The Empress of Blandings

Yesterday I blew my fuse..

Got a mail at work that there's a women's group to be formed and nominations are invited for the core team.. I was ecstatic with the thought that FINALLY management recognizes the 'different' needs of women at the workplace, and aims to work towards them..

So, yesterday I was eagerly looking forward to the meeting, when I and the other dynamic women in my workplace join together towards making our organization a more women-friendly one.. It already has got many good policies, but not many of us even know about it! Now is the time, to know the good and amend the not-so-good! Hence, even though it was Friday and my work was over by 4:30, I did not rush home to take the little fella out on a stroller walk (something he yearns for..), and waited for the 5:00 meeting..

Well... there were 5 of us women, all with hope in their eyes.. The meeting organizer started: 'In this forum we shall not talk about any sensitive issues, let us not make this a crib-session.. and this forum is in no way recognized or sponsored by the management.. they will provide us space'..

TO DO WHAT?!!! KNIT SWEATERS?!

That was that.. I wonder why I did not walk out right then.. Why did i sit there and took all the horseshit and tried to reason (i did say it on the organizer's face that this is just an eyewash).. Some other colleagues spoke more cool-headedly, i guess due to benevolence towards the organizer as she seemed to be fresh out of the schoolbus.. They talked about the womens' forums in other organizations, where the forum is meant to discuss 'sensitive issues' and address the painpoints of women employees (of course!)

Apparently this whole idea of forming a women's forum was to follow up on an action point gathered from a women's day discussion (i was on maternity leave then..).. and seems like they just took an easy way out to check off this action-point - by organizing a group of women who'd help conduct yoga/dance/book reading sessions!!!!

Wake up mehearties in certain HR holes! The women who you wish to herd without a forethought or preparation, are accomplished no-nonsense consultants who have seen quite a bit of the planet..!!
And personally, I refuse to eat anything that you lay out as grub in front of me, and I refuse to say Oink-oink to you when you pat my back.. (I say that only to my little fella, cuz that's his favorite part in "old macdonald had a farm"...)

(NOW i feel better!)

Salaam e ishq...

This morning, sitting in the office shuttle, I was surprised out of my book - the RJ started playing Adnan Sami's 'silli silli tapti raton mein...dil kya kare..salaam e ishq'.. !
I looked out of the window, we were zooming down outer ring road.. the same patch of road that we travelled on 16th Jan..
The same road, the same song, but that day it was foggy and we had to speed cautiously.. it was 6AM with no traffic on the road.. I was on the backseat, counting the minutes of life between contractions.. did not speak a word throughout, except one complete sentence - "venkie, pls increase the volume on that song"...!

Today this song brought me that wave of nostalgia and it stayed on for quite some time.. :)

Kung Fu Panda and the MBA dream

I am so happy with the latest trend in disney/pixar/dreamworks animation - not just all-nice characters with a predictable storyline and a mushy happy ending with a moral-of-the-story, but a trigger to multiple thought processes too..

Last week I saw Kung Fu Panda, and it gave a bamboo for thought to my current state of mind..

A lot of us salaried folks, at some point of time, think about getting an MBA (of course, if we don't have it already).. We believe that it will give us a quantum leap - will either quadruple our current salary levels, or will teach us how to start our own business.. And that leap is just what we need, to become that 'dragon warrior' - a transformed me..

And most of this bunch of us think there is a 'secret ingredient' that the B-schools possess and only that ingredient is lacking in us which is preventing us from becoming the 'dragon warrior'!

Then we go through the chosen B-School and we come out after two years of concentrated training and our eyes opened to "that unwritten scroll that reflects our face" . Then we know that what the B-school really has, is no secret ingredient, but three practical ones:

1. Consistent discipline - The intensity of the training, the almost-military discipline you have to follow to do well..

2. Network - The school of our choice brings us closer to the network we seek - like-minded people who fuel each other..

3. Belief in self - After you have seen it all, you don't have this constant nagging anymore : maybe the other guy with an MBA knows more than me and can run a business better than me... Because now you know that "there is no secret ingredient!"


So, as a conclusion - "GO PO" !!!