Ever since I joined college, I have wanted to be on my own. I never wanted to work for a boss. But given my family conditions back then, it wasn’t quite possible. So I ended up taking a job. Most of the decisions I took, excepting my marriage, were meant to serve this purpose. It is quite pathetic when I think that I still haven’t been able to get there. ...
but it is private. Perhaps, firing is not a politically correct word in the first place. Our jobs could be on the line for reasons that don’t include us. And we need to accept that as a fact first. I recently came across a post where someone was getting terminated and were pissed off at how they didn’t give them a proper reason for termination. Well, if you think about it, one of the lines in the employment contract would say that the company reserves the right to not give you any reason. ...
We were walking down to Velocity@Novena y’day evening. The subway leading to the Novena MRT felt very slippery. And I was wearing a pair of slippers. That got me thinking – how can slippers be slippery? Apart from that the sole is really worn out, but mine are quite ok. Slippers seem like a bad name for footwear; it sounds as if slippers are meant to slip, right? They should have been called something else. I know most of you call it flip-flops these days. Perhaps, they realised this ahead of me. ...
is that they are quite silly. Have you noticed that they almost always have transparent touch screen displays? And that too fairly large ones? Well, that is my problem. I would like to believe that these ought to be expensive. Consumer television sets with 34″ and above that aren’t transparent cost quite a bit to buy. For instance, my TV cost me about $200 and is only about 32″. Ok, it is a smart model but I am sure the majority of the cost is the display technology. So transparent displays ought to cost at least that much, right? Even if you picked multiple small displays and just cascaded them, the cost of the additional hardware/software to make them look seamless would negate the apparent gain in price. ...
TL;DR You are right. Now get some popcorn before you start reading. Noni is a dreamer. Not a day dreamer (she is more realistic and practical than I am, in most things that matter) by any metric. But she seldom wakes up without a dream. I can probably count the number of days she woke up after a peaceful sleep. Her dreams are superb fantasy, gory violence or she is flying across the world. Yea, I know. On the days of the gory violence, she wakes up visibly tired after 8 hours of sleep – so much for a dream! ...
There was a talk show where one of the participants mentioned this: “In order to be unique, I decided to have long hair. I pick my attire and vehicle based on the occasion …” and some more along those lines. I think this is quite sad. I don’t think uniqueness has anything to do with appearance, although unique people tend to have a strong sense of style : one way or the other. A person would need to be unique in who they are, in what they bring to the society, in how they act or behave in a situation and not by how they look. Looking unique won’t take you very far if it does not get sufficiently supplemented by other facets. It might get the door to open, but it won’t get you a seat! ...
So, the new year is here. Happy New Year. The day has been fabulous to say the least. In that sense, the year has started off on a great note. The very first thing I did in the morning was a pending DIY worktable. The work is not complete, but is about 50% complete. And this is great, because this is what I want to do the rest of the year – do stuff myself. ...
It’s almost a tradition now that I am writing a birthday post every year. This year, I am a little late for the post. I wanted to think through and reflect on the year that just went by and set goals for the year that is looking at me now. Staring at me, for I haven’t started anything yet! 2014: Last year was good. I had two targets for 2014. I achieved one. I missed out on the other. But I pulled off a third that came unannounced! This is actually a proud moment for me and the wife. We came to Singapore with multiple major agendas: finance, family, business and life. I guess we took care of the finance to some extent. Of course, these are sliding targets. They keep moving along with you and perhaps never quite complete unless you hit the jackpot or sell your company to Facebook/Google. We did neither, so we expect the sliding window to continue with us. I had consciously avoided setting any targets for myself last year. As a result, it looks like I did achieve my targets 😉 ...
Am slowly and steadily getting used to this. I have an idea, I and Noni discuss it a bit and figure out even we might not use it. I still have a hunch feeling that it is a worthy idea, but don’t pursue it anyway. A few days/weeks/months later I read an article about a new company or a product line formed with exactly the same idea. Today morning was no different. It is difficult to start the day feeling like a “Loser” and walk around as if nothing ever happened. But am getting better at this. Surely. Slowly, but surely. ...
Vaidy took about 6 hrs off his schedule to talk to us. And I feel extremely honored that he did that for me. I have a lot of lessons from him, some for the two of us put together. It is my job, now, to put it in perspective and apply what I could. Quite important! I couldn’t catch up with a lot of people though. I guess I underestimated the work involved in organizing a wedding. Some people I really wished to have caught up with include Balaji, Ramaseshan Sir, Nallen, Bala amongst others. We couldn’t spend much time with Noni’ parents either. Although they understand, it really counts as bad planning on our side. ...