Pegasus Leaning Institute. You can read about them here.

Now coming back to  the topic ‘People’. Why people? they are the most important aspect of a team, a company or anything for that matter. People can be employees, customers anyone !

Now, what did the training teach me?

1. All managers are not leaders. :- I found that most real life managers were not instant leaders in many of the activities we did at the training. Either they were laid back or were not comfortable with the situation. This point here is that people behave differently (or their true nature comes out) when put in an uncomfortable situation. If they are natural leaders it comes out even if they don’t play that role in real life.

2. Follow the lead or lead your followers :- In any situation we have two options, either you would just follow someone else’s lead or your instincts kick in and you lead the rest of the pack.

3. Accepting the leader :- Majority of the people around are not leaders, we tend to accept a person and follow his/her lead when we are either lost or is confident that the leader would guide the way.

With the gyan done, let’s go into sights and sounds of Bangalore these days or Bengaluru, Bengaloroo, Bangaloru whatever. It’s strange that the State government changed the name, but did not specify on the spelling. Strange indeed. Even government departments haven’t got the spell check done.

It’s a saree, no its  an Anarkali controversy. What? sorry for my ignorance in Indian fashion, what’s an Anarkali?

I was doing this management talk on facebook and thought I should share it on my blog as well.

Management talk (Ready Reckoner)

Don’t say ‘I was able to get new projects’ . Say ‘I gained traction in the new engagement’

Don’t say ‘Team completed the work. Say ‘The team rallied around the goals’

Don’t say ‘Team did a good job’. Say ‘The team maintained the momentum’

Don’t say “You DO IT” Say “Take ownership and drive things”

Don’t say “I DON’T know” Say “Interesting ! I haven’t explored it yet.”

Don’t say “I am lost I have no clue what to do” Say “I am facing roadblocks”

Don’t say ‘You should talk to XYZ’ say ‘You should connect with XYZ’

Don’t say ‘I am would be on leave’ say ‘I would be on FTO – Flexible Time OFF’

Don’t say ‘I mess up things around here say ‘I manage things’

Don’t say this is not my job, say its not part of the charter.

Keep saying ‘Hard work is a reward in itself’ every time you give away an award with no monetary benefit.

Dear Driver,

You may have a 1000 CC car, but don’t think its a Ferrari. Even if you have a Ferrari (Thank God you don’t) don’t treat the public road as a race track.

No you can’t turn the curve like Schumacher. You have to stick to your lane.

There is no point in sending your kid to the school to teach him discipline, while on the way you cut two traffic red signals, drive opposite on a One-way and don’t wear a helmet. He learns fast you see.

I am not dumb or blind (atleast for now, if you honk that loud may be I would become deaf soon), I am waiting for the signal to turn green you crazy sonofagun. I am civilized you see (minus the bad language ).

No this is not a competition. Did you get a trophy when you quickly  took the parking spot, I was about to use? (when its evident from my indicator lights that I am about to use that spot?)

You say you graduated from college (or should I say passed out?) but the way you drive would soon pass you out ! I wonder if the educated drive this crazy, I don’t see a future where there is driving discipline.

Regards,

The guy who blocked your way when you wanted to jump the signal.

With that out of my head (not really) I can talk about other things.  The country is so bad that I get cheated by the guy who takes old newspaper as well. Cheating others/law is in our blood I guess.

So I am selling 4 months of newspaper to this old man near our apartment. He still use the spring scale for weighing paper, which to my knowledge is banned in this country. The scale showed 20 kg in total (he had to bundle the paper into two as it was heavy), while it was definitely more than 40Kg.

Okay now the morally right, compassionate people out there would start “He is a poor chap, why do you care about few kgs?. Anyway your objective is to get the paper out of your apartment, not to make money out of it”

Well yes, I don’t care about the money. I would be okay even if he pays only 1Re for a kg. But he could have not tampered with the scale.

It’s about the feeling – when you know you are being cheated !

We are experts in cheating others I wonder why we couldn’t cheat our way to freedom from the British? For the  freedom fight we tried the moral way?

I guess if we all had cars those days and we drove this crazy, the British would have left long back !  Gandhiji would not have to declare civil disobedience, because it would have been already that way.

In other news I get a lot of promotional smses (a lot around 20-30 of them everyday) thesedays, or ever since I moved to Airtel from Vodafone. Yes I know Vodafone folks would be laughing, but I am not moving back.  I sent an email to customer care with the list of 20 senders who spam me regularly. Airtel replied with 20 SMS stating that they would take care of the spam SMSes issue.

Gosh !

1) How I do not get any replies

2)My experience with Tata indicom.

3)Customercare less

4)Tips in writing a complaint

5) Niknish

I react when ever there my rights as a customer is questioned. I have written atleast 40 complaints in writing/emails/forums to the company management giving my feedback. Very few write back, some call and that’s the end of it.

When I was twelve years old I visited a Footwear shop (Goodwill, Kottayam) along with my elder brother. After looking through and trying out some of the shoes there, I was not happy with any of them, so we decided to walk out.

While we walked out, the person at the bill counter(whom I assume is the owner/manager) commented “Then why did you come here?”

I was angry and was about to respond when my brother stopped me. We walked out and never entered that store again.  For the next 10 years we would have bought atleast 10-20 footwear from Kottayam, but never from that store ! Surprisingly with that attitude the store still survived. I make it a point not to go to the same store again. May be losing one customer is not going to affect his business.

Last week my wife and I visited Westside Forum, Bangalore I picked up a Nike Floaters. A week later the sole started ripping off ! I was surprised ! That was my third Nike Floaters and I used the previous one for three years without any trouble !

I visited the store again and they offered to replace it with any other product available in the store. I picked up a Woodland, payed the difference in price. After reaching home on examining it more carefully (my mistake should have looked at it more carefully before buying it), I observed that it was a defective piece.

Disappointed, I visited their store again and replaced it. I wrote a feedback and handed it over to the store manager. I also wrote an email to their head office detailing the issue. I asked them about Tata’s credibility and how defective (factory seconds) merchandise is kept for sale at their outlets. They responded in two hours apologizing and they would work on corrective action ! — First surprise !

By 6PM yesterday I got a call from their Bangalore office. Later at 8PM an employee from Westside was at my door with gifts and apologies ! The gesture says it all !

I am surprised that this level of customer care actually exists in India. Now would I visit Westside again? Yes. Would I share this story with everyone around? Yes ! Would I publish it on the web? Yes I did !

Customer is okay with mistakes. He only wants it to be acknowledged and assured that corrective actions would be taken. He is angry when he is ignored. Mahatma Gandhi once said

“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises; he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”

First thing we call ourselves malayalees and not mallu.  We are the most tolerant people (in terms of religion, education, food, alcohol, powercuts, communists, rain, floods etc).  And its takes guts to speak like this (from 00.20) (Sreemathi Teacher, Kerala’s Health Minister)

Coming back to the topic, once at a job interview I met another prospective candidate that the company called, while we were waiting, he started asking about my whereabouts and then he quickly passed this comment ‘Hey you DON’T have a Mallu accent’.

2 sec silence.

“Well” I said. “I am surprised!, my parents are from Kerala, I was born and brought up there, I am suppposed to have one. I mean I am not born to a family from the west anyway”

1500 sec of silence. And we parted ways.

Now lets be clear about the accent thing. If we are born here (any state I mean) and brought up here (again any state) and your mother tongue is not english, you are bound to have this mother-tongue influence (as called by the call center folks) for certain words (or for every thing you speak) in english. But then you can have a nuetral accent (as the call center folks call it) which is something that you speak and then others wont be able to figure out which accent it is.

If you speak to a French guy they would have a French accent in the english they speak. The Chinese have their version of english. So does Indians. Now in India we have all these different languages that everyone tend to have different accents.

Now if you are from the North or (any other state minus Kerala) and think that you don’t have an accent you are wrong ! You have one. And if you are not convinced then please record your conversations (casual ones or practised ones) and then play it back.

If you are still convinced that you have Jack Nicholson’s accent (for example) Listen to this scene from “Few good men”  and then try recording your version. Please compare. If you are close, please send me a copy.

Now the question is does Malayalee’s have an accent?. Of course we do. So do you, folks.

Listen to this  and please don’t end up giving lectures on “sheesh you shaeve ansh Mallu ashent.Are you from Keral ? Anyways I am going to De Market to buy Phish”

In short when you say that Malayalee’s (or others) have an accent you actually sound like this .

Hypocrites !

I am totally for a bill which would help catch those scamsters. But would it solve the problem? Are you ethically right to assume the role of a anti corruption agent when you have a paid a bribe for things like gas connection. Driving licese. Or even paid the cop because he caught you drunk and driving?

Lets solve the issue at the root level. Yes most of the traffic policemen are corrupt. You give them a bribe they accept it, you give it because you just jumped a signal and would be more than happy to pay the policeman 50 bucks than the government 100Rs.

Are you willing to change ? Would all our people change? I think privatization and computerization would help solve these at the grass root level.

Lets say they are like an independent body with no tax payers money funding them. How do they sustain? With the fines they collect. How are they going to do that? Lets install cameras everywhere. Let the cops be treated like employees of big organizations. Let them be rated, promoted. Let their hikes be dependent on the work they do.  You would get your ticket via email with the picture of your offence. Pay it using your credit card or at the ATM or send a cheque. If you want to challenge it,  let the matter go to the courts.

Now for those who blame Raja as the most corrupt individual should be first checking if they are ethically correct if they do that. Let say we have  5M people in Bangalore alone. Out of which 1M have a 25Lakh house. While buying the property most of us don’t  pay property tax/ other taxes correctly we cheat on the value of the property. Let say each property owes the governemnt 2L. But have paid only half of it, by bribing the Tax department and showing the property value less.

We owe the government 1,000,000 X  100,000 = 100,000,000,000 Rupees !

This is only a representative figure.  And then you say Raja is the most corrupt individual .The middle class in India collectively is the most corrupt ones in our country and the cost the goverment Zillions !

1. LPG

Now that the Karnataka government is asking its citizens to produce their Ration Card to keep their gas connections. The middle class citizens are up in arms blaming the government for their suffering. ie. they have to stand in long queues. And says that this is all unnecessary.  Wait a min, if you have a legal gas connection, why should  you care? Oh wait, you got your connection by paying 7000 Rs to the clerk without declaring any proofs right? Thats the concern !

Now the question comes, is it really necessary to give subsidized cooking gas to our middle class citizens? If you tell me that its for the poor. I can assure you that more than half of it goes to the middle and upper middle class families.

Lets look at this math. Consider a middle class family of 4. They may need one cylinder a month. They pay around 400 Rs for the cylinder. Savings due to subsidized pricing = 400 (as actual price for a cylinder of cooking gas is around 800) Now every middle class family own a two -wheeler don’t they? They might spent atleast 1000Rs on Petrol every month. But then petrol is taxed twice over, so that government can recover the loss they make on giving subsidized cooking gas. So the family is paying Rs 500 more for the petrol . Loss = 500 Rs.

In short you aren’t gaining anything from the subsidized cooking gas. So shut up.

I  don’t think we have to spend the tax payers money on giving subsidized cooking gas to the middle class.

Note : My kitchen is not government sponsored and the above math can be questioned, revisited and considered wrong.

2. Oh ! The businessmen are corrupt. They don’t pay tax.

So I was having lunch with my colleague the other day and was talking about taxation in general when he said “The business people cheat. They show fake sales, bills and get away. They don’t pay tax legally”

I knew where this was going. He was cribbing about the tax he has to pay and that goverment is eating away his money. (which I have also cribbed about in one  of my older posts).

“How much rent do you pay?” I asked him.

“9000” he said.

“How much HRA do you get” I asked

“13000” he said.

“How much did you declare for tax benefits?” I asked

“13000, otherwise I would lose tax for 4000Rs a month” He said.

“Exactly. ” I said.

He got my point.

We have corruption deep in our  blood. We blame Kalmadi for eating crores. Or discuss about how Priyanka Chopra did not pay tax for 2Cr.

Did we?

A thief is a thief even if steal just Rs100 or Rs 1cr.

3. Education

Schools have entrance examinations these days. Not just to the higher classes but even for  Kindergarten. I was reading through Canada’s educational system the other day. They too have entrance exams. But the only difference is that they don’t use the entrance examination to reject students. But to evaluate them to understand the level of attention they should be giving to each individual student.

Back in school, when we failed for Math or Science, the teachers used to punish us. Cane us or ask us to write the questions and answers 100 times. If I failed in an exam I considered that as my failure. But now I guess its a collective failure. The teacher has also failed!

4.  Points to Ponder.

Okay this is for some of them who has to know few things before they talk about it.

a. No, Christianity did not come to India with the British. They were here much before that. Infact the British was surprised to find a huge Christian population in Southern India.  Its believed (with historical evidence) that St Thomas traveled to India (through the Spice Trade Route)  and converted some people in Kerala to Christianity 2000 Years back.

b. No, India does not have a National Language.

c. No, middle class is not the majority in India.  We try to form the opinion of this country. But we are not the majority.

d. etc

The (d) point is for my first Team Lead (from my first company). You don’t need to add a point to put an et cetera when you list out things in an email, Sir.

And these halfs were encircled by wikileaks. I guess this gave the other two some relief.

Lets move on (like all Indians) to what’s troubling the common man like you and me.  The other day I needed a Railway station transfer . Now Meru cabs (which I heavily relied on for the past 3 years) started charging a convenience charge of Rs 50(I still use Rs because I don’t have the Rupee sign on my office 2010 yet) for their convenience.  I guess they charge it so that discount frenzy Indians would stop calling their call centre (we don’t like paying an extra Rupee anywhere but would pay to play a 30 Rs game at a mall for 10 times (which would last hardly 3 mins each).

Anyways back to the point, so they started charging because they don’t want everyone to call them. But wait a min doesn’t their business work that way? People should call them right? Yes, so they request everyone to use their website book cabs. Like any other Indian ,to save that Rs 50 (which I would easily give to a Traffic constable if he stop me and say I have a Kerala registration vehicle) I booked the cab online on Monday. I needed the cab for Tuesday. The confirmation read “You cab has been confirmed for Tuesday 1900). Cool I thought. The excitement did not last long. On Monday I got a call at 1830 from a guy who claimed to be a Meru cab driver.

“But I booked the cab for Tuesday” I said

“You booked for 1900…. “ He said

I called the CC and told them of the mix up.

“Sir we only accept bookings made 24 hrs before” they said.

“Your website accepted the booking” I said.

Luckily they did not charge me for the cancellation. I wrote a letter to the email id mentioned in their website asking them not to accept online booking made more than 24 hours in advance. They acknowledged.

I had 24 hours and I called Easy Cabs (as I did not want to take the risk with Meru again). They confirmed the booking.

Tue 18:30 –The sms they promised did not arrive.

18:40

I called the CC. He said the cab is on its way.

“Give me the driver number”  I asked.

“I don’t have that information” He said.

“Give me the vehicle number” I asked.

“I don’t have that information” he said.

“How else would you know that  the car is on its way?”  I asked.

“You will get an sms in 2 mins Sir” he said. “Hold on I will talk to the dispatcher now”

Too Too Too Song which also had some self praises in it.

18:48

I am still on hold.

“Sir, the cab is on its way” he said

“Hey you told me the sms would reach in 2 mins. You put me on hold for 5 mins. Can you just let me know if the cab is available or not. I have my entire family including a kid and we need to get to the railway station by 2100.” I said.

“Sir the cab is on its way” he said.

Click.

19:15

I called a local cab guy who came in 15 mins. On my way I got the sms that Easy cab executive was talking about it read

“Sorry for the inconvenience there were no cabs plying in your area and your booking has been cancelled”

The question is, if the confirmation they give when you book is not a confirmation but only a HOPE they would probably have to rename it to HOPE SMS.

It should read “We hope that we have made the booking. We certainly hope to send you cab hopefully by the chosen time. We hope that you call us again”

In their language I confirm that I will use Easy cabs again.

I tweeted a lot during the show, mostly because I was excited on how the show was unfolding with surprises (Not really coz DD aired it with a delay and the rest of the world was watching it ahead of us with tweets).

I tuned into DD at 6PM IST, only to see two folks chatting over tea. Back at 7PM and the show started.

The camera showed the stadium from different angles.

“This is a bird’s eye view of the Nehru Stadium New Delhi ” Proclaimed the commentator. What the viewers saw was a camera placed on a lower ground facing up to the sky. May be the bird was resting at a seat.

“The crowd is all here cheering ” said the commentator and the camera showed couple of empty seats !

It all started with the aerostat being lifted from the ground and the crowd cheering. DD commentator was repeating the word ‘balloon’ couple of times. Guess the only helium floating thing he would seen before would be the helium baloon at a festival.

And then the drummers arrived. The display of various drums including the Nadan Chenda from my state was awesome. The commentator found it difficult to name each one of them. So he waited…….. and then the little ustad arrived from nowhere.

“TABALA” said the commentator. Hell we know it already. thought the viewers.

Many tweeted asking the commentator to shut up. Well see, he is not reading your tweets, he was busy checking all the Common Wealth countries on Wikipedia.

Then it was time for the teams to arrive. Australia came first. The crowd cheered may be because their cricket team was not there. Then one after the other, the teams were welcomed with a lady in saree in front leading them.

Commentator “Different sarees”.Women were busy checking if they repeated any saree. Men were busy checking out the ladies.

We could hear some paper shuffling (like when you call in for a telephonic interview), I guess the commentator was looking at his papers to describe each country.

“This country is one of the most…..underdeveloped country in the commonwealth” he said. Well that is sure a good thing to say when you welcome someone.

St Kitts and Nevis arrived. He didn’t bother to describe them. May be he thought that the local church came in with their contingent. Indians across the globe wondered who they are. Singapore came in and the crowd cheered. I guess most of them are waiting for their visas, or just came back from their honeymoon (well its cheaper to fly to singapore than for a trip to Delhi from South India).

There were some countries (whom noone has heard about before) came in with very few folks. There was the saree gal and then the flag bearer.

Pakistan came in and the crowd cheered, although the Mallus across the globe did not like the fact that a girl in Kerala Saree was leading them.

Second Punjab AKA Canada came in. The crowd cheered. The crowd was just waiting for .. yes India.

And finally the host came in. The crowd (I mean the Indian contingent) walked in. The crowd (stadium) cheered with a standing ovation. Wait a min, thought the viewers do we really have that many atheletes?? Oh no. its the ‘see off’ effect. Let me explain, when we are travelling all our relatives come with us to the railway station. There would be 10 people to see off just one person. (The new Logan ad).

So the Indian team came in with their Chaccha Chacchi, niece, cousin, neighbor’s puppy and Juhi Chawla. The crowd cheered.

Ad.

DD started off with their ad show. Well this was their only moment in history (after cable TV came to India) that they have had  many viewers. And they milked the cow. And they delayed the live program. Kalmadi delayed the construction, Doordarshan did its part.

The baton was handed over to Prince Charles. Charles looked at the baton and thought ‘wait a min there is no fire ! ‘

Kalmadi came up on stage and started speaking in English (just to let you know) and the crowd booed. He smiled. I guess he thought the crowd is cheering, with all the facial hair his ability to hear was tampered.

Kalmadi : “Former President Abdul Kalam Azad” and read out his lines without the fullstops.

MMS was up next speaking in English. He paused. Paused. Pause.

Finally Prince Charles came and spoke in his language. Read out the queens message and quickly ran off to his seat. Ms Patil was next….

Patil : “Let………….”

Crowd : Clap Clap

Patil : “Let…………. ”

Crowd : Clap Clap

Patil : “LET ME FINISH……………..Let the games begin”

and so it began.

“The Indian Railways” Said the commentator.

Silence.

“The indian Railways”

Silence.

“is expected to arrive shortly” said the commentator. And then there was chaos.  Indians understood the chaos, not sure about the rest of the world. It was great fun to watch the train.

AR Rahman was wearing a white pair of sneakers just in case he has to make the run if people did not like his tweaked new CWG song. The song was over and many asked “Is that the CWG theme song”

Yes its the CWG song.

“Jai Ho” bought an end to the show. And everyone missed Shera.

Well he died due to poisoning at Banneghatta National park last week.

Note : Some of the comments from the commentator were edited for this post.

We found a vacant lower berth and occupied it, while my wife and kid slept on it I waited. It was midnight.The train reached the next station and a man in his fifties walked in I requested him for the lower berth. He refused saying that there is a lady and a kid
with him. Since that sounds very reasonable and fair and most importantly since its his reserved berth, we got up. then I saw his ‘kid’. He was a teenager. I requested the man again. He bluntly refused, saying that he wants all three to be together. I told him that our
berths are the ones opposite to his. He just said ‘No we cannot’ i could see his wife looking helplessly and his kid with no expression on his face. I am sure thats not what he is been taught in schools.
We picked up our blankets and moved. The kid woke up and then the compartment woke up.
It was half past one. Seeing this, the young lady who previosly refused the lower berth offered to help. I told her its fine ‘I thought this train was for human beings, guess I boarded the wrong one.’ I said.
The man did not stop. He even wanted us to move the luggage around. He had just two suitcases and did not require all the space he was trying to make. He moved peoples luggage around roughly. His son and wife watching all the arrogance around. I guess that shouldn’t be what he be learning.
Now it okay to refuse to do a favor. But then there is sometthing called ethics,compassion. Guess you would get that only if you are bought up like that.

Next day morning, over hearing their conversation I learn t that the husband-wife were government school teachers …

Nice. Now I know what those poor kids are learning.

Ps : This was the only time I had to face this in my numerous experience as a traveller on Indian railways. We have many times requested for a lower berth and was never refused before, thats why this experience deserved a post.

This is how the story goes. Since the apartment I stay have net savvy residents, the Management committee started a group on yahoo to help people be in touch with each other. This was to let everyone know about changes, water problems, generator issues etc. But mostly it would be used by people to bark, threaten, abuse others since all you have to do is write and then wait for the reply.

One mail read “I’ve seen couple of  Cats creating havoc in the complex ..atleast they are a source of botheration to me …..they relieve themselves in my private garden and today they crossed the next step…entered via my back balcony door inside my appartment”

And then he sent another one “I‘am not sure if the cat has any owners but if it has , then they should teach her some manners and they themselves should learn some manners as well.Couple of days back ,she entered my back balcony . A good shot of stone missed her my whisker or else I would have know who the owners are”

I did not understand his email completely but with the reply from an animal activist (living in the apartment) I got the point.

She said “Looks like, unfortunately, u have been brought up in a posh villa with no nature or animals around you due to which you speak like this or throw stones at animals with out any feelings for them. You have no understanding that there is actually no difference between animals and children, and you are a father of one.  The black cat might not have been ours, but still I will warn you that if you are so rude, then there are many animal welfare associations that can arrest you for illtreating animals”

oh !!!

And then it goes on and on and on. All mails copied to the group id with all individual flat owners/tenants reading them and then laughing about it.

And the cat? He/She is sleeping sound somewhere in the basement, away from all the hatred !

*All emails conversations copied directly from the actual email.