Thursday, May 31, 2007

I've quit!!!

Finally, I put in my papers today; I initiated the e-separation procedure after discussions with my manager and the senior manager.

I had informed them about my plans almost 2 months ago; So it was a mere formality today. Originally I was supposed to resign around mid-June but looking at some recent developments I decided to advance the date. I would still be working for almost 2 more months. My final date in Infy should be 3rd August.

The main reason behind advancing the date is to speed up the process of finding my replacement. Even though my manager had told the resource manager about my exit plan a month ago and had asked for a replacement, nothing has happened till date. So we decided that I formally put in my papers early to put pressure on the resource manager!! Let's see how soon he finds my replacement.

I have also informed my onsite manager but he hasn't conveyed this news to the client yet. The client expects me to give them a period of 4-6 weeks for smooth transition. I am giving them 8 weeks which should be more than enough.

Hopefully, the workload will decrease now and I'll have some free time to concentrate on learning French and reading some other stuff.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Ramblings

Have been thinking of writing for a long time but could not do it for some or other reason. I am writing now while watching the Champions League final.

A lot of not so good things have happened since the last time I wrote. The worst thing is that I sustained a mallet finger injury while playing basketball 2 weeks ago. This means that now the little finger of my left hand is plastered :(. It would take atleast 4 more weeks for the finger to heal and there is a chance that it will never be completely straight again :( :(

Another bad thing is that the workload in office has increased. The worst part is that this has happened at a time when I have hardly any interest left in the techical J2EE stuff I had been doing all this while. I want to spend my office time in undergoing domain trainings and getting to know more of my domain (Investment Banking) but its just not happening. These days, I am mostly banging my head on "struts-spring framework" and how to write reusable code which can handle future requests in the application.

As if this was not enough, today I realized that my French sucks!!! Today, in my French class, I tried to narrate an incident (in French) which happened while I was leaving from Shanghai for Beijing. I was terrible and could not speak even one sentence correctly. My grammar is just horrible. With just one month to go for the French level 1 exam, this is a good wake up call for me. I need to pull my act together before it is too late.

Nothing new happening on the MBA front. I am yet to block my flight tickets. Will do it either this week or the next. The only activity that I have been actively pursuing these days is networking. I created my Linkedin profile around a fortnight ago and my network already exceeds 32000 people :). If you haven't yet registered on linkedin, do it. You won't regret it.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Second Life

Came to know about SecondLife today while reading a blog on Freaknomics
This is the first site of its kind and I was really amazed at this concept after browsing through the site.

It is a 3-D virtual world owned and managed by its residents. It started in 2003 and has over 6 million members currently. Aptly named SecondLife, this site allows you to live an alternate life and do whatever you want to do.

It allows you to create your avatar, meet people, buy land, create your house, create/buy a business, engage in all sorts of fun activities etc. i.e. do whatever you want and can dream of (Of course you will need to shell out some money for most of the activities.)

If this was not enough, then you can also make real money by exchanging their virtual currency (Linden dollars) with real currency (USD) over the site's Linden Dollar Exchange!!!!

So, if you want to live another life where you think you can make more money, you know where to go ;)

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Global Warming - Time to wake up

Came across this article about global warming today. Some excerpts:

if the world continues to burn fossil fuels along current lines, then the dangerous emissions would rise by 90 per cent by 2030.

Countering the argument of the developing countries, like India and China, that reducing emissions would hit their economies, the report says that at worst, the global GDP would be blunted by about 3 per cent by 2030 if it undertakes these emission cuts.

What this article tells us is nothing new. We all know about global warming and how dangerous it is. The point is are we really serious about it. Should it only be a topic of discussion among environmentalists, a topic of contention during world economic forum meets or should this topic become a part of our daily lives?

We are aware of the pitfalls of using fossil fuels (coal and oil), but what do we do to reduce their consumption? The answer is - Nothing. It is high time we start doing our bit towards this. There are small things which if each one of us do, can collectively make a big difference. Some of the things that we can do are:

Reduce the usage of automobiles. Make use of public transport as much as possible.
Do not waste paper.
Do not waste water.
Do not waste electricity.

These are very basic things that each of us can do. Collectively these could have a big impact on our environment.

Lets make this world a better place for ourselves and for our future generations.