Entropy and Life

Love Fool

2011-05-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

A fool in love makes no sense to me. I only think you are a fool if you do not love. I believe that everybody on this earth has a couple and here I am trying to find my love with whom we were meant to be long before we were born. I believe we came to this world to help each other find who we really are, and become all that we were destined to be. We will struggle through the hard times and grow through them. We will overcome whatever obstacles life puts before us and we will only get better with time. And as the years pass our love will grow and blossom, because we were meant to be together.

If I were to kiss your luscious lips and drink of them their wine I will love you more and ask you to be mine. If you were to hold me in your arms and rock me off to sleep, I will lay there all night long. I'll say that "I am yours to keep" We will be blessed with a love that will shine...I don’t know what to say. But I will always be here when you need me. To say that I love you. I will see the beauty in your smile and happiness in your eyes and it will make me happy too! Now. that you don't belong to me I am still hoping... We will be together...
When the right time comes I will just be right here. Waiting for you to be mine. Always thinking you should be mine.
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Disclaimer: I got this in an spam email but was very impressed with the content. Very nicely written indeed.

Days of Desire

2010-12-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

I would love to wake up in the morning to see my kid ready for school and breakfast served on the table. This ain't too much I desire for. I did hire a full time maid for this purpose. But she won't wake up till the clock hits 7:30. In 2 weeks she did not even try to get up before I was ready to leave home along with my daughter. So I had no option but to fire her.
I wake up at 6am, half asleep, arranging things to make my kid ready for school. Before the daylight hits my room, I have to complete the toughest job of the day:)

Early at work, I would like to innovate a new software that could make me rich & famous. Alas! it's very hard to start on something like that when one has to work for the same salary 3 years in a row. And the other daily routine tasks have almost no challenges left.

I dream of making some extra money from financial market. Future, option, option strategy, Future with option cover, complex derivative strategy, intraday strategy, pair trading, no matter whatever I do, I almost always go wrong with my call. Instead of making money, I loose my fortune.

Back from work, I would love to spend 2 hours in the gym and get my body the fitness it badly need. My kid is too young to spend time in gym with me. So, I let her watch TV while I cook dinner or play poker in my mobile. When my back starts paining, I would do some exercise at home though this would never give me the fitness that I once had for over 10 year in a row.
The desire to make love with a beautiful lady in the morning, in the evening, or at night, exists in every man's heart.
I live in a country where women are a complete no-no against any live-in together relationship. I did propose few women for a live-in relationship that may lead to marriage but all they want is marriage first and ruin you latter strategy. Have I not learned my lesson from my first marriage. After all, no man would ever denies that a good hand is much better than a bad partner.

Last but not the least, I would desire to get 6 hours of sleep everyday. But for now, it's a luxury I can't effort. When I close my eyes, I mostly get all undesirable dreams ruining my sleep.

That's pretty much sum it up my days of desire. Today's last part would start soon and I do hope the undesirable would not ruin my tonight's sleep.

Management to Architect

2010-12-14T08:56:00.000-08:00

It has been about an year since I gave up management responsibilities due to some unavoidable circumstances. The people up in my reporting line felt, they would use my computer programming skills rather than my terrible people management skills.

They did have a point. My start was indeed terrible. The first person I hired in my team, resigned within a week. She said she would rather be a programmer than a QA.
The 2nd victim in my group was another lady who was asked to quit because the top management suddenly felt her service was redundant.

So, that's how I started my people management assignment. I then worked with five direct reports for 2 years before a re-orgs shifted me to a completely new group.

I lost all of my trusted workforce. In addition, now I had to hire new people for the new group. No sooner than I completed hiring for the new group, the upper management discovered my flaws. I was no good as manager; I should be an individual contributor. My new team got a new manager and my old team too has a new manager. I stood alone in my cubical, still reporting to my old manager.

So, a little over an year is gone. Everyone I hired in my last team has moved on with their new manager and enjoying their work. I was out of their group even before I could knew them well.
But everyone I hired in my old(first) team has now left my company. They no longer work here but every time they face a problem, they approach me. If they need help, they still believe I would be able to help.
Now what dose this got to do with management skills? I was told that management is not about hiring good people who will deliver task in time. It is rather building a relationship with the people around you.
Would you read between the words, "building a relationship to the people around you"?
I realized that I did build a relationship with the people in my first team to deliver task. But it did not take me nowhere. So, I would paraphrase the line I heard from my upper management. Here it goes: "Management is about building a relationship with the people high in your reporting line and screwing the people who reports to you. If you can't do that, you better choose the architect career in order to survive". I wish I could do that from the beginning.

Entropy in the last question!

2010-03-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

This is about my 3 job interviews where everything went right; well, almost everything!

Computer Vision India (PTC), December 1998:

This was the first one; 11 years gone but the memory is still fresh. I was just few months old in my first job which was not paying me enough to live as my own. Then I got an email from HR PTC, Pune for an interview in Windsor Manor Hotel, Bangalore. I was very excited indeed. The selection process started with an aptitude test followed by a technical test. Then they called me for interview. There were 5 persons including one from Boston and Mr. Bipin Kocher, asking me questions in tandem. Never before I faced such a big interview panel with so many questions to answer. After a while, the questioning gear shifted to persuasion mode. One of them opened an Indian MAP on the table and showed me that Calcutta (my home town) is closer to Pune than Bangalore and so I should move to Pune and join PTC. While I was assuring them that relocation would not be any issue, Mr. Kocher came up with a last question. He handed me a piece of paper and asked me to write a double linked list in C. I returned him the paper with the answer. Now the last question was extended a bit further, "have you ever used linked list in any programs in your current organization?". My honest answer was "NO, but I used them in my self learning exercise".
He paused for a moment and assured me to finalize my offer once he get back to his office in Pune. I was not smart enough to hear the empty words he spoke. I was hopeful for almost a month. Then the hope started fading away; I was so much shocked that I did not try for another job for a year. However, a year latter, the experience from PTC interview helped me to get pass the "Last Question" in PTC rival SDRC Inc.

Then PTC made a mistake by calling me for interview again, in the same hotel. With offer from SDRC in hand, I did went to see them for a sweet revenge. It was really sweet that I felt like I had won a nuclear war :)

Techspan Bangalore (Headstrong), October 2004:

Almost Two years in Wipro Technology was probably beyond the limit I could tolerate in a service company. So, I uploaded my resume to few online resume database. There were many calls but I shortlisted TechSpan. It started with an online test where Techspan HR gave me an user name & password with a link to an online test. I had to take 3 such test and submit score before they switch to telephonic interview mode. One, two, three, four, five, six and finally it ended. I got a request to meet the HR in their office.
When I went there, I was very disappointed to see a small reception area where no more than 2 person can sit. Yet, the HR Siddharth Mavinkurve kept me waiting there for hours with an excuse that his hiring manager was not yet in the office. After an hour he assembled a group of senior technical engineer in a room and called me inside. Among those, there were one hard core C programmer who did not like object oriented programming. He had the last question for me, "What is the use of C++ when we already have C languages that can do almost everything?". He did not agree with any of the OOP advantages I talked about. It lead us into an argument that was almost taking an ugly turn before other people stopped us. I returned home whereas Siddharth Mavinkurve was still looking for his hiring manger to talk to me.

Several month latter, when I was already settled in TIBCO, another HR from TECHSPAN Bangalore contacted me for job interview. IT is indeed a small world. I requested her to connect me to Siddharth Mavinkurve. I did learn some excellent foul words in Kharagpur. This was probably the only time I could use those words outside KGP campus life :)

February 2010, five years since I last edited my resume. Then I felt there was a need for that. This ain't any half-hearted attempt as I really wanted to move somewhere, where I can feel little bit more important for the organization I work for. An agent from HONG KONG contacted me for an interview with Goldman Sachs. This is in financial domain where I recently developed lot of interest. So, I was looking forward into it.
At first, I talked with a VP, Ashia-Pacific-Japan, who did not ask many questions. Once he was satisfied with his initial conversation, he called his technical expert for more questioning.
This one went on for an hour and I almost missed my lunch. At the end, my interviewer was so excited that he almost made me an offer, only if it was in his hand!!! His last word was, "You will hear from US, soon". I rushed to my office canteen with a hope to bite on something and I was lucky. I savored whatever I could bite on while on the back of my mind, I was preparing my good-bye speech for TIBCO.

In the evening, I had to clear the last hurdle. The VP of operation from UK was my last interviewer. He was almost 15 minutes behind the schedule. Finally when he called, he had many questions for me and I had answers for all of them. Then came the last question, "Have you used any software to handle real time trading data from exchange". I forgot my lesson in PTC and replied in negative.

A week latter, my agent from HONG KONG called me. When I answer the phone, he said he had good news for me. I thought I knew the next sentence but I did not. The good news was that J.P. Morgan wanted to interview me, not Goldman Sachs was making me an offer. The latter did not hire me because I did not have any experience in investment banking.
The J.P. Morgan interview was also canceled 5 minutes before the schedule because of the same reason.
For a while, I am stopping my job search effort. Maybe it's not gonna be easy to continue in where I am today. But it's better to hold on till the right offer comes.

Sony Service

2009-10-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

Five years back I purchased a Sony HI-FI music system, HCR-GN88D. It did cost me 42k. Similar system from other manufacturer was available almost half of this price. But my friends convinced me that SONY sound quality is far better compare to others, and the brand image assures the reliability. I was not regretting my purchase until today. I enjoyed the music played on it for five years. Then it started to show the signs of fatigue which should not happen with such high-end expensive system.

I had take it to a SONY service center at Kothrud, Pune. I explained the problem as follows.
1. The surround sound system is not working. I get all music and background sounds but there is no sounds from human as if only the artists in the video or song are muted.
The immediate response was like this, "That's not possible sir". I then put a DVD inside and demonstrated the problem. They did some more testing before accepting it for repair.

Day 3; I got a phone call from the service center stating that they could not detect any problem with the surround sounds and the system was working fine. I had to explain the problem to the person again.

There were no update in the next 3 / 4 days. I then called them to inquire about the repair. The mechanic came online and assured me that he detected the problem with a sound splitter and needed my approval for replacement cost. I immediately gave the approval. He assured me that he would call me when the system is ready.

A week had passed; yet I received no update. So, I called the service center again on Thursday. The lady put me on hold while she inquired with the mechanic. After 5 minutes, she came back and told me that the system was ready and I could collect it at any time. I went to collect the system on Friday evening, a day after they said it was ready.

When I got there, they asked me to wait. About 10 minutes latter, a person came out with my music system and started to give me a demo. Alas! the system won't even power on. He called for help from his colleagues who also failed to power it on.

They again disappear beyond the restricted line in the repair shop. I was asked to wait. The wait was more than 20 minutes before they reappear with the system.
This time, it did power on. They gave me a little demo but no surround sound. I put a Harry Potter DVD inside, the system failed to read the DVD. I put Madonna's confession tour music video DVD, there were no sound output at all.

I felt like punching the guy on his face. He was lucky as my daughter was with me and I did not wanted to create a scene in her presence. Have they repaired it or damaged it further? If the repair was not complete, why did they call me at the first place? Worst, they were not even apologetic.

Frustrated, I returned home empty handed, wondering how the service could be any worse. One can't really expect this kind of treatment from SONY. For the moment, I will have to forget about my music system for long.

Will I buy a SONY again. I'm sure I won't even though it may work fine for five year. One of my friend has a Kenwood music system which still performs like new after 10 years. Alas, I bought a Sony. It's a SONY and it sucks.

A Screw

2007-08-14T02:13:00.000-07:00

On a lazy Monday of first week of September 2001; I was ambling down towards a designated bus stop to board my office bus en route to my office in Hinjawadi. As I reached near the bus, it suddenly started moving. I run a little and asked the driver to stop but he did not. That day, I had to hire an auto rickshaw to travel 20 KM to reach office.

In office, I checked my equity portfolio. I was novice in stock market but my portfolio was showing 70k unrealized profit, about 100% return in 4 months. On the next day, I went to a Daewoo showroom and booked a Matiz. The dealer promised me delivery in 3 weeks subjected to finance approval from the Bank.

Days latter, the September 11 episode struck the stock market and the 70K unrealized profit became 20K unrealized loss. Before, it could go down further; I squared off my position and opted for cash that I eventually needed to pay off the car dealer. I neither gave up the car purchase plan nor the stock market investment. Having squared off the position, I paid the car dealer first. I still had some money left that I invested in ITI that ultimately recovered all of my losses in stock market.

On 2^nd October 2001, the dealer called me to inform that the car was ready. He gave me the keys and said, “Nobody ever died inside a Matiz, drive it without fear.”This photo was taken a days latter.

Almost Six years latter, I was still using this car for my daily office commute. Thursday, August 9, 2007, 10:30 am; I was just a km away from my office.
It was pick hour bumper to bumper traffic on R.B.M road. In a traffic jam, I stopped about 5 ft behind a container truck. An Indica stopped behind me. As I was waiting for the traffic to start moving, I heard a sound “BANG... .” Before I could react, the seat belt I was wearing already locked me with the seat.
The next things I noticed that my car was careened under the container truck even though I applied full break. The first thing that came in my mind was that I needed to live for my daughter. So, I turned the steering towards the left lane that was empty. I saw the windshield broke into pieces; the right side frame of my car hit the cantilever support beam protecting the wheel of the truck. I felt someone was pushing me towards death and it was a battle between my car frame and the cantilever support beam of the truck. I kept my eyes open as the devil’s force reduces. Moment latter, everything came to a halt. I tried to get out of the car but the driver’s door was already jammed by the impact. I then got out from the passenger’s door before the fuel tank of any of the cars could explode.

Was that the last of the screw I titled this Blog for? Please read on.

HCL Technology has bagged number of contracts in the last quarters. However, the global meltdown has dragged the stock price down below 300 from 340 to 350 ranges. The quarter ending result was due on August 13. I decided to take some risk and bought one contract (contains 650 stock@ 292) of HCL Technology August Future. The EOD settlement on August 9 was giving me 12K unrealized profit. However, my estimated target was not yet reached.

On August 10, the script opened at Rs.280 in the middle of a volatile market. It was still above my stop loss price. So, I logged on to my trading account in ICICI direct and started monitoring my holding. Around 10:30 am the market showed the sign of revival and HCL Technology started moving up. For a moment I switched to check my equity portfolio and found that HCL Technology had already moved up and trading above 300. I returned to F&O page to place a square off order. I was shocked to find that my holding on HCL Technology had disappeared. Latter, I found in the order book that the System had sold my holding to minimize my losses. They were minimizing losses when the script was going up; it did not sell when the price was at day low at Rs.280, it sold at Rs.292.30, a 30 paise profit per stock but screwed me off to loose an opportunity to make 30K in the contract. By that time the script had already gone up to Rs.314 leaving me no opportunity to re-enter.

Yesterday, the company announced its quarterly result and the script soared up to Rs.330.

Now I am sitting here biting on my nails. I had written to ICICI to explain the system placed order, but they are yet to send me a reply. They do claim to resolve dispute within 48 hours.

Five days since the accident, the car repair garage is yet to come up with an estimated repair cost. The insurance company does not show any sign of satisfactory service that they promised when they sold me the insurance. Today morning, I boarded my office bus which time traveled to 6 years back. I wish this time travel were real :)

Danger on The Wheel

2007-03-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

On my way to office, the driving pleasure ends as I exit from the NH4 to Paud road in Chadni chock junction. My expertise to negotiate traffic on Paud road till my office has been increasing everyday. Today, I noticed something different.

I tried to overtake a slower car immediately after Chadni chock junction. However I was unsuccessful. The driver was using the middle of the two lanes combined. After a while I gave up and decided to follow this car till it goes away on a different rout. Suddenly, I noticed that the driver was waving one hand inside the car. I thought the driver must be an old friend. So, till the first traffic signal I kept guessing who that friend could be!

As the signal turned red; I managed to stop beside that car with little extra effort. I had a dekko and found no friend; it was a lady driver adjusting her hairs. As she drives, she lifts her hand from the gearshift, pulls her hairs, and returns her hand to gearshift. The process continues with variable frequency. So, this would appear as waving hand to the driver following this car.

The traffic signal turned green, I decided to enjoy the fun and followed her car till NAL stop signal. She continued with that till the next red signal where she did a overhaul; 5 minutes, 11 times was the count. I had my fun enough and turned right towards my office on NAL stop signal on Karve road. I wish she does not use both of her hands to adjust her hair while the car is in motion.

The Entropy Of NO

2007-02-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

September 1998, I was just a month old in my first job after graduation. Around 6 PM on a working day, I received a request from a senior colleague to design a complicated machine part in a CAD software and then create grid points on the surface of it. He needed the grid data file to calculate drag from the partially solved NS equation. I took details of the problem description and assured him that the grid would be done as the first thing on the next morning. Unfortunately he wanted me to give him the grid before I leave for the day. I pointed him to a watch and told him,” It’s already 6 pm and I had to catch a Bus in another 30 minutes; I’m sure this can wait till tomorrow”. He behaved professionally and left without any comments.

In the weekend, few of my colleagues took me to a BAR for a drink. As they gulped from the whiskey glass, one of them asked me, “Bipul, how did you do it”?

I was totally discombobulated by that question; how did I do what?

You were showing our manager a watch, “its 6 pm, I would do it tomorrow”.

I thought for a moment and explained to them, “I think it was a natural response from me; the who’s’ who did not come into my mind”

But, you are not even an employee; he could have fired you. It never occurred to me that my “NO” would have made me to loose my job. I would not even noticed the incidence if my colleagues, acquaintances & friends did not bring the topic across that dimly lit drink table. I wished I were scared. I told them something that made me famous in that company. I said, “May be he could have fired me, but I am sure nobody else in this company could solve that damn problem; he can fire me and risk loosing that project from the client. I worked for that company for at least a year & half; no one ever asked me to work after 6pm any more.

That was probably my first unconscious & natural “NO” at work to an unjustified request. Since then eight years has passed and I said many conscious “NO” at work. Few created ripple but the victory was always mine. In one of those “NO” landed me in Landmark Forum, an educational program given my Landmark Education. Fortunately, that made me stronger; I learned to see black as black and white as white.

I believe that I’m responsible for my decision, action & work. But recently something happened in my personal life in which I was blamed to be responsible for someone else’s decision & action. The impact has been so much that I would need to pay for it for the rest of my life. I have been trying all the power of positive thinking that I have learned till now to revive myself from the situation. My mind wants to put it behind but my heart would never understand.

In the middle of this turmoil I started to report to a manager living in a different time zone. He expects me to do magic and deliver. Sometime I wish I had five brains and ten hands to do the magic he is expecting. Alas! Even the single brain inside my head does not work at half of its efficiency. In eight years I hardly worked on any weekend and never welcomed off time call at work. In last one month I worked twice in the weekend, missed my lunch & coffee time on weekdays; yet the expectation grew higher with time. The worst; I was waken up at midnight phone call for a status update. Maybe, a part of me wanted to say that the status was the same as it was in the evening. But I could not say so. That day I realized that I had lost my power to say NO to any unfair demands at work.

A friend said, maybe I should move on with better job profile & pay cheque. But a bird with broken wings can’t fly. Maybe the option is open but I need time to heal the wound inside me. Till then I will need to work hard to gain the lost ground. Nobody would care about my absence unless they ever feel my presence. I know where I am going.

Drivers in Pune

2005-12-12T22:45:00.000-08:00

In India, we are supposed to drive on the left side of the road. But how many drivers follow this rule? Maybe a few does. Others would just drive on either side of the road. They just need some empty space to move the vehicle. The traffic rules hardly matters, self rule is the best. Many of our drivers are illiterates and some are educated imbecile who never went to driving school and probably got their driving license without ever appearing for a driving test. So, the driving knowledge of those drivers would probably match to the followings.

1. I am too busy so I must take a short cut. The left side of the road is occupied by other vehicles, so I can drive on the right side. The approaching traffic must make some space for me. After all there is nobody to punish me (traffic police does not know if it is wrong).

2. I need to take a right turn in the next junction so I must drive to the right side of the road, cross the junction, continue driving on the right side of the road till I find the left side empty(Nobody taught me how to take a right turn)

3. What is this big circular construction in the middle of the junction? Only fools go around it to take a right turn.

4. Those colorful lights in the big junctions are probably for decoration. I need not stop to see them everyday; I don't understand why some idiots stop their vehicle when those lights turn red.

6. The switch for my car headlights has two settings. In one setting, I can’t see the road much ahead of me, I don't know what the use of it is; the other setting is good, I can see almost a mile ahead. I don't understand why some crazy drivers from approaching traffic blink those headlights when I drive at night.

The Future:

The road adjacent to my residence has very less traffic and often used by driving school’s trainer car. Today I spotted one such trainer car which was driven on the wrong side of the road. When I asked the instructor in that car why he was training students to drive on the wrong side of the road? He was quick to answer, “This side has less traffic, so I let them use this side of the road”. I just wonder what those students would do when they graduate and get their driving license. They are just learning how to do things wrong. There is no hope that some improvement will happen in future.