Sunday 3 May 2009

The year that was …

When it has been over sixteen months since my pen smelt paper, it would only be natural to expect a few lines... soon. Like a painter with palette full of colours and the finest brush, waiting for a good scenery, I have been waiting... waiting for a day with a few minutes just for me. It is yet to come..


First, a few lines about the past year.


How am I doing? Wonderful. My professional life is doing pretty well. I can't say the same about social life, though. I do have contacts with many of my friends from school and college. But something seems to be amiss. Maybe I need to be more active online. Naah, that isn't the same as meeting in person. Some serious thinking needed here.


I got to visit Texas last year. The company took my team to their labs in Austin to give some on-the-job training. It helped us guys a lot in getting to understand the job needs better. What’s more, we got to do a bit of sightseeing too. NASA centre at Houston, a beach in Galveston, an overhead aquarium, biggest mall in Texas, a superb amusement park and almost all the tourist places in Austin. We wanted to do more. Work and the limited time at hand didn’t allow that.


Keat Pecking, one of the protagonists in my previous post, got the pink slip last December. Being a contracted employee, there are no surprises that he was among the first to be pushed down the plank. He had seen it coming and had prophesied, "..problem is that with a bad economic downturn, I would be one of the first to get walked out the door". Linkedin.com tells me he's still looking for a job. So you got a guy with 30 years of experience sitting at home, waiting for a look-in so that he can fend for his 3 kids and physically challenged wife, while people like me with much lesser qualifications still have a job!!! That's economics and globalisation at its best.


Speaking about economics, the current recession seems to be bottoming out. Atleast that is what I feel. But I can be wrong. After all, people who peddle economics for a living never foresaw the current meltdown. The situation in most companies is edgy and tense. Forced vacations, bonus cuts, longer working hours, near-zero recruitment and frozen promotions and salaries are the order. Forced vacations are a sweet way of saying that you can't choose your vacations; the company will. Tough luck for the batches that are passing out now. A piece of advice for the youngsters still in college; the days when a B.Tech/B.E. degree from any college with scraped through grades gets you a high paying IT job are over. Work on your soft skills as much as your tech knowledge. With companies planning to stay lean and fit, it is survival of the fittest.


My reading in the past couple of years has plummeted. From atleast 2-3 books per month while in school/college, it has dropped to 2-3 per year now. I am struggling to find time to read books. The ocean of movies residing in my laptop is the culprit. I am more tempted to see them than read books like "Sea of Poppies". By the way, that book by Amitav Ghosh can be side-stepped. "Why is it that only books and movies that portray India badly get awards?", is a question one of my colleagues asked. And it isn't a bad question at all, if you have tasted "Sea of Poppies", "The White Tiger" and "Slumdog Millionaire".


I am starting Yoga in a couple of days. I wanted to do something different and thought this would be a nice thing. My body can use it too; my back and joints are already feeling like sixty.


The Last Ink-Drop : This post rose out of the prodding and pestering of some of my friends . I am thankful to them for that. I realise that this post isn't enough to alleviate their complaints. But I hope to be back soon.

5 comments:

Ashok said...

Good to see you back in action!

sreejith said...

Thanks Ashok.. I wish mine was as happening as yours :-)

Adheesh L P said...

Been here. Read it. Kinda in a hurry now. This blog will have a large comment if i can get better of my laziness.

Adheesh L P said...

The comment i had in my mind was one which had separate comments for each paragraph of yours. Must say that the first time i read it, i could connect with it very well. I was all enthu to comment on it. On re-readings i jus can't connect with it as much. But yeah, a few things i still can connect with.

Professional life: OK, Except for the last few weeks.
Social life: Suffering. College was the last crowd i was a part of. Couldn't make many good friends at office. Even if i made, it wouldn replace what i lost. I didn enjoy college totally but i enjoyed it enough to miss it. Now my social circle is a 1 meter radius centered around my computer.

Recession: Yeah, it's time to move on.The worst is behind us.That's what i think. Have you heard that "Recession is when your neighbour loses his job and depression is when you lose your job". That's exactly the case here. Everyone knows someone who lost his.But at least it won't become a depression. Stop worrying about recession and get paranoid about swine flu. That's what's hot in the US.

Reading: Well, I read like 1 or 2 every year. May be even less. But i am reading one now, i'll be finishing it today evening. Well, it's The Alchemist. Soul of the World,Language of the World, load of shit. It better make sense, at least in the end.

Movies: Now here we have a topic. Last few months .. a lot of movies.. International mostly.. Now i can boast that i've seen Russian, German, Chilean, Spanish,Swedish,Yugoslavian,Bosnian,Argentine,Korean,Japanese,Brazilian,Italian.. huh... Ain't that enough? Yeah, all had English subtitles. And a handful impressed me as well. Following the trail Somali blazed.

There's the promised comment.

sreejith said...

@Adheesh

wow!! all sort of international movies!!.. I am still with Hollywood and Indian languages..

And my social circle radius is much better than your 1m :-) ... Just that it isn't the same as we used to have in college. But then I think, we have to move on and find new things and people..