Say "NO" something to "They" Uncle ...

It seems like this blog is turning out to be a transcript of my proceedings in the office on a regular (daily i think) basis.

Who said working wasn't supposed to be fun. According to a certain Mr. 'They', you should always enjoy working. Thanks to him, the 'day' never goes without some spice and spruce to it.

Take for instance yesterday. Sun-Tzu would have been put to shame over his Art of War book. A master of cornering people and then ripping them apart shamefacedly is somthing our Mr. 'They' does exceedingly well. We were on a conference call with him for a continuous 3 .5 hours, and the ultimate takeaway of the whole meeting was - "So Guys, Hold on. Learn to say NO".

First thought in our mind - can we say No to your "gyaan" and have our dinner. Or, can we say No and move on with the scheduled piece of work, which otherwise could be completed without YET another night at the call center (oops i meant office - though doesnt make much difference - we are after all "Culturally" a BPO company).

We had a long series of lectures over 'incompetent' communication skills, time management, project management, our inability to put our foot down and say NO to client requests, push them back blah blah blah. There were 9 subpoints highlighted by our team where we thought we were facing issues. It so happened that Mr. 'They' blasted us on our own issues. And when he asked - "You with me?", we were supposed to say "NO" ???

The high point of the call came when he asked our manager if he could do a particular piece of work. We were so into the NO philosophy by this time that after much deliberation, we were put into the classic Calvin situation as shown below.



Considering it to be a trick question, we felt we knew the answer - yet another Calvin classic to illustrate the situation

And then the answer from our side was - NO. We cannot do what you are asking us to do. But, it truly was a trick question, and we got blasted once more for saying a No where we were not supposed to say it.

Coming out of those stressful 200 minutes was a relief - but whatever said and done, throughout the night our team continued to be in a good spirits often joking about the NO factor.

We named our manager "Dr. No" henceforth. And the team singing in Daler Mehndi style - "No no - no no - no re - no re - no re ...". So the 2 important lessons we learnt yesterday were that - first, Pinpoint who is 'they' (else it would give him a complex) when you accuse someone and secondly, Say "NO" something to "They" Uncle ...

No more "Lee"way ...

17th of August will probably be recognized henceforth as the saddest day, a Black Friday, in the history of the 3rd largest American P&C Insurance company, and for our project team as well.

No, we did not screw up the project (whats done is done - it is beyond us now to screw it up further)
No, we did not mess up getting an extension.

What then could be so catastrophic you ask?

Well, attrition (due to work pressure, tough bosses etc.) finally caught up with our project team, and one of our most "crucial" members resigned.

No, not here at my workplace - but - guess what - at the client side ...

Its now doing the rounds in the entire office that our project will probably live in the annals of the firm as the first to lose an analyst from the client team. Well the fault is not (completely) ours. The poor fellow probably succumbed to the blastings from his boss just about as much stick we keep receiving from ours. However, Indians, even with all the cribbing, are known to bow down and slog in with late nights and weekends if required. That perhaps is not the culture I expect in a US office, where you come in early morning and leave early evening. Our poor boy it seems was pushed to the limit and veered off the edge.

It is not that i would miss him because he was so dear to me - even though i haven't met him till now, i feel this bond with him. He brings humor to the calls, and with all his antics, keeps the meetings interesting. More importantly he was always made the fall guy and held accountable for all the mistakes anybody did on the team. I say this as the bare naked truth. Yes, we are highly indebted to him for soaking this pressure up on our behalf as well. Okay, he was at fault most of the times as well, but then give the poor guy a break. We all make mistakes. As long as they are not made daily and you can cover them.

I have seen the guy go from pathetic to awsome in over the 7 months that i have been interacting with him. What started out as a communication problem, seems to have been solved. I have lowered my bar and now think like him and talk in his language (which is a shock to my manager and team-mates). It is difficult. At times exasperating. But the joy of finally knowing you have made a point across makes you happy. You receive your share of taunts - "He understands what you are saying - you must be really retarded for that to happen".

Over a few weeks, i started maintaing logs of our meeting notes. If you thought notes about the project, you are dumb. Your just not 'thinking' at the right level. Notes about the amazing one liner the guys keeps throwing around, that he thinks are superbly intellectual, unknown to him that our team here in the office is on the floors, with their stomachs aching with laughter.

Take for instance the comment on him using a procedure "Funk Merge" to extract some data (which ultimately is so screwed that its taking weeks for his boss to re-extract it himself). For the uninitiated in SAS, there is NO procedure that goes by that name. Atleast not known to us lesser mortals. Given the way he talks and behaves, it was a shock to us to know that he had his "own personal laptop" and "drove a car with bluetooth in it". Whatever said and done, the guy was doing good data quality checks. I mean, OK, if you pull the obviously wrong data in the first place, it shouldn't be difficult to point it out.

We were also stunned by his "I know how CART works comment". Its a complex tool used for profiling/regression etc. which most users still haven't had a hang on, while we, who are practically experts on it, dont feel as confident as he did. He used words like "backfilling" and "re-engineering". He was training people in his company (i cant even guess wildly on what), working late hours, and even weekends. It seemed like the rubber band had stretched a bit too much. The point of no return had come.

Towards the end (i mean just before he resigned), even his manager had started taunting him publically in front of us. Attributing all errors to him, making him write explanatory notes to the VP, perform "sniff tests" and so on. The poor guy always took it in good fun, but he did realize that all his boss cared was for meetings and presentations, and not for him.

On Thursday, when he finally broke the news, i personally was in tears. My team was happy thinking it would be easier for the work to proceed in his absence. But they did not realize that the one link that maintained the axe from falling on our heads directly from the client boss was this guy. For him, he felt that the upcoming presentation to the Board of Directors would take a backseat with his resignation. The VP would have to bring in a new fresher. After all, He was the "Subject Matter Expert" in his own little nichest of niche domains.

In a speech, dedicated to my client counterpart, that Amit made to him over the phone, he called him our "One point anchor".
Come 31st August, we will miss you old pal. There will be no more comic jokes, no musings, no fun, no laughter. There will be No more 'Lee'way for us henceforth at the client side.

Koffee with Rohit (who??)

They talk about monday morning blues.
I was in a total mood to avoid that today.

Infact, i was in such a mood to avoid that and something else associated with it, that i decided to reach the office not before noon. It didnt work out the way it was supposed to - and so i got to (was made to?) have coffee with Rohit. Rohit Kapoor, President/COO, EXL Services.

The invitation for cofee had been extended to a select few, by advertising out the same in a very ludicrous manner over e-mail by our dear fwd-FYI-without-topi-ka-HR. The appointment had been set for an hour at 12 noon on a monday. Some mystic ninjas were enthusiastic about it and reached the office sooner than they usually do for work, while other laggards like me tried coming in as late to avoid making an entry into the conference room.

Unfortunately, the meeting got postponed an hour out, thus making it impossible to make an excuse. At about 1pm the few of us (not more than 12-15) got together in the bored room (no its not a spelling mistake), and "signed" the attendance sheet like little school kids. Masterji was very angry when told that some children will not be able to come to the class because they were ill/watching cricket/bunking etc etc etc ....

In anticipation of the coffee (that is what after all we had come for !!), we were deliberating as to would we get to choose between a mocha and a cappucino or a latte, or would a single brew be served throughout the board. All hopes of a good coffee were shattered when we saw the standard cups, and tea bags, entering the room. It was a disaster. Cold tea, without sugar !!!

Well in the midst of all the tea/coffee drama, we had an hour of discussion (about i am not even sure what??) with Mr. Kapoor. His conversation was somehow reminiscent of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities -

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.

Well, though, it did seem more like it was the best of times for him and the worse of time for me, but none-the-less ...

It was a discussion on a personal front, to know the man who built the company, better. He talked about his education, his work experience (inlcuding the part about managing a trainee for 2 months, who later on ended up being his wife), the way he setup the company, the acheivements and the slides etc. There were some questions from the not-so-enthusiastic audience in terms of a few queries/concerns, a couple of which were pretty emabarassing beamers for the boss and his team, but they ducked well.

Ultimately, the moot point of the coffee charade all came down to what one expected it to be all along - STAY and WAIT and BELIEVE.

The hour long session ended with Rohit giving out 2 autographed coffee mugs, the way KJ does on his show, to the two most enthusiastic members of the group (in short people who asked the most questions and bugged the others). The others received mugs as well, without the signature of-course. With Rohit finally leaving for his flight to Pune, probably for another coffee tete-a-tete there, the group embarked upon their second mission - 'samosas' and 'dhoklas'.

/* Transgressing away */
For the uninitiated, samosas, are snacks to be had piping/steaming hot, made of mashed potatoes, peas and lots of different spices, wrapped in a cone shaped coating of gram/corn flour (not sure which - my culinery skills are restricted).
Dhoklas are dhoklas - dont ask me how and what they are made from.
/* Regressing back */

Back to our original discussion, the samosas were effectively colder than the tea. You couldn't expect them to be less so, given they had been put out there in the open right under the AC vents. I could barely manage finishing one, while ninjas with occult powers helped themselves to probably half a dozen.

Finally, returning to our cubicles, we posed with our priced possesions and heres what it looks like. It was, truly, an "interesting" Coffee with Rohit ...

Driving in the fast lane !!

No, this is not another philosphocial or lifestyle or marketing mantra based concept.
The topic post is just what it says - quite literally - driving in the fast lane - on the roads ...

Its been now close to a month (or two was it?) that i have started driving on the "bad wolf" roads of Delhi and Gurgaon. It still feels like you are going to get gobbled up by the raging-bull traffic around you.

I have that dreaded L-sign still taped to the back of my car windshield. Dreaded not for me - but for people around me. The L-sign, especially "red lettered" that it is, invokes for some the tendency to live (and fight) another day (by passing the learner very very slowly and safely) and for others the wrath of a woman scorned (horns screeching and honking at learners who inevitably find their vehicles stoppind dead center of a traffic jam on a green signal, others wanting to zip through by).

Well - for me - its been there, done that kind of stuff now. I think i can drive decently well now (by my standards atleast) on main roads and negotiate tricky traffic. I however, am still not into the thick of how things drive into "danger zone" yet. I play by the rules. And that is what will get me killed someday on these roads.

I thought, and still do, (and i know pretty sure i am not delusional on this) that in Delhi/Gurgaon (actually in India as a whole), the driving is right-handed. Which means, by pure logic that you overtake a vehicle from the right, and hence the fast lanes would be the rightmost lane on any road. Why then for the love of defied logic, do people with cars that cannot go more than 30kmph on a freeway, want to travel in the rightmost lane. That too when all 3 lanes on their left are totally empty. And when you tend to be driving at 100kmph, if somebody jumps in front of your car, then God save him/her (I doubt if even He can manage to do that).

And its not just private vehicles. But for some reason, the trucks and tempos think of the right lane as their daddy's as well. No matter how much you honk, blink your lights, cuss at them, show them the finger - it just isnt going to move them off that track. Then out of sheer frustration, you change lanes from right to left (mind you, i have given the left side indicator as well), but just about as you are doing that, some other guy, coming straight from playing Road Rash 2, crashes past your left rear view mirror jarring his horn, only for you to shift back again in the right lane behind the tempo and repeat the infinte cycle to try and overtake it.

I can understand the pain the Formula-1 drivers would be feeling when driving lap after lap behind a slower car, trying to find that perfect corner, that moment when they are just about close enough to sling shot from the slip-stream and overtake the car in front. But till then they must wait and wait and wait - and brake and brake and brake if they get too close enough for comfort. Reminds me of Massa's Ferrari behind a debutante's Spyker at the end of the safety lap in the European Grand Prix. A dream come true for the rookie to lead the race on atleast one lap, but the impatience of Massa and Alonso to get past him.

Well for me its not so drastic as January and May as it was in this F1 race, but as O.Henry would put it - its still a clear case of October and June.

So as i have learnt, driving in the fast lane is easier said than done. Didn't really know that the phrase used by so many 'gurus' really meant what it actually was. Nothing figurative. And the world thought it was euphemism ...

Mlogging - the Farmer's way ...

Finally got 2 go on a team dinner to Le' Meridien with my kissan bhai behen. Translated 2 english, thats farmers and not ketchup. Had 2 resort 2 mobile blogging given a few late hours at office, no internet at home, 'unabling' me 2 transfer pics or post. Keeping it short. This gets expensive :)

Post addendum - a view of the Le' Meridien lobby 20 floors down from the passage entrance to Belvediere (their restaurant)