Work matters

I am truly lucky to be in a profession which allows me to do what I love for the most part: writing code. I cannot imagine doing something I do not like. In fact, I don't do stuff I don't like :)

But that has not prevented me from thinking about what it would be for the construction worker working in the hot summer or even a banker sitting in an AC room poring over the boring transaction data. 

During the Renaissance, when everything, including life itself, was subjected to analysis, life itself was disassembled into what were considered fundamental but independent activities: work, play, learning, and inspiration.

Institutions were created in which each aactivity could be carried out independently. Factories were designed for work, not play, learning, or inspiration. Theaters and arenas were designed for play, not work, learning, or inspiration. Schools were designed for learning, not work, play, or inspiration. Museums and churches were designed to provide inspiration, not for work, play, or learning.

However, the transformation to systemic thinking has brought with it a growing awareness of the fact that the effectiveness with which any of these activities can be carried out depends on the extent to which they are integrated. Therefore, it has become apparent that a transformational leader must be able to integrate the various aspects of life in order to effectively pursue development. The transformational leader is one who can create an organization that reunifies life, who integrates work, play, learning, and inspiration.  – Russell Ackoff via http://bit.ly/oLsz2.

In other words, work should be fun, productive and inspirational at the same time. i.e. the 8 hours of work, or a third of your life, should not be 'work' anymore. 

That is why I think this is so true:

Passive consumption is the boring old form of entertainment. Joyous creation is the future of entertainment! -via http://bit.ly/XBKzt

Walking the talk

At a time of recession and when big corporations are facing charges of felony and excesses by top management, it is heartening to see some good companies brave the weather with grace.

One of them is Infosys.

"We may fire employees during the best of times but never during a crisis or a recession." said Narayana Murthy in a speech in 2004 when India was shining for IT companies. 

We can now see that, that commitment is being honored even in these trying times.

One Wish

"If there was one super power you could ask for, what would it be?" asked my roommate.

To me, it would be getting information at the speed of thought. Imagine being able to complete reading a book within seconds. Or, getting your queries answered with Google directly into your brain. Or being able to fly an airplane just by 'downloading' the instructions. Being able to navigate around any place.

What would you ask for?

Journey is the reward

It was pretty dis heartening to read the story of the 'Slumdog' kid actors who returned back to the slums after their moments of fame in the Oscar wilds.

"I don't want to sleep on the floor anymore. I want a proper bed and live where the air does not smell of poo. I have seen what it is like in America. Here, there is garbage everywhere, people get angry, swear and shout. I have realised how bad life is here. I just want to get out." -- Slumdog Kids Back To School

On the other hand, you have someone who is the opposite of a 'slumdog' fantasising about life in the slums:

I strongly believe that the west has much to learn from societies and places which, while sometimes poorer in material terms are infinitely richer in the ways in which they live and organise themselves as communities - Prince Charles

Then, you have a self made man say this:

I was brought up to believe that there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – that you put your head down and work hard during the journey and then finally at the end there is comfort and wealth.

I disagree with all that now. I don’t believe there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Even if you die with Rs. 1,000 crores to your name, you don’t take the money with you. So at the end you have absolutely the same you started with – zero.

Hence I now believe that the pot of gold is not the end of the rainbow – but that the pot of gold is the rainbow itself. All that we have is the journey. There is nothing else. - Mahesh Murthy

Why Sales Managers are paid more?

Gandhigiri

The basis of Gandhigiri is to bring about change in your opponent by patience and sympathy.

Its root meaning is holding on to truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it Love-force or Soul-force. In the application of Satyagraha I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on one's self. -  Gandhi

Basically, you are expecting the other person to change by sheer patience and self suffering and hoping that his basic human decency will show up eventually which will bring a change in his behaviour. 

But do we really have the patience and energy to wait for the other person to change? Do we even care if the other person changes, as long as the obstacle is removed? The examples in Lage Raho Munnabhai movie did not resonate well with me.

For e.g. in the movie, 'Gandhi' advices a home owner to continously clean the door which his neighbour uses as a spittoon which ultimately makes the neighbour to give up his habit.

The philosophy perhaps works best when you have no other option. For e.g. if your opponent is more powerful than you. Like the British rule in India, Civil Rights Movements etc. 

But for everything else, its like wasting time trying to teach a man eating tiger to eat grass whereas a cage would have been a better and faster option. 

Getting into IT

While applying for engineering, I had 2 likings: Computer Science and Mechanical; and my board exam results decided that Mechanical was the branch I had to take.

Growing up, I was always amazed by machines. The way every component in a machine aligns itself in synchronous motion in perfect alignment is just fantastic. Like all beautiful artifacts, the design of something like the engine is so simple that it masks the cleverness behind it. 

But after an hour of filing metal in the sweaty Workshop in my college in my first semester, I had already started disliking Mechanical Engineering. 

It was obvious that I wasn't 'cut' out for it. The manual labour in the workshops was one big deterrent and then my shabby drawing skills. Drawing was one reason I didn't take Biology in Plus Two and it was the most appreciated skill in Mech undergrads  with most of the subjects requiring intimate portrayal of machinery and design on paper. 

Also it is prohibitively expensive and hard to build things and experiment. For e.g. you can conceive a design for a highly efficient hybrid engine, but the time and money it will cost you to assemble the parts and then experiment with it doesn't seem worth it.

The air conditioned computer science labs were much more welcoming. A field where everything is abstract, it only requires logical and analytical skills to become good at. You only need a computer to build, test and experiment your design. Also, I loved programming to the extent that some of us from school would write small gaming programs during holidays and compare them.

I was lucky that IT companies were desperate enough to hire from all branches of engineering in the year of 2004.