Jan 2010

It has been an interesting month.  If it is any indication of the year ahead then it must be a very interesting year ahead.  The weather at Chennai has been cool and pleasant.  Ramya and I have been taking that extra effort to avoid noise as much as possible – either by keeping out windows closed or just by avoiding any activity that has noise – including switching on the idiot box.  That has really helped us have a relaxed mind.  I also travelled a lot – first to Delhi, then to Tiruchi and then to Bangalore for Campus interviews and to Hyderabad and Mumbai.  My experience has so far been very disappointing.  Guys in premier B schools are well short of our expectations  - which are very minimal and I get a feeling the schools are not doing much to shape these guys up.  May be we were like this long back when we came out of college !

The company is doing well and there are indications that I may be seeing some change in my role / assignment which could possibly result in my relocating elsewhere. 

On the home front, appa and amma would be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and Ramya and I our 15th.  It is a landmark year – more so with Shruthi going into her 10th grade.  Sandhya is getting married in Aug 2010 and Bharat finishing his under graduation at Stanford.  So a lot of action expected over the next few months. 

Jan 4, 2010

Another New Year and another period of hope, wish and dreams as we enter into the next decade of the 21^st Century.  I had taken about 10 days off in December just to be with the family and I enjoyed every moment of it.  Today was mostly preoccupied with discussing the appraisal ratings of some of my team members.  The HR dept of the company gave us a dictat that in order to follow a bell curve certain number of people have to be identified as being the bottom 5% of the group.  That is a tough decision for us to make.  Theoretically it may be ok to argue that we need to identify the folks by their classes, enforcing that practically is a big challenge.  The guys have been in projects for most part of the year and have tried to do to the best of their abilities.  Well….that is life.

 

We had a surprisingly relaxed evening.  Ramya and I had a lot to discuss.  Something strange.  We did not even switch on the TV for quite some time.  We just realized that the TV was taking most of our time.  Ramya tried some different hair styles on Shruthi – who as usual was not satisfied with none of them.  Ramya’s leg is still in the process of getting healed.  I was appalled to see the long scar on her leg caused by the doctor (Orthopedist) while trying to remove the cast !

 

We were still recalling those splendid scenes from 3 idiots and Paa – 2 movies that we watched during the holidays and thoroughly enjoyed.  That made us plan well in advance for our next holiday break in May.  We immediately booked it in Mahindra Holidays at Coorg.  Let us hope we earn our holidays well enough to enjoy it thoroughly..

 

K Kamesh