random ramblings

P&P: Planning and Prioritization All my carefully planned, well thought of, ingenious ideas are crumbling to tiny pieces. I prepare a weekly plan to get to know week’s objectives well in advance for me and team, prepare daily plans for me, end of day achievements, team’s daily plan and then replan in case of contingencies. I spend ½ hr everyday morning doing this planning. Then lets the team also know what the objectives are. This is on the top of sending them the detailed schedule for things to do. I review the progress regularly; have daily review sessions planned which I conduct in crunch situations. I think about improving me and my team every day. I am logging the random ideas I have, short term and long term action items, to improve on any problem I observe (which is sent to team and feels like it is going in a back hole). I conduct feedback sessions (One-to-One sessions, I call it) every two months or so. I give them feedback on what they did, what do I expect, which ones ...

Sometimes I think whether I seriously have a problem with grasping some control. When rope is slipping from my hands, I don’t even mind. Take life as a game you would like to play well. I can be competitive in a game, if I know how to play – I have demonstrated that with couple of them, but it is still mediocre. But here if I lose hope of winning, then I am losing the urge to fight. “If you can’t win, go down fighting”. What is the use? If there is a sinking feeling, then relax your muscles and let it do whatever it wants? Let the wheels roll and take you wherever it goes? Inaction. When it requires maximum work to be done, when it hits hard where it hurts, when it tumbles down with smoke and dust all around you, when you feel the pressure of the mountain you are trying to move is going to crush you, what if your nerves just give up? What if it just ceases to care and let it all take its course? Sleep and hope that when you open your eyes again, everything will be all right? Challenges...

It is like calm after a torrential rain. Office has grown a little silent after 7pm. Now some decibels are clearer or am I listening for the first time today? There are clicks from space bars around me. Since it is the key that is hit the most, it has lost its bearings and sounds like a hollow tin. It is the sound of this place - the sound of space bar. Every factory will have its own noise, its own smell - something similar. Then somebody hits an enter key with vengeance. This new mouse has that scroll on it - it should be greased, if somebody tries to go to the end of a document using that, it makes screeching sound, sounds like using sand paper to smooth a rough surface, insistent sound in short installments. Why don't they make it noiseless? - I guess whatever I hear, is from old furniture, which will be replaced soon. Old compaq PCs replaced with new Dell and HP flat screens and noise less keyboards - then this music will reduce in tempo. Other musical instruments are those ch...

“I need closure”. I have read that in some fiction. A person who was wronged or who did something awful cannot live peacefully until he satisfies himself that it is closed in the best way he can and then he can breathe normally. He comes back, repents his actions and then asks for absolution. Then he gets closure to his pain, his discomfort and his state of hanging on a nail. Or he was wronged by somebody whom he did not expect it from, or whom he held closer to his heart, he wanted to ask why was it done to him? I was thinking, what is the big deal. Forget it and move on. But I guess the best thing to do in such circumstances is to turn right back to the faceless, nameless feeling, try to confront and then bring an end to it – be it confession, questioning or whatever action it may take. Close the chapter, if possible with a happy ending. Just a string of thought remotely related to something that is bothering me. --------------------------------------------------------------------- I...

Weekend Plans After a long long time, I am going to relax this weekend. I have been working like a dog for last two months. I need to set down my burden for some tim. I hope I won't have to come to office on both the days. I hope I don't even have to take any work home. Saturday there is india-Pak cricket. So have to get up early. Need to warn my wife earlier that I will be busy (idle?) the whole day, need to muster some good arguments - that I haven't seen one match completely for over four years (but I am watching almost all the highlights including matches like Zimbabwe-Bangladesh - hope she won't come up with that point), that it is the "do-or-die" for our "boys" and if I am not there in front of TV and one more prayer added in my name, it may hurt their chances. That "it is mother of all cricket battles" and try to make her interested also so we can watch together – it is one good old technique. So I am going to relax like a cat. Need ...

Should I get bored if two or three days turned out exactly similar and dull? Do I need to be more patient to let this tide pass and wait for the sun to come out? I am bothered with too many disturbing thoughts – no, I am not making this up. Do lunar cycles really have an effect on us? I guess if we can explain the mood swings based on some tangible reason like that, it should have been easier to wait for it to subside. One of my friends (sensitive, sentiments – he hasn’t even heard about these words, but basically good at heart – so we get along) once offered an analysis after reading a bit of Freud - that my basic characteristics is melancholy. Very Strange – this comment came in between a very ordinary conversation in no particular place, when we were waiting for somebody outside a house – but every time I think about this comment, I get a clear picture of the cemented lawn with a coconut tree and its gnarled roots protruding and we two standing by the side of it, his bike somewhere ...

Put a person bodily on a tank full of water and put a heavy stone on the chest, heavy enough to get a sinking feeling without hope. Ever felt like that – pressure on the chest with feeling of doom? There is a deadline looming large and after three days of limited sleep my head feels like big, swollen thing which is pricked by some sharp object at times. Something like a zombie trying to drag his feet and somehow touch the finish line. But to tell you the truth I think I don’t resent, but enjoy this struggle. I think this has some purpose, some sense of achievement, some satisfaction of something creative being done, some satisfaction of using cells in my brain which were in a coma state for a long time. Thinking about brain dead – I wonder how much am I using that powerful machine of mine? I think since my head is swollen, I can imagine a big unused, well preserved (?) gray matter sleeping for years inside my head. Frankly speaking, today's software development firms doesn’t ne...

Compulsive blogging – is that what I do? I just read that and felt shy to write more. Am I writing for the sake of it? Huh. Not a good feeling, don’t think too much about it now. So I was thinking all the time I was walking from home to office. I got a house close to office – just about a kilometer. Also, Mangalore sleeps much early compared to other places I have been. Not that I have a complaint about that – many of my colleagues have. “there is no nightlife here”. I am not sure what will I do with some more nightlife. It is much different place out there at night, after all the drama of the day is over. I was having visions about this clip I saw somewhere – or I don’t know if it is a clip conjured up by my imagination. if everything in front of you is fast forwarded and you are placed inside that for a moment, then if only you are taken out of that and now you look back into the fast forwarded life in front of you, won’t it feel funny? I think walking alone at night gives th...