Don’t b*&^h out just because it’s a bad economy!

I remember talking to a friend two years ago, basically discussing the possibilities of an economic downturn in India (a phenomenon un-heard of back then) and saying that the services sector is going to get hit and our services economy is too dependent on American prosperity levels and that this surge in economic activity is soon going to be in for a rude shock. Well, I am sure you have heard such stories all over the place in your workplace, on the news, in your home. Your home budgets are stretched, inflation is hurting and all those splurges you made on that new LCD tv and other such luxuries, well, you probably should’nt have made them.
The Global Economic Crisis is very real. I was in the US recently, and even seeing beyond the media hype and constant flashes of “Breaking news” about the economy, one would be quite certain that this crisis is going to last for a while, at least in the US. They are looking at this mess lasting for atleast another 2 or 3 years, because the US is sitting on approximately $7 trillion of bad debt because of these complex mortgage backed securities. This is soon going to lead to Bad debts on retail loans like credit card debt. A lot of US companies and individuals will go bankrupt and this will lead to “The Great Indian Outsourcing Dream” being brought to its knees and looks like a bleak 2009 for the rest of the world as well.
Lets see what you and I can do to counter the effect of this crisis. How do we make sure that this “thing” does not get the best of us and somehow manage to pass over as just another bad phase? Here are my thoughts….

1) Ignorance is bliss: Try not to read too much about the economy and the global credit crisis. I am sure you will be tempted to view your TV screen when it flashes “Breaking news” because of a large point drop in the Sensex. Don’t try and get too hassled about this entire media blitz which causes more harm than anything else. Don’t try and get too deep into the reasons for this mess. Most of the issues which have led to this crisis all over the world is the result of too many variables and a set of complex linkages. Even guys like me, who possess some very respectable degrees in Finance and economics all over the world, find it hard to understand and devise solid solutions. Don’t look for someone to mollycoddle you and advise you on another speculative move. Just focus on doing your job well and make sure that you slog your a** off to keep that job. Remember, the days of easy jobs will not be an option anymore. Otherwise, remember, you most probably will only be in way deeper muck than you already are.

2) Adopt a !American outlook to life: I feel that the biggest issue with urban India is the false need to ape the US. We try and emulate everything from their retail sector to the way we spend our incomes. Yes, BPO and IT people, I am talking to you. Your credit card bills will come back to haunt you. Don’t buy that Honda City on an income of Rs.30k, the fuel is not cheap either and your salary will usually equal the EMI. Don’t go on that Europe trip because you some bank is advertising boldly, telling you to take that trip and “make your dreams a reality” with their personal loans. The Interest rates are going to eat you alive. Always remember that the Americans are in an economy, which is based on a totally different set of factors and concepts. They are highly consumption driven, free market economy which is measured in the amount of spending and ours is a mixed model economy and a country which is still very much in the early stages of growth. If you think that we are a “developed country”, I would advise very much that you look at our per-capita income, and standard of living statistics. (Per capita chart). By the way, for those who didn’t understand why I put the ! before America. The !, in Software Development terms means “NOT”.

3) Don’t try and pull off Super-Speculator moves: If you invest in stocks as an investment and dabble in it from time to time, chances are that you have made some neat profits on speculative transactions and quick sales of stocks. My advice is to stop it and focus on a Long term perspective. Don’t try and pull off some cool stock market moves like you see in Wall Street (the movie, Watch the movie to keep your mind off the economy, just kidding). Don’t try and pull a fast one on the market with high-stakes transactions, you will get f***ed. The market is always smarter than you.

4) Black Money is the way to go Baby!!!: This will probably be one of the most iconoclastic of suggestions I give out. Black money is one the reasons why most of us aren’t too deep in this mess. (read this).

5) Have a roof over your head? Cool it: If you are paying off home loans, I hope you have had the good sense to consider your ability to pay them off. If you are planning to rent or renting already, stay that way. Even though you might have seen home loan rates coming down marginally, Indian economic policies are quite confusing right now. We are trying to curtail growth by raising rates and we are also trying to spruce up the economy by slashing required rates for banking liquidity. Hold on to your horses. If you are careful, you will get some sweet deals on purchase of property that you would have never gotten earlier. All good things come to those who wait.

6) Practice being happy every day: This is quite simple. Do what the senior citizens do. Join the neighbourhood laughter club. Watch a lot of funny, senseless Hindi flicks (they are enough in number, but not in the expensive multiplexes). Cultivate cheaper habits (substitute Coffee Day and Barista Coffee for local road-side chai wala). Although boozing would seem like the ideal way to get over your economic woes, remember, it would be murder on your pocket.

These are my 2 cents for you. Hopefully you can implement some of these steps and ride safely through the rough roads to economic prosperity once again and unlearn whatever you had learned from the down-turn.

May common sense be with you.

The Weekend Blogger!!

Tis' been a while since I last wrote in my blog. I hate leaving it so empty and aching for material and have decided to impregnate it with my verses. These will be my thoughts on any issue. My ruminations extend to a lot of issues and I have carelessly frittered them away in some random phone conversations or some social gatherings where these views are digested and removed from the system, without much thought being given to them. This greatly saddens me, because I have much to say and the only thing that has truly made me happy is penning these thoughts in some form or the other. In school, I used to rely on pen and paper. I have a few small books with my juvenile handwriting as evidence of my love for writing during these years. In my college years and till date I had maintained a blog which had to be removed, courtesy some inflammatory statements I had made, which had been shamelessly published in a local daily (without my permission, I must add). My job and other pressures in life do not permit me to write as freely as I would like. My attitude to this hobby of mine has been marred by indolence and some rather feeble excuses with respect to "not finding time". I hate making such empty statements and that is why I have resolved to indulge in my hobby during weekends, which are in no way carefree, I might add, but atleast give me time enough to write what I want to write. Look for new posts every weekend!!!!

The Copy Pasters.

Documentation is what the world revolves around. We have documents flying left right and center. Emails shot off to all corners of the world. Proposals, Invitations, Contracts, Forms and other documents moving from one computer to the other faster than the speed of sound. These documents, so critical, so important and all pervasive. They make or break most of our lives. We live by those thin sheets of paper. Our jobs, our careers, our social lives.....OUR Lives in general revolve around documents. What if one fine day you realized that these documents contain something completely contrary to your perceptions and ideas. What if the same documents you depend on turn against you because of a COPY PASTER.

I have to deal with a lot of documents at my workplace, and I am sure many of you have to as well. Our company like many of the others out there, relies on these documents to convey a certain message to the reader. The other day, I was reviewing a document prepared by one of the "famous documenters" in my company. Let's just call him "Mr.U.N.Lettered". He was preparing a report (on something I can't disclose), which had to be delivered to our clients. As I was casually reading the report, going smoothly past page 15 (yeah, I actually have to review upto 60 pages at a time. Woe is me). I suddenly realized that there was something very wrong about this report. I read the suspicious section (it is confidential as well) again, and to my horror I realized that this report conveyed exactly the opposite of what it should essentially be conveying. I was shocked. I was also shocked to find that most of the other sections of the report had been besmirched with the same kind of garbage. To my surprise, I found a pattern in this wanton defilement of a report as serious as this one and I could clearly see that some portions of the text were worded correctly, having no apparent spelling and grammatical errors, which were nonsense nonetheless, because of the sheer force of their content. Some other portions, on the other hand, were obviously the work of a murderer. It had been so badly written. Words misspelt, paragraphs in disarray, punctuation had been thrown carelessly by the wayside. This had to be the handiwork of a Copy Paster. To confirm my suspicion, I called Mr. U.N.Lettered and asked him, rather nicely, "Where did you get the data for this report." He innocently answered "I wrote most of it, but used some from Internet and other reports". I asked him, inquiring further. It was a leading question "What was the material about, the one you found on the Internet and in the reports". He said,"Ya, it was the correct material. It had the details of xxxx (you probably know by now), thats why I put it in." I called him to my room and gave him a piece of my mind and told him to redo the document. After atleast 3 iterations, the "wiz kid" was able to get it right. A Report which should have taken 2 or 3 hours ended up taking twice that time.

Which brings me back to my original thought, about the CopyPasters. I am sure, all of you would be dealing with these people or would be one of them even. In this age of large scale documentation, made easy with Word Processors and other Computer aided tools, it is easy to copy chunks of data and include it in a document, adding value and saving oodles of time. But the way it is done is something shocking. Large chunks of data are offloaded onto documents without being read even once. Mr. U.N.Lettered had just blindly posted all that data from the Internet, because of the presence of a few key words. It is almost like the Bangalore University evaluators, who look for some key words, and regardless of the rest of the material being nothing more than a pile of dung, marks are given and undeserving candidates score over the deserving ones. Copy Pasting is a habit cultivated by most people to ensure that they complete as much work, in as little time as possible. A noble pursuit, no doubt, provided it does not come at the cost of basic quality and content.

The age of Originality is fast disappearing. Forget Originality, even sense is fast disappearing. The report submitted to me a few days later by the same perpetrator went something like this.... "Mrs Malhotra delivered the keynote address at the symposium. He was able to convince the audience about the evils of Application Vulnerabilities...." and so on. Mrs.Malhotra spoke about maintaining a positive attitude in the workplace, which was an address at a Staff meeting and not a symposium, and "she" was definitely not a "he", not from where I was standing. So, remember, the next time you are reviewing a document or even preparing one, make sure that you make a "gargantuan" effort of reading it before you actually sign off on it or send it to another person.