The three mistakes of my life by Chetan Bhagat

After my last Chetan Bhagat read (2 States – The story of my marriage), I had sworn off his books for sometime. Okay, sworn off buying them inspite of not being as heavily priced as some of the other non-authors. Quite coincidentally, I got an e-copy of the 3 mistakes of my life last week.

A thin plot around the true story of a state coming of age, the trademark masala mix of love, hate, religion, girls, egos, ambitions and Chetan has managed to produce 150 pages of it.Sometimes I wonder if many authors are languishing in us without being published, as we fail to see the obvious in making a best seller.

Post reading this, I am sure this and the next is not the last we will see of him. The business mind in him has realized it is not tough writing half baked storylines, mish mashing it with whatever is the flavour of the season (maybe swine flu or terrorism this time) to have a reasonably good seller of a book in his hands.

No wonder, he “gave up” working to write.

In awe,
Me

General Nonsense

There are some people who can write absolute nonsense, day after day. But at the same time, this nonsense also sets you thinking, and leaves you amazed at the power of articulation this writer posesses.

One such writer I have admired is Scott Adams of the Dilbert fame. I was a fan of his daily strips long before his blog came into existence. Now, I am beginning to feel that his blog was the reason for many of the comic strips. He would have written a paragraph of nonsense, and then the idea in the nonsense crystallized into a doodle, which was later enhanced, or copy pasted by some great animation software.

There is one other Indian blogger who comes close to this. I am talking about krishashok. (http:// krishashok.wordpress.com) I am not yet elevating him to the status of Scott Adams, but how can somebody think up of so much delightful nonsense day in day out.

Most of time, these people are talking about everyday things. It is just the tangent at which they are thinking which makes you wonder that this alternative line of thought has a more constructive use than the original intended use.

Strange thoughts Stranger days

As I was reading about how the terrorists in mumbai were conditioned to be trigger happy, was reminded of how at times I am ‘delete’ happy – in clearing several files from my computer at one go.

Time to go

The best times at work are when you are serving your notice period, post your resignation from work. The taste of honey only gets better when it is longer, and the management is unwilling to award you any concession. You will understand what I am saying when you look at it from my point of view. How does one put this time to best use?
1.Do a thorough research of the various coffee vending machines in the campus, on as many floors as there are in yours. At the end of it, you can share a well thought out and useful report with the unfortunate ones who choose to stay behind even after you have left the organization!! It can contain information on which are the privileged ones to be frequently visited by cockroaches/mosquitoes/ants or other unrecognizable once living forms, the sugar/milk/coffee/tea strength of each, the crowd pulling capacity – could be a time series analysis if need be and the like.
2.Examine your computer hard disk, identify ways to discreetly delete useful data, create multiple copies of junk and automatically give them relevant different filenames based on the hottest business killer topic in office at the moment, create several partitions on the hard disk – maybe one for each new project you will be assigned to work on while you are on notice period.
3.Re-read all the mails in your mail box that you have received in the past ‘x’ years (? Months ? days ) , especially the forwarded ones, and forward them back to the one who sent it to you in the first place. If you are afraid of annoying that person beyond measure, add a line on top saying “remembering you…”
4.Prepare handover documents (it is highly unlikey you will be asked for one anytime before the relieving date, still it is also highly unlikely that you will not be asked for one on the day you are packing your bags for one last time…you get the gist..) such that it is atleast 25 pages long. You are free to include blank pages in between the 3rd and 22nd page. Set the font to binary, and circulate to your manager just when he asks for it. Then exclaim surprise as to how the virus that attacked your laptop has managed to infect his too.
5.Say hi to every member on the floor; if they do not respond at the first instance, go stand at their desk and make small talk. Remember the decibels of the conversation should be just a wee bit lower than normal hearing, so that it raises suspicion in their minds about possible attrition from others.
6.Discuss the appraisal process, and include unachievable or previously conveniently ignored topics as additional targets for the team. Whoever said your successor should not miss you!
I could go on, but my dear readers will begin wondering if it is my personal experience..to clarify to one and all, hell and heaven, no..not yet. I am talking about my manager kicking the bucket…oops…how I wish!
For all those who are smacking their lips on hearing how there is one more boss-hater in their midst, sorry…i adore mine…He is an angel without the wings These were just Dilbertian moments!