Shyam's Blog

View of "The Collection" Mall View from 4th floor Rajadhani restaurant in UB City - portable hand cleaning!

These days, I am getting involved in hiring process and interviewing candidates for our company. On those lines, we had "Interviewer skills" training session. This was a session about how we should interview a candidate. The session reminded me of all my job interviews I have attended till now. Some of them were very easy going and few net cracking. We talked on wide range of topics ranging from dress code to what to answer the candidate if asked about recession. At the end of the session, we were split into groups and were asked to do mock interviews. This was to test 'interviewer' and not interviewee. Here are some basic rules for interviewer: 1) Start off with a welcome note and thank him/her for sparing his/her time to come for the interview. Also mention about job roles and responsibilities. 2) Please be a good host. Offer a beverage. 3) Do pre-screening of resume before entering the interview session. 4) Talk only 25% during the interview. 5) Do not interrogate....

I was having my morning coffee and just thought that it is the most enjoyable thing for me everyday. Nothing to beat to have a cup of morning coffee which dad makes and rings the bell - "tin tin tin... tin tin.... tin". Yes. He really gives the ring once coffee is ready. Wah dad... wah coffee bOliye`!

Recently, I wrote about "Office Space". While thinking about the cause for that type of attitude, I realised that we ourselves are responsible for that. It wouldn't go away with time. As kids, we do homeworks and mini-projects. The main emphasis by teachers and parents is - "Don't share your work with anybody. Do it yourself". Parents also teach the same to their kids. There is no mention of team-work. Nobody has the ability of working with the team, as a team. That being the case, when they move to college, same thing continues. Once they start their job with the same mentality, there is no way for such people to turn their attitude to a new type. They do the same 'hiding' and 'holding their secrets' to themselves. In US, I have seen many times, if a team-mate says, "I don't know. Please show me how to go about doing it..", the other person will be more than willing to help. At no point of time this is thought to be giving away...

This is a very story which I got to know recently. I wasn't aware about the details. But, I knew something like this had happened. In my office, I see this guy slightly limping because of an injury. I had talked to him over phone many times in the past couple of months. I started seeing him in meetings recently. Couple of days ago, I got to hear this horrifying story. His injury was because of an accident on Aug 3 2008. I do remember this - it was August 4th morning when I heard the news in our morning Synch up call that, one of our colleagues met with an accident and died on the spot. We had minute's silence to condole the demise of Sudeep (name changed). The one I keep meeting now was the rider and the one who passed away was the pillion on the motor bike. My friend, Gopal (name changed) narrates the story... We were friends for the past 3 years. He was from the north and had not visited Chennai. Since I was visiting Chennai for the weekend, I asked him if he liked to accompa...

The 'Office Space' I am talking has nothing to do with the movie, Office Space. The one I am referring to is about office environment in India inside a IT company. One element is true - Working in US is different from working in India. Why? You will come to know once you read below... In India, there are people grabbing tasks to prove their superiority. Whatever task is crossing across their cubicle, they want to grab it. Let that be not concerned to their scope of work, they just want to take it and say "Yes, yes... I will do it" by shaking their head in all directions possible. This is the most unprofessional way of work. At the end of the day, one who just grabs all the work proves to be 'the most wanted' guy. This is cunning attitude #1. Hiding 'code secrets' is one more thing of IT people here. They do something to solve one problem and send an email to boss with cc-ing the team saying, "issue is resolved now". What the ... did he/she do...

uffff! It was great to listen to Vishaka Hari last evening here in Bangalore. It was a discourse on "Prahladha Bhaktha Vijayam" of Saint Thyagaraja. Vishaka has performed a full concert at the same venue a day before this one which I missed. The auditorium was packed 30 minutes before the start. Vishaka has such a talent that nobody can match it in future and nobody had it in the past! I don't have words to explain. Most of the discourse was in Tamil with English in between. This seemed tough when we started to drive from home. Sitting there, every word was sinking in like water flowing smoothly in a calm stream. That was Vishaka Hari's expression of words.

Days are running so fast that I don't even have time to look at the clock/calendar! Weekdays run off like a rocket. Weekends, run faster than weekdays ;)

Shopped for the first time at Metro Bangalore. This reminded me of Costco shopping. Metro is the only store to have such a huge place for car parking! The ceiling, arrangement of stocks, checkout - everything resembles Costco. The store has frozen section where one can get green peas, corn, etc. The meat/fish section has to be avoided if one is not a meat eater! It smells a lot in that area.