Bhaiyaa Bole

Any organization's success is defined by its products/services, customer orientation, operational efficiency and marketing strategy. Different processes tell a lot about health of an organization and having competitive products is just one part of the story. The question is, can a outsider, viz an end user, tell anything about the organization besides judging its product portfolio?
Well, i had a similar experience yesterday after i submitted an online request for new reliance data card. Check them out.

1. Aggregate price given by customer executive from central office over phone was different from what i actually paid to local office. I got the proper receipt but no explanation.
2. The broadband plans given on the website forgot to mention that night surfing is chargeable. Also, 2 GB day, 10 GB Night plan was costlier than 3 GB day, 10 GB Night plan.
3. For bulk customers of size just 5, the prices had been reduced by almost 40%. Unbelievable...
   
4. Even the local customer executive could not explain the address verification process in case no one is available during week days. quote-unquote "....अगर आप शाम को आने के लिए बोलते हो तो वो लोग application reject कर देंगे । ". What? Why? How?
   

I feel more so when i compare it with airtel wireline broadband i used couple of years back (with zero installation fee !!) and was absolutely satisfied. I just hope this time network speed does not go down on the lines of their tariffs and i could at least recover cost of the device.

Thursday, 08/04/2010:
The net connection got activated without any address verification.

Something really stupid happened this week. It went as follows.
A guy needed acces to an application. He raised the request for the same. Now it went to the approver specified (say Mr. A). Mr A approved it 3 times but it was still stuck. They found out that it was waiting for rules-regulations dept approval. Now Mr A raised another request to get himself added to rules-regulations list. The approver provided for this request (Mr B) was from different region. So They raised another request requesting the global team to raise Mr B's access level to global so that he can approve this.
All this happened with lot of frustration coming out in mails. In the end it was found that the first approver itself was wrong and thus it was sorted out.

Finally i bought the 50mm f/1.8 lens. I thought anyway i am going to stay with my cam atleast for 1-2 yrs more. It feels so light and quite good for low light. I took couple of night shots handheld, impossible with my prev lens (28-200).
So in the same jolly mood, i went to this horse racing club near my apartment in happy valley, HK. Thinking of running horses, the hopping jockeysand the cheering crowd. The entry was free for tourists !! I thought it was my day. It was the halloween time and people were having mugs and jars of beer. I thought the westerners (plenty of them there) were enjoying the night more for the partying than for the race itself.
I put 50 mm lens and tried to shoot the race but after couple of shots, i realized 50 mm hasd not good enough zoom for sports though it had wide enough aperture for the night. I changed back to 28-200 thinking of zooming to 200 and get some decent snaps if not superb. I knew this lens was slow but there i found it to be really really slow. My photographic mood disappeared soon. I nontheless enjoyed the race over a pint of Carlsberg and BigMac burger and came back.

It crossed my path again...
I was attending this business Communication skills workshop Today and Everybody was introducing themselves. Along with intro, you also had to tell a wow factor about you. One of the intros, in a feminine voice, came "I passed out from one of the premier institute in India and that's what my achievement".
I have been out of college for 4 years and i could get hold of 1 or 2 things to tell as my wow factor but had i been there as a fresh-from-institute and somebody would have asked about my achievements, i would have thought of telling the same, though i would never have spoken it so bluntly. Probably would not have spoken about it at all.
"Big Deal? sounds like you are trying to edge yourself out" would be any body's response, mine too. How does it matter now you are in the same company as others-not-so-lucky-to-be-in-IITs. My reason is that i never thought just getting the pass grades was a big achievement. But that time what else was there that i could refer to as achievement. Specially because i was from a remote town in India, had no specific hobbies and was not involved in any sports. May be "SHE" was a scholar and achieved many milestones in her institute but there was no need to announce the IIT thing so abrasively. She got two cranky responses, one of them immediately. Now when i come to think of the whole matter, SHE (and I couple of years ago) could have told something like i am very straight forward or like everything planned or something similar. One guy in the workshop even said his wow factor is that he has twin brother and till last yr they were together in their career. I mean why do you want to further inflate on the brand name when its already over hyped. Say something good/interesting about your college days and show what you can by your work.
There has been enough hype of IIT brand already, we don't want it anymore.

Found out this nice game at http://www.abc.net.au/gameon/chasm/chasm.swf . The mission is to help joe find the broken links in piping system and get water supply to his town. Very cool sounds when he fails or when he wins.
You may need a bit of mechanic mind and a bit of memory. Mechanic here does not mean deep fundas but common sense light science stuff. You can try it for 1-2 days in parts and keep noting down the clues. There are every clues available on net but first try for yourself for couple of days.
You would love it, i am sure.

The city of brick and mortar or the dreams buit on technology? or probably a different culture?So different that it makes you feel alien. The very first week was really wierd in the sense that evening there will be some wierd trans soothing music echoing around somewhere making me feel i am in 2040. Not that it will pollute the atmosphere. Pollution haaah, even the roads were so clean inthe area i stayed. But i didnt like it. Bcoz more posh the area, lesser will be social life. Thousands of people use the metro trains but we (me, my wife and my colleagues) will be the only one talking. Creepy right? I used to reach office by 8:30 and that was late by jap standard. Japan really had long working hours. 8:00 to 8:00. Had a bit of difficulty initially but got adjusted. I think there they dont worry about power/water/gas/bank problems etc found in every corner of india. Sometimes they even dont worry about food. Get whatever is available and eat at the desk....while working. But the best part is the transportation is very good and efficient. There were guys who never drove cars and just relied on trains, buses and taxis.Unlike indian metroes where dozing in traffic jams is a regular event. The country side was quite different from tokyo city. Greener, more social and inviting !! It will be more friendly but sadly less english-friendly. Foods get only japanese (which smelled and sometimes tasted horroble). But then i am not a sea-food lover so....We visited hakone and had a great view of mount fuji that too next to a lake. We also enjoyed the shinkansen (bullet train)journey and not to forget the romance car. We really got thrilled to hear "hindi" announcement in tokyo's one of the biggest electronics shopping center Yodobashi. And chicken made in Everest Masala never had tasted soooo good.
Did i tell you that i had 2 samosa for 200 Rs there? Check out my next blog to find more.