What to look for in a GMAT prep company/tutor

Anything related to GMAT is an expensive affair. GMAT preparation is not only a time investment but also a huge monetary investment, if you decide to join a test prep company or private tutor.

There can be various reasons to join test prep or hire private tutor. One must keep few factors in mind before taking the plunge.

1. Do you really need prep course - Its not easy to open book after X years and commit yourself for Y hours daily. Or it can be lack of commitment due to work. Or the first time you tried yourself did not get the result you wanted. Whatever the reason, once you are convinced that you need prep help - do your homework.

2. In Person or Online - Many companies offer introductory sessions which are absolutely essential to get feel of their approach to GMAT and whether it will fit your study style and more importantly will be able to help you to get the desired results. These sessions also provide an opportunity to ask follow up questions from your perspective tutor which will facilitate your decision making.

3. Track Record of Company/Tutor - Go beyond what the testimonials say about them. Do your homework. Ask for feedback from your friends about the company/tutor you are inclined to join. Ask for their experience and what they felt about their coaching style, support etc. etc.

4. Talk to your perspective tutor - Get to know his/her teaching style. Discuss about your weak areas and how he may be able to help. Most importantly, ask when was the last time he gave GMAT. Mostly all tutors are 99 percentilers but the important question is when was the last time they appeared for GMAT. This in my view is the most important question one should ask before joining any preparation course.

5. In Class/Private Tutoring - Again it depends on what areas you need to concentrate, time schedule and how much you can spend on tutoring. If you need focus only in specific area, say verbal, go for private tutoring. However, if you want consistancy in your prep and thats the reason for taking a class, go for in class prep. Other factors such as how soon you want to give GMAT, how much time you can devote for classes etc will swing your decision.

There will be other factors too but these are in my view top 5 factors one must keep in mind before deciding on GMAT prep course.

Updates...

Past few months were quite exciting for our family. All went great and boy had experience of event management :)

On professional front .. I am back in job market after 5 months and boy its competitive.. bring it on!!

Ohh on the MBA application front .. 3 rejects so far .....

Happy New Year

Happy New Year - 2010 to all.

May all your dreams come true.

Keep dreaming.

What happened this time....

Wish i knew the answer!

To simply put i think its the differences in style of working that drove me to take bold step of calling in quit. I have always believed one should work in an environment where each day is enjoyable and challenging. I don't know its me or its the environment that changes every two or three years.

I would come up with another update soon. But for now all i can say is i think i made a very good decision, time will tell though.

Since am going to be free soon i would try to throw in full weight behind my GMAT prep and get it over with. Only then i plan to think about what i want to do.

Come back soon, i would keep you posted on how things turn out. i am guessing my reliving is not going to be smooth and am always up for challenges :D

I Quit!!

Yes again!! seems like my stint with companies doesn't last as long as i wish for.

As per the "regulars" on my blog .. yes i quit without having a job again .. seems to be developing habit :P ( for those who are not aware of what i am talking about - read here)

I would be back with updates personal and general which i think i should be doing more frequently because i would have more free time :)

Bungy-eeeeeeeee

Bungee: This was one thing I never imagined I will do on my short trip to Phuket last month. But I did it YAY!!

We came to Phuket unplanned, our flight back home being late in the evening, we had whole day with no plans and after checking out we headed straight to Jungle Bungee - Phuket.

On our way, sitting in Tuk Tuk, I thought to myself 50m...hmm.. its not that high. Is it? I asked my friend (B) hoping that he would say its high .. very very high .. lets head back and enjoy some coolers and Thai massage on beach :)

No coolers or massage served here mate.. just the jump.. take it or leave it.. That’s the look of the New Zealander who owned the place and he seemed in a hurry to push us from 50m high.

View from 50m above ground.

Looking up 50m .. eh .. its not that high .. a short glance at (B) and we were all set for our first Bungee. That’s when things start to get .. umm .. I would say exciting. After weighing in and some calibrations done it was time to get strapped in and man the guy was really nasty in tying my legs, it felt like this is the last time i am feeling my legs hurt. :)

All tied up!

50m high above from the ground doesn’t seem that high .. however it gets really scary as you move up and when you are there and man the only thing one appreciates is, how wonderful it was to be on ground, even more on a beach.

But there was no coming back from there.. I was up for the jump and very very scared. I wonder why people pay so much to jump down in water or ground as the case may be. It wasn’t the fear of height or the fear of water down below.. for some strange reason I was worried about my neck and that’s what got on my nerves as i reached the top and readied for the jump. On the way up, which was long 5 minutes, I got all the instructions from the jump master on how to execute the jump. (Easier said than done! Huh?)

Here i go .. wait!!

Standing on the jump platform I was scared but not as scared I use to be in my viva questions in undergrad.. but man it was still scary. And I must have been high this morning to pay to get on top here. After few failed attempts to jump myself, I realized that my time is running out and I need some help if I want to make the jump today. So without a doubt I asked my jump master "Why don’t you push me?" What happened next cannot be said so look at the picture below :)

g=9.8m/s2

Yes I was pushed by a guy 50m down.. but its not how you think :) In the end all I would say it was all worth it. Once you leave the ground below your feet its the excitement and boy I appreciated gravity. And yes if you are wondering I did touch water down below. The biggest take away from this experience is that in all my future bungee jumps I would need little more than encouragement to complete the jump ;)

Here is a tip for all of you who want to do bungee, JUMP don't THINK.. Happy Falling!

Phuket

Everyone loves vacation and they are much more fun when you go on an unplanned vacation. As I write this post I ponder into my thoughts and recollect my Pondicherry trip back in 2006 which was totally unplanned, yes we didn’t had a hotel booking and man it was so much fun.

So it happened again, I came back from India in the second half of March after almost a month of break and on Monday morning as I was looking from where to start the pile of work, one of my best friends (B) called and informed he is going to transit to India via Singapore this Sunday. I was excited to meet him again after three year since our Pondicherry trip.

After discussing the details and our plans of all we do when he is here, his dates of travel etc we hung up. I made plans for our visit to Malaysia for couple of days and started to look for details when on Wednesday (Tuesday for B) he calls up again and informed me that he cannot get Singapore Visa in short time and cannot risk in sending his passport and tickets to another city. That dented our plans for Malaysia as he had to apply for Malaysian visa after SG visa. So after discussing even more details we explored the idea of going to Phuket as the Visa was on arrival.

Being in Singapore for more than two years now and the process they have in place still surprises me. The only way to apply Visa for B was to apply online and the immigration officer on phone told me that it will take three working days to know the outcome of the visa application that meant till Friday I cannot make any travel plans. Any sort of travel seemed impossible nevertheless I applied visa online on Wednesday afternoon and to my surprise the visa application was approved in 3 hours flat. I don’t know what happened may be glitch in their system but I got Multiple Entry visa for B.

It wasn’t till Friday afternoon when the hotel confirmed my booking any by evening my travel iternary for Phuket was compete. Flying on Sunday and coming back on Tuesday. All set and done. Hey, wait what to see, what to do, how much currency to take .. Damn in rush to get the travel iternary done I forgot to make the list of what to see and where to go and where not to go.

I had to work on Saturday so as to compensate on my sudden absence of work, so I knew it’s going to be an unplanned (almost) trip.

On my way to airport we took a detour to the nearest library and borrowed two available books on Phuket and off we went to Phuket. After passing over crowded Phuket immigration there we were standing outside Phuket international airport waiting for our minibus to take us to a place called Patong.

Phuket is basically an island state of Thailand and is divided into different localities. Most popular of them all are Patong, Kata and Karon with the later two being most popular among Europeans, so a good place for family holiday planners. On the other hand Patong is the main party place of Phuket, the night life what Phuket is famous for is all in the Soi or lanes of Patong.

There are so many things in Phuket to see and do so one should come prepared with plan well in advance, however as for us it was just a vacation for 2 days and we are more spontaneous travelers so our main aim was to explore as much as possible and minimum sleep :)

Here’s what our travel plan for Phuket was when we landed --
1. Sunday:

• Explore Patong .. pub hopping
• Book Island hopping tour for Monday
• Thai Food

2. Monday:

• Island hopping
• Thai Food
• More pub hopping
• Thai massage

3.Tuesday:

• NO PLANS at all
• Check out by noon
• Thai massage
• Fly back home to Singapore

Armed with our plan and 2 hand books about Phuket we marched on from our hotel in corner of Patong to the Patong Centre which by sunset was buzzing with activities with sea food restaurants buzzing with hungry sun bathers and surfers. Neon lights just starting to come up and the streets we filling with beautiful ladies.

Patong at night!

There are bars and only bars at Th. Bangla road and the road is closed after 7 pm or so for regular traffic and by 9 pm daily it’s full of party goers. If you are into rock music there is a bar right at the start of Bangla road, Hard Rock City, it’s a must go for rock music lovers with a live band its definitely worth the money. Our motto for the night was two drinks max and off we go to another pub. So after four more pubs which we thought were decent for guys like us ;) we decided to end our night in one of disco mentioned in one of the books we were carrying. It was good may be second best after hard rock city, they had awesome music and crowd.

After getting just hours of sleep the next morning we started early for our island hopping tour and I have to admit this was the highlight of our tour only second to what we did on Tuesday morning, which I would come to later. Island hopping tour comprises of visit many islands of which main attraction was Ko Phi Phi where movie BEACH was shot.

Koh Phi Phi.

However to me the best attraction was Maya Bay where we did snorkeling. The natural beauty was awesome.

Maya Bay.

After being with nature all day long, it was time to soak in some real authentic Thai food and pamper ourselves with some sea food delicacies Thai style.

FOOD :)

With our Phuket trip almost over we headed to the bars of Phuket one last time and after few pub hopping we finally sat down in one of the quieter place hearing jazz music and that’s when I passed on wacky idea to go Bungee on Tuesday afternoon after checking out. I don’t know if it was the drinks or sheer tiredness from trip we decided to go for it.

The next morning we got up late and checked out by noon and headed straight to Jungle Bungee.
Man 50m is high and to jump from there are u kidding me? And you have to pay 2000 THB for that... are u kidding me again? Well there is a separate post coming up so do check it out in coming days.

We wrapped up our trip with the rest of the day on Patong beach,

Patong Beach.

enjoying over cast weather and water activities. I have had great time in Phuket and can’t wait to go back there as soon as I get time :)

May be next time i would like to stay in Kata and visit James Bond Island!!

50th Post

To my surprise this is the 50th post in my blog and looking back i have mixed feeling considering the posts and feedbacks i have got.

I can't say that i would be regualr on my blog or to the blogging world but what i can definately say is  i would be in constant touch with my and other blogs i read.

I was in India last month and the better half of this month attending marriages, meeting old pals some after long 13 years. This trip was also speical because i got to be with my family for Holi ater good four years.

Later half of this month has been pretty busy catching up with work and my sudden trip to Phuket, Thailand. I will be writing post about my Phuket trip soon so do visit in day or two for some tips on travelling to Phuket.

The year that was 2008!!

As i write the last post of 2008 on my blog which has lacked regular updates for past two years. I hope to be more regular in coming year but going what this year has been it looks a big task.

What year this has been. Here is summary of what i have been upto for past 12 months.

1. Excelled well in profession and career.
2. Lived out suit-case for month and half.
3. Discovered "leadership" qualities in me in unusual circumstances.
4. Robbed of company stock options.
5. Tried unsuccessfully to get into grad school for fall session.
6. Saw Malaysian F1 GP live.
7. Visited Bangkok for the first time.

So for the this year .. not a memorable one but definitely taught me many big lessons.

Hope next year is much more fun ... and hoping the same for you all.

Wishing you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

How risk savvy are we?

These are turbulent times wherever we look, western economy’s is in mess, having great ramification on the growing economies like ours.

Reading news articles in past few weeks, seems like the worse effected sector is our IT industry.

Talking to my friends back home and it seems the scene is bad than year 2000/01. People are losing jobs and some say more to come especially for the banking and finance ODC's.

So this brings me to a question, how risk savvy our generation is? Some might ask what does risk has to do with this. Govt. sector is always considered the safe place for employment and private sector as a risky bet. IT sector being largely being private comes with risk with no job guarantee. 

We have reaped the benefit of booming IT industry in past few years, however are we now ready to bear the realty of working in private industry where hire and fire is the rule of the game. 

So are we ready to embrace it as reality in today’s India? looking at news pieces i rather dare not. Look what happened in Graziano Transmissioni case. Not the kind of image we would like to project of investor friendly India.

Somewhere i think we should all remind ourselves, "You win some you lose some". One way i think is to get out of that "conservative" shell and take calculated risks. I believe everyone should once in a while, where ever possible, take calculated risk. This will have cascading effect in my view with making oneself more confident, setting up example for our peers (may be) and more so that we would not be as worried as our pervious generation is whenever we discuss our "risky" strategy/moves.

Having said all that, i still believe in taking calculated risks and not wild unthoughtful risks, just to set the record straight.

Another "hit" from google - Chrome

Yesterday, during my customary first 15 min  time kill spree at work, i encountered a piece of news via Google (of course) , something called chrome. 

A new web browser, again??

No its not another web browser its by Google. Within few minutes i was reading the web magazine which was supposed to be a precursor for "normal" launch of this. As always i was impressed by the concepts they have used to make chrome a reality.

So from yesterday to today i read on several sites from what it will do to when it will be available for download to what are its cool features etc. etc.

I am using it for half a day now and i am impressed from the installation to browsing experience. However, contrary to being fast while streaming it sucks on my machine while loading videos from news sites. Firefox is way better and faster somehow. Is it me or someone else has also faced this?

However this post is not a review of chrome, sorry to disappoint some of you who were hoping it to be another review. This post is about my viewpoint about the views, reviews etc which have flown in the web world about chrome and I think can be generalized.

All the reviews I have read so far about this wonderful browser is just a paraphrasing of what the official website said. There is absolutely nothing new in these reviews. This brings me to raise a fundamental question about -- what are reviews for? And what the consumer/user looks for in the reviews?

Do we as consumers (or users) make our decision to buy (or try) new product on the basis of mere paraphrasing? Having said that, i agree that there are many good sites that actually provides data to support their reviews and are unbiased and so on.  But not all people spend hours in finding the right review that would suit their queries.

Well these are my thoughts for now.....

PS to old timers : I know I haven’t been blogging a lot .. and if you are puzzled about this confusing post .. So am I :P .. Thanks for dropping by. More to come soon.

Happenings!!

What happened ? is the question that comes to my mind (am sure in yours too) when i check my blog sometimes.

May be i just took an unintentional "break" from blogging. I guess its just not me, i see many blogs without activity.

Just to keep you posted guys, i do visit your blogs and comment on some who have updated post.

I will write soon about my Malaysia and Thailand trips which i just concluded last week.

so do keep coming back.

Movie Reviews

Past few months i have been watching movies every weekend. With so many big names every week to watch, it was too hard to resist.

This summer was full sequels but some of them were so disappointing that at one point thought ran in my mind was not to watch the sequels any more.

The biggest disappointment was Spider Man 3 which had glimse of some Hindi movies (way to go Bollywood).

Well following are the movies i watched lately and their "reviews" --

1. Pirates of Caribbean At Worlds End: Having watched parts 1 and 2 just the previous day, i thought of passing this one but to my surprise i liked it very much, all credit goes to part 2 for being so boring.
   
2. Shrek 3: Such a disappointment.
3. Fantastic4 2: Its ok type of movie at time i felt i was sleeping but i didnt so its all good :)
   
4. Oceans' 13: Same as PIC3, quite enjoyable after whoever have watched Oceans 12
   
5. Transformers: Awesome ... graphics we amazing esp if u have watched this movie on a screen like this.
   
6. Die Hard 4: Bruce Willis rocks!
   
7. Harry Potter and the Order of Pheonix: aah!! what can i say ... the book was better. Can't wait for the seventh book.

Some of you are figuring why there is no mention of hindi movies. Well i watched Chini Kum and what can i say, so i spared a mention of it here ...

Cultural shock

It has been always interesting and exciting to visit home every six months or so. This time it was even more exciting as it was my first visit since i went to Singapore.
Having heard and read a lot about reverse cultural shock, i braced myself to experience the feeling when i landed in Delhi amidst cool Delhi afternoon of just 41 degrees. So good so far .. cultural shock .. what is it?
It felt so good to see notice on immigration "For Indian Passport holders only", havin visited Malaysia and Indonesia it was nice to see that we have an "exclusive" queue for us :)

Heading home from airport enjoying aloo paratha in the car i noticed something is not rite, it took 10 min to realize its the honking of horns all around that i found so annoying. I realized this is in months i am hearing horns and why i am so annoyed by this now .. as i am use to it .. well i thought i was.

Now my trip is coming to an end and have to gear up for cultural shock again :P

2007 is gone .. well almost half!!

Staying with my previous post. It seems like yesterday that i wrote it.

Time files!! Last four months have been a mixed bag for me, had my share of fun and slogging.

The most exciting thing to mention is my trip to Langkawi, Malaysia. May be i will do a post abt it later.

I hope to be regular from now on .. keep blogging!

2007 is here

2006!! What a year it has been for me ... a roller coster ride.

Though i am not into making resolutions .. here is one this time .. to get up and jog in the mrng .. and to cover South-East asia this year including watch the Malaysian Grand Prix this April.

What are your plans for this year??

I wish 2007 brings lots of joy and happiness to you and your family.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Supermarkets

The concept of retailing just coming in India and the old players like Big Bazaar are already feeling the heat. And obviously they should worry with Reliance foraying in the market and cellular man Mittal entering MOU with the largest retailer in the world - Wal Mart. The scene of Indian retailing industry is set to change and the customer is all set to be king once again

However this post is not about the big player and how they will play. The biggest advantage of supermarkets is it is a collection of markets at one place (building). This has significant advantage and the ease of shopping it provides. However is this really an advantage? In my view as the stores are getting bigger and bigger, shopping times are increasing and so is the pain of shopping.

Just think how much time it takes to locate, decide and pick and item, say X, then we spend close to 2X time to pay the bill and get out of the fish market. Wow what a convenience!!!!

Other interesting point worthwhile to mention is that we always end up buying all items other than what we came to buy. This is the basis of retail industry and it’s really good (for them of course!). No matter how hard we try to buy an item we came for and get out as fast as possible. Alas! We will always have n+1 items in your shopping bag :)

However it is the time taken to look for one item that we came specifically to buy, that pisses me off. And the sheer size of the store makes it almost impossible for the staff to tell the specific location of the item. And better sometimes they do not know whether they are selling that product anymore or not. This has happened so many times that now I do most of the shopping at the local store, in doing so am able to save lots of time.

I know some things cost more but as they say time is more costly and invested in sleeping gives the best returns. :D

New Job New Country

Its been a while since i have updated you all about my moving on to a new job.

As fate has it, i resigned on monday and i got releived too on monday. For a change releiving was very smooth considering what has happened in last three months, may be they all wanted me to go as early as possible :)

Things have moved on very fast since 25th Sept. ... i've had almost no time to pack, meet frens and more so wind up from Bangalore. I have landed myself a job in Singapore and these days i am quite enjoying it here.

I am not yet settled here and almost half the time i am in market looking for things for daily house hold work etc. Being my first trip abroad, i am loving the experience.

On the job front, things are settling down.

theres lots to write .. so keep coming back here

Diwali in videsh

This Diwali is different from all the past diwalis i have celebrated. Although the similarity in all of them is i have been celebrating Diwali away from for the last 10 years, however this time i will be celebrating in a different country.

I know, i know i need to give you all lot of detail (so look for next post).

The markets have been lighted for the past one week and i am sure they will be at their peek today so without further ado i should head out and see the festivities.

Heres my wishes to you and your family Happy Diwali.

---दीपावली की ढेर सारी शुभकामनाऎ

Nothing to Worry about.

Thats the stand of government these days. What a sorry statement to make where people are dying from the deadly fever, or air passengers in danger as engines failing in mid-air or our neighbours air force is abt to cross in numbers of fighter jets we have.

NO NEDD TO WORRY, there is nothing to worry about. Thats the official stand of ur government .

Its such a sorry state that people, doctors are dying coz of the irresponsible behaviour of authorities. And instead of taking corrective measure .. ususal blame game and politics is going on.

Another example of Govt. apathy is the report which i saw in one TV news channels' site. It has listed so many incidents where one of the engines have failed in mid-air etc. Govts response "Nothing serious has happened". We should be so proud of our represntatives who wait something to happen to get their acts together. The Irony is "Nothing ever happens" we just get committe and some report after so long, nobody is interested anymore.

Worst is our national security, our neighbour according to a report will cross Indian airforce in terms of number of fighter planes. Govt. Response: NO need to worry we are thinking on it. I wonder what kind of idiots we chose every five years who does not have the brain to think and decide on Air Force modernization and our National Security for the last 25 years.

Man these are just few incidents that reflects how much the govenment is commited for our well being or shall i say thier on well being. May be thats what the perils are for having population of over billion. There are so many ppl here that it does not matter to anybody if some die or live .. the bottom line remains is We the People are fools!

Halwa to remeber

Last Sunday i decided to smthing different from my normal routine of "Sleeping on Weekends".
So i called up my fren N and asked him if we can cook. N being the official cook for out branch in college has many accolades to his fame which includes 2 successful branch outing where we cooked food ourselves.

He happily agreed to skip his schedule of "Bird Watching" for "Gajar Ka Halwa".

Getting all the ingredients from the market we went to work and Voila in 2 hrs time we made Gajar Ka Halwa, Mattar Paneer and Rice (since we do not know how to knead atta ;) )

here are some snaps i took .. mind ya i did more than taking snaps :P

Gajar ka Halwa .. yummy

Mattar Paneeeeeer....

Voilla .. Da Lunch

Kites

Its been a long time since i have updated my blog. Nope i was not buy @ work however there is lots happening in my life and will update you all in comming posts.

these days i am on a short trip to my home town and man what a timing to come back home. this evening i flew kite .. after eight long years .. and it felt soooo good that i do not want to come down from terrace .. and damn i forgot my camera in delhi to capture these moments.

I will enjoy even more this time @ home ....

Appraisal

No no its not in continuation of my pevious two mails. This is related to salary hike of our honourable MPs.

Going thru the newspapers Man! our MPs draw a fat salary and that too for disrupting work at parliament. and thats not all the good part is yet too come .. guess what who does hikes thier salary? The MPs themselves wow!

So here is a deal ... we will not work .. we will not let the parliament work and when President of India gives his speech, we will utilize the time for a quick nap. Amazing isn't well that is what i think is happening .. all MPs unite cutting party lines for atleast one thing their salaray hikes.

Looking at the salary an MP gets in my view its already too high considering the perks he gets (not to mention the undertable money) but the question is not the amount of money MPs get ... the question is -- Is it justified for MPs to appraise themselevs and get away with fat raises?

NO, if MPs are so eager to get raises every 2 years or so then we shud have some sort of appraisal system for MPs too. But how are we going to have that .. yes they are evaluated once in 5 years but we all know how fair it is! .........

I always wanted to Quit on monday morning!

This is may be inspired by Tata Safari adv., today after two years into the job the thought is becoming a reality ...

I quit... yea i have put down my papers today. There are multiple reasons for quitting .. but regulars on my blogs will know. I cannot take it any more ... all the hype about corporate culture etc. are just words , nothing more ... at the end of the day its the same as in any govt. organization in India. Actually corp. culture, professionalism, ethics etc are just buzz words which looks good in magazine surveys.

Nobody actually gives a damn about tranperancy in the organization, they are merely big words which are used in PPT for campus recruitment or used as fillers in websites.

Picking up from my last post, i was cornered in a team meeting but in vain. Since then i have had meeting with the director HR and the response is a sham , making mockery of things. When such things are happening, it is not appropriate for me to continue here in such unprofessional environment.

No, i do not have a job in hand and neither do i care abt it ... coz i will have one sooner or later. Lets see how things turn up ...

Its all about Ethics

Things are chaotic @ work and are getting worse each day. Reason? Lies after lies... now how patient can u be when u know that ur being told lies... It all began during my appraisal (1 on 1) meeting. The meeting was just another meeting as it happened last year the only difference was that the goals and growth path has changed. We started the discussion as usual with the work done and the roadmap for the future. However there was one significant difference this time in our meet, i had to tell my boss that these are the projects i have done in the last one year. As the discussion went on we talked about future goals, work in the team etc. etc., then came the core of the discussion my performance rating for the year and promotions. We discussed for a min. or so when my boss said Okay ur rating is changed from X to Y (to the higher side)... and after all the discussions my appraisal was closed. However, i grew a bit skeptical when the rating was not written in the performance evaluation form and after following up twice i finally got it. I carried on my work as usual and when i was told my revised package i grew a bit skeptical. The situation is like i am told "You are great" however the document says the opposite "You are not so great". To clarify my doubts i approached HR and there i came to know that the ratings in HR system and the performance evaluation are different. Yes, they are different! I had escalated this matter to the Ethics Officer of our company and since then things have gone worse. I got a reply which made mockery of the events and how come a manager do appraisal if he is not clear of the process? Amazing! I replied to that mail and was termed was disrespectful and unprofessional... Ha! at least i am not unethical. Things on Friday turned ugly, ppl have started taking things personally.......lets see what happens on Monday when i am meeting HR Director. Lets see what HR ppl say abt Unethical practices that is happening here....

Time....What Time?

What is time? I guess many of us have forgotten the importance of time....i find it amusing ppl (read my cousin) saying "Bas yaar 5 min mein pahuch raha hoon" yaar kaise... plane hai kya jo 5 min mein koramangla se MG aa jaooge!
I wonder since when i am frustrated wid ppl who do not value time... be it in Office, Home or for that matter meeting a fren. We tend to take time for granted .... and on top of that we have IST ... which implicitly says ki if u have got to meet someone @ 7 pm so start from home @ 7. Man i have faced this situation many times and to my surprise ppl ask "yaar tu itni jaldi aa gaya"?
i am so frustrated with ppl not value time, i have started teaching them a lesson ... no no i have not started following IST instead if they do not show up within 15 min after the schedule time i just leave, yes its true be it work or personal matters i am following this and as a matter of face i am quite enjoying it.
"Abhinav, we have a meeting now...plz come over".... i replied the other day .... Oh! Boss but the meeting was @ 3 pm and nobody turned up and rite now i am too busy lets sit tomm. ... ha ha u cud have seen the Jabronis face.
Another incident .... there is this person, who for the last one year, consistently comes late to catch the mrng bus to work...this despite the bus always comes late .. Can u believe this!!!!
For the last one year ... almost Daily i get a call "Bus aa gayi kya?" .. "wait wait i am coming" .. and i have to bear the wrath of ppl already in the bus and have to look out the window where is madam .. madamji aayi ki nahin... My patience has run out finally (yup i am very patient .. i tolerated for one year).....these days i do not ask the driver to wait and jab "Madamji" ka call aata hai ki bus aa gayi kya? i simply say "Haan aur chali bhi gayi" .. Man i am so relieved these days fellow cab mates do not stare @ me these days.
Having said that, i do not take any pleasure that the poor grl misses the bus daily, also i am not saying that i am perfect i have also missed the cab once, however the point remains why ppl take time for granted? it is always better to be a minute early than a second late.
I wonder when we start believing "Punctuality is the Key to success".

hera pheri ... phirse!

Before i say smthing abt the movie there are few things i must mention.
Firstly i have not seen Hera Pheri (yea still i have not seen it)
Secondly i am not a Hindi Movie fan.

Neverthless it was the usual Friday where work always come on this uneventful day. By the evening i was so pissed off with work so we decided to watch Phir Hera Pheri in the evening.
The movie was supposed to be a comedy movie but i thought that i had laughed much much more in "No Entry'. Ne ways the movie was a much needed break from work... he he this is not a review i am just bored @ work so i thought i write abt it :)

The Place is called The DEN

Well as they say whats in the name and there is nthing much in the name .... Den is the name we (me and my roomie) has given to our new home.
Yea i shifted last week, my bro went back up north and finally i get to live the way i want to. I had found a bakra (or he has discovered me.. he he ), and after a days search we found a good house for a decent rent and walla last week i found my stuff in my new room. It was yesterday when i realized how much pain shifting can be...i started unpacking my stuff and man its so confusing to find new stuff in ur bags and u think gosh when did i get those..hmm .. if thats not all there are thousands thing u want to see atonce only u knew in which bag u have packed .. lol...well thats what happened yesterday and after wasting half a day i decided that i shall unpack next weekend .. hope i do it this time.

There has been many instances we use to hear, when we were in college, from our seniors that college is good, there is lots of politics and partiallity at work. Then we used to think that why the hell they are saying that i have seen at almost all TV channels that indian corporates this and that.
Well i got that experience myslef last friday. This is Appraisal time in our company and as expected ppl are giving tough time to the mangers, however what came to me as a result of my appraisal is totall shock. I have been rated among the top performers, inspite of this i am denied promotion, instead another guy (at the same level as i am ) got the promo. On being asked at what counts i fell short to get the promo, i was given answers like
1. It was a random decision (bill shit)
2. he had done some extra curricular activities (is this college/ school and are there grades for that if there are why i was not told)
3. i have no answer (now ur getting to the point)

Well thats it i knew the answer buggers are being partial. That was not all he tried all the tricks including threatening to keep my mouth shut....well on Monday (yesterday) i met SPM (his baap) and as expected he is his Baap all managerial funde and crap but i did not budge and he gave me "suggestions", "advices" and in the end reluctantly admitted his mistake (though not openly but in carefully crafted words).
This mrng i got a mail that i have another meeting regarding my performance evaluation..Boss that is closed why u want to get screwed by me again ... he he will update it later.

Update Finally i had another meeting with my PM and he reminded me of u have worked on this this this (saale pehle yaad nahin aaya kya?) Then he said i have confidence in u and stuff. ... (ha ha i am listening) then he said I AM SORRY (u shud be u !@#$%)

i don't wanna go back

It happens everytime when i come home and have to leave for work after a "short" vaccation. Well this time its no different...all i wanna say is Mamma, I don't wanna go. I know i have cribbed a lot abt Delhi's pathetically hot weather, and today was no different and i am exhausted after the days' out meeting frens and shopping, however it is this part of my vaccation that i hate the most, when i have to pack again and head back. I will miss Aloo Paratha, Palak (I am not mentioning Rajma Chawal :) ). But what the hell i will be back again in 5 months time.
All i can think now is i will be back in 5 months time .. and have Parathas :)