Idleness as an 'ideal'ness

"Idling always has been my strong point. I take no credit to myself in the matter—-it is a gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slow-coaches, but a genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling characteristic is that he is always intensely busy. It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen."

The following lines are taken verbatim from the book "The idle thoughts of an idle fellow" by Jerome.K.Jerome. Is there a need to mention that I perfectly fit into the above description?

Auto rickshaw & the art/principles of Management

Disclaimer: This article has got no connection whatsoever with 'Zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance'. Any similarities to that book is surely on purpose

How does getting into an auto rickshaw & riding thro' the city of Chennai teach us anything about the principles of management? I have done an extensive 'Research' on this project & given below are some of the conclusions that I have arrived upon. (Please feel free to mail me on anything that I might have missed. It would be surely because of 'Oversight' on my part & nothing else!!!)

1) Recognizing Opportunities: One of the foremost skills that you will acquire is the ability to recognize opportunities when it arises. In this case, the test is to find an auto without any passengers. With a little bit of effort, this tends to become easy. All that you need to know is that when an auto has a passenger in it, it speeds at around 200 km/h without any regard for the traffic, road or the passenger inside it even. At the same time, when the auto is devoid of passengers, even a child crawling on the street would be able to overtake it. Also, this auto always travels on the edge of the road making all traffic behind it to snarl. You can safely assume that you have this principle of management in your pocket the moment you are able to look at an auto & guess whether it is loaded with passengers or not.

2) Negotiation Skills: Your negotiation skills will surely improve if you are one of those people who don’t want to spend all his riches on the travel itself. All the negotiation skills that you ever had will be fine-tuned and if you had none, you will get all the negotiation skills that you will need to successfully run a business of your own. A price negotiation for a travel that would actually cost you around Rs.30 will start from anywhere around Rs.40 to Rs.300!!! So, the closer that you are to shelling out the actual price for that travel, the better you are in your negotiation skills.

3) Taking Risks: Let me get this clearly across to you. This 'Principle of Management' comes to you the moment you decide to travel by an auto. Only the bravest of the brave will decide on traveling by an auto & the decision to do that itself is a demonstration of your ability to take risks in life

4) Best path to your goals: (Read as shortest path to your destination) To elevate yourself to understanding this concept of management, you need to become 'THE BEST' in the art of negotiation. Assuming that you have successfully got into an auto with a negotiated price of Rs.30 for a travel that would actually cost you Rs.30 only, you actually get to see a 'Live Demo' of taking the best path to your goal (Read 'Destination') by the auto driver. He becomes an expert who tactfully avoids all traffic jams, takes the shortest path, avoids all mishaps with other vehicles & 'successfully' transports you to your destination. (And yeah. The most important thing is that you need to keep your eyes open during this 'exhilarating' journey. This principle of management will not be learnt if you get into an auto & start following the item #5 below. Items #4 & #5 work a bit like an exclusive-or)

5) Faith in God: I never believed when I attended training classes on management that there is a strong 'Relationship' between principles of management and philosophy. I stand corrected now. My belief in God & destiny has taken a whole new meaning after I started traveling regularly by autos. Bungee jumping, white water rafting, walking thro' the Amazon forest will all seem child's play if you regularly commute by auto. The moment you get into an auto, one starts to pray for the welfare of other's in the road & primarily for our own safety. I am sure that when we put all the atheist of the world into an auto and make them travel in it for an hour, they would end up as the most devout people praising the power of the Almighty at the end of their 'Ordeal'. Such is the power of an auto in inducing faith even in non-believers. Last but not the least, if you happen to be among those unlucky person's who dies because of an accident involving the auto in which you were traveling, please be assured that you have a 'Reservation' in heaven. God is not that cruel to put you thro' hell when you have just traveled in it right before you breathed your last, right?

My Experiments with Training!!!!!

My B.E classmate is working in a training institute & she has been asking me to join as a part-time consultant in her training institute. They maintain a trainer network like this with full-time employees & people like me who did out of their interest. I was also very interested in that for that would give me a chance to interact with people from varied backgrounds. Last weekend (29/Oct/2006) they had organized a get-together for all the people involved & I was supposed to give a small talk about myself.

I was a bit tensed even before going there. When I saw the people who had come there, I was literally shaking. Some hint of the people who had come
1) Grandson of Sir C.V.Raman
2) A person with 35 years of Sales experience
3) A person who has worked with Mr.Kalam during the SLV launch!!!
4) A great presenter of the name Mr........... If this person had talked for 3 hrs, nobody would have complained about it

As my friend had told me that I need not do any presentation, I had not prepared anything. But all the new people who had volunteered had prepared on some topic or the other. So, I had to make up most of my presentation there. The thing that I did is that I added additional points to the previous presentations that were made & saved my life!!!! At the end of it all, I was so excited to be there in that session. I got some appreciation also from some of the people there for my extempore speech. I felt very happy about it as those are some really BIG people!!!!

Cellphones

There are some inventions that make you wonder not just at the 'Power' of that invention but also at the 'Added Features' to that invention(In all the wrong ways,though!). The cellphone, invented by some xyz is one such technical gizmo that make you go sane & insane at the same time depending on which part of the world you live in at that particular moment.

How will someone explain the so many noises or the 'technically correct' word called as ringtones? Someone has a noise of a baby crying, that of a dog barking, an alien smiling and whatever noise that they could lay their hands (or ears) on is made into a 'Ringtone'.

Here is a person who walks unto you and asks about the various features of your cellphone as though these features make the 'Lifeline' of your everyday existence. Does it have a radio? A torchlight? A camera? A pacemaker? A remote to control their brains? Why should a cellphone have anything other than the ability to talk with people is something that always beats me.



Then there is this person talking seemingly to thin air making me wonder about the technological advances in 'Wireless Technology' till I was brought down to earth (And further below as well) by my friend who explained me about the concept of 'Hands Free' to me. Technology DOES drive people insane for sure!!!!

And the purpose of having a video ringtone is also something that my primitive mind always fails to comprehend. Will the person having this video ringtone be watching the video and forget to attend to the call before the caller disconnects because of frustration?(And who would like to pick a call from your friend when 'Aishwarya Rai' is dancing for you!!!!!!) Maybe that is the whole point of having a video ringtone.

And last but not the least of the insanities of a cellphone user is the ubiquity of the device itself. Every person on earth seems to have ATLEAST one cellphone that you are left wondering whether you should be giving your old cellphone to your dog and buying a costly model (One with all the 'Features', video ringtones and other 'Useful' stuff). But the only problem with that approach is that I would never be able to tell whether my dog is talking(barking) to me or whether I am getting another call(Well, I have a dog barking as my ringtone!!!)

Excuse me folks. I have to finish my article at this point. My cellphone is ringing!!!!!!!