This Side of Paradise

…whole lotta leaving goin’ on…! first my bike, and now it’s quits to Fortune 9. That’s where office moved in Dec 2005 from our good ol’ office… after almost two years of struggling with the place, we call it quits from here tonight. We’re moving to a swank new mall (.. yeah.. mall) on road no.1, banjara hills…! never quite liked the place, and I’m sure it was vice versa too. Office life was never too good out here in terms of career and professional life. Had been to the new office on the 15th and for some reason, felt really comfortable at there, loved my new desk :)

I had this fantastic opportunity to be part of the information risk management forum at the client location. So, off it was to Bangalore again - the program was scheduled for a day, with various senior people speaking. The most notable among them being - Nandkumar Saravade - Director, Cyber Security and Compliance at NASSCOM. One of the very interesting discussions we had with him was an info sec accreditation similar to ISO 27001 which members of NASSCOM would use to benchmark themselves in the industry. Since offices in India serve various countries all over the world, the proposed standard would be trying to encompass information security laws across many countries. Any company having that particular security accreditation would surpass individual country specific requirements. Even a third party surveying/certifying firm like Gallup or Moody’s could actually define and administer these surveys and certifications. Great for the outsourcing business in India, and definitely a step in the right direction where information security measures are woefully inadequate when compared to the industry growth here.

I finished six years of professional life on Monday evening. It’s been a wild ride so far, there have been ups and downs, fighting against seemingly impossible situations and emerging out somehow. It’s been a time of learning new things and opening up to things which we never knew existed…! I think I’ve become a senior citizen in the company.. hell yeah…!! totally agreed :). Time to think of the future now…!

I’ve come to hate the following months at work - not that the others are any better… March - Performance appraisals. It’s a desperate attempt to match your performance to what the organization perceives. May/June - the hike letters come out. As usual, its a disappointment to a select few, while the whole world around you seems smiling all the way to the bank. September - Perf appraisals again. Need I say more.

…it’s been a terrible day at work so far! My on site manager somehow has a confounded sixth sense of figuring out when my vacations are - and then planning a visit! it has happened before and hell..it’s happening again. The Leh trip is going to happen between 16th May - 25th May and I am not going to be on it. Turns out that her visit dates are May 16th - May 18th and I need to go to Bangalore as well - that’s on May 22nd and 23rd.

Today was not supposed to be a normal day after all. I woke up quite early after watching the SL vs NZ match and I was able to make it to work by 10:30. Definitely early by normal standards. That’s when Vamshi dropped the bomb.. there are quite a few interesting developments happening at work. It can have quite an impact on the work we’re doing. We’ll know by the end of the year…!!

…my fourth company sitting in the same seat. The brokerage services division of ADP has been spun off effective Apr 1st and the new company has been named Broadridge. What does it mean for us? we’re going back to being a small company again - lots of growth opportunities, interesting times…something for everyone! here’s a photo of the opening at NYSE.

it just can’t get more apt than that. I had meant to post this more than a week back, when the latest avtar of the CBZ - the CBZ cough Xtreme was launched. A week later, the 2007 Honda hornet was unveiled. Without much ado - here’s the side by side comparison. The really funny thing about this is that both Honda had its involvement with both of the bikes. I really wonder what came over Honda when they were thinking of the CBZ. In fact, the old CBZ with alloys, a more powerful engine and FI would have sold a much larger number.

Exactly three months back, we set out to achieve the impossible…completing a seven month project in three months…! we made it at last…!! agreed…the three months were nothing less than hell….I’ve lost track of the number of weekends I’ve sat at the office from the morning to the night; I’ve lost track of the late hours I’ve been awake; I’ve lost track of how many times I got called when there was nothing else on my mind other than getting a few hours of sleep. But, in the end what matters is that we’ve kept our end of the bargain. We delievered what we promised. It’s a month of chill-out now, before getting on to the next project.

So, I took off for a whole day on Friday; the price I paid for it? a complete weekend of….no, not rest, but a front row seat in front of my computer. …yeah…I was working…!! but the most important thing is that I kept up my end of the bargain. I delivered what was expected of me. to me that’s what matters the most. two months back I had posted thatwe were taking up something impossible. Things are at a striking distance now. Friday is the big day, let see what happens…!!