions.

My new WebSite

Finally I got a domain registered for my new website .Its http://www.latish-sherigar.com. Right now the site does not has anything much. In future I aim to combine this blog and my other info which is presently stored across multiple places into this site.

The main reason i registered this domain was because i liked the idea of having the email id mail@latish-sherigar.com ..Isnt that kool 🙂 . Since i was purchasing the domain i thought a full fledged website with my own name would be a good idea when i am feeling down and need some thing to boost up my ego or when i am in a mood to brag in front of others.

Imagine if a remake of the super hit Deewar is done then the classic Amitabh -Shashi kapoor dialog would be something like this

Q: Aaaj mere pass Gaadi hai,Bangla hai..kya hai tumhare paas ??
A: Mere paas Mera naam ka website hai! .

Indian Companies..Indian Values

Recently I got a feel of Indian culture and values that is very much rooted in Indian Companies even though they are now global brands. My company whom i am ecmployed with i.e STG (Systems Tasks Group International Ltd) got acquired by Mastek an Indian Offshore outsourcing company and a much bigger and better brand. Around the same time Google acquired a company named Doubleclick.

Announcements after the acquisition:

Mastek- Not a single employee will lose their job.
Google – Expect job cuts

Its been few days after the acquisition and Google has announced that it will lay off 300 at DoubleClick. Well in my company’s case we are still holding our jobs .

Although there are more dynamics involved related to the actual money going in and coming out and many other factors ,its good that Indian companies till now have not fully embraced the hire and fire culture which is common in US culture .

Well nobody’s complaining 🙂