Speak Up!

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the following statement in performance reviews: “He is a great engineer. Keeps quiet and does his job.” Most managers nod after hearing this, acknowledge the engineer and discuss a totally different person for promotion. I’ve also lost count of the number of engineers who get frustrated at not getting promoted after being told they are doing a great job.

Why does this happen so often, especially in the Indian software industry? Here are a couple of reasons why I, as a manager, tend to pass over the quiet folks when looking for a senior engineer who can excel as a leader.

First, I expect the senior engineer to be able to influence her peers and business leaders, especially across geographies. I work in India, in the software product development space, where the ability to be crisp and clear in describing your point of view is extremely important. The engineer could be talking to architects, product managers or heads of business units, who may not have a lot of time to spend in detailed discussions. If the engineer is a quiet recluse who finds it difficult to open up and speak in a broad setting, I will not have the confidence that she can influence business and technology direction for the product she is working on. On the other hand, a person who is articulate and can convey her point in a few sentences would be far more effective.

Second, I also expect the engineer to mentor and motivate other engineers. I’d like him to set an example, be a person other engineers can look up to and learn from. I’d like him to help nurture ten other engineers like him, which would raise the team’s overall performance. I would need to see evidence that the engineer can act as an energy amplifier, before deciding to promote him. Here again, a quiet person who does his job well may not be the best possible candidate.

I do realize this topic could be controversial, especially in India where we have been taught to be quiet in schools, and often rapped on the knuckles if we speak up. However, the more we speak up, the more confident we get, the more influential we become. Changing the world is then just a step away.

A New Age

Another reason why I love Roger Ebert. Go read it, please. And the original post which kicked off the whole ruckus.

And oh, while you are at it, please read Poe's Law too.

:)

Convergence

It's all coming together. The three great obsessions of Indians - cricket, politics and films. Add a dash of eye-candy and music, and you have the perfect masala mix that can keep a nation enthralled for a month and more.

We have Shah Rukh Khan, that matchless actor. We have Vijay, the younger chieftain. We have Preity Zinta and Akshay Kumar. There's Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, Prime Ministers in waiting, along with current and past Chief Ministers. We have businessmen. Beer and cheerleaders. Not to mention the scandals and the spice. Inconsequential cricket matches get higher TRP ratings than saas-bahu serials? Of course. You have slap-happy characters on the cricket field too. You have tears. You have what it takes to keep everyone's eyes glued to the telly. Ads galore, buy more, spend more.

Everything is condensed into a tiny capsule, fit for mass consumption. The Times of India-fication of our nation is now complete.

HT Article by Ruchir Joshi

Worth a read. About Indians being fundamentally racist.

DCubed

Why I like Dilip D'Souza.

The girl who died

Parvathyamma's daughter died the other day. No one knows what the real problem was, though Parvathyamma says it was pneumonia. She and her husband had taken the kid to a nearby hospital; the doctors there refused to take her in and asked them to try St Johns. By the time they reached St Johns in the rain, it was too late.

This is a strange tale, this daughter's. I don't know her name - I don't think Parvathyamma ever called her by name when she was alive. Parvathyamma used to tell her various employers that the kid wasn't really hers, she was dark, she was someone else's, she was unwanted. I wonder how she feels now, after the child's death. The lady appears to be all right though, continuing to sweep and swab floors as before.

I don't know how I feel about this. Sad? Yes. Sad in many ways - for the child, for the parents, for her siblings and also sad for the girl-child in general. It's a tough life.

Blogging as usual

After a few weeks of being blase about blogging, we are back to our regular programming.

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I leave for San Jose on Sunday night. Will be passing through sunny Singapore, where I have a day to kill and a date to kill for. Will be back in Bangalore on the 31st.

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Had a good laugh watching Ju-On the other night. Sorry, ! I guess I'm too old for all this now.

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Dean Koontz once wrote a book called 'How to Write Bestselling Fiction'. While I don't rate Koontz very high as a writer, I thought he made a few good points. One that stuck with me was that a good book should always immerse the reader in the story so much that the reader shouldn't realize he is reading a book at all.

Stephen King's Wolves of the Calla starts off by dragging you deep into the story. Obviously inspired by Seven Samurai and other such epics, it does a fairly decent job of keeping the reader occupied. Occupied and happy till the last couple of pages, when King slaps you twice across the cheeks, pours cold water on you and jolts you awake, yelling "Hey, wake up, dummy! You are reading a book! Muahahahaha!". Jackass.

I'm not looking forward to reading Song of Susannah now, though I know I must. Ka.

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The office serves free lunch on Fridays, usually ordered from a nearby restaurant. The food is a mix of non-vegetarian and grass-roots fare and is almost always yummy. A co-worker brought his own lunch today, though. He told me it was to protest against the Benny Hinn event in Bangalore. No, seriously. He felt that he would be supporting the show if he ate the food at work, so he stuck to puliyogare and curd rice.

I think I'll pack up and go home now.

What I learned from the radio this week

It's like, you know, Independence week and all that, on account of Independence day coming up this Sunday. So I learnt all the famous slogans associated with our Independence, like Jai Hind, Vande Mataram, Inquilab Zindabad, Sare Jahan Se Accha and Jai Jawan Jai Kissan. I thought the music for Vande Mataram was particularly good.

I learnt about famous leaders who gave India Independence, like Nehru, Gandhi and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. I also learnt today that the guy who coined the slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kissan, Lal Bahadur Shastri, gave up all his land to the farmers of India. Lal Bahadur Shastri is also famous for saying "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it!".

It's so nice to learn all this in one week. Thank you, Sunaina Lal of Radio City.

Wearing my Suresh Gopi hat

Listen, you effing bastard. If you come over here one more time and peer over my shoulder to see what I'm doing, I swear I'll cut your goonies off and feed them to the barnacles. Just remember that!

does writin like dis bother j00 ? shudnt be a pbl...

does writin like dis bother j00 ? shudnt be a pblm prolly. the msg is comin thru, rite ?

Happy Birthday, Bapu.

Happy Birthday, Bapu.

Dallas Reloaded

So here I am in the Doubletree hotel again. Talk about Deja Vu. Leaving home was exactly like the last time - Sindha, Papa, Amma, tea, 6pm, goodbyes, the drive to the airport....one big difference was that the kid was 'outside' this time round.

The flight was boring. Lufthansa stewardesses haven't changed much in the last three years. They are still the hoity-toity sorts who roll their eyes when you ask them anything in Indian English. Hmph ! I managed to get some sleep though, ignoring them. Talking to the Russian student seated beside me also helped. (Yes, she was a blonde and her name was Anna. No, not the one you're thinking of, but close)

A colleague from office and his wife were also on the same flight. They were part of the m2i (move to india) brigade that arrived a couple of years back, i2ers who were working out of the US and took up the option of shifting to India. I get irritated by a lot of the things these folks say and do while comparing India to the US. My colleague's wife stepped into a friends car at the Dallas airport and started "Oh, its such a relief to sit in these cars. I missed the sliding doors" and to her husband who was driving: "You are not in India, you need to be careful while driving". I guess I have a chip on my shoulder. I get really bugged when Indians get into this India-bashing routine in the US.

I'm hungry. The cafe at the hotel doesn't have anything really good, but I don't have much of a choice. There is no restaurant or fast food outlet within walking distance of this place. I'll call Sudha and Bhaskar later on, I don't really want to disturb them on their weekend. There are quite a few of us Blr-based i2ers staying at the hotel this week. Maybe I'll scout around and see if I can pile on with someone.

Damn, miss Sindha and the baby like crazy.