Monday, July 30, 2007

Escapades of S2: Daddy Day Care

S2 is anxious, concerned and petrified. 9 months and 10 days after my little angel came in our lives, Daddy has to take care of her for one entire day. Let me correct for 8 hours and yet it seems a lifetime. Yeah, I have to change diapers (bound to use twice the number of wipes), feed the little powerhouse and of-course keep her distracted from feeling the difference. The little one will quickly discover her clumsy father who can't handle little chores. She is going to stare at me like 'Dah Dad, you can't even handle this'. Well I can only try but I feel like a rookie being asked to play his first game in front of national TV. Yeah I am going to get all kinds of cheat sheets from my wife in forms of strict calendar (dare I miss on this, at least one project where schedule extensions are not permitted) , ready to use feedings. But tell me when has anything gone according to plan. All I pray is that my daughter wakes on the good side and lady luck is on my side.


Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Escapades of S2:: Receiving FedEx package from your next cube colleague

This is a new series of blog entries where I experience an encounter in real life. The encounter has been artistically altered. I play the protagonist named S2. I am Sassy Singh, the lively and playful technical geek. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental and not intentional.
In this encounter, I deal with a task in hand which is to distribute company shirts to employees at different office facilities.

Process Champion Executive: We need to ensure that we have timely delivery and have a signed receipt by the employee receiving it. We have decided that we will ship using Fedex.
S2:Does it not matter if the person who is going to receive the shirt is actually sitting in our offices which is across the street?
Process Champion Executive But see you don't get the point.We need to follow the process. You always try to take short cuts. When will you grow and mature? We need to be a process organization and according to the process we got to ship Fedex.
S2:: I guess! But there is one of the employees from a remote office who is here today and he wants to know if he can just pick up the shirt?
Process Champion Executive: See you did not get the point, when the process is set, it is set. These shall be FEDEX'ed and the shirts will be there on that person's desk the first thing next morning. Guaranteed... How can he not like this? Guaranteed next morning. We put so much into getting a deal with FEDEX to get a discount and you don't want to leverage it and want to short circuit the process
S2: I guess I am not a process person. Where can I get to know all of this and get trained on this process thinking and indoctrination
Process Champion Executive: We are working on coming up with a University program to get this cultural change. You shall be notified by priority FedEx mail

S2: Hmmm... Waiting for the anxious arrival of the FedEx on my desk...

Monday, July 16, 2007

Unofficial Organization Network

In this week's fortune magazine there is an interesting article that piqued my interest beyond reading it. I could relate to it since it appeared so relevant to my everyday life. It talks about informal networks in organizations. It talks about how to get things done by avoiding and finiding ways around the official organizational tree. So I started musing what about my organization. I guess every employee has a perception of the informal food chain. Some of them have it bang on target and find their way around the structure and get things done. So in order to make it more interesting, I will like the readers to share their perception of the informal social network prevalent at CNSI that makes things work. As long as social networks do not weaken the morale of the employees and are only enablers of efficiency, they are good. Anyway do spend a minute to write your social/informal organization network to make this more interesting.

iPhone Round Up

I now own the iPhone for more than a pay period. So am I one of those 85% of satisified iPhone buyers as reportd by USA today.I am definitely happy with some of the user experiences implemented by iPhone. Yes it has some quirks and like everyone in the early adopter community there is this hope that these will be fixed in the future versions. But alas, I am a fickle minded gadget adopter and may not be that patient with Apple :). Yes I will be challenged to throw the device aways since it is after all an iPOD if nothing more. It can not be justified as value for money. Well no apple product has been so far in my mind. All apple products are cool and hip and iPhone is no exception. iPhone tries to do some common things in a more cool way and you pay money for that. Well it is not for masses after all!! Steve Jobs thought there are only 3 million people who are worthy of buying his device. It appears 1 million + have found it and you could be one of the remaining. Is it in you?

Monday, July 02, 2007

iPhone Experience : First couple of Days

I am on the iPhone hype wave. Got mine on Saturday. There was not much of a line and the Apple Store experience was good. The apple store person processed my request using his handled and emailed me the receipt. Paperless smooth customer experience, sweet. Apple iPhone activation was a pleasure ride. Everything done in iTunes over the Internet. Within 5 minutes I was using the phone and within 30 minutes i had my phone # transferred and I was receiving calls. The phone User experience is different and like nothing before. It may not be to the liking of a few but a good version 1 of convergence. The convergence of mobile browsing, music, podcast and phone is sweet. Yes I have one gripe. The email thing is not working for me:(. I was hoping to get the Exchange email but no success yet. I am hoping to get a software patch but since it is not even a week old in the industry I will have to have wait longer. But Apple has done a decent job of making people rethink the UI experience on mobile phone. People can argue about the price point but purely on UI convergence experience a definite A++