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Showing posts from April, 2009

Indian colour of a pink slip

I may not agree on some points of the author but a worthy reading none the less. Sandipan Deb Fri, Feb 6 04:35 AM What does it feel like to be on the way home from work one evening, preparing yourself to tell the family that you don't have a job anymore? I have friends who have been through this, yet I can only vaguely imagine what goes through a man's mind in the moments before the inevitable confession to wife, child, parents. No one who hasn't gone through that moment possibly can more than vaguely imagine the feelings: the anger, helplessness, guilt, shame, fear. If one had a choice, one wouldn't want anyone to go through that experience. But I am also a person who has personally sacked perhaps two dozen people during my career. In the last three months, I have let three people go, on grounds of incompetence. But today, we know what the reality is, what the rules that run a market are. I have known young software engineers switching jobs thrice a year just for

Yesterday, today or tomorrow?

I could not but put this great quote that may have been heard a number of times but as relevant now as anytime before. Yesterday is a cancelled cheque; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely. - Kim Lyons Good luck

Demand - real or built up

It was an interesting chat at home while making a shopping list before going to a local supermarket. My better half, as usual, was in command and said "we need to be careful in spending money as there is a slowdown in the economy". I politely nodded my head and toed the line. Men are very impulsive buyers and I got lured by an attractive offer on bathing soaps. On putting the same in the shopping basked she looked at me as if I was the biggest fool in the world. "Are you even aware that how many soaps are lying at home?" There was a serious message in there. Most households (by and large in India) hold a lot more than required at home. This, in my opinion, emanated from old experiences of shortage. I dug a few old notes and my past experiences from FMCG market visits. On doing a bit of survey (to camouflage inefficiencies of our house), the results were startling: On an average (of 4 households that I checked in Metroplitan, nuclear family with two kids, uppermiddl