What are they thinking ??????

Every personality and attitude is different. Which is natures design !!

At the same time, its not all the same that used to be at birth. Upbringing, society everything shapes it over the tenure of one's life.

Last week I came across two such human beings which are far from tolerable (to me and to the dozens of other people who observed these people).

Interestingly, both of these people are so far successful people !!!!

Dr. Ramaswamy (name changed)

An PhD, an MBA, educated in USA. Moves from degree to degree. Not picked up any real practical job for an year at length yet.

Dr. Ramaswamy, as I understand, is - bachelor, young and bright.

And his marriage proposal was being discussed with one of the most practical, nice, bright young lady I know very well.

Over the course of getting to know each other over e-mail and internet chats etc, the personality of Dr. Ramaswamy stands up uniquely, and for some reason very predictably.

Dr. Ramaswamy starts his e-mail with "chou" - while rest of the world ends an e-mail with that. If the girls gets amused, he refers to a dictionary that says, "Chou can also mean Hello".

Dr. Ramaswamy says the girl not to feel inferior because her academic degrees are not as good as his (the girl is one of the brightest engrs I know :).

He claims that he drinks milk only from "Happy, alive cows".

Dr. Ramaswamy, says the girl most likely has "Auschwitz Syndrome" and unlimited googling does not even find the right meaning. Thats when you know, its told to show some one knows cornor cases !

Nevertheless, the relation did not go anywhere before even it started. The girl, politely "let-go", "Dr. Ego" !

After all in his own words "He does not do women" :)

Sangeetha Madhavan (name changed again )

This person, is a marketing professional for a global company. She comes to the office gym some evenings (and from the looks of it, she really needs it too.. who does not now a days :) !

From the moment she enters the gym, negativity starts to spread. She has not yet registered, neither received doctor certificate that is mandatory to start working out. Everyday, she says to the front desk, that she is one of the busiest person in the company and does not have time to do that.

From the moment, she enters, she tells this gym has a bunch of guys doing time-pass ( there are many serious health freaks as I see them, who also happen to enjoy their work out together).

And she comes in the busiest hour of the gym. Asks the gym instructor to remove people working out on cardio equipments so that she does not have to wait. She does not like the music in the gym. Every minute, she would complain about either adjusting the volume or changing the song.

Rest of the gang there goes on enjoying work out, music - any music at any volume and her attitude. She has literally become a laughing stock for the gym users and a nightmare for the gym instructors and front desk people.

She is the one, who put a handkerchief on a cycle to claim its her's when she comes in :)

Betaal is clueless if Dr. Ramaswamy would ever be able to have a real job for a long time (outside of academics) and if Ms. Madhavan will ever get in to shape (for the body part above her shoulders).

..and you thought only govt. officials are corrupt ?

Betaal bumped in to this land mine of money and malpractice ! And no - not in an govt. organization.

This is a global company, setting up its major operations in Bangalore. 1.1 B USD investment in a campus. And being one of the best employers, they have also set up real beautiful infrastructure, buildings and interiors.

Betaal heard from others, that the dept who directly oversees the construction, interiors and work place resources is engaged in typical govt. style bribing, money gobbling and stuff from vendors.

But, knowing the company is one of the most ethical in the world, he took those as just hearsay !

Until now ...

In this company's health club a pool table was to be procured from company X for a value of 10K USD. The quote came in. It is the only professional supplier in the city, which imports these tables from UK. Now, the dept had the option of getting this table for 10 K USD directly. They asked the interior decorator vendor the provide the table. Who submitted a quote of 16K USD.

They did not even officially receive the quote from X. The interior company supplied it for 16K USD. They in turn bought it for 10K from X. In the middle 6K USD went somewhere. No official tracking of that is possible to incriminate anyone ! Beautiful !

Second incident - a few more equipments need to be procured. Quotes from 2 leading vendors 13K USD and 27 K USD. Same equipments ! Almost 100% difference in value ???

The vendor with 13K USD quote (call is A) is the "preffered" vendor for this dept.
The second one (call it B) is a majority of the equipment users reccomendation which has submited twice the amount for the same equipment. In a "show off" public meeting, they show up - do a comparision and say that A's price is unbeatable and we should go with A.

Slamdunk !!

Not yet ! Betaal thought something is wrong and asked for the original, stamped, on company letter head quotes of both A and B for review. After the initial inhibition, and hasitation they submitted those for review.

Here is the fine print -

In the company A's quote it says - 39% customs duty Extra and Shipment and installation charge of 5%. Plus the VAT (tax). - Extra !

In company's B's quote it says "Everything inclusive".

The devil is in the details that no one in that meeting saw. And this is all happening in a top notch global corporation which is known for its ethics.

Irony - Betaal told this to a few senior folks. And they advised him to stay quite as it may pose physical danger to him !

Man vs. Machine

Evenings with Dr. Das are true gifts. Its enlightening and entertaining ! This evening was one of them.

This is one of the story that Dr. Das narrated today.

Man vs. Machine.

One Chinese researcher wanted to try his future as an Enterprenuer. His first idea was to start a battery cell manufacturing for the small, portable devices swarming the world. Small energy cells.

So, he went on a world tour to see all battery makers. Went to USA and Japan. He saw this amazing manufacturing centers with very less human beings working. All robots doing the work. Its a process ! Cells come out of the process, packaged in thousands every moment.

He came back to China and started the same business with people. No robots. He made some loss initially. Then 2 years later, the battery technology changed.

All the advanced cell factories across USA and Japan, had to change the robots and the machines. Big investment.

The Chinese researcher, took the opportunity and dropped the price of the cells by 40%. He just invested a few bucks in training the people he had to adopt the newer technology. No big investment.

That one change, catapulted him to world number ONE in cell business.

Talking and thinking ..

After 3 days of 5-6 hr long meetings on supposedly critical BU initiatives.. this is what my conclusion is -

There are 3 kinds of people.

1. Who talk before they think. They stink !

2. Who think so much that by the time they talk - its too late ! History !

3. Some who think and talk at the same time. Half of them have right thought. Half the right talk.

Betaal wants the fourth category in this org.

Customers rule ..

Drawing Parallels ..

Talked to a very old friend. School days in rural Orissa. He used to be physically very strong and good at studies too. And what was characteristic about him, was his righteous stubborn-ness.

Over the years, he has become an IPS officer. As in Indian Police.

While talking, making few jokes on how Indian police works, how they prevent crime etc. he mentioned one thing that draws an interesting parallel to what I do being in engineering.

When I asked him, say a theft happens - how does he go about finding the culprit ?

His answer was simple. With a very clam tone he was explaining me the procedure which is outright brute force and yet seems very effective.

When a crime happens, he looks at the signature of the crime. Is it done in night or day ? Entered through back door or front door ? If a door is broken, which instrument has been used ?

Many parameters of the signature are collected. Then, all the signatures are run against a database of all the criminals in the area. A list of the criminals found from this analysis is run against the database to see if some of them are inside the jail. The rest of them are brought to police station and interrogated. 90% of the cases, they nail it down there.

We do the same in engineering. Something happens on field. Analyze the signatures. Run through existing issues database, re-run to see which fixes out of them are in. Focus on the rest, and 90% we get to the root :)

Premonition ..

Day before yeasterday, evening around 7 PM I got a panic call from one of India Big telecom service provider (R) account.

They were setting up a new service in Chenai, that would enable users to get very high speed internet on their handhelds.

Well, the problem was a collaboration issue between different functions, and a quick call sorted it out. However, what shocked me is, normally all new service introduction, R gives us prior notice and plan. This one was quick and random and out of no where.

When I was going through the call, I was thinking, "I saw it coming". I saw this thing happening with exact same service provider in the exact same location, even without any one conveying the plan to me.

Premonition ????

No - Flashback ! Last week I read in the Business section of newspaper, how everyone waiting for more wireless spectrum to roll out high speed data to hand-helds. I also read that a govt. back service provider (B) which got access to a spectrum before the actual release of the frequencies started the operations in Chennai. While reading that article, I knew R will do something quick. Same service in the same city. And they are our customers.

I knew that time, that they do not have time to plan.

So, its not premonition for sure. But, sometimes these seemingly informational news reading, tells your inner self, how its going to impact you.

And, this is "instinct", "guts" a very powerful tool - and when over used can cause "paranoia".