Thursday, March 23, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Continental Divide - Movie Review
The story is abt how an ace reporter falls for an eagle researcher.
What I found interesting about this movie is the choices that the lead pair had to make.
Both were deeply in love with each other, but their lives were poles apart. The researcher had devoted all her life to nature studies and had to live in the mountains to pursue her work and the reporter had his life in the city. Living together meant that atleast one of them had to sacrifice his/her life and all their life's work
The movie provide an amusing solution to their dilemma !!!!!!!!
What would you do if you had to make a choice lik that..
I wud say its a tuf call to make ....
Interestingly enuf it seems a fairly obvious choice for a select few.
Monday, March 20, 2006
The Art of Sucking Down
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/03/the_art_of_suck.html
A friend who worked at O'Hare International Airport told me this story. He once watched a passenger absolutely scream at an airline ticket agent. The ticket agent, however, remained completely calm. After the tirade was over, my friend asked her how she could remain so calm, and she said, “That's easy. He's going to Paris, but his bags are going to Sydney.”
One of the great misconceptions of selling, pitching, and partnering--basically, any time you want to get someone to do something for you--is that you should suck up to the people with the big titles and “A list” designation. Sometimes you do--as you've already read in this blog, but the ability to suck up to the folks who don't have big titles but make the world run is more useful.
1. Understand the dynamic. Like it or not, here's how the world works: if you want something, you should be nice to the person (let's call him “Biff”) who can grant you that something. It doesn't matter whether you are more powerful, more famous, richer, better looking, or better educated. Biff has the power, so deal with it. Returning to the ticket agent episode, it makes no sense to piss off the one person who can help you. In this sense, there is no such thing as “sucking down.” You're always sucking up when you want something.
2. Understand their needs. You should try being a ticket agent, flight attendant, secretary, receptionist, waiter, or customer service rep for a day. Then you'd learn that they're not getting paid a lot of money to put up with your crap, and they're dealing with their own sets of issues: perhaps a broken-down car, an unhappy spouse, a sick child at home, and maybe even a bozo boss. These people want to do a good job, make a living, and be happy, just as you do. The key word here is empathy. If you can empathize with them, you'll be much more successful dealing with them.
3. Be important. If you want to be treated as an important customer then be an important customer. That is, fly the same airline, eat at the same restaurant, and play hockey at the same rink. If you spread your business around, then don't be surprised if you get jacked around. I only eat at three restaurants in all of Silicon Valley: Gombei, Juban, and Buck's. I can get in anytime I want at these three restaurants--but only these three restaurants. I fly on United seventy five to 100 times a year. It takes great care of me. I fly Air Canada once a year. It puts me in a coach-class, center seat between two screaming babies. That's life.
4. Make them smile. A window occurs in the first thirty seconds of your interaction with Biff. In that brief time, if you can make him smile, you will differentiate yourself from 95% of the orifices that he deals with. Then you're much more likely to get an aisle seat, an appointment with the boss, an outside table, or step-by-step instructions to make Word print.
Simply beginning a conversation with, “How is your day going?” can break the ice. You know, and he knows, that you don't really care how his day is going, but at least you're civil enough to ask. That separates you from the pack of hyenas. Here are some opening lines that have worked for me. (Please provide more as comments because you can never have too many good ice breakers.)
• Restaurant maître'd: “Do you have reservations?” You answer: “I have no reservations whatsoever. I am absolutely certain that I want to eat here.”
• Airline ticket agent: “How can I help you?” You answer: “You could give me an upgrade to first class and ensure that my bag is the first one off the conveyor when I get there, but I'd be happy if you get me an aisle seat.”
• Secretary: “Will she know what you're calling about?” You answer: “Not unless she's clairvoyant and a masochist. But can I try to explain why you should grant me an audience with her?”
5. Don't try to buy your way in. Don't try to buy a person with flowers, candy, or an iTunes gift card. Realistically, the downside risk far exceeds the upside because you're likely to insult Biff by implying that he can be bought. Just be honest, be important, and have a legitimate rationale. That's a good enough case.
6. But do express your gratitude on the way out. I don't recommend trying to buy your way in, but once you are in, then it's appropriate to express your gratitude with gifts that are kind, but not extravagant. As my mother used to say, “Be nice to people on the way up because you're going to see them again on the way down.” You never know when you'll need help from Biff again.
7. Never complain. Let's say that you don't get what you want. Should you go over Biff's head and complain? This is seldom effective. Assuming that Biff is competent, he's not going to get fired because of your whining. Historically, pee is seldom more effective than honey. Persevere, and wear down Biff's defenses with humor, dedication, and empathy, but never go over his head.
8. Rack up the karmic points. I believe that there's a karmic scoreboard in the sky. It keeps track of how many points you've earned and how many you've used. Therefore, when you have the opportunity to help others, do so--and do so with glee. You'll build up points, and someday your kindness will be returned to you. However, understand that you need to accrue these points before you need them--you cannot go negative.
9. Accept what cannot be changed. Sometimes things are just not meant to be: there are no more aisle seats, all the outside tables are taken, and the boss doesn't want to talk to any sales reps. If that's the case, shut up, and go on with life. Don't flatter yourself and believe that the airline is out to get you by assigning all the aisle seats to others. Life is too short to get upset by things like this.
I wholeheartedly recommend that you try these practices because I always seem to get an aisle seat, almost always get upgraded, and my luggage never gets sent to Australia. And getting to the same destination as your bags in a lousy seat is a helluva lot better than getting to a different destination than your bags in a lousy seat--all because you pissed Biff off.
Written at: United Airlines flight #559, Chicago to San Jose, upgraded to first class on less than twenty-four hours notice.
Monday, March 13, 2006
its true.... its all true....
TOP FACTS ABOUT ENGINEERS
************************************************************************************
Engineers at work:
Assignme! nts solved by one and then carry out mass transfer operations
throughout the class
************************************************************************************
The most important machine for Engineers:
Xerox Machine (Without which assignment Completion couldn't be possible)
************************************************************************************
Top two Engineering Rumours:
Did you hear the results are being put up today at 5:30pm'
'Did you hear the exams are postponed by two weeks
************************************************************************************
Common Engineering Dialogues after a paper:
'What is this man, 60% o f the paper was out of the syllabus'
'This was the worst paper set in the entire
engineering history' 'I am failing'
Monday, March 06, 2006
The ‘Keeping One's Options Open’ Mentality
Interesting article abt how we lead our lives preparing for a better tomorrow but when tomorrow comes.. we do the same .. we prepare for a better day-after.. and we do this all our life, till life passes by...
Originally published in Taking Children Seriously, the paper journal (TCS 30).
There is a very nasty syndrome which parents sometimes inadvertently pass on to their children while trying to help their children have better lives. I call it the Keeping-One's-Options-Open mentality. Here is one example of what it looks like:
You study hard to ensure that you pass your school exams. In Britain that would be GCSE exams at the age of 16, which you do to keep your options open so that you can do A-level exams at 18 if you want to. Then you do A-levels to keep your options open in case you want to go to university.
Then you go to university to get a good degree (not necessarily one that you will enjoy) so you can get a good job. Then you take the wrong job (a ‘good’ job) and kowtow to your boss so that you can get promotion and thereby security, to keep your options open after retirement.
This is a very common syndrome in which people sacrifice themselves for the next phase of life, which itself consists of nothing but sacrificing themselves for the following phase.
A friend of mine, whom I'll call Henry, has this syndrome badly. He is so desperate to keep his options open and set himself up financially that life is passing him by. He is living for retirement, and totally forgetting to live now. And as retirement looms, he is increasingly fearing it. In this lifetime of unhappy sacrifice, he has systematically sacrificed his real interests, and has destroyed his capacity to acquire any. When I think of Aristotle's dictum: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’, I think of my friend Henry. What has his life been for? It was supposed to have been for him.
And the most frightening thing of all is that in his desperate wish to help his daughter have a good life, he has successfully instilled in her the very same syndrome. She now studies hard whether she enjoys it or not in order not to end up in a dead-end job. Henry's job, apparently, is not a dead-end job, but it does take all his time from when he gets up to when he goes to sleep, almost every day, and this has been the case for the many years I have known him – and there is no reason to expect that to change.
As Herbert Spencer said in 1867, ‘A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.‘ By that criterion, Henry is dead, or nearly.
Keeping one's options open closes off options.
It is not that doing exams or going to university closes off options in itself. Indeed, doing exams or going to university is just the right thing for some people at some point in their lives. But if you proceed mechanically through predetermined, standardised processes like exams in order to keep your options open, you are not doing what you otherwise would have done – namely, building up the capacity for making your own real choices – so you fail to build up a rich structure of things you enjoy, things you want.
Indeed, any time you do something to keep your options open instead of because you want to do whatever it is, you are falling into the Keeping-One's-Options-Open mistake.
For any human being who is not actually facing death by starvation or the firing squad, the hardest thing in life is not getting what you want – far from it – it is finding out (or rather, creating) what you want. That is what we deprive children of when we channel them into ‘keeping their options open’. It looks as though they are keeping their options open, but at each stage they are actually presented with only one option – the option where you do the standardized thing: something you can do without being human, by sacrificing the human part of yourself, the individual part.
If you do something you don't really want to do, how will you ever know if it was a mistake to do that? At least if you do something you do want to do, you will be able to tell later if that choice was a mistake.
A chap I knew many years ago, whom I'll call Patrick, was reading Medicine at Cambridge, and hated it. He had not chosen that course because he wanted to do medicine. He had chosen it reluctantly, on the advice of his mentor, Lord somebody-or-other, to keep his options open, in case he wanted to become a Member of Parliament.
Because Patrick was not expecting to enjoy Medicine, when, lo and behold, he did not enjoy it, that didn't give him any information about whether doing Medicine was a mistake or not. So he spent those years miserably getting his degree in Medicine instead of doing something he might have enjoyed. And after all that sacrifice, not only has he not become an MP, he hasn't even become a doctor. What a complete waste of time!
Contrast that with George Orwell (the author of 1984). Orwell had certain values and aspirations which made him want to go to fight for the government side in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. But he discovered that the situation there wasn't what he expected, not because of the ghastly conditions, but because the communists were slaughtering the anarchists who were on the same side, instead of the fascists they were all supposed to be fighting. He began to think deeply about why and how.
Because George Orwell (unlike Patrick) was there because he really wanted to be, he learnt an enormous amount as a human being. Making that particular mistake turned out to be what his life was for! It gave him new understanding and in particular, a deep understanding of the roots of totalitarianism. He became a great writer.
Fighting in a war isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it was his life and his choice to make, and his to learn from. We need to remember that, don't we? Our children must make their own choices in life.
Instead of channelling your children into your vision of what they should be or do, help them to pursue their own ends in life. Don't destroy their creativity by channelling them into the Keeping-One's-Options-Open Mentality. Ask yourself whether you might be doing or saying anything that might be channelling your children into this unfortunate syndrome and try to stop doing so. Do you ever suggest that your children study for a particular examination or set of examinations in order to keep their options open later? Do you ever suggest that your children ‘learn’ such-and-such in order to keep their options open in case they need it later? Do you advise your children to keep practising an instrument to keep their options open in case they want to pursue it professionally later?
Talk to your children about this syndrome explicitly, so that they may be, to some extent, protected from any inadvertent coercion you may be subjecting them to. Next time you feel the urge to ‘encourage’ them to take the Keeping One's Options Open route, remember my friend Henry and poor old Patrick.
And remember that this applies to you and your life too. Instead of going through life making yourself miserable by taking the ‘keeping one's options open’ route, take the route that you prefer – the one you really want. If you want to enjoy life in retirement, make choices you expect to enjoy now, or you'll be miserable both now and in retirement.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
fear forever....
We constantly live in fear.
Recaping a life of a normal individual...(mine actually)
Sk000lll..
During school life, we are worried that we shouldnt antagonize our principal or teachers,
cos we want to end up in some good college and we might need their help to do so.
Worser, antagonizing them might lead to dire consequences like Suspension which would be a bad thing to have while applying for colleges.
In college..
we dont want to get on the bad side of any Profs or the college Admin team, cos again
we cant afford a black mark. And we need their recos for higher education/jobs.
In Grad college..
Surprise Surprise.. fear remains..
there is again a much wanted need for those valuable recos to apply for jobs or phds..
and ... in jobs..
we dont want to get fired the first few years cos we are trying to lay a strong base for a proper career.
as time goes on..
we hav a family and again.. though we reach a respectable position we still dont want to get on anyones bad side cos we hav our family to think about.
and life goes on like this....
most of us live in constant worry and fear ....
imagine a life without fear.. well.. we probably wudnt cross stage 1 - high school.
one mite just drop out of it.. bcos he didnt lik his teachers attitude..
and this possibility of dropping out and quitting carries on until the last stage - a professional and a family man..
this usually ends up in ppl getting fired all the time.. and changing jobs..
or splitting up over and over again with ones spouses.
so is fear a good thing...????????
one might wonder. I for one dont think its such a good thing. But it has helped me control those animal instincts i get to go "hulk" and rip the head off the person who picked on me.. or acted high and mighty .. etc.... etc...