Language of Math of Science of Play of Work

A chapter:

Characters: Corporate top bosses from the Buy department and a Regional team from the Sell Department.

Plot-line: Sell has re-sold something which Buy has not bought yet. Sell has earned a margin (a percentage). No one knows the Buy Price but we have a Sell Price and claim to have a Margin.

Story: Any Indian kid with middle school Math background can back-calculate what Buy Price can be. Sell confidently wants to solve for x.
The catch however is, first it is Buy who needs to buy at x, and then that can be sold at a Margin Sell claims to have made, by selling at Sell Price.

Charming side hero Product guy tries to dumb it down for Sell. Regional Sell is a fan of Corporate Product guy. Corporate Product guy is a Marketing person.
To customers- Product guy sells his product as an idea.
To Sell- Product guy sells incentives to sell that idea to those customers.
Product guy is the 'ultimate seller' as he sells selling to Sell.

This time the product to be sold is a product Product guy wants Buy to buy so that Sell can resell. So you calculate Sell Price, and not back-calculate Buy Price.

What if Buy ends up buying it at more than x? The margin then would be less than the Margin Sell is proud to have achieved, because Sell Price has been fixed as sale has been made.

Sell is furious because ultimate seller Product guy is speaking about buy, which is gibberish (and betrayal) to Sell because what is being bought?
"Product guy gives product and I sell". 
"Customers talk about buy and now my Product guy is talking about Buy too. I hate Buy which means Buy department is the villain". 
"I have sold and earned Margin and I deserve incentives, not this questioning from crazy Buy department on what did you sell when no one has bought it". 
"A product-seller is asking for money and Buy is not paying because Buy did not buy. Who is this product-seller? Because I am seller of this product"!

Another work-day ends.

"Proton Girl"

So, some time last year a new app was launched called Slowly. Read about it in the Sunday paper at the time of the launch. It was an app that lets you send messages to random people and is not instant messaging. The time an actual letter would take to reach the recipient is the time a message on Slowly would. Hence the name.

My cousin got her first message from a lady in France for which she had to wait 19 hours. 19 hours later, she received a  French hello. It was funny, after the long wait!

I first received a message from a person who had started learning Spanish. My profile mentioned I know Spanish so maybe that was the reason. So he wrote something in Spanish, and I replied back and it was cool.

But there were many other people who sent messages to which I had no reply.

One was "How can a person be named Electron Gal and still exude so much positivity?" This was the very first and the only text in that chat.

But I am a positive person, or so I have been told by many. With that in mind, and my tendency to be-well- positive, I think that maybe the Slowly guy was not being cheesy after all.

Some of the previous posts have been sad, because they were anecdotes and recent past has been sad. However, that is that.

In the world of sines, I think the trough has passed and now I am moving to the crest of the wave :)

Vendetta and the Inside of her Brain

Vendetta Kumar had once been told by a friend that Vendetta obviously didn't socialize on account of being an introvert. At that time, Vendy was hurt, because that friend was her social life. With that friend, she was as 'extrovert' as Vendy could be. Of course at that time, Vendy thought being an introvert was a 'problem'. Nothing serious, but like an issue that, at that time, Vendy thought she could 'resolve'.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in being either of the 'verts'. Vendetta realized that soon enough and was at peace again. She did time and again feel pangs of jealously when the 'out-going' crowd was going out. She could never be a natural at conversing with some people. She'd often find that people would also sort of converse with others and their talks would be so 'inside joke'- like that Vendy could not find her way into the discussions and end up being an 'also there with them'.

All this awkwardness would be a small portion of her life though. Major chunk of her every-day was in-fact silently observing and smirking at pretense that the non-shy junta possessed. Her no small talk way of life at work and outside suited her.

A colleague once asked her "Vandita! Are you looking for a guy to fall in love with?" Though Vendetta would love to fall in love, she replied with sincerity: "I don't really. I think I am not capable of emotionally investing myself with one because, dis-investing if things don't work out seems painful". 

But she did want to fall in love, effortlessly. Another colleague told her that it could not be effortless. She needed to party, go on trips, or at-least talk to people so that one-thing-led-another-and-coffee-happened. Vendy smiled. He was right, but she was not that person. She was content being indoor-sy.

The latest development in her life brought her in close proximity to fresh college grads. The bubbly chirpy kind that newly employed kids are, still accustomed to hostel level shenanigans. These kids do not come back from office with energy level drained to zero. They still have an eagerness to get chummy with others around and some of them have laughter that qualifies as noise. These are the ones who laugh at everything. Laughter comes out of their mouths along with words. Vendy didn't know that was possible. And like most situations in her life, these kids did not have the kind of discussions where Vendetta Kumar could pitch in. And much like always, she tried to go out of her zone to make way into these people's lives but came quickly back as she didn't want these people inside her life.

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Prodigal Blogger

So I didn't write anything the entire last year. One post I had written and not published because at that time, it was not shaping up to be something I wanted it to be. Today, I read the incomplete draft and just clicked 'publish' because that is a joyous feeling.

Last year has been the year when graph of quality went down on most aspects of my life, with a few upward happy spikes. With change in living situation, I saw myself moving from a lovely rented apartment to a sad makeshift paying guest accommodation. Not just the place, but the co-inhabitants too changed from an office colleague to I-can't-believe-these-idiots-are-working-professionals-because-who-would-hire-these-crybabies.
With changes in my organization, I had to part ways with my work friends' circle, my workplace and my work as such.
I have a place to go to sleep in and I am employed; but that's what personal and professional lives have been reduced to.

February did give me the opportunity to wear cute one-pieces as the emcee of an office event. Plus the opportunity to gift a plant to my brother and sister-in-law on their first wedding anniversary. I think plants are the best. I am not a pet person and cannot take care of other humans, but plants I love.

April did bring me the chance to attend closest cousin's wedding a.k.a. chance to wear Instagram-worthy clothes.

One of the summer months- do not know which- did introduce me to Duolingo, the app on which I have been learning Spanish.

July did get me felicitation from a top boss- another Instagram worthy picture with he and I twinning in baby pink :)

Speaking of baby, August did give me the most precious baby niece ever. She is an exceptional child because apart from her, and those Johnson Baby commercials' babies, that age group does not fancy me. Since August, my everyday has been spent talking to her or just looking at her pictures and videos. God bless you, Love.

With a general sadness at work and home, and a handful happy moments, 2018 came to an end.

2019 has started and all unfulfilled personal and professional goals of last year have rolled over to this calendar. Have already suffered an injury on left ankle, so things have 'kicked off' in style!

What I am continuing from 2018 is learning Spanish and what I discontinue is not reading a single book and not writing a single piece. On writing especially there are three motivations- my own guilt from past year, my father questioned why I have not written anything lately and a friend has penned her own comeback blog-post recently and she writes really well.

Favorite TV- Parks & Recreation Edition

**came across this unfinished, unpublished draft post from 11th Aug, 2018 and it just looks perfect now, so posting it as is :) **


I have recently watched two series of two of my favorites-Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. I have loved them together on Saturday Night Live and now I love them individually in '30 Rock' and 'Parks And Recreation'.

What I love and probably will always associate with '30 Rock' is how the show very accurately and hence super-funnily depicts the workings of corporations like GE and NBC and often touches upon the concepts of product placements and six sigma in the backdrop of showbiz and corporate world in general. Favorite character- Jack Donaghy, the suave senior executive at a large corporation, who wants to build things, has conservative political leanings and played by the ultimate Alec Baldwin.

But I guess I have to say I am more taken with the series 'Parks and Recreation'. First of all, kudos for creating a documentary style comedy on a governmental department- Parks and Recreation. It has all the best elements-

1. Documentary style filming ('The Office' introduced me to this genre)
2. Comedy- (I am big on comedy- F.R.I.E.N.D.S., The Big Bang Theory, SNL are on my-anytime-watch list )
3. choosing a government department that is not FBI or CIA or the likes but an unassuming, very believable one that looks after city and national parks in a state that is not New York or California or Florida but Indiana.

The character sketches, character journeys and the choice of actors are an absolute delight.

Favorite Characters:

1. April Ludgate- a young Parks intern turned government employee- doesn't like to small talk, loves gruesome/gross things, super sarcastic, prefers animals over human beings, does not want to conform to regular lifestyle 
2. Andy Dwyer- the show starts with him being injured because of a land pit and sets course for the series. Love the final season episode that shows his various roles-a cover band lead guitarist,fantasy alter ego Burt Mackalin- an FBI agent, shoe shineist, head of a London based NGO for a few month and best of all- children's TV show star -Johnny Karate.

The Annual Look-back

(1)
As I sit in my little balcony garden, sun-bathing with plants each a different shade of green, I feel happy. This has been my daily routine for the last 10 days. Mom massages me with oil, dad reads the newspaper and I play Sudoku or read Mrs. Funnybones' eponymous A-Z short stories.

This is not the first morning routine for the three of us together. The first is going for morning walk in the lake-garden some 50 meters from our society. Wearing not so woolen winter-wear with caps/scarves/hoodies while looking at the sun rise. Repeating this for evening stroll while the sun goes down. This makes me happy too.

Just like my Diwali break, these 10 days were also spent working from home. But today being Sunday, there's no reason for me to check my inbox. So my brain is flashing multiple memories from this year- the annual look-back.

(2)
The year started with a major event- my elder brother getting married. It was followed by my new work-role bringing me back to Mumbai. I got introduced to my new happy place- the Worli Seaface. The year progressed with another major event- my mother getting hospitalized. She's better now, but this really became a defining moment for this year. It showed me that my parents are super-strong. The year moved along and I turned 25. This should count as major and as an event, but this happened during my aforementioned work-from-home Diwali. So birthday was more like a much deserved break from, well, break!

(3)
I have never been a planner. I don't know how to plan, unlike my dad who is a thorough pro here. He is excellent at keeping records, filing documents, chalking out itineraries and having contingency plans too. But for this year, I planned to travel. Except one plan to visit my brother and sister-in-law in the States, other plans were actually very executable. The US plan would require my boss' nod to take some 13 working days off and even I knew all I would get is a resounding no.

Other plan was to go to Amritsar with my Delhi-wale uncle, aunt and first cousins. This was a year of long weekends and I had planned to go on one such weekend. Unfortunately my mom got sick and I obviously rushed to be by her side. But being daddy's girl, I had a Plan B- to use another long weekend coming up next month. I had booked the tickets and had already decided what clothes I will carry, which places I will visit and more importantly what food I would eat there. The Punjabi in me was already happy in anticipation.
A few days after my mom returned home, we got the news of my second-cousin getting married on the very same long weekend as that of my Plan B. The second cousin lives in the same city as my parents so everyone- my first cousins and even people from Amritsar ended up visiting my city for this wedding and I ended up canceling tickets of my trip one more time. I swear this year I have canceled more tickets than all the other years put together.
Another plan was of Rann of Kutch during Christmas extended weekend or the New Year's long weekend. That too kaput! Lesson learnt- I should stick to not planning anything.

(4)
Many friends remarked that I had lost weight, looking at my various Instagrams. Two colleagues said that my curls are beautiful- my hair have never been complimented 😊 And very recently, there was a department meeting with people from across the country in attendance. Although I made very conspicuous late entry and greeted the Exec VP with a  bold 'Hi!' instead of a sheepish 'Good Morning', the reason I was getting some stares was my never-seen-before avatar- I was wearing some chic clothes to work, with a funky neck-piece and my still wet-from-wash curls. So my vanity got many boosts this year 😉.