Entries from November 2006 ↓

Came back from Sri Lanka yesterday morning. It’s been a memorable experience. Sri Lanka is a little different country, and I and Ashok saw various aspects of it. More when Ashok writes about it

Till that time, you can enjoy the pictures!

If you are thinking about quitting your job, you might want to read this post titled Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.

Nisha Bhardwaj a 26-year old business analyst with a consulting firm in Delhi, says, “I was always struggling to meet deadlines and often ended up working on weekends. I decided to leave my job to get away from the pressure, only to see my past repeating itself. A discussion with my new boss made me realise that the real issue was my poor time management skills. Unless I improve on that front, I will continue to feel overworked in any job.”

Lot of people, jobs, hiring and quitting related posts recently! It’s just everywhere!

I am currently waiting for the 3.40 flight to Colombo. Looking forward to Sri Lanka!

Two guys from our QA section broke their contract and joined L10NBridge last month. First, one guy disappeared (called up the morning and said I am not coming!) And then another went after him in a week. This was better, he came to office, said I am quitting, and that give me my papers ASAP so that I can leave!

I do not get surprised by such behaviours now. Am used to it now. What surprised me was the interaction with L10NBridge HR - Deepak Deshpande.

Our HR called him up, and asked how do they take people without clearance from the previous organization. And why do they encourage people to break their contracts, dishonor the word they have given, and join their company.

And he opined; we are a 1200 people company. If one person leaves it does not matter to us. You are a 100 people company, so you are affected. He went on and said that see how I hire the remaining people from your QA team as well. I will hire them, and you won’t be able to do anything. I am a big company, you are not!

On the topic of contracts, trust, commitment and honor of the word, he had more advice. He told our HR that you are new in the field, and you do not understand the practicalities of life! He did not agree to take any action againts the candidates, since it will not look good on him!

I know that we do not know the practicalities of life! We want to create an organization that’s built around values - not greed. But I am surprised how it does not matter at all, to the HR head of a large company (ok, not that large actually), that people break their earlier commitments and join them. And they actually encourage it! Looks like ethics is only in books for them, not in life!

I am just wondering what lesson Deepak and L10NBridge are giving to their employees!

Imagine smoke coming out of your CD Drive when you are burning a new CD/DVD.

If that gets you worried, let’s live with smoke coming out of the software while you burn the media. Disco is an amazing tool to manage and burn CDs and DVDs. And it smokes while it burns. You can blow in the microphone and the smoke will go in that direction, you can even play around with the smoke with your mouse!

Saw it first on Campbell’s blog. He even has a video of this! And then check out the Disco website. That is cool too.

And hey, this is only for Mac! And is one of the best UI’s I have seen in a while! And did I say that they use “We’re having toast for breakfast” as a tag line on their blog?

Direct link to the video hosted on Google. 

Harikrishnan has designed some wonderful posters for foss.in.

The talks are on time, but do you have the boarding pass?