Different Perspective

There was a confusion regarding Visa for my recent visit to UAE. For visitor visa your visa is processed either by the hotel or the travel agent of Dubai, but as i was going to stay with family there, this was not the option open to me. Next option is to ask the family there to get the visa for me, however for that the deposit asked by government is very high. Finally thought of trying the option of DVPC. On reading more figured that this is open for people flying on emirates airlines only. Finally made the papers and applied for visa. Then after 2-3 days i called up emirates airlines and they sent me an email, which was supposed to be the visa... When i went to get foreign exchange to the travel agent, her got confused on seeing the printout.. Then i asked him to call up the emirates airlines and check on the visa. He did confirm it, and only after that gave the forex. Flying was fine, however when i landed at Dubai terminal 3, at the immigration, the officer there was not pleased o...

Water fountain view from the observation deck at 124thh floor Originally uploaded by ankur186 Watching the dubai from burj khalifa was wonderful experience. The view was like from a plane just when it is about to land. All the buildings that appear so tall when on ground started looking so small from the 124th floor. Getting to burj khalifa was a little expensive and tricky. There is always a 2 day waiting list for the 100 AED ticket. If you want immediate entry then the ticket is 400 AED per person. We went to khalifa on saturday and from Monday it got closed. I don't know if its opened or not, but we just made it in the nick of time. I have also been to empire state building observatory in New york, but the view from here was much more awesome. But in empire state you go to the open balcony on the 80th floor, but here it was a closed observatory. There is an outside open balcony on 124th floor also, but the same was closed for maintenance. Probably because one suicide has already...

I am presently reading this another book by malcolm gladwell. The book is not as engaging as the outliers, still it has some interesting stories. Like how a marriage counceller can just listen to 3 mins of conversation and tell whether the couples wud stay or split. But it also validates something i also believe in, listen to ur inner voice. Also that first few seconds when you meet someone or start a ne engagement are very important. I always ask my team to carefully record their first experience with a web application. The best and most meaningful bugs generally come in those first few seconds. "The usability blocks", "the bad UI" impacts u most in the first initial seconds, and then as the time goes by u become used to that. Would love to finish this book quickly and move on to the next one...Am trying to find another good book to buy..

Amazon.com: Outliers: The Story of Success (9780316017923): Malcolm Gladwell: Books Picked this book from the bestsellers shelf, the title is somewhat cryptic, but it means that this book is about all those who lie outside/above the rest. This book in no uncertain way proves that hard work is the only thing that is in your hand to achieve success. Luck, family, economy and other factors play a part, but they are beyond your control. It also dispels the myth on high IQ/genius. It also clearly states that for job satisfaction 3 things are important - 1. Challenges 2. Autonomy 3. Relation between effort and rewards. A manager can create point 1 and 2, however point 3 is to be looked at an organizations level.

There is lot of difference between role and designation, but v few people in IT industry actually understand it. Many a times role and designation are aligned, but many times it is not. Whenever it is not aligned it leads to lot of frustrations, and confusion for the person on what he should be doing. To make the matters worse, in your annual appraisal cycle you are judged on basis of the designation, and as you were in an unaligned role, you fare badly. The only way i see around is to press management and HR functions to constantly review this and correct this. However as this is a long run exercise it gets overshadowed by many other things. Many people blame attrition on salary, however one can have happy employees even at slightly lower salaries if you can provide them a challenging work environment and role. Also there is big lack of planning future for your employees. Most organizations do not have a growth plan for their people. few who have do not stick to the plan, or make a pl...

There can be 2 ways to grow a team, one can be a transplant, where you just hire all the cogs you need and build up the bigger machine, and other is organic growth, where you let the current pieces in the system move up and hire new people to fill the void created. Transplant is easier to achieve, but is slightly costlier as new outside experienced resources always come at a premium. But this is easier to explain to management and also comparatively less risk prone. At a loss is the current team which does not see the avenues for the growth. Organic growth is more natural but needs more planning. This is something which i believe in, but it is much harder to explain to the management which sometimes in its narrow sightedness is not able to align to your vision.

Battle of Nuranang Originally uploaded by ankur186 Lest we forget the sacrifice the soldiers make for our future. Please read and salute the heroes