WHY NOT

I can't remember a time when I was this disappointed in my life. How healthy is this.? I don't know, but I sure don't like this feeling...

I honestly believe that I do not harbour huge expectations from life; for one my life time mentor has strictly advised against it, and secondly I completely understand that not all can get the best available thing. The later being a mathematically impossible and former being my motto of life.

But may be because I keep very low expectations it is even more difficult for me to except failures, or may be because I am not used to it, any which way this SUCKS....and I can't tell you what all I am willing to trade just to get this particular thing in my life.

I have friends and am actually blessed with few very good ones, all of them being huge source of inspiration for me in one way or the other. But right now I ain't wanna talk to any one of them for one they will divert me back to the path which led to this failure and secondly its just embarrasing...It seems I have been wrong all along....

I wish to talk to few people who have never stood beside me and not my friends, I know this sounds stupid, but its just I wish for something to go right in my life any which way. I clearly have no idea of what is right and wrong, all I am concerned with is output, I have had enough of sincerety and hard work and all stinking shit...now I need some pay off ...and I ask WHY NOT...

Sitting Idle

I am sure many of us go through a phase in life when the only thing one has to do is sit idle. Looking from outside this seems like a very peaceful exercise, or shall I say a state longed by many and achieved by very few after years of hard work. In corporate slums, as the old warhorses say that this is the closest thing to utopia. One is paid to sit and not do anything; the only expectation is to make least noise while one is sleeping. Well for good or bad, deserving or not, I happen to be in this phase just after two year in these slums.

Whenever someone asks me what is it like? I say what was told to me, that this is the best thing that can happen to one. However deep with in I fear I am hiding this feeling of disappointment, quite like reaching atop of a steep hill after treacherous trek and finding that the view is as good as it was from the start of the track.

When I share this with myself the question that pops up in my head is “Could it be possible that all we are programmed to do is to look for reasons to be unsatisfied”. It is like a big strategy by some twisted mind to take the society forward at the cost on very individual it consists of.
One a personal scale if I dwell on it long enough I feel that this is the classic struggle between ambition and peace. On one hand, we are expected to aim for more and more, on the other it is about finding a place of yours in this complicated task of living a life. Both directions holds a strong argument, I believe the question that remains is “when”. Is it more like following a certain path (aiming for more) till a point‘t’ and then switching your regime to another.

So what define success or failure then, is it just choice or there is no true measure of this commodity. I tend to agree with the later argument, for one this holds true for almost everything in life and for other it gives me a way to escape from answering the former. This also gives one a freedom to look for reason to proclaim our self successful against what we are programmed to do. More than enough for me!!

I am getting bored...

How many this thought crosses my mind in a day/week/month is one of those NP complete problem to me. Every other moment I am looking out for option and escapes to get out of this mundane life and get involved in some “Good Work”. I wonder if this is the state of mind of every other individual sitting next to me and for that matter everyone involved in a similar work setting or not.

I will use the term DTC (acronym for Destined To Crib) to refer to people in the above state. Majority of us belongs to the intersection set of corporate slaves and alumnus's from elite campuses. So all of us belonging to DTC wants to do “Good Work”, this encompasses the traditional characteristics like Cutting Ege, Tangible, Important, Itriguing, Challenging and my personal favourite Value Oriented. So in pursuit of this heavenly goal, we sweat hard during life time of training at those elite campuses, which in fact is the point where we switch our regime of ‘normal life’ to one with monotonously increasing pain.
So rigorous is the training here that we are more than prepared to trade “Good Money” to get a distant shot at “Good Work”, well this is our first step towards the real hidden goal we set out to to achieve, i.e. life time of cribbing. These institutes, I must admit, does a really commendable job in brain washing the amature innocent minds to reach this point. Sometime I wonder if such structure/ setting should be used in those extremist training groups across the border aimed at more tangible goals.

Coming back to “I am getting bored..”, once the members from DTC land up in place with “Bad Money” (remember we traded “Good Money” for a distant shot at “Good Work”), it takes some where around 12-18 months to realize the how “Good” the “Work” really is. With a added benefit of “Bad Money” we move one step closer to our real goal, lets be polite and call this state “Misery”.

With time we learn how misery is an increasing function of time and people resolve to various strategies, which include switching this work with “Good Work” in some other setting, adjusting one’s senses so that the real effect of increasing time and hence the misery is some what reduced. The later is supported seriously by huge conglomerate of tobacco and breweries, so actually an easier and more effective choice. But for those who chose the first option its back to paragraph one after a lag of somewhere around 6-9 months.

So one can argue that using the more socially accepted option one gets a respite of somewhere around 6-9 months, and hence it’s a better option. To all those who belong to this school of thought, I must remind you that in hope of switching work at hand with “Good Work” you have to chose “Bad Money” yet again. And the extent of “Bad” is relative to your current level…..
So after 6-9 month you are stuck with similar (if you are lucky) or worse quality of work with “Bad – Bad Money”. And once you are here, the only resort is writing a testimony of it in hope that others might learn and get out our beloved Destined to Crib club….

A Penny or a Pence...

S0 what is this with people and short term reward for which one is willing to trade with wildest dreams of theirs. To me its the innate sense of humans to discount future rewards with factors beyond any rationale. All we need is to be rewarded today, and by today I mean right now, and it doesn't really matter if the reward is a penny or pence as long as no one else is getting it.

Many a times we know well enough that it(leaving this penny) is just a cost we have to pay to get what we really want, but in the end what we are stuck with is the dilemma of choosing between penny and a pence. The bottom line remains that we need rewards Now and Now ONLY.

Well someway I tend to reason this behaviour with the way one is brought up specially in developing or may I say poor countries. Here we or our elders have seen/heard how important it is to get that last piece of bread so as one can fight for another one tomorrow. The rationale can again be drawn from our evolution, we were hunters and thus living by the day is what we were focused at as a species. But both the stories are our past, we ought to do better than that...

At the same time seizing the opportunity and not waiting for the perfection also offers a strong argument. One can't wait for that perfact girl to a stage where drug is more important than protection. In short it melts down to atleast having some measurable short term goals (i.e. if one fails to arrive at longer versions, for that again is more of an art than science.) What is important or as they say 'need of the hour' is to look beyond that penny and pence, and fight/wait that extra mile for the reward we really want/deserve.

Long term Goals......what the heck

I was told that industry is all about maximizing your long term reward with a constraint on cash in hand. All decisions in our career should be aimed at achiving this simple goals at the cost of short term rewards. Sounds simple, isn't it... well that is why I said "wat the heck".....

So the thing is as much as I accept this, I have to live with sacrificing things i hold dearest...The worst part is this habbit of sacrificing...after only two years in this stinking system I am used this aweful taste in my mouth all the time. Their are time when I give up some short term gains in line with the philosophy, but more often than not I use this analogy to justify my conscience whenever I am treated unfairly.
Its not that I am cribing about life not being fair, I mean I am ok with that concept, I call it zero sum game...sometimes you win and most time you loose cause you are playing against millions...right!!!
Its just that I hate this state of mind, basically as morpheus said "its one thing to know the path, totally another to walk the path.."

Relativity...how bad is bad...

how bad is bad.....this is something which has bothered me for quite some time now, the past week fortunately has given me enough motivation to pen it down.

We all have heard that joke, where an orator explaines the crowd that bad is when hundreds of you die in a bomb blast this very instance, worse is when He get injured in it.

Moving on to the story, like many other I am also dependent on my office CAB for my survival, every morning this is what I wake up for. (additional info: my office is around 35 km drive from my home and it takes around 50 minute to reach using our beloved office CAB, and God forbids if one ever uses the public transport system, it can take anywhere from 90 minutes to 150 minutes, with median being well above 120 min) .
Coming back to waking up at ungodly hours to catch the cab, I follow the routine with utmost sincerity, and have been quite successful, at least in this part of my life. I have never missed my cab in past 10 months and I don't really volley for superstition, but for this touch wood!!.

As per how one feel when one is inside the CAB is a different story all together, we all crib no matter one is qualified for that or not (I believe people with similar background as mine, can appreciate it easily), but any way, we all crib to an extent that we hold grudges (permanent ones) against our fellow cab mates. The thing is that one can fit 5 people in it easily, but following the massive cost cutting and all, the sacred admin has decided to fit 7 people in one cab. Now comes various issues of inclination of seats, tilts, preference of window seats and not to miss the SACRED seat next to the driver. But this being a routine, we all have kind of accepted it, or at least that’s what I thought. We all acknowledge it as bad but accept it as we hardly have any other option.
This week I had some important work at home and had to leave late from my place, so I was left with no choice but to rely on our super efficient public transport system. After around 30 minutes of hustle, I reached a point where I can get paid cabs to a place quite close to my office (~ 2 Km). I was the seventh guy in the shared taxi, which means no time will be wasted in waiting for this thing to fill in; hence I hopped on to it in no time. I enquired about the cost and found it unbelievable cheap (20 INR only). Thanking the Almighty, for the support extended & my luck, I felt real good.
This however lasted for hardly a minute when 3 more people got into the cab, so we are 10 now, I went to the driver complaining about this insanity but was back before one can say the word 'back', meanwhile, I missed my window seat. I won't share the response I got from the guy who sat on my seat as that kind of language is prohibited as per the rules of BlogSpot. (Apparently I realized that the cab mates I have in routine are not so bad & are rather quite friendly).


Well this is just for a day; I assured myself and sat on whatever little space was left after that massacre. The cab was still waiting, learning from my previous experience, I shouted to the driver to move the vehicle, to which I got a similar response as above, so we waited and was awarded with 3 more companions for the pleasant journey to office. Now we are 13 people sitting/ standing/kept in that thing holding on to each other so that we don't fall off the window or the broken but stuck door.

By now we smelt of each other’s sweat which I must tell you is not that good a felling. The mercury is around 45 C outside, so we all were sweating like pigs hence none had any complaint on another for the sweat parcel. This reminded me of the fact that yeh the CAB provided by the office is equipped with air conditioning and even after insane inclinations of my colleagues is quite quite comfortable. Well I reached office with the refreshed memory of my life which went pass my eyes every time we were on a sharp turn and my centre of mass probably out of the taxi.



Now it’s been over a week and I am finding my office CAB as the best part of the day without any issue and not feeling bad about it at all. I know it’s not going to last for long, but still I would like to believe this way for the time being, I like to remind me each time always that apparently bad is as bad as we perceive it to be.

Increasing Pain/Pay ratio

A colleague of my once taught me the concept of Pain to Pay ratio, though not so evolved I do find it quite interesting not to mention useful in my life.

"Pain to Pay ratio (PP ratio) is simply the work (pain) an organization get out of an employee in return of the pennys (pay) it throws out at one. "

So being a true Indian and hence a honest follower, I set out in search of something with minimal PP ratio, constraint on significant short term cash flows. Luckily I found one that suits all my hidden constraints & as phoney as it may sound I was really happy for months to follow. I tried to convince myself that their exist some theory (PP ratio) which is complete and yet useful however couldn't succed for some reason ( I stress this part as following my academic training, I have long accepted the opposite view).


Its took me over seven months to realize the incompleteness of the theory above. As much sound a concept it is, PP ratio has much more to it bringing me back to my earlier : No theory is complete and pragmatic at the same time. In retrospect, this ain't that bad a feeling, I am back to what I have learnt in so called rigrous training, and thus justfying my goal of not learning anything anymore. So I have lost seven months against a what is close to a dacade of wrote learning.
So, coming back to the flaw in the concept of PP ratio, I have to offer a modification/ improvement, lets call it PP version 2, Adding on the defination above

PP2: The numerator in the ratio moves much like a geometric progression, following the law of ever increasing Entropy.
Well this can't be good, but the optimist (in all of us) would like to know more about the denominator. As much as it might hurt, (I plan to be honest here), The denominator my dear is more like a random walk. You may get far from where you started(riding on your luck or screwing you colleague) but rest assure you will be back. Its the same never ending rat race we all are runing with no option of getting out.

So what does it gives us, to me its more like another theory which need some work before being accepted (read discarded) by fellow researcher like us, welcome your comments on this.....