Frustrated

More than a month since I got a single day's break. It has been a hectic, tiring, stressful and more importantly frustrating journey. My day starts at 7am everyday and on most days, I go to bed well past midnight. This routine is particularly frustrating as I do not see others around me working their asses off. I work amidst people who are mostly chatting over a cup of coffee, spending a lot of time on Facebook, cribbing about their bosses, discussing increments and variable pay outs and above all, looking for opportunities outside the company!!! I am not suggesting that people do not work here but most do not work enough. And there are some who are made to compensate.

Unless pushed to the corner, I do not like to tell people at workplace that I have been putting in so many hours. If I do that, I expect people to understand my situation. Here, people listen to that, say 'oh, thats bad' and then say can you take 10 minutes out to do something additional? 

Yesterday was particularly tiring and frustrating. The first half was spent preparing for a 3 hour long presentation (170 slides!!!). I skipped lunch for it. The presentation started at 2pm and went till 4:50pm. Took half an hour break after that. Then started reviewing another set of documents that I had targeted to send yesterday. Found several issues and hence postponed the delivery. It does not matter as the actual delivery date is couple of weeks away. After that, I came back home and started working on some additions in the deck that was presented earlier in the day.

I was feeling frustrated as I knew that weekend would be equally shitty. In the weekend, I would be required to prepare a storyboard for a project that is starting after couple of days. I do not know whose brilliant idea was it to start a project with a ready storyboard. More often than not, the people with such brilliant ideas do not have to executive them. The project that is starting from Monday was supposed to be done by the people with the industry knowledge and they had indicated that it would take 8 weeks. After submitting the proposal, most in the project team quit the company (I wonder why!!!). Later, a new project team (including yours truly) was created and this team has ZERO industry knowledge. And this team will have to deliver the project in 5 weeks!!! Somehow, this calculation is beyond me. This is not all. There are lot of aspects regarding the project that are ambiguous. No one really knows what does the proposal actually mean....what is the proposed methodology. The people who are still around have suggested that lets ask the clients in the kickoff call!!! This would be the first in my career. We would be asking the client what is the meaning of something that is written in the proposal that we submitted!!! That is awesome. The state of affairs has been giving me a lot of stress and frustration.

Last night, while working on the additions in the deck, I started having a strange pain in my chest and left arm. I got scared expecting the worse but I did not want to think about it too much. There was no time to have a heart attack!! I continued working till 2:15 am. At that hour, no one in the Kuala Lumpur and Singapore offices were online. I got up this morning and started working on the storyboard. Noone from this project team is online!!! Spent half an hour with my daughter and I would love to spend more but that is not an option. Indeed I could have spent more time with her instead of spending time writing this useless crap. But I was feeling suffocated and had to let this out.

This is mighty frustrating. Is this worth it?

Games Period

Sachinism: Tell Me Why?

I have some questions related to Sachin. Some of them are as follows;

• If the only reason why Sachin has scored more runs than anyone else on the planet is that he has played for more number of years then why did anyone else not play <could not play> for so many years?
• If starting early has been the biggest contributor to Sachin's number of runs then where is Hasan Raza?
• Why do not people go through the stats before making comments like "India loses whenever Sachin scores a century"?
• Why is it that the most 'violent' critics of Sachin Tendulkar are all Sourav Ganguly fans? 
• Why do people find it difficult to suggest a single decent replacement for Sachin but still say that Sachin should retire?
• Why is it that some people suggest that all the wins under Ganguly's captaincy were due to his captaincy and all the defeats were because of Sachin's batting?
• Why is that only the score in the finals is looked at and not the road to the finals? 
• Why is it that some people are too busy pointing at a relatively slow 100th hundred but are not talking about the huge achievement of 100 hundreds? 
• Kohli was undoubtedly and by far the best Indian batsman on the Australian tour. But why is that some people wanted Sachin, arguably the second best batsman on the tour, to be axed? Why is it that Sachin, after so many successful years in International cricket, is still judged series-by-series? 
• Why is that some people start an argument over Sachin's batting, try to compare Sachin with Ganguly and after failing miserably start comparing their captaincy records?
• Why is it that in scenario (1) where Dhoni does not perform, India scores 250-300 but lose, Dhoni says that bowlers should understand that they will not always get a 300+ score to defend but in scenario (2) where his performance was okay, Sachin scored a relatively slow century, India scored 289 and lost, he says that a few more runs on the board would have been great?
• Why do a lot of Ganguly supporters do not like Sachin, the batsman and Dhoni, the captain? However while arguing, they start giving more pointers about Dhoni as the batsman and Sachin as the captain?
• If some people suggest that Ganguly left the scene gracefully to give chances to youngsters then why is he still playing domestic cricket and in IPL?
• How come Ganguly's commentary skills and Sachin's voice a point in an argument over Sachin's and Ganguly's cricketing skills?
• Why is it that some people cannot admire a star in the sky and always pray for a falling star?
• Why is it that some people cannot understand that in this land of poverty, pollution, corruption and scams, Sachin has given us more reasons to feel proud that anyone else?

(Disclaimer: Most of my arguments with people who disrespect Sachin as well as the above mentioned questions may suggest that I dislike Sourav Ganguly. Nothing can be farther from the truth. I actually admire Ganguly for his captaincy skills. I do believe that Ganguly had some shortcomings as a captain but he is still the best 'captain' India has ever had. And I do believe that the overall package had some limitations. I admit that I have said some stupid things about him during some heated debates but they have been purely because I had to defend Sachin from some violent 'Ganguly supporters cum Sachin bashers'. I strongly believe that Ganguly is our national hero and I respect him immensely.) 

Here, 'tomorrow' always look better

The best thing about this place is that it does not allow you to worry too much about what is going to happen tomorrow.......but only because there are too many things lined up for today that you are more worried about!!!

कुछ रिश्ते बस ख़त्म हो जाते हैं

I do not know what I want to or can write here. :(

I need to follow this mantra...........


Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram,
Jitna Paisa Utna Kaam

Sob Story

I started this year with a bunch of resolutions. As we are inching closer to the end of first quarter, I thought I will have a quick status check. It did not take much time since I have failed on ALL the resolutions.

The main reason for the failure is the "Work-Life Imbalance", maintaining which is ironically one of my resolutions. I had decided that no matter how much extra hours I have to work during the week, I will save the weekends for my family. Cannot remember when was the last time I had a proper weekend. I work at least one of the two days. Even when I am not working, the stress of the pending work, the schedule in the coming week and sometimes the things that could go wrong bog me down.

I spent sometime thinking about the reason for this situation and here are few reasons;

1. There is no place for team work in this office. People work in silos. More often than not, one person has to deliver the entire project. For example, on one of the projects I am working on, I am the only person who has to do the analysis and put together a deliverable. There were teams who helped in data collection but I can go on for hours about how they created more problems than solving them. Now when the data is with me (in all possible formats), I have to compile and analyze the data and put together an exhaustive deliverable...all my myself
2. So whats the big deal? Have I not done in the past? Yes, I have. On numerous occasions. However, on most of those occasions, I was the one who had put together the proposal. In this case, the proposal was created by....hmmm....almost everyone!!! Unrealistic promises were made to the client. This is something that I am experiencing for the first time in my life. People put together a proposal and if the project is bagged, more often than not someone else is made to "walk on fire". Anyways, the issue is that I have been made to deal with way too much ambiguity. And I felt that people forgot that I am new to this industry, new to this part of the world, the people and the work culture and I am new to this organization and the processes
3. Again, whats the big deal? Have I not dealt with ambiguity in the past? Yes, having worked in 2 start-up companies and 2 start-up teams, I am not new to ambiguity. However, there is way too much that has been put on my plate. To give an example, I am handling another project, which should have been as easy as they come. However, it has been turned into a disastrous one, thanks to some poor project management by the office who has the overall project management responsibilities. In spite of doing everything properly, now I have to worry about several additional steps and levels of scrutiny. With my existing work load, this was something I wanted to avoid
4. This situation has made me work till late almost everyday. I am among the first few to arrive in the office and on most days in past few weeks, I have been the one who "closes" the office. (ya, being the last person to leave the office comes with a punishment here. One has to switch off all the lights, ACs and then close the main door!!!). I work like this through the week and then I work on the weekends as well
5. But, have I not worked in this manner in the past? Yes I have....since my first company. In my first company, people used to start hovering the main door around 5:45 pm. 6pm and bang...it used to become a curfew like situation in the office. In that kind of place (no job satisfaction and no money), I have spent days on which I have arrived at 9 am on a day and left at 8 pm on the next day. In my second job, there used to be a week every month in which I used to go home only for 1 hour every day to freshen up and the remaining time was spent in office!!! Later, Deloitte took away the work-life balance completely but I must admit that I used to feel happy while coming back from the office everyday. So no regrets there. My fourth job was relatively better but it still made me work on several weekends, primarily because there was no team. So I am not new to this but  the point is that no one should be working like this. All the years of slogging in this manner has definitely taken a toll on my health and I must admit, I find it extremely difficult to put night-outs like before. My health has deteriorated and I am not getting any younger
6. Oh, what a sob story!!! Aren't both the projects getting over by the month end? So whats with all this cribbing? A few more days and the ordeal should be over, isn't it? Ya, that is what I was hoping for. Not that I was looking forward to a few weeks of relaxation and not much work. I was just hoping that for at least few weekends, I would get some time with my family. However, a new project is starting. A project where objectives and deliverables have been decided but somehow (not surprisingly though), no one focused on methodology. A project where there is shortage of time but abundance of "May Be"s. A project which I would be leading with no experience in the domain. A project where everyone says that they would help but on the calls they indicate that they have a lot going on and so they would only provide guidance wherever required. So what does that mean? That means that I would end up screwing few more weeks and weekends slogging like anything. I feel that suddenly the finishing line has been pushed back....5 weeks to be precise
7. Do I deserve this? I have worked like this in the past. I am often called a workaholic. So, I am "kind of okay" as long as I am learning something (cliched but true). However, my wife and my daughter does not deserve this. When I work at home and my daughter crawls towards me and my laptop, intending to play with me, often I bark at my wife to take our daughter away and put her in the crib. I feel sorry but I cannot help it. Not many know but everyday before leaving for office, I apologize to my daughter for not spending any time with her. She smiles and I feel like killing myself. I have already turned into a bad husband and a bad father. The trouble is that with the lack of processes and ownership and with too much on my plate to deal with, I may be heading towards becoming a bad employee and project manager. I do not deserve this. My family does not deserve this

Oh, I have wasted half an hour of precious time on the weekend writing this nonsense. Now I must get back to the deliverable.

What happened to all the weekends in my calendar? I cant find any!!!! :(

Ananya stopping me from going to office

Every morning I start hating my job (and for that matter, any job) all the more :(