Saturday, September 22, 2007

My wobbly tobbly weekend ! :-(

Sometimes I wonder about the insensible ingenuity of the person who conceptualized the idea of rendering to the society a fancifully magnificent mode of celebrating weekends. An endeavor par excellence (!) of keeping 2 days off without even realizing that it reduces week to actually 3-1/2 days (Tuesday to Friday afternoon) At least I come across this phenomenon every week at my workplace. It is a place where work actually snowballs but come the Friday and holiday mood takes toll over every other damn thing. As for Mondays, I know of my Monday blues atleast.Every Monday, I hate looking back at my weekend because as compared to Mumbai where I had so many things to do, here at Gurgaon,am just wasting my time over things as stupid as calling up driving schools/food-joints/multiplexes/gyms/travel-agents and what not. And even more stupid is the fact that it all boils down to no avail. I have been doing the same exercise for past 3 weeks and have come to no definite conclusion as in what I want and how will I get it.


Anyway as an individual with considerable understanding of human psyche (atleast mine) I have arrived at a conclusion that weekend offs are fundamentally inapt and should be discontinued asap. Instead there should be a concept of mid-week break. This way one can have an off on Sunday and lets say Wednesday. It in turn would entail high order of employee satisfaction and lower grievances of mounting work pressure. (What crap!)


However there are cons also because we Indians being social animals of the most typical sorts would want to have 2 offs together, but who cares.Also,although I am inhabitant of Democratic republic,my wonderfully matured opines seldom do get deserved appreciation and acceptance.So atleast for the heck of it, let me bask in the glory of my newest fancy. An idea of a better, useless, lethargic and laid back world. Amen!

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Sorry HINDI ! Happy Belated Hindi Diwas !


Just a thought!

We are very much sculpted into practice of celebrating Father's day, Mother’s Day,V-Day,Hug Day and even Rose Day.These are a few things which we have neither inherited not brought down from lineage. These are things which have unwarrantedly forced their ways into our lives, making relationships more like a calendar bound activity. I don’t want to propagate a view that such occasions should be altogether discarded. Just a thought as in what should/could be our priority.

Anyways,my sole intention was to put forward a view that today(September 14th) is a day which ideally should be important to all of us but unfortunately doesnt even finds space in either a newspaper column or for that matter,mindshare.September 14th is our "HINDI DIWAS".Celebration of spirit of Hindi as our National Language(not language of the state).Article 343 (1) had put down a timeline to escalate Hindi as a Language of State but it has been 58 years since that resolution.Not a regret,just a cerebral vibe.

As to show respect and maybe gratitude to what we actually inherited,let us atleast try to convince ourselves that Hindi is an epitome of our being in true spirits.Or maybe it is something which defines religion for many of us.

This entry intends to evoke a silent resolve to love and respect our heritages.Maybe those heritages which are indispensable.(Imagine your life without Hindi for a minute).Not a thing more not a thing less.

Apologies for writing this blog in ENGLISH,but then probably it aptly conveys that displaying 'respect' doesn't mean 'fanaticism'.

"हिंदी हैं हम वतन है,हिंदुस्तान हमारा"

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Noah at Work ! Striving hard to stay afloat.

Trust me, the most difficult part of writing a public entry is zeroing on what to jot down. I normally am decently spontaneous when it comes to scribbling, but when it comes to writing a blog,the right set of words simply stop flushing out from the whatever brains vents. Thank goodness, I am not very choosy about writing in ‘the only’ right words :-)

As I said, its difficult to decide over what to write, I thought will just pen down my thoughts over one prime question which am facing in every quarter these days. Being an MBA and then having joined a good Banking Corporation, the most common question I face is how am I finding my workplace and hence the work. Probably will talk about this only this time around.

The company I work for. Well, I should not hesitate in accepting that it feels wonderful working for a corporate which is still driven by its strong work-culture legacy. The environment as of now, is extremely professional and competitive. So are the people. But then should I try indenting a firm mental opinion in just 3 months of career association.

My work profile. Frankly speaking, quite broad. However, the role definition is decently carved and even the career graph seems well poised. The financial domain for which I work is called Global Payments and Cash Management and is a fundamentally growing sector. Other than it being a in-demand service, keeping in mind prospects of Post 2009 banking reforms, not many Cash Management Specialists are available in a still metamorphosing sub continental business environment. There is no dearth as such but as compared to other commercial banking fields, people are not handy. So can say that a good place to be in.

There is a backdrop to my take on the issue of whether if I like my role. When I look within myself and scratch accompanied historical evidence, I feel a bit out of place. Throwing a glance back to my academic career, I find a sense of revulsion to core finance. There were instances during my MBA when I wanted to escape the accounts related stuffs and get back to branding and market research. There were occurrences when I couldn’t tally my trial balance sheets after zillionth attempt and felt stupid when every other soul was as adept at it as I am at crapping. Those were the times when I wanted all the finance related stuff to go out of the windows, and be taken over by more interesting subjects like Operations. Marketing, Systems or even HR (Yah Yah, this is not a typing error, its HR only huh!). Later on I just held on to the anchor with a compromise that will try my level best to pass in the exams and then will put a brave face to nightmares of flunking in the same. And I did that only for full term 2 years of my tenure as Masters :-) Who says MBA makes you learn a lot of things. It just makes you learn how to make way out of Chakravyuhas without actually learning in principle how to do it.

So when this banking company came to the campus for recruitment, I had a full 30 min debate within my own self as in whether I wana’ opt for something which I might no like and eventually quit. Whether its’ worth taking a chance and that too such a critical one. But there is one thing that I have learnt from whatever I have faced in life. Every damn thing that makes you cringe out of fear and despair is definitely worth giving a full fledged and convinced shot. If it fails then you might end up getting disappointed but at least then will have some kind of satisfaction of not yielding to temptations of easy route. So here I am, trying to learn whatever I can about Cash Management. Learning how the various segments of working capital cycle management can work for corporates and banks alike; learning how simple CMS solutions can help corporates grow and dream big; learning the knitty gritties of IPO/Dividend business. Candidly, I still am not very comfortable with the basics of how the whole business works and probably my confidence at work is still not at its full helm, which is very much unlike me. This is putting back oodles of pressure back on me but the only thing that is keeping me in saddle is a strong will to get over the scare phenomenon. To just be myself ‘coz that is when I am at my best. And if am not mistaken that is when I actually leave back my footprints which has always been my unconscious aim.

I don’t want to leave an impression here that I am not enjoying my work. Courtesy guidance by some of the finest professional I have ever met, I am sailing off pretty fine. The whole prerogative is to establish that its’ not a smooth sail for me. Its a not an easy journey ahead for sure but I don’t mind traveling as long as there is a challenge underneath and a threat that fate will lead me into retreat. Let’s see, it is an open war!