Among other things...

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Today was one of those days where I stared and stared at my computer screen at work with nothing seeping into my brain. Finally it was time to eat lunch where I always allow myself the luxury of internet browsing without guilt. I may or may not be browsing during the non-lunch working hours but this is not a confessional! Post lunch I happened to sit back and glance around my world, more to aid my eyes in sending a steady live telecast to the brain so it doesnt shut down over an imaginary pillow. What I saw left me askance. I have been working in my current cubicle for 2 years now and today is the first time I notice the unorganised mess that it is. I have a large monitor which my boss thought I would need for all the complicated math I would be doing to arrive at the conclusion that it was time to sweet talk the users into believing we were taking time to drive to the moon, when we were really stuck on earth with traffic jams and delays. Attached to the monitor is a keyboard which looks like its from outer space. It is one of those ergonomic completely befuddling pieces which would profit people whose right hand does not need to monitor the left to ensure no spelling mistakes. Certainly not for me that piece. My productivity, measured as the rate at which I can google current topics,is greatly reduced. Then there is a mess of wires stretching across a complete leg of the L-shaped table. Atleast they are all not the same colour and lend some aesthetic to the chaos. Immediately above the wires are random sheets of paper pegged into the cubicle wall. I now realise that I will need some reference to context to understand any of those 'important' notes. Another sheet of paper which occupies the pride of place above this litter is where my dotzy has drawn what looks likes a binary code with the 1s replaced by hearts. What makes it special for me is the fact that she wrote "I love Mom" contrary possibly to her real feelings. We will find out when she enters her teens. There is also a gigantic phone of yore on my desk and I wouldnt have been convinced its not a show-piece, had my boss not connected it by himself on my first day here and rang his own desk to make sure it works. It has 50 buttons spread neatly across it and this is apart from the standard issue of 0-9, * and #. Around 10 of them are labelled. I have not had the inclination to experiment with this masterpiece till a moment ago when I hit a button to see what happens and it switched on the Speaker. At this juncture I should note that there is a labelled button for Speaker. There is also a neat contraption to attend calls handsfree except that no one can hear me when I am speaking through it. My colleague next door complained once that she couldnt hear me over the wall as well. Beside these are the standard issue stapler and tape dispenser and a plastic fork thrown between them to dislodge the monotony. On the other leg of table I have a tissue dispenser which refused to dispense tissue from the word go. It prefers to give me shreds of paper as consolation. The rest of the table is strewn with brown paper towels which come in handy when i bring out my leaky curd box. I do have a huge poster of LTE displayed fashionably on my desk. What I like most about it, apart from the complicated names which lend a french charm, is the riot of colours. I like to decorate my cubicle well. Then there is a pegged paper sheet folded in half which tells me what holidays the company would have given me last year. It almost seems like I had a case of bad memory only till last year and the situation seems to have remedied itself this year. There is a lot of cabinet space, more than I can think of what to do with. I use the largest one to stick a magnet proclaiming my availability status at work. It shows a lady relaxing on the beach and mouthing "I'm in a meeting'. I use one of the drawers to keep my tea bags and assorted paper plates. I have no idea when or why I collected all the plates but I suspect it was from the snack lounge where I am a regular. I have a nice comfortable guest chair which I use to house my laptop bag. Most guests are left standing. Only the seasoned ones know they need to throw down the bag and mark their territory. There are a few cardboard boxes stacked on one side of the chair. They are all empty but I did not know that till recently since I thought one of them contained a laptop. I seem to have a naive approach to asset security. My bin is always full and is a good display of all the snacks I demolish in a couple of days. Like the proverbial ring of the bell, I pack my bags at exactly the same time most days, leave the place looking as it did the day before or the day before or the...you get the idea!

I've grown up? Ja?

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All through my career I have been a firm believer that feedback from juniors, peers and managers should come voluntarily and not from asking. I can extrapolate it to my life as well and can claim with enough honesty that I have never tom-tom'ed my abilities and achievements ever. Getting back to career, my belief was so strong that my year end self-appraisal used to be the briefest. It took a lot of goading from my managers to put down all the achievements (to the last small thing) in a categorical manner. I did not realise the potential of it back then but most of the managers do not keep a list of all their direct reports' doings. He/she will only add on to what the employee writes as his/her achievement and rate the employee. So the employee is the loser if he/she doesn't jot down all the points explicitly since in a good enterprise all the past performance documents are available for view by current managers and potential recruiters within the company. Ofcourse it took me time to understand this nuance.
It still takes an emotional toll on me to fill the gaps and holes in the self-appraisal with a lot of positive adjective mortar. At the end of the exercise I am left feeling like a total narcissist which I absolutely abhor. There is no need for me to expound on the fracas in my mind when I have to repeat everything at the actual "meeting" which would decide my rating.
Getting back to work after maternity leave has not been an easy transition for me. There are lots of issues to be resolved and its easy to get depressed. I resolved not to wallow in self pity (I dont know why but I seem to use this phrase a lot) and instead turn to positivities. I decided to find out what people I have worked with think about me. And the easiest way to do that was to ask for recommendations on LinkedIn, a site which I have come to appreciate now. A virtual war was won with the repressive inner self and a new confidence has started taking birth. There is a chance of it dying at birth if nobody responds but what the h*** I tried. Positive. La la la.

Inter(esting)views

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Whatever happened to humility? And whatever happened to humility when one has to face an interview? Do people not bother about it anymore? Am I in the dinosaur age where humility is considered a character strength during recruitment?

Two incidents provoked me to write this small piece.

One was yesterday where one interviewee would not accept the fact that he could be incorrect. He was pretty sure that he was correct according to "his" java and wanted to ascertain what I thought according to "my" java! James Gosling might as well feel happy that even as he parented java, his followers are parenting their own personal versions. The point is, this interviewee was so angry with me that I couldnt help but picturise smoke coming out of his ears.

Today there was a strange case of an interview candidate walking out on me! No time to react. A thank you and bang-shut of the door and there I was sitting in the gathering dust. And all I had asked the interviewee was a basic question for which the person got all tangled in giving the answer.

In my defence I can fairly say that I am not a fastidious interviewer. But does it matter what kind of interviewer one is? Should one vent their frustrations in front of total strangers who have the capacity to give one a job?

All of us are keen to hire people who are geniuses at a particular skill. But is genius enough to get you through all situations?

Ah, chuck it, we'll all go this way (see image)