USA Today headline this morning “Thai satellite spots 300 objects in the Indian Ocean”.
Everybody is like “It is absolutely amazing what advance technology has made. It is unbelievable what a little piece of gadget thousands and thousands of miles away in the space can spot in the high seas….”
And I am like “Thailand has a satellite!!! Who knew?”
While driving in Alpharetta this morning, this sign caught my eye! Interesting how when it comes to specifying the total area, they get into the third decimal place but when it comes to the area that you can actually use, it is a very high level gross – ummmm…. plus minus 4 acres 😉
First, to put it in perspective, the third level of decimal place is equivalent to an area about 2 meters by 2 meters. This, when they are trying to sell an area which is more than 10 (American) football fields – including the two goal areas on either side!!
This is also probably symbolic of how we selfishly think about our belongings. When it comes to how much I am buying, I want to make sure the neighbors are very clear where the line goes – I am not going to give even a third decimal place area. When you ask me, “so much are you thinking you are going to use?”, I am like “Mehhhh… four acres? something like that? Why? Why does that matter to you?” 🙂
It was an office meeting. Two of my team mates and myself were going thru some intense discussions about an important professional decision we have to make for our business in the coming months. As we started wrapping up our discussions, we started talking about the passing away of a pet of one of my teammates.
He was particularly affected since he was very close to this pet. But more importantly the discussion was about how stoically his wife had taken to this sad passage….. till an innocuous event like he sharing a very old picture of the pet with his wife got her to completely break down.
Reminded me of an Alfred Tennyson poem – on the importance of crying. After my friends left, I looked up the poem and read it up again. It is a master stroke of Tennyson to convey the importance of crying as a natural way to relieve your inner feelings. And the wisdom of somebody who is ninety years old!!!!
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
‘Sweet my child, I live for thee.’
Alfred Lord Tennyson
This is one of those “shunting” puzzles. As you can see in my somewhat clumsy diagram, there is a railway track that goes indefinitely to the right. On the left, it splits into a “Y”, both ends of which merge into a finite straight railway track. There is a coach “A” sitting on one arm of the Y and another coach “B” sitting on the other arm. Both the coaches are 5 yards each.
The distance between the junction point on coach A side and the end of the finite straight track is 5 yards. On the other side, near coach B, the distance between the junction point and the end of the straight finite track is 15 yards. (See pic). In between the junction points on the straight track sits an engine “E” which is itself 10 yards in length.
Like every engine, E can go forwards or backwards and can pull or push the coaches. Any coach and engine can be attached to each other.
Here is the puzzle: Can you interchange the position of coach A and coach B? You have to get engine E back to its original position when you are done.
“Jis chirag ko apney dum sey jalayaa hai
Usi chirag ne mera aashiyaan jalayaa hai
Bachata tha jisko hawa ke ek jhonkey se bhi main
Usi ney aaj mujhe gehri toofan mein phansaaya hai”
Translation:
The flame (of love) which I fanned with my breath
Is the same flame that has burnt my world to cinders
She, who I shielded even from the most gentle breeze
Has, indeed, today left me in the midst of a raging storm
(Unknown poet)
After meeting Buck this evening, remembered all my MBA friends and felt great that I got a chance to have them as my friends.
Decided to relax with a cooked up drink… Took the traditional gin and tonic and improvised it. First, used Tito’s handmade gin from Texas and then Fever Tree tonic water from India. A little splash of sparkling water, a couple of dashes of Angostura bitters and a very thin slice of cucumber gently slid down the slide the glass (not to mess the gin too quickly)…. and there it was… a very refreshing gin and tonic. Can’t wait for summer!!!
Or the memories of sweltering Ahmedabad summer days….
After a day’s worth of work, met good old C.S.Devasish aka “Buck” from my MBA days who had stopped by Atlanta for work. I had met him in Boston last year after many many years. Therefore, a lot of unfinished stories were finished today. Buck was one of our super smart guys in MBA days. So I am always intrigued by his points of views.
Today, our topics de jure included politics – American politics, Indian politics and overall geopolitics in general. From how gerrymandering is poisoning American politics to the Modi effect in India to the possibility of Balkanization of India to the greatest post President statesman Jimmy Carter to the fear of US of pushing Russia too close to China – we covered all topics under the sky 😉 The other common interest we have – big data and it’s social effects took up the rest of our time.
Before long, his ride had arrived and we had to part ways. Hoping to get the two families together this summer…
After the effusive praises (I am sure I am deserving of far less) Jenny Nash showered on me for wishing her a happy birthday, I got thinking first thing in the morning – how did I even get started? I greet over 2000 people happy birthday every year and sure enough, it had a very interesting beginning.
In 1995, I was promoted to be a manager – for the first time in my life. I was to be development manager of a few UI developers. I asked myself how could I differentiate myself? I already knew – with occasional reminders from well wishers like Bob Hart 🙂 – that I was not much of my developer myself. (I guess that is why I got promoted? 😉 ). I had resolved to see if I could excel in Customers and People. And it was that thirst to be known to be a great people manager that drove me to understand how to recruit talent, build talent, develop talent and so on. And in the process also how to get to know people at a deep level.
One of the tools I had developed was to greet my teammates on two days of the year – their birthday and their anniversary day (in our company). It was fairly uncommon in those days – at least in my company – so much so that most believed that I had a cron job (automated; those days I worked in Unix) that I had set up. Eventually, the feedback to this practice was so overwhelmingly positive that I enlarged to include team members from outside my team, then customers, personal friends and now just about anybody I meet.
I had had some hilarious bumps on the way. One of the early ones – and this has happened multiple times – was when I became a higher level manager. Every time we had a new employee, I would write down their joining date and then ask for their birthday. More than one employee had complained to HR about this. Lady employees were uncomfortable sharing their age and elderly employees were afraid of discrimination if management knew their age!! This, inspite, of clarifying that I was seeking just month and day!!!
This continued for a few years. Year after year, I would send birthday emails out. And no, they were not copy pasted. And then technology like FB came and messed me up. First, everybody started to wish everybody publicly on FB about their birthdays. This had two issues. When I wished somebody, many felt I picked up their birthday from FB – which I thought diminished the value of the effort I was putting. (I write it in my calendar). And the whole unique value prop was under threat.
So, after a year, I had to improvise my strategy. I realized that FB had made it easy for people to send wishes (and also for the recipient to send mass Thank You in one message). To create a niche, I had to focus on quality. And that thought has now started a process where I am moving away from email based wishes to actually calling people up.
I am in transition. I am still settling in the new process. Given my travel schedule and the different time zones in the world, I do not often make it every day – in which case, I will wish by email at the end of the day. Long commute hours is something I do not hate any more!! Also, I leverage FB to send personal messages to wish if email and phone number bounce back. (For whatever it is worth, I hate wishing people publicly. I still think of it as a very personal one-on-one message).
And then FB royally extracted its revenge on me last year. Made the mistake of connecting FB to my address book. It quickly overwrote my painstakingly gathered birthdays with the self-declared birthdays of the person in FB. (Without asking me how to resolve the conflicts!!!! 🙁 ) It is often that people purposely give a wrong birth date. (This is a good practice, in my opinion, given the amount of identity theft in the world). And that started the process of me wishing somebody on a wrong date, finding it the humiliating way that I had messed up and then correcting my address book 🙂 And promising never to connect my address book directly to the social media 🙂 A few of those errors are still taking some time to work out the kinks. My friend from Dallas – Badri – knows very well how I have raised wishing him on the wrong day to a level of fine art!!!!
That said, I have had some positive outcomes too!! In December 2004, a birthday wish to a sales guy I had not met for a long time led him to get me to meet his client and one thing led to the other and that January, he signed a rather large deal. And yes, he, as well as the two key guys on the client side still get birthday wishes from me annually!! Another story – in October 2012, I left a voicemail for an executive at a customer wishing him happy birthday! When he returned the call, one thing led to the other again, and in a few months, he switched jobs to work in my current company!!!! There are numerous such experiences I fondly remember.
So, I am often asked, where do I get the energy to do all this? Well first, I think this is a great way to network with people. Once a year, this forces me to think of my people in the network and talk / connect with them. You never know when I may be of help or they might be able to help me. As Jenny said, “paying it forward”.
I also have found this as an excellent way of keeping my address book updated. Beats the business model of Plaxo 🙂
But the real reason is that I feel indebted greatly to people who have touched my life. In so many ways, I am the end result of all the cumulative influence people around me have had over the years. While I say “Happy Birthday”, I guess, what I am saying is “In this short journey of life of yours and mine, I am delighted that we had the opportunity to walk together for a few steps. Every step in that journey has enriched me and made me a better man. Thank you for that. My call today is to let you know that I have not forgotten you nor what you meant to me. Because today is special to you, it is special to me too. Thank you again and I certainly will seek more intersection points with you in my path.”
And to be able to convey that heartfelt “Thanks”, I can always find the energy to get up a little early to make sure I make time to wish you on your special day!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I wish you a Happy Birthday!!!
