In biology and ecology, extinction is the death of every member of a species or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species

                                                             – Wikipedia

Dear friends,

It is with a heavy heart that I bring to your attention that one interesting human habit is dying out fast – making Pen-pals.

A penpal relationship is often used to practice reading and writing in a foreign language, to improve literacy, to learn more about other countries and life-styles, and to make friendships. As with any friendships in life, some people remain penpals for only a short time, while others continue to exchange letters and presents life-long. Some penpals eventually arrange to meet face to face. Some pen pals even get married.

I used to have pen-pals as a child. I used to write to them, imagine what it would be like to be them, from their letters and hoped that one day I would get to meet them. (Note:I was pretty much normal at that point in time. )

But with the advent of Facebook, orkut and a multitude of chat clients, it all slowly faded away. There is no longer a need to get to the post office, find the right postage amount and write something in your best hand.

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

                                                         – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The time of pen-pals is almost up. e-pals anyone?

It’s been a month since I completed the Copenhagen Marathon. 

It took about 5 months of grueling training. By grueling, I mean ‘ungluing my eyes from the TV, getting off the couch and forcing one foot in front of the other one step at a time’. The whole ‘over-coming laziness’ routine. Anyways, it got me through the 42.195 kms.

With the right training, you can do it too. Here are a few videos to get you started..

Have fun running.

Two Factor Theory (also known as Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory) was developed by Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist who found that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction acted independently of each other. Two Factor Theory states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction.

Two Factor Theory distinguishes between:

• Motivators (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give positive satisfaction, arising from intrinsic conditions of the job itself, such as recognition, achievement, or personal growth^[4], and
• Hygiene factors (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) which do not give positive satisfaction, although dissatisfaction results from their absence. These are extrinsic to the work itself, and include aspects such as company policies, supervisory practices, or wages/salary

Now that we know how we can achieve our goal, what would be five great ways to make sure your company is employee-unfriendly just to the right measure as a way to downsize without firing them:

1. Increase work hours and decrease pay citing recession. Immediately after this communication is handed out to all employees, suggest conducting a HR session to increase team morale and a month later, sponsor a vacation for just the top management. That ought to create a few disgruntled quitters.

2. Make shopping carts out of office chairs. Employees would have to put in a Dollar to get the chair. After they are done using it, they will have to take it back to the storing area, push it into the queue to release the $1 deposit. (This is just to demoralize the employees a bit).

3. Lease out a part of your company car-park space (proportional to the number of employees you want gone) to another company. Lesser parking space will have a two-prong effect. The first is that employees will come in earlier to work to get the fewer parking slots available, the second being that the parking fees ought to get to the losers (read: late comers) over time.

4. @ the Canteen: Request (another corporate mandate!) your employees to have their lunches alone and not with their co-workers or in groups. This will save on all the unproductive time they spend discussing non-company related stuff and also prevent them from scheming and organizing protests against company policies. (Thanks for the idea, Thej!)

5. Create Gang Wars between departments. Make use of ‘No survivor battles’…

If you have more creative ideas on how to downsize without creating a heart-ache for the HR Department, do comment them out…

I will need more ideas to start a ‘Downsize’ consulting firm… That’s the only job I think will be recession-proof.

Disclaimer: This is a part of a conversation that may have happened…

RJ: John, I always wondered what kind of a lady I would like to spend the rest of my life with. And know what? The answer unfolded itself to me during one of my meditation sessions (read: helplessly inebriated Friday evenings).

John Doe: You thinking about marriage?? LMAO… This is gonna be fun… [He pops open another Carlsberg]

RJ: I would like to marry a woman with CEO-like qualities. While I sit around the house practicing the fine art of ‘Lazy-boy’ing, she can make her way up the corporate ladder. I will let her employ a maid to keep the house in order. All I would ask of her is a daily allowance of 100 Indian rupees (USD 2.5) for my daily beers.

John Doe: What does she get in return then?

RJ: What does she get in return you ask, my young Padawan? I will read up jokes from the Internet the whole day. I will crack them once she comes back to ease her stress. An occasional massage and the duties of a ‘decent, but lazy’ husband will be on the menu too.

John Doe: But then, why do your MBA, Jedi Idiot? [striving to maintain a straight face...]

RJ: It’s about not having an ego, with her being a CEO and all

There are times in your life when you meet up with ’special’ people… Every thing is right about them… You strike the right chords the instant you meet… Any conversation ranges from ‘deeply engaging’ to ‘interesting’.

Things are absolutely fine…. till ….

I have confessed many times over to being a hardcore fan of creative pursuits.

Taking something that has been around for some time and making something new out of it is art in itself. I could not help but share these gems with you.

Snow Patrol vs. The Police (Partyben mash-up)

Oasis – Greenday mash-up

Most of you Johnny Bravos out there would know how difficult it is to conjure up a relationship out of thin air… especially with the ‘mythical’ blonde, blue-eyed malayalee girl*  standing next to you at the local pub….

Fear not! Don Draper has come to the rescue… I hear his no-nonsense advice on getting on your groove is right on the spot.

I can’t wait to try these out…

P.S.: The author will not be responsible for any advice in a comedy programme aired on National TV. If you are put out of misery, hard luck, I did say…

*A corruption of the blonde, blue-eyed brahmin girl fantasy by Mahesh R

This is a guest post from a dear friend and colleague, Mr. Thejaswi Palakshachary. The views presented here are his ‘undiluted and biased’ opinion on blogging.

This post does not, in anyway, resemble my opinion on this topic. I totally confess to being a 21st century ‘Pontius Pilate’ and wash my hands off this ‘bleader’.

Is blogging a form of narcissism?

Why would anyone want to blog? Furthermore, why would anyone want to read these blogs? Doesn’t it actually boil down to narcissism?

Let me try to explain. If someone has a point of view/opinion on something/anything, a blog is the easiest and most popular way to reach out to a www notice board. At the end, what is achieved by posting a blog? Obviously and needless to say, reaching out to an audience, who could either applaud (silently) or throw rotten eggs, verbally. So, it actually turns out to be an ‘unrehearsed’ public performance, on a stage, in a park, where people are loitering around, looking for interesting ’shows’ looking for a display that can draw the most/interesting attention.

Let me ‘blog’ my point of views on the elements of a blog.

The blogger:
To me, it would seem like the blogger is only looking for/craving for importance (who doesn’t? ). The more uncommon/weirder the topic, the more the expectation. In spite of this being my first ever blog post, which is kind of an advantage in this situation, I would want to have a look at the ‘number of hits/’comments’ on my posting. So what would I do immediately (1 day later) after posting? Advertise the same through unsolicited emails to my near and dear friends (birds of the same feather?). But before we get there, let us look at the most important component of the blog – the ‘topic’.

The topic:
I don’t think this can be generalized. My opinion based on very limited ‘reads’ of blogs is that, ideally, some situation would trigger you to sit in front of the ‘not so total an idiot’ box. One would need a platform to vent out bad experiences or impress those you hold in higher regard or last but not the least, and most ideal topic, just for fun. Given the 3 kinds of topics that one would select, we now move to the next most important element of the blog – the ‘blog reader’.

The blog reader:
Let me see, you are frustrated at work and need a break. There are no important/fun filled emails in the inbox. What can I do next? Let me read that blog by my friend (URL link sent by email a week or more back). Once you start reading the blog, you are unconsciously thinking “do I agree with this at all?”, but, you are actually like Neo in Matrix where the Oracle says about knowing his future – ‘you already know’. How is that? People, unlike the powerful quote that I like – ‘The mind is like a parachute, it works only when its open’ – are not so open to accepting ideas/opinions. Confirms another powerful quote that goes something like, ‘It is the mind of an educated mind to entertain a thought and not necessarily agree to it’. So, either the ‘bleader’ (blog reader – my word – cant I invent a word?) gets a phone call or decides to take a coffee break and closes the blog – or if sufficiently influenced,  takes the time to vent a piece of their mind (depends on how close a friend they are to the blogger too).

So, now, having set my frame of mind out, the blogger is triggered by a situation and wants an audience to the thoughts (sucker!!), the ‘bleader’ (if you have not read the blog properly – like most don’t, please refer above), will either be a closely associated friend or another sucker looking to either shoot or applaud a bird with the same/different feather (respectively). But, at the end of the day, how has the blogger and the ‘bleader’ been affected by the blog? We are looking for the color of the feather (my friend ). If you agree on the blog – you get a boost of confidence that there is another (sucker) ‘like you’ – if not, you make sure they get abused enough to think really well before they start airing ideas. Coffee anyone?

Dear friends,

I apologize for not posting any thoughts on this blog for the last one month. Yours truly was in an utterly disoriented state of mind. Great things have been happening to me and I have been making some tough decisions.

But, I am back now. This blog will go on….

Let me start my stream of thoughts once again by dedicating this great song by Ugly Casanova to all the people out there who missed me…  

Love,

Renji Kuncheria John

Most of the people I know are not happy with what they have. (Not talking about sizes here, my dear innocent fellow!) They inherently have a craving for better things. (which is a good thing)Not getting what you want when you want it evokes a standard set of emotions as a child. Tantrums! Wailing! Heart wrenching rebellion! But as we ‘mature’, we learn to bottle up these modes of expressing disappointment, or let it out in a very controlled manner.

Take the scenario of a couple breaking up. People react differently to this ‘frustrating’ of all situations. While some turn to self help books to maintain sanity, others take to drastic measures like alcoholism. There are some who cry their heart out, but in the privacy of their rooms, not letting the world know… There are others who are able to move on after just a couple of hours of good sleep… Different people… different reactions…

How about when you are passed over for promotion, AGAIN? Would you still keep that smile on your face and work as if nothing has happened? Would you threaten to quit if you are not recognized for ‘valuable contributions’ to the company? Would you have a straight talk with your manager? I have seen all three scenarios play out… to different effect…

The question is … How do you handle frustration?