ExpertDabbler

Lets take the case of X, an IT pro. His net take-home salary is say around 35K.
But his ‘actual’ take-home after providing for his commitments, incredible it may seem, is hardly 7000 per month. With that he would meet whatever little needed to run the family and other general expenses. What happens with the rest? Loans - I mean all kinds of it. Home loans, car loans, two-wheeler loans, personal loans, credit card payments etc. etc. Savings? Excuse me, what is meant by that?

What’s wrong with this financial culture? Well pretty much everything.

Call me conservative or financially ultra-conservative or whatever, but I feel some of today’s educated professionals do not have the sense of financial literacy and discipline that was our parents’ forte.

New age multinational banks in metros have significantly changed the way of spending by offering and sometimes even begging a gullible salaried person to take loans and credit cards for buying products he does not need.

If a person will spend a major portion of his monthly income on debts, where does this leave him in terms of planning for the future, his own ventures in the later years, his children’s education, unforeseen medical expenses etc?

No prizes for guessing, he will take yet another loan.

And there is no such thing as free loans. All of them comes with a steady interest rate and some do have a hidden component as well. I know so many of my friends who have bought palatial houses and grand cars but also eagerly waiting for that long term onsite assignment. Because that is the only way they stand a chance of repaying the loans in the foreseeable future.

Where are we heading? I understand this is boom time in the Indian urban economy. But an economy goes trough cycles. A boom will not remain so till the rest of our lives.

The other intangible losses are that this leaves very little scope for a person to take a risk - a course in some business school or a shift in job. Many of my friends are scared of changing a job because of their existing commitments. Any hiccups in the professional front will have a deep impact in their financials and they don’t want to risk it. If they cannot take a risk in their late 20s, what will they do as they get older and when their dependents grow?

I am not against taking loans. Sure we can always go for a loan to buy that house we always wanted to buy. But there should be a measure about how much of our monthly salary goes for a loan commitment and what goes for savings etc.
Uncontrolled consumerism in the garb of globalization, trendy modern living where a major chunk of one’s hard earned money is devoured by multinational financial institutions as interest just plain disturbs me. It will keep a salaried person always a salaried person, always in the rat race and always insecure about the future.

Me talking about spirituality and philosophy is like Satan preaching God’s greatness, i know. But such things do happen:). I sometimes read some philosophy and psychology books. Of these, there are some which you can suggest to anyone and everyone irrespective of his faith, following etc.

Like for instance THE POWER OF NOW by Eckart Tolle. Its what we can call a classic in that genre.

Why this book related post? Well me and amma went to the annual book fair in chennai:) This book fair is becoming a love-hate relationship for me. Love in the sense i love books. But then i hate crowd. In this annual event, one cant get enough of books, but one can’t tolerate the ever increasing crowd either:(

Hope they either increase the number of days of the fair or may be have two sessions in the year or maybe hold the fair at two or three more places simultaneously. I know i am asking a lot in terms of infrastructure. But you can expect this from a true bibliophile who expects ‘Sir excuse me, koncham naganrdhukonga’ a little less often.

When your CTC(Cost to company) increases by 50% your take home salary increases by only about 10-15%. This law is called the law od increasing CTCs and diminshing take home salaries:)

Unakenna Mele Nindraai

He1 is a software engineer. He gets a task assigned thru mail. He2 is his boss.

Phone rings.
He2 calls: “Mail check pannu. Indha task pannanum. Oru estimate pottutu ennai vandhu paaru”

He1:
Analysis the work and thinks he might need 4 hours to modify the code and finish it. But then he is also a blogger and so adds a few hours for blogging and browsing and other extra activites:D. He1 decides to add another 4 hours to the estimate and goes down to meet the boss.

He1: “Idhu mudikka 8 hours agum”

He2: “Enna estimate podarey nee? idhai fulla analyse panniniya? idhanaaley enga enga ellam impact irukum nu parthiya? idhu pannina mitha rendu team heads kooda pesanum illa? Design document ready pannanum. conf. call podanum, meeting vaikanum, deliverable status kudukanum onsite ku, andhaa time ellam add panniniya?”

He1: “Adhukku mail podhum. idhu chinna work dhaaney”

He2: “Nothing doing. i dont want to leave anything to chances. Dinam meet panni status update pannanum. we need to ask lots question for the first few days. adukku prepare pannanum. adukku time venum. then we need to answer lotsa questions. adukku prepare pannanum. adukkum time venum. first indha assignment pathi discussion kick off pannanum. mitha leads eppo free nu kelu. aprom avanga kitte explain pannanum. Then idhoda impact analyse pannanum. mitha team leads busya irupaanga. so adukku oru buffer vaikanum. ella meeting kum mudichu estimate panni actuall work schedule plan panni….

He1: Naan mattum dhaaney work pannanum idhuku enna plan?

He2: Nothing doing. Everything has to go according to a process. We are CMM level 5 remember? Process is very critical.. Clear documentation venum. Mudhalile idhuku oru schedule podu. adukku time venum. andha time estimate la add pannu. mothama 40 hours agumnu ninaikiren…

He1: BAH(ada paavigala, ivan namakku mela irukaaney!!)

He1 Comes back and adds all the components said by his boss. Checks mails side by side:D. He ends up spending 20 hours on planning and other administrative work and meetings. He2 reviews and gives review comments which needs changing and updating the documents. which adds another 10 hours.

One evening, He1 is planning to go for a movie with his girlfriend. He even books tickets in Satyam. But there comes a call from the Senior Business Manager from onsite.

BM: “indha requirement ku client side la irundhu bayangara pressure. idhai mudikka ivlo neramaanu kekkaranga?”

He2: silent

BM: I am meeting the client tomorrow. Adukulley idhu ready a irukanum. Enakku innaiku EOD idhu complete panni anupunga. Appo daan naan deliver panna mudyum.

He2: (silent) ok. pannidalaam onnum problem illai. He1 innaiku full night irundhu complete pannitu poiduvaan. onnum problem illai..

He1: (ada paavi en GF outing plan Bakrid Kurbani pottutiye :((
BM: ok thanks guys. i know you guys will always deliver under pressure. thanks for all the help. Team work works…

He1:(Team work, my ass)Appo process? documentation ellam?

He2: Ippo client deliverable daan mukiyam. Illena periya issue ayidum. Appraisal time vera. Nee epdiyavadhu finish panni anupidu.. innaiku night evlo late aanaalum mudichitu enakku mobile la call panni status update pannitu po.

He1: BAH :((

அன்று சொன்னது
“வீட்டுக்கு ஒரு மரம் வளர்ப்போம்”

இன்று சொல்வது
“வீட்டை விற்று FLAT கட்டுவோம்”

What was assumed to be a no-work minimal-work day turned out to be another Day-Nighter. Managed to came home at 11.

I got home to learn about a tragic news. Saravanan Ramasubramanian, 32 was killed by unidentified gunmen in Arlington, Texas on Saturday night. Seems Saravanan is well known among my family circles. Amma had come to know about this while watching Sun News. This death has sent shock waves among my family. Saravanan’s native place is Melur near Madurai. He had sustained gun shots in the head and in the abdomen.

There was even some inital level marriage alliance talks going on between Saravanan’s family and my cousin’s family.

My heart felt condolences to Saravanan’s family. What else can i do? I dont know. This is an unfair world. Sigh!

Being the only child in the family means loneliness. None to fight with, none to play, and none to share things with. Time and life has separated me from some of my close friends too. There were times when i’d felt dreadfully lonely.
Amma is everything, but there are certain things which you are better off keeping it off her. Its going to pain her as much it does me, if not more.

Some of my close friends were ignoring my general interest mails. This blog was more of a reaction to that. I resorted to regular blogging to vent out my frustration. That was the reason why i managed to blog for 6-8 months with virtually no comments. Then I started to comment on other’s blogs. Particularly Chakra’s and other Lexington based bloggers. Then Narayanan sir and then it slowly led to a community of buddies.

The love and concern shown by you all in the past one year through the mails and messages were overwhelming. The comments and offline messages i received from buddies on seeing my last post was a testimony to your love. You guys more than made up for the lack of sibling and close friends…

Thanks a ton, to each and everyone of you.

Now i owe you an explanation too. Over the past few weeks i was kind of suffering from what is commonly called Acid Reflux Disease. It can be painful. It can disturb you right in the middle of the night. But thankfully i met the doc soon enough and its responding to the treatment beautifully. So nothing to worry about, atleast so far.

The last few days in particular, i had cold, mild fever, and not the least an impossible deadline at work. This also meant i had to slog 20 hours in the weekend. In fact this is more than the number of productive hours in the whole of the last working week.

Situations like this are bound to occur so long as some people think delivery management is all about forwarding mails with a sarcastic comment or two from onsite.

I was so busy i shunned talking to keerthi, gowrishankar and monu today. Not to mention i did not check my mailbox till evening.

But the best nah the bestest part was i met that deadline
Yay!!!

I feel much better now. The acid reflux pain is gone. The cold will be alright soon. Fever, who is that? The work will be normal (which means zero to minimal :D) from tomorrow.

All is well that ends well

Thanks a lot buddies.

January has always spelled troubled waters for me.

I remember roaming around my then campus last year going through a depression of sorts. Walking was my only stress reliever. I used to walk around all alone twice or sometimes thrice a day. My colleagues used to tease i am the perfect guy for handling facility tour for clients who visit us

If it was financial troubles in 2004, it was mental agony in 2005 and now physical pain in 2006.

Even in the midst of pain, i realise things are much better than what it was last Jan. and the one before.

Hopefully things will get better. What is life without hope?

The CAN CONQUER CANCER initiative by Murali Krishnan and sponsored by Connexions has been featured in DIGIT magazine Jan 2006 issue. I did my bit here.

I think efforts like this this will help spread awareness and also about the power and utility of blogging. Getting the right information at the right time can be priceless.

The journo Renuka Rane called me regarding this. I guess she could call me because i had my number in my profile. Though she said she will include my 2 cents on the coverage, i did not quite expect it to make the print. I was pleasantly surprised to find my name in the magazine.

The idea behind me writing was, i know the power of Google and its affinity towards blogs (those which gets frequently updated). I’ve had experiences where long forgotten friends had given a search on their name and then eventually landed in my blog where i had mentioned about them months back. It had put me in delicate situations on a few occasions though:) The same way if someone gives a search on cancer related info and finds some useful information in my blog post, it would make my small effort worthwhile.

Many thanks to Don for coming up with such an initiative. As he himself rightly pointed out, similar initiatives on other important aspects of life would be more than welcome.

In all these years in the IT industry, what is it that I have grown to hate with all my heart?

Meetings.

I mean all flavors of it - status meetings, review meetings, weekly meetings, group conference calls ..you name it.

I understand meetings are a necessary evil for the Leads and a very important evil for Project Manager types. But I think it simply sucks off the developer’s productivity. Most of them end up doodling in their scribble pads in these meetings.

Team meetings are places where the Manager talks and the rest listen and manage
appropriate, applicable, relevant responses
A few questions are asked in the conf. calls which again are answered by the Project Manager. The poor guy is also responsible or lending out ‘Ok’ and ‘yes’ at appropriate intervals.

In my previous organization they would have a meeting every Monday mornings. There will be about 20 members and the meetings would easily stretch to 90-100 minutes. It was a flat team so some people would use that chance to settle political scores too.
I simply could not digest losing 100 minutes of productive time on the first day of the working week. Unless I had anything to say, I usually dodged these meetings…

The present organization insists on Conf. calls every alternate days. My part will be like 5-10 minutes but the meeting goes on for 60-90 mins. I dodge here whenever possible too:) But sometimes there is an expectation that we should sit through these meetings. Like today:(

I have one call at 6:30 and then an other one as soon as I finish that… Gosh when will I go home?

Nowadays am sick of these…

I just want to quit this job but soon the thought of bank balance on the last day of the month makes me come back the next day…