And we make progress..

I don't know about others, but for me finding motivation within myself is quite difficult. Sometimes I do. Like the day Koushik was born, and he was in NICU, I cried. And then the physiotherapist walked in and told me of exercises to do, and then I began to practice them, so when the baby came along, I would have the strength to feed him. And then here I stand at the end of my maternity leave, I would have given up or relaxed on my plans of exclusive breastfeeding, but for my friend.

I got a one month extension for maternity leave. And then when baby is 4 months old, in December , I have to get back to work. For my first son, I managed to get leave with and without pay for 6 months. but now I just have to get back. I have a friend and former colleague. I know she managed to exclusively breastfeed her baby for 2 months after joining full time work. And so I told myself , if she can do it, I can too. She was actually getting back from divorce at that time, and tough as that might have been, she didn't find that a reason, to no do the best for her baby. I always tell her, she is a very good mom.

And please don't get me wrong. As a mother of two, I have learnt not to judge other mothers. we do the best in our given scenarios, and if you choose to supplement your baby's feed, you probably have a reason. The pediatrician for my elder son was so adamant that I must exclusively breastfeed my baby for the first six months, and I have seen Sanjay get a terrible cough, when I tried giving him cow's milk when he was 5 months old, fearing I may not get a leave extension - that I will try my best to exclusively breastfeed this baby till he is at least 5 and a half months old. That's the plan for now.

So I get back to work on Dec 2. I am excited about it, but I am sure I will miss the little fellow. but he is in good hands, so I wouldn't need to worry.

and why do I say all this, so some mother looking for motivation finds this a little useful. :)

Back!!

Been on a huge sabbatical from blogging. Went job hunting on a huge scale and managed to find three offers, two of which were decent and finally picked the one closest home. :)

Am now in the new job, started just this week. Going fine so far.

Should get back to active blogging soon enough

Updates

Been, what else, but busy as a new Chithi. Oh Yes! My sis had a baby girl on june 30th. Right now she's(the baby) all I think of. I miss her so much already. I stayed with my sister in the hospital and had fun being with my brand new niece. Say hello to Deepika!!!

My sister had a C-section and then recently she had to have her appendix removed. It was painful and I cant stress enough, how much we were worried for her. She says when she heard she had to have a surgery, all she thought was how will I feed my baby. So even in extreme pain, before she goes into the operation theater, she expresses milk for the baby and goes. This, my friends, is the beauty of motherhood, that you put someone so much in importance that you are capable of such unconditional love. She said no to painkillers that would make her sleep, all because she has this 20 day old to feed. I am so proud of her. She got discharged today and is on her way to recovery.

Talking of which, I am yet to receive my annual pay hike. Oh yeah! I know I shouldn't be talking about work, but WTH! Others have got it, and some like me, haven't. There are all kinds of rumors that people who haven't yet received will not receive at all. hmmm.. This got me all worked up. And then I reminded myself that this time yesterday, I prayed so fervently for my sister, that she be alright, and by God's grace, she is. And it trivializes the whole salary raise thing. I don't even want to think of worrying about my hike.
 There are always more important things in life.

But like a student who has given her best to her exams and is expecting a certain percentage, I aIm just waiting. Considering my luck, I am going to end up with peanut of a raise, and then I need answers. I need to know where is it that I am failing to meet people's expectations... In school, I was considered a good student, not the shining star mind you, but the one who always got within the first 10 ranks. So I just don't like faring badly at work, or being judged as less. Thats where it all works to. But well, let's see what happens.

Then like they say, not all doors close, do they?
:)

Been back to reading. Read JD Sallinger's "Nine Stories". I needed to read the analysis of each story to understand it, but the writing left a deep impact on me. I totally suggest this book.

So that's it from me. Wish me luck!!

Sudden thought of the day

You know what amazes me about teaching and learning, the fact that by sharing, it grows. It’s like you share a little bit of your treasure with someone else, and now you both have equal pieces of treasure. Yours is not any lesser, and yet you have transferred a bit of your treasure. In fact, when you share, your knowledge grows. It’s like one ignited mind, setting another on fire and so on and so forth and the whole world is illuminated, with no one losing so much as a flicker.How wonderful is that?

I know it is an obvious fact, and has been said before and all that. but still, how amazing is that? :)

The secret ways of my work

I sincerely hope my bosses at work are not reading this. :)

Well, when I am stuck at work, I employ some techniques to get ahead. It makes me smile to think about them, but it works.

So today, I am looking at a task, as a part of my training. They have given me a requirement and asked me to develop it. So far, I was re-doing whatever was already developed, so I had a reference. Now, I have to come up with a design on my own. So as will be the case, I was stuck.

So this is how I approached it.

1.  I tried to glance through all the documents. I cannot read exhaustively and understand well at the first read. So generally, I read twice or may be more to understand a document well. The first read is what can be called a perusal, where I am just going through, without getting an in-depth understanding. So now I know what topic the document covers and what is where in the document, if haven’t slept off by then that is.
2. Which leads us to point 2, sleep over it. No need to pack up and go home. Just close your eyes, take a power nap, take a break. :)  Today I actually nodded off till a colleague walked in to chat with me. Good I had my back to her and my head up straight. :)
3. Once fresh, I read through the document again, and now it makes 50% more sense. I am looking at things in a way that I didn’t look at earlier. Newer perspective. And the world is a whole lot better!
4. I list down my understanding of what needs to be done, and the steps needed to do it. At this level, questions will begin to spring up, and I will get it clarified. No matter how long it makes, I ensure that my questions have answers, even if I have to look them up myself.
5. And so now that I have understood what needs to be done, and have an idea on how to do it, I start. I ensure that I do not make any assumptions; it will kill the work, and is the most dangerous thing as far as a programmer is concerned.
6. So I start, by breaking it up into tiny baby steps which will not overwhelm me and then get going. I plan on what I will do for how long, and if have exceeded one deadline that I set, I know it will impact the overall deadline, and will work accordingly.

So there… that’s how I get things going at work.  :)

On Adapting

Sometimes I stop for a minute and think of how much I have changed in the almost 8 years of my professional life. Just today I dealt with a situation at work in a way that I didn’t see myself doing. And I reacted naturally without thinking and planning to act in a certain way. I am surprised by the extent to which experience teaches and changes us.

As always, I don’t do anything earth shattering or earth changing at work. I was treated in a way which made me believe that my sense of responsibility/accountability was not trusted. Ideally, say, around 4 years back, I might have reacted emotionally, because, all said and done, I do take my work seriously. But today, I didn’t even go through that emotional upheaval. Thoughts like, why did he/she think that I am not responsible didn’t occur to me. I have learnt through years of experience that some people work in a certain way, they like to keep tabs and it has nothing to do with me. So I walked up to him/her and told them my progress and gave them my timeline and asked them to take it forward from there. Nice and confident.

So unlike me! 

And I was so surprised after coming back and settling down in my seat. It’s amazing the way in which the human mind adapts and learns even when there is no conscious effort to do so. I am always amazed by this capacity to learn. And it is in all of us!

Bored!

So I got into a project , only it starts mid April and I am pretty jobless. I don't feel the slightest intent to do anything even mildly useful. I feel lazy like never before and am just filling time here.

Which leads me to a question - If someone likes to do something, can they then continuously do it and not get bored by it?

Take me for instance, I like to believe that I like programming, coding.. the works. But since the project was finalized, I have simply stopped reading relevant stuff. Talk about love here. I wish I would only make constructive use of my time, but I am not doing it. Which makes me doubt if I really like what I claim to like.
Since the project was finalized, I have no need to attend any more interviews and hence no need to read stuff. So there. I stopped. Sigh!

Is there someone out there, who can never get bored of doing something / learning something? I would like to hear from you. :)

There is a possibility of travel onsite for a month. But this is only a possibility. I believe it will happen because, they need to train me before I can start working for them. But no dates yet. Only the travel will be to US and for a month. It is US because I already have a valid Visa. Else they were considering sending me to France. But again all this may not happen and they may just train me over phone calls. I was hoping it would be France because I have never been to Europe. But I was also scared of not knowing the language/culture. At least I have been to the US once , so sort of know what to expect. I am hoping I get to travel. This time I think I will explore a little more. So am excited. Also this gives me a wonderful excuse to get more clothes. No western wear for me though, It simply wont gel with my huge nose stud, but am seriously contemplating getting long skirts. :)

I am also worried how Sanjay will react. But I am hoping he would be fine. He didn't miss me when I had to leave him with my in-laws to stay with my parents during their respective eye surgeries. And the trip will only be for a month, not a long time. Fingers crossed.

Sanjay just got promoted from Pre KG to Lower KG. I went to collect his promotion slip and heaved a sigh of relief at successful completion of one year of schooling. Next year he starts to write. Till now it was all oral, and he fared fine. Next year he needs to learn to hold a pencil and write alphabets and numbers. I hope he finds it fun. :)

PS: Title is because I am way too bored now. :)

On Women in Workplace

I am still jobless in my job as I wait for a new project. I am supposed to be making use of this time to study. I do that to about 50% I suppose.

So I have been up to other things like taking off, reading the Millennium series of books (which I really liked BTW for the characterization of the heroine), attending training sessions and some random meetings.

Today I got the opportunity to attend a meeting on inclusivity of women in workplace. It was a discussion where a person from an external organization was recording our inputs. Hopefully the organization will leverage these inputs to create a more women friendly workplace.

This meeting was an eye opener of sorts for me. I knew women had it a little difficult in career. They have these innate breaks – marriage change/break, kids and all that. And they have to certainly take the bigger load at home and work-life balance is important for women. I hope there comes a day when men will realize the importance of time spent with family and when work-life balance will not be a women only issue.

As such I find my organization very employee friendly and I like the work culture here. There is a saying that your job is only as good as the last manager. My last manager was very good. It’s sad that the project had to end. So I don’t know what I am headed for.

So coming back to the meeting, there was the initial introductions where I ran into my first shocker. One person introduced himself and said among other things that he doesn’t have to worry about work-life balance because his wife is a stay at home mom. I mean seriously…. What about your duty as a father to your kids? We need to be good at time management and strike a good deal when it comes to work-life balance. How could you not bother about it?

But I won’t generalize men like that. For that matter I hate slotting/categorizations of any kind. There are all kinds of people who may not fit to definitions. For people are not words in a science dictionary. There was this other person who spoke about post maternity support for women. A guy speaking about a facility where women can pump milk, now that’s real nice. I used to pump milk in the rest room till Sanjay was 1 year old.

One Hr lady said that some Project Managers request that they do not want women while hiring for positions. Some others said that they do not hire women who are about to get married or are pregnant. Apparently they are too much of a risk for the investment made on them.  What about men who shift for better prospects? It is a known fact that at least where I am located, women are a stable resource; they simply do not jump as many jobs as men. But well, looks like some prejudices do exist.

It is a little depressing that the next time I attend an interview, they will judge me for more than my answers and this happens everywhere probably.

I think the answer is when men take equal responsibility of the house, that’s when there will be equality at work. That’s when everyone will look for work-life balance. I see this happening more in the west, in the developed nations. Again I can’t generalize for I am speaking from my interactions with a limited set of people.

There was talk of mentoring women. And then one person said that women are of three types: career oriented, working for the heck of it, working for money. It saddened me to hear this categorization. I work because of the sense of self that it makes me feel. I feel like I am doing something with my intellect, learning something, growing in my own way. Does that make me career oriented? No, because given a choice between a fantabulous job that forces me to work in some other country’s timing and a job with little less prospects where I can keep decent timing, I would choose the latter. For me, family is first, while I will always do complete justice to my job. I won’t work from home if I want to babysit my son, I will take off, because that is the more responsible thing to do. I take my work seriously, but I am not career oriented, neither do I work for money. I work because of the way it makes me feel about myself. As simple as that. I told him outright that I feel offended when someone slots women like this.

I am no feminist. I don’t understand what feminism is all about. I only believe in one thing – equality of all humans. Which is why I won’t treat my house help any different, or believe in caste or such things. Which is why I can never understand how some people feel superior to others. Which is why I will value my four year old son’s opinions and thoughts, or any child’s for that matter.

It was an eye-opening experience for me. Also it reinforced my belief that nothing ever goes waste. In the meeting, one Project manager said there was an opening in his team. I was all gung-ho till I found out that I have to work in UK timing, which won’t work for me. So I am back to square one. It does get a little frustrating when I get serious. But otherwise I am liking this free time. Only I must must make better use of it!

J

In Like with it

I dont know if I am in love with my job. I spend a lot of time browsing, writng and what not. I try to squeeze in some reading,job-related reading. And after all that, I do some work.

So I get an issue to solve, something to fix, and I work on it for a few days- Reading up on the net for possible solutions to make up for me not being technical geek, closing my eyes and thinking up solutions, putting pen on paper and listing the problems and possible solutions, looking through existing code to see if this has been handled. And at the end of it all, I hit upon a decent solution.I try it out and test it. There are still some loopholes and I fix them one by one. And then finally, I get my code reviewed and the reviewer says it is alright.

And then I feel this sense of accomplishment. There is just one word to describe this joy - accomplishment.

And I think to myself, I may not actually hate my job. I might be in like with it. :)

PS: Like with it - Inspired by the song in 27 Dresses. :)

Food!

Like all people, I am complex too. Though I am optimistic and all that, I am mostly cynical. Yes, I am on the verge of a multiple personality disorder..  Why talk about cynicism? Well, one day before the potluck lunch(organized on the 19th of August in my office, to celebrate Independence day), our manager called our team together and after 30 minutes of discussion, we were at square one. See, there, cynicism proven right. I was cynical about potluck.. who would cook? Why would people go through the whole effort? So I suggested, why don’t we just eat out-go dutch?

But after much thought and contemplation, we decided this – those who bring home food would just bring more of it, and those who regularly eat out would simply buy stuff and bring it. There sealed! There was no unanimous decision on ethnic wear, and after much thought, the team agreed to that as well.

So the task was set. Items were discussed – who would bring what and all that.. everything was in place, including banana and beeda.

My plan was this. I would make chapathis and a side dish. If for some reason, I don’t find the time, I will buy naan and side dish from outside.

Didn’t think cooking would excite me so much. I woke up at 5:30 am on the D day, and first thing I did was to prepare the chapathi dough. Since my cooking results were still unpredictable, the job of making the side-dish was handed over to the MIL.

The real cooking started after son was dropped in school. MIL had completed the side dish(channa and potato) by then and it was really tasty. Now the chapathis. I did them with so much care, that for once, all of them were round in shape. There, done! A sense of accomplishment prevailed over me!

The next big thing was what to wear? I had to wear ethnic wear. I was confused.. which saree do I wear?All the silk cotton sarees were pulled out and much confusion ensued. My MIL stepped in and gave me her brand new silk cotton saree. It was a beautiful shade of pink and I had a matching blouse. I was so excited.

And in all this madness, it dawned on me that sharing was so beautiful. The cynic in me was busy draping a beautiful saree, eating wonderful home made food brought in by colleagues, proudly giving away the chapathis made by me. It was really a lovely day!

Break that down...

Yesterday i was given an award in the recognition program in office. Not a big deal actually. But if you are a small time developer like me with little expectations, it can be big.

I was all happy and spring-in-my-step and all. I have little expectations from life mostly. That makes me mostly a happy person.

So coming back to the award, the person who had nominated me was telling the group as to why he thought that I should get the award. (Jargon Alert!! Not that I know too many jargons, lets just pretend that I do )He was telling them that he was trying to host an flash application on a content management system and he didnt know how to do it and he didnt find reading meterial on that in any of the forums and all and that I helped him finish the task in 2 hours, quickly.

It is after this little talk that i realised the real reason for me being able to help him finish the task so soon. Well, he looked at it as hosting an appliction. I looked at it as displaying a webpage in another page....
(End Jargon Alert!!)

what am i coming to say, you ask??? Simple, break the big problem into smaller ones and begin by solving the smallest first. Helps, really does!

Breaking Cliches

I am learning to break more cliches which is a nice thing. I am breaking some of the rigidity inside me. Today I was speaking to my former Project Manager, a really nice lady. She just had her baby , her baby must be about 4 months old and she has already joined work. I was wondering why would she do that? Because she has leave. Yes these are uncertain times and people are getting fired. But I was thinking that feeding baby must be top priority, and her husband is earning, so why cant she take a chance and take leave to feed her baby.

I was thinking how some people can compromise things for money and so on and so forth. But today she tells me that her husband has been laid off. And there is only one income and that her husband is searching for a job.

I now get it. She cannot afford the risk of taking leave. What if her job goes too? What will they do with two children?
I empathise with her and really pray hard that her husband gets a job soon. I was so judgemental, I shouldn’t have been. People are different and come in all types from outside and within and just because they are different from me or do things differently from what I may be doing or what I think is right doesn’t make them bad or negative….

And I am learning that..

SO what happened all along?
Well, I turned 24
My blog turned 2!! Wow two years of blogging

And , I met with an accident.

May 15th is my birthday and 19th is my star birthday.
May 19th also happened to be the day when there was this function at my realtive’s house. So there I was at my periappa’s house. I took my cousin’s kid to a shop nearby and bought all the chocolates he really likes. He was one happy kid that day!

And then I walked to sis’s house to baby-sit Sriram, so she can get some work done.

So it was around 11:30 in the afternoon, when I walked out to go to office.
Yes, Office on saturday!!!!!

I was crossing the road cursing the sun and wishing I had left earlier.
Meanwhile guilt was eating me up
I was going to office despite having some personal work because this other colleague was coming and I would feel bad if I let him do all the work, but I was really wishing I had stayed home.

I spent more than the time I planned at sis’s home because she was sleeping and I didn’t want to wake her. And so I got late…

So anyways, I was about to cross the road when I saw this vehicle approaching me. That was so scary. I stood where I was because I was real scared. I wished he wouldn’t hit me.
But that’s what happened.

Next minute, I was on the road. And I saw him and vehicle slowly skidding and falling.hmmm….

I was praying that nothing should happen to him. Nothing did. The fellow got up and started blaming me. It was he who came fast , not me. I didn’t move because I thought if I moved I would confuse him and he might end up hitting me. Yet the fellow hit me.

The left hand pained. But I let that be. I would feel guilty if I didn’t go to office. So I went my way, only to realize on reaching office that I couldn’t lift my left hand to comb my hair and tie it.

L

So then I went back home and then to hospital to get my hand x-rayed and into a cast. The initial days,it was very painful. Slowly the pain reduced and now am as good as new

The plus here- I took almost two weeks off.
Minus – guilt of not coming to work at a very crucial time.
I did come one day in between but went home soon. I was scared, what with wedding just a month away.

So there I am. Back to normal life.
I enjoyed my vacation. And am cribbing away at work, but content at the same time in a strange sort of way. I had come one day in between because I felt guilty at letting a colleague of mine do all the work. There was extra pressure of deadline too. Yet when I come back , I see appreciation for another person and surprise, I am not included. I feel bad, but carry on, because that’s me…..

That’s me, a bundle of contradictions to use a cliché.

I carry on to do things just to silence my ever guilty-conscience. So its ok that colleague of mine didn’t realize that I came one day just to help her out. Though I did rush back after completing what I thought was required of me.


I know I shouldn’t be blogging about work right.
But I need an outlet and sorry, this is my blog, right? And am not bad mouthing anyone.

So there goes.
My little update on my blog.

Little sriram walks and runs a lot these days. he is slowly becoming a tiny little person with his own individuality.

Am spending the last month before marriage here in my parent’s house. It isn’t sinking in me yet. There is still some teeny-weeny shopping for wedding left.

I need to change my attitude , I know. Totally off the mark, but I so totally need to remind myself that.

And I saw some movies while I was on my leave. What would I do with one arm in a cast???
I saw the two pirates of the Caribbean and loved them
Saw spidey-3 in thiruttu dvd. Come and arrest me and I won’t tell you that my neighbour gave them to me
:)
So there I am, my dear reader. I know there’s just one of you left.i hope to come back more often here
:)
Have fun and smile away like I am trying to now!