The Company ...

Its been more than 2 years in Abu Dhabi now and boredom is starting to creep in now. No more am I enjoying the place; nor do I like exploring it any more. A usual weekend is movies (ocassionally swimming) and eating out. However, the most fascinating thing about this place is my job ...

I joined my current company back in June 2007 and have been trying to figure out since then as to what this company is trying to achieve. In the last two years my profile has been changed more than thrice (LOL) and now it feels that if I was made the head of department tomorrow may be I would be able to do the job better than it has been done. I came here straight out of B-School and this turned out be completely opposite to every principle of business I was taught. Infact, I can actually write a book on it with the title "How not to run your business" and grab some best seller awards for sure (some of my colleagues are already updating their scarp books for later use). Infact on one of the trip outside of UAE recently one of my senior colleague told me a very important thing - if you work with fools, tell other that you work with fools; else when the world realizes that you worked with fools they would take you as a fool as well ...

The bureaucracy really amazes me. There are more than two people or two departments trying to do the same thing and unfortunately none has accountability for the task assigned (atleast we are good at job creation in these recessionary times). Strategy of the company has changed more than twice in the last 2 years (however I must admit that so has the senior management). Every morning we all speak about everything else in the world apart from what we are suppose to talk about - "InvestmentManagement". Jokes are usually PJ's and generally people believe that they are better than Buffet or Soros .. let alone that some people quote that Soros did what they spoke about a few weeks back. The frog has never leaped out of the well and thinks he the king of the world. People who earn more than me ask me such stupid questions that I couldnt take it any more today and just decided to leave office mid-day to save myself from aggravating my frustration.

Every one is aiming at a target in dark and hoping to hit the bullseye (little do they reliaze that the target is on the other side).
There is no dialouge between the top-middle-junior management. There is no workflow in place. Everyday one has to open his/her mailbox and see what tasks are assigned to that individual for the day. And my boss derives pleasure out of it saying that you guys need to be good at "ad-hoc" tasks (mera boss actually "f" ko "l" samazta hai ;) .

I hope I am proven wrong however if my understanding of business is true; places like these can never go too far. When I came into this company I was enthu about a lot of things and now I just hope I can survive here till the time I find another job ...

India wins...

(After suffering from a huge writer's block for the last 6 months - I am back again)

A quote from morning daily Times of India today reads "India is not a secular country because Indian muslims want it to be secular; It is secular because Indian hindus want it to be secular". Honestly, this is the best line I have ever read about Indian hindus and the fact that it comes from an Indian muslim - MJ Akbar makes it more credible.

Election results for LS polls 2009 have slapped divisionary politics; politics which divides you on your caste, politics which divides you on the strata of society you belong to and most importantly politics which makes you believe that "every human has an equal right to live, to belong to India because of his origin" is no longer valid. I have never understood divisionary politics right from the day I could understand politics probably because I was raised in colony where muslims and christians were our neighbours for almost 20 years. Thankfully that taught me to respect all religions; celebrate and enjoy all festivals and live peacefully with differences in opinions and values (One thing which my mom didnt like though is that it also taught me to eat non-vegetarian food as well). I believe most of us Indian's are the same! Each of us (well barring a few offcourse!) knows how to respect a different religion than our's; tolerate views and opinions; and build a society of communal harmony and peace. Our principle is simple - "Live and Let live".

Unfortunately, some of the political parties has not understood that very fact. Dude who the f*&k in this fast world has wasteful time to spend on things like religious idealogies? and who the bloody hell knows that his god is better than other gods? Broaden your perspective; god (not matter which) will only help those who help themselves. Stop dividing people based on their race, colour and god that they worship - no body explicitely had a choice to choose a god when he/she was born into this world. There are much more important things to focus on anyways - education, poverty, child labour (which I believe is the biggest crime of all), employement ... and now India wants a government which looks at these issues rather than one which promises to bomb the neighbours house if one kid over there has thrown a stone on your house. I dont mean to say that governments should be ignoring crimes; however punishing the innocent for mistakes of a few is bigger crime to commit.

True - People always vote for change; and the change this time is that we want our government to be more proactive in decision making think of broader good and balance socialism with capitalism. We want our government to be educated and most imortantly we want our prime minister to be a person whom we can all look up to. May be that's why INC has won; safrron has to learn what the new Indian wants and hopefully the red realises that its better to shut down if idealogies remain the same. For the rest, stop bringing criminals to poll !!

**** oopss sorry - just one last thing! ... Quite frankly I am bored of "Hindutva" and I always wanted to ask this to LKA "Abey C-K-B tujhe kaise maloom ki 400 saal pehle baabri masjid ki jagah ram mandir tha?"

One new resolution!

I have always loved this tradition of making new year resolution(s) on the 1st day of every new year. All these years I have made several resolutions and to be frank I have forgotten about them in a day or two after I've made them. However, 2009 is a different year and I really want to live by the resolution I have made this year. It isn't a great resolution anyways, however, I am sure it's a difficult one to follow. My resolution for 2009 is 'to smile' .

2008 wasn't a great year so to say so (personally). I have seen more down's in 2008 than up's, who care's however, the year is gone and its time to bid it a warm good bye. Begining every year we all make many resolutions; again these being very materialistic. I do no mean to say that one should not aim higher nor do I mean that one should do away with responsibilites. The most important thing of all that 2008 has taught me is that, no matter what happens you should always be ready to wear a smile on your face. Too much of thought actually makes my mind go crazy and I am sure it applies to other's as well. Hence, my resolution for 2009 is just to let things be. No matter what happens around me, I will smile. I will try and stay as happy as I can throughout the year.

A resolve to live by the moment.....