Yes yes, I know: "after all, its only a job interview"

Interviewed at a place I really liked - good company, nice people, close to S's office. I think I messed it up.

I know this feeling will pass, but for now I feel so useless :(

I wanna sleep and wake up to find my confidence and sense of self-worth back.

You never grow out of somethings in life - like how you feel after a messed up interview :)

Btw, slightly tangential topic: even after many years of work experience, can one successfully answer: "What is your dream job?". You just keep moving on to the next best/better thing that comes along, right? Each job I take up, I love more than the previous job - isn't that good enough?

I don't know what I learnt....

Remember Pir Panjal range from high school geography class? When I learnt it, "Pir Panjal" was just a proper noun / name of some mountain. Until now.

To all my teachers: Couldn't you have F***-ING shown us pictures like these when you taught us?: http://www.kettik.com/go/photos/page/1?area=manali&continent=asia&country=india&province=himachal

Driven by Fear

Since the start of this year, I have been gripped by a fear that I did not have before - fear of losing the kind of life and the freedom that I have now and not being able to get back.

I am making checklists and working on checking items off it. Hoping to check most of them off before something happens that puts a plug on making such checklists. I don't know what that "something" is and when it would come. All I know is that I fear it.

Maybe that something is as grave as death; maybe it's just a normal life event such as the birth of a child; maybe it is the need to move back to India and fight the social struggles.
I don't know.

I pray for the strength to always just do what feels right to me and what makes me happiest. WHATEVER that means I have to do.
If I knew I had that strength, I wouldn't have this fear.

Appa

There are a number of things that I have felt my parents could have done a better job at (with respect to bringing me up). Especially appa - coz amma mostly followed appa's directions.

But the last poem reminded me of one thing that they (especially appa) did so perfectly that it seemed like it came naturally to them without any effort.

"Don't expect your children to love you, so they can, if they want to."

And that one thing I know is the F*ING hardest thing to do. I don't know if its humanly possible to feel that way even with intense effort. And to be able to do it naturally must mean some Godliness got into appa somehow.

That makes me angry with him for making me guilty forever.... guilty of not ever being able to match-up; guilty of not even knowing what to do to match-up; guilty of not repaying the debt; guilty that I can't offer my child what he offered me. And guilty that  I don't think I will ever have the guts to tell him how highly I think of him for just this one trait.

How To Be Perfect

Myself and some people very close to my heart have always loved Rudyard Kipling's "If". We hoped it would be our guiding principle to life (although it's been very hard to make that happen :) ). 

This poem below that I heard on NPR reminded me of Kipling's "If".... albeit a seemingly simpler version. [Note that I say 'seemingly' - it sounds simple but has some very profound nuggets like this one: "Don't think that progress exists. It doesn't." ]

                                    How to be Perfect 

                                                                         by Ron Padgett

Get some sleep.

Eat an orange every morning.

Be friendly. It will help make you happy.

Hope for everything. Expect nothing.

Take care of things close to home first. Straighten up your room
before you save the world. Then save the world.
Be nice to people before they have a chance to behave badly.

Don't stay angry about anything for more than a week, but don't
forget what made you angry. Hold your anger out at arm's length
and look at it, as if it were a glass ball. Then add it to your glass 
ball collection.

Wear comfortable shoes.

Do not spend too much time with large groups of people.

Plan your day so you never have to rush.

Show your appreciation to people who do things for you, even if
you have paid them, even if they do favors you don't want.

After dinner, wash the dishes.

Calm down.

Don't expect your children to love you, so they can, if they want 
to.

Don't be too self-critical or too self-congratulatory.

Don't think that progress exists. It doesn't.

Imagine what you would like to see happen, and then don't do
anything to make it impossible.

Forgive your country every once in a while. If that is not 
possible, go to another one.

If you feel tired, rest.

Don't be depressed about growing older. It will make you feel 
even older. Which is depressing.

Do one thing at a time.

If you burn your finger, put ice on it immediately. If you bang
your finger with a hammer, hold your hand in the air for 20
minutes. you will be surprised by the curative powers of ice and
gravity.

Do not inhale smoke.

Take a deep breath.

Do not smart off to a policeman.

Be good.

Be honest with yourself, diplomatic with others.

Do not go crazy a lot. It's a waste of time. 

Drink plenty of water. When asked what you would like to 
drink, say, "Water, please."

Take out the trash.

Love life.

Use exact change.

When there's shooting in the street, don't go near the window.

To Happiness

Heard this poem om NPR radio. The poem is simply about a guy inviting his friend to stay over for sometime. But in it, I saw the essence of what I consider a marriage to be. I read it as being written by someone who is inviting their chosen life partner to spend the life with them.

To Happiness
 - by Carl Dennis

If you're not approaching, I hope at least
You're off to comfort someone who needs you more,
Not lost wandering aimlessly
Or drawn to the shelter of well-lit rooms
Where people assume you've arrived already.

If you're coming this way, send me the details—
The name of the ship, the port it leaves from—
So I can be down on the dock to help you
Unload your valises, your trunks and boxes
And stow them in the big van I'll have rented.

I'd like this to be no weekend stay
Where a single change of clothes is sufficient.
Bring clothes for all seasons, enough to fill a closet;
And instead of a single book for the bedside table
Bring boxes of all your favorites.

I'll be eager to clear half my shelves to make room,
Eager to read any titles you recommend.
If we've many in common, feel free to suggest
They prove my disposition isn't to blame
For your long absence, just some problems of attitude,

A few bad habits you'll help me set to one side.
We can start at dinner, which you're welcome
To cook for us while I sweep and straighten
And set the table. Then light the candles
You've brought from afar for the occasion.

Light them and fill the room I supposed I knew
With a glow that shows me I was mistaken.
Then help me decide if I'm still the person I was
Or someone else, someone who always believed in you
And imagined no good reasons for your delay.

Creation

People finding one thing beautiful,
Think another unbeautiful,
Finding one creation sound,
They judge another unsound.
Yet, creation and destruction,
Difficult and easy,
High and low,
All arise from each other.
Since something and nothing
Give birth to one another,
Offer texture to a life,
And nourish the imagination,
A creative person accepts no rules,
And knows that opposites,
Are part of the whole.
Accepting everything as it is,
The let it come and go,
As something to participate in,
Yet not to dominate,
To nourish, yet not to possess.
In union with what is,
They give birth freely,
Without claiming authority,
For creativity is all around,
And within us all.

~ Lao Tzu

"Short term" vs "Near term"

I had some senior person proof read some work documentation that I wrote. I was told "short team goal" has a negative connotation and "near term goal" is the phrase to use instead. Interesting!

Also, I thought "enables us [insert any verb here; e.g. drive]" and "enables us to [insert any verb here; e.g. drive]" were both right. Wrong! The "to" is needed after the "enables us". Oh well...

So much that I dont know even in a language that I speak fluently!

Minesweeper

Played the game minesweeper? Its this game where there are mines and you need to discover all the mines without clicking on them.

Hubby said something profound today: "Dealing with some people is like playing the minesweeper game"

Tadaa!! :)

Is this my "problem-solver stage" in life?

Once, not very long ago at all, I used to cringe when friends tried to offer solutions to my problems when I cribbed to them about random issues in everyday life. I never used to crib to people in an effort to have them help me find a solution - that is not what I needed from them. I just wanted someone to hear me out. I just wanted an avenue to vent. Once I had had my vent session, my head would clear up enough for me to think through the issue rationally and come up with a solution myself. Or maybe I wouldnt even bother finding a solution. I could live with those issues as long as I had an outlet for my expressing my discomfort with them.

No more. I have become the person that I used to cringe at - the "problem-solver", the "solution-finder". A friend cribs to me and I HAVE to "help" them out by offering solutions. Issues in my life are "bugs to be resolved", "open items to be closed" or "ship-stoppers". As a close friend put it perfectly, is my work now re-modelling my personality?

Genghis Khan and I

I just started reading this interesting memoir of Genghis Khan. I am only about 20 pages into it, but for some reason it has started sparking thoughts into me about the ways in which a history-changing khan thinks and acts differently from someone like me. And I had to write down what to me were interesting observations.

One of Genghis Khan's strategy to scare tribes and kingdoms into surrender was to brutally kill his captives in public - burning them alive, using them as cannon balls, just to list a couple. Now that is superlative of cruelty by any standards. But at the same time, he was highly supportive of teachers and doctors and craftsmen, to the extent that he did not even tax them! I wasn't able to wrap my head around the kind of person that he was - did he suffer from MPD? How else can one be both barbaric and thoughtful towards fellow beings? Just as I was about to dismiss him as a confused personality, I realized that his thoughts, principles and priorities were at a totally different plane than mine. With goals as lofty as wanting to unite the world for the greater good of mankind and to reduce tribal feuds, one cannot afford to focus on lesser principles that do not hold any value towards the bigger vision. If brutal murder of a few human lives is what it takes to reduce further bloodshed and is what takes him closer to his all-human-race encompassing dream, then so be it!

Genghis Khan also played on the religious beliefs of common man in his elaborate ploy to earn their loyalities and turn them against those he did not like. This obviously indicates that he himself did not believe in those religious beliefs. What do we do when we do not believe in the religious practices of our families or our clan? We crib about it, refuse to follow them, argue with the folks who hold these beliefs and talk about how we would abolish these baseless beliefs if we got a chance to rule the world. What does this leader do? - he quietly realizes that these religious beliefs or practices were created for a social reason; and uses them to his advantage without creating a hullaballoo about it. If that means he has to act like he holds the same beliefs as the people he is trying to manipulate, then so be it! Participating in a few rituals and following a few pratices that holds no meaning for him is a small price to pay for the large win that it gets him.

The difference between an average human and a history-maker seems so small, but yet so large.

Language

Being at an agency and as a strategist for various client companies is so different from being a techie (even if as a Program Manager as opposed to a pure-bred-techie like a s/w developer) in a typical software company. In many expected ways... but in one unexpected way: because of the kind of people I interact with each day (the "cool" creative folks, the marketing folks, the people who pitch ideas to C-level executives at client companies etc) the language I get hit with is so much richer. Its a boon and a challenge - of course I get to learn these new flavors of the language, but at the same time getting to a point where this flavor becomes your own takes a while and until then I spend ten humble words in the place of one sublime one.

Anyway, this is neither a "oh-look-how-much-new-stuff-I-get-to-hear" quip, nor is it is "oh-I-need-to-catch-up" crib. It is just that I sat through one such meeting where beautiful (or at least interesting) forms of the English language spewed left-right-and-center and I am just in awe :).

Going the extra mile

Now THAT is what I mean by going the extra mile :):-

Subjects we should have been taught in school but werent

- Basic human psychology: Irrespective of what your profession is, all our life is spent in dealing with other human beings - many of them who are the tough-to-deal-with kind. So what an important lesson this would be!

- Professions of the world: When I chose my elective in 11th grade and even when I chose my major for my Bachelors, I had very little insight into the breadth of options available. Most of my education was without a vision into what I was studying towards. If I had known, maybe I would have become a millionaire matchmaker instead :p

- Privacy: No dearth of privacy related issues today, causing serious harm to numerous young lives. This should proove reason enough to have text books on the subject.

- Dating etiquette: A lot of us know from personal experience that a huuuugeee number of people have unbearable dating habits and don't really have the common sense to learn from experience :).

5 years of 8 hours a day-5 days a week and 3 companies later...

I've worked at 3 companies in 5 years. Everytime I changed jobs, people ask me how I like my new gig. I reply with a mundane and abstract "I like it, it is interesting". Here is the full story:-

My first ever job search, which was towards the end of my Masters graduation, lasted about 4 months. I went through bouts of the usual job search frustration and depression during those 4 months. I now know that 4 months of job search isnt much at all - but how am I to know that then, I was far less experienced. Anyways, at the end of the 4 months I got a job as a software engineer at Google. At that time, Google was THE celebrity among companies. And so, I almost became a celebrity too! - my university invited me to write a column in their alumni magazine; the first question most guys I dated asked me was - "so what is it like to work at Google?" (and they didnt stop at that... all they wanted to talk about was the free food and the perks and what not. oh, yes, I rejected them all :) ); when my aunt introduced me to her friends, her introduction always ended with a special emphasis on "she works for Google" (as if that was what defined me... hated it when she did that). I am sure my parents had their share of boasting about it among their circle. So well, yes, it did make me feel proud of myself.

I worked with a team that developed a platform for testing user's satisfaction of search results. The idea definitely sounds fun and it is! My work did indeed start out being fun. So when people initially asked me how I liked my job, my "I like it, it is interesting" was an honest response. But work soon turned out to be not so much fun because there were seniors in the team who took all the fun work. While I had brilliant ideas, I wasnt good enough at professional coding (I was only used to "research coding" until then, which is basically writing crappy code that is all over the place) to take complete ownership of my idea and code it efficiently all the way through with no help. So the work I ended up finally getting was pretty boring and I had to work long-long-long hours on things I didnt enjoy working on (yes, the free dinner comes with a catch ;-) ). I had no clue how to make the situation better - (1) I did not know how to get much better at coding; (2) I had no guidance either: because of Google's flat hierarchy, my manager had sooo many reportees under her that she had no time for me. (And to top it off, she was a bad manager - and I did not even realize it at that point because she was the first manager I ever had. You know what is bad and what is good only if you have seen them both before, right?).

After 1.5 years at Google, all I can say is my next MS Program Manager role was God-sent. I wasnt even looking for Program Manager roles then - I did not even know such roles existed. It just so happened that one day the opportunity presented itself and I grabbed it. I will get to why I now think that the job was God-sent, but before that, I have to tell you that the transition wasnt a bed of roses. In fact, it was pretty much a bed of thorns.

Most people around me only had this to say about my transition -"Why would you give up Google? Are you insane? Do you even know to make decisions?" I gave them a long-winded explanation about how I quit Google because I wanted to become a Program Manager and Google did not have a Program Manager role. It wasn't true. The truth was that Google was past because I couldn't handle staying there anymore. Why didn't I tell people the truth? - because they wouldn't understand it... why ever would anyone give up on what in everyone's eyes was a dream job in THE dream company.

Now for the God-sent part: I took up the PM job at MS because it seemed like the best option for me at that point. I was happy about my new role, but didn't think it was God-sent until about a month into my new role. That is when a few things dawned on me that made me realize the transition was perfect after all:
1) I realized I wasnt carved out to be a software engineer in the first place. I was never actually interested in the nitty gritties of writing good code. Design Patterns bored me. I loved coming up with lofty product ideas, but when it got down to actually implementing it, I floundered. Dont get me wrong - people who write code well are very very smart people (in all likelihood, smarter than me IQ wise) - I am just saying that it wasnt meant for me.
I realized that I did not have inherent interest in writing code and that explained my impassiveness in getting better at it. Yes, my Google manager was totally unavailable for guidance, but if I were really passionate about my job, I wouldnt have let that be a blocker.
2) My first manager at MS made a great manager - and that was the first time I realized what it means to be a good manager and how much of a difference it makes to have one. My new job taught me how NOT to put up with a jerk of a manager by showing me one who is not.
3) Many of us from India are software engineers just because our parents thought studying computer science and becoming a software engineer would result in the best ROI (good salaries, great opportunities to "escape" to the US, perfect for putting on the matrimonial biodata...). Frankly, that was my story too. I succumbed to my parents wishes and ended up being a software engineer at a large company. With my new PM job, I had managed to cut myself free finally and do things that actually made sense to me. How many people get the opportunity to change their careers at this stage without needing to pursue another degree first?
4) I learnt what roles work for me. I dont know how good or bad my IQ is, but I do have a good EQ. Consequently, roles that use my EQ work better for me. For example, customer empathy comes naturally to me - I can step in the shoes of the customer and fight for a feature I want. I can argue for how performant the customer would expect the product to be, but I am not as good though, at actually tweaking code to achieve that performance (which is probably more an IQ thing).

After Google and Microsoft, I have now moved to a much smaller company, one that most people havent even heard about. Joining this company was also about grabbing an unexpected opportunity that came my way. I was only looking for the regular Program / Product management roles, when this option presented itself. I had 2-3 other job offers apart from this one, all of the others being the regular Product Management roles. I decided to take this up just because I felt this was the time and age when I had the flexibility to try something different - something that I woudln't have once I became a mom or once I had travelled far enough into my career path. In my current role, I consult with client companies to help their define their business and product strategies. I'll use another post, another day to write more in detail about my current job, but for now, let me just say that this is one more step closer to what I have fun doing.

When I met my aunt a few weeks back, she asked me -"What kind of a company is that? No one seems to have heard of it". I dont care... I am at a happier place :).

The point of this blog post isnt to deride one company or job role and hail another - not at all. The point is 3-fold:
1) It is a mere exclamation at how long and how much it took for me to even realize what kind of a job satisfies me. A lot of people realize their passion much sooner in their lives; some others dont need to go through multiple job changes to realize what I came to realize - it is all just basic common sense to them. But I am not them and I am what I am.
2) It is about how much I have come to realize that life is made more fun by going slightly out of your comfort zone now and then, to grab opportunities. That is what "God-sent" is all about.
3) Most importantly - it is a reminder to myself about how I once judged myself based upon how others saw me, but have since then realized that true freedom is the ability to judge oneself and the ability to use that as the only means of judgement.

How much tolerence should one have?

I have lived in the US for 8 years now. I have my own life now and this is the life I know and am happy with.

I am unable to tolerate when my parents or in-laws interfere in how I lead my life and how I get my things done. For one, they do not know how life works here in the US. And even if they did, I am more than an adult now and they should just let me be.

Am I mean in not wanting them to interfere? Do they get the rights to interfere given they spent a whole number of years providing for me and bringing me up? Should I be more considerate because they live many many miles away and so have a more-than-usual concern about our well-being?

I agree parents can interfere if their son or daughter were doing something as grave as taking drugs, even if that son or daughter were 40 years old. But where does one draw the line about where they can interfere and where they cannot? Is it now our time to train our parents to our ways, just like how they trained us to their ways during our growing-up years? How do I convince them that this is the stage in their life where they should try to not worry over their children, be stress-free and enjoy the world around them with the money they earned over the past many years? Or would that be too much to expect from Indian parents?

Will I understand their concern only when I become a parent myself, at which point, I will behave exactly like they do?

Do you people also face this dilemma?

Seeing your loved ones struggle + thoughts on evolution

Even if you have gone through the similar or even far more struggles in life, it is hard to see a loved ones struggle with something. My brother is in his post-graduation-job-hunting state, and is going through the typical frustration and depression that comes with it. I feel bad seeing him go through it, and I feel helpless. I know it will pass soon. I have been through that state twice or thrice in my life so far and know what it takes. I also know that it is these struggles that makes one a man.

And it is not like he is a kid... he is old enough to be able to deal with such struggles himself - so I am not too worried, even though I feel bad for him. But I cant imagine how stressful it must be for parents to deal with the struggles their kids go through!

This makes me think - doesnt life get progressively harder as we grow up (you just need to compare your school life to your current life to realize this)? Why is that? It is not the case for other animals. It wasnt even the case for stone age men. We just evolved to make lives harder for all of us - what are we progressing towards by making life only harder? Are we really evolving towards destruction as opposed to betterment or stability? Or is it that all this hardship is part of a process of evolving into a being greater than the human, who once evolved will live in peace?

(No, I am not depressed or worried, I am just thinking logically :) )

Recommendations from recent experiences

• Book: The Great American Bathroom Book (2 page summaries of all time famous books... best way to know which book to buy to read the full version)
• Movie: Inception (2010) (a brilliant concept, a complex but gripping storyline with numerous undercurrents, giving way to lots of interpretations)
• Place: Mendocino, CA (a wonderful showcase to the breathtaking pacific coast)
• Food: Sayur Lodeh (an Indonesian dish that is a lot like avial); tofu skin salad (looks something like this; is cold and kind of bland, but I love it!)
• TV show: Good Eats (loads of trivia about food - one ingredient per show)
• Online shopping: thisnext.com (has some really fun and cool designs; great for home decor and for gift shopping if you are looking to buy something that is really unique)

Keeping track of achievements

There was this project that I worked on, for which I worked a lot and the results turned out pretty good too. But I only worked the regular hours - did not burn the midnight lamp or go without lunches on days etc. Because it was relatively smooth that way, I did not feel like it was a big achievement or anything.

Soon after, I was asked to write a case study based on the project. Only when I got down to writing it - detailing the journey, listing out the achievements etc - did I realize that the accomplishment was pretty huge.

Lesson learnt - It really really makes a huge difference to take the time to write down your achievements to both reward yourself with a sense of accomplishment for what you did and to give you the confidence to talk in pride about all you've done.
And most importantly, you have something to look at and make you feel better when things arent going that great.

Other people's lives

- I just came to realize that this happens to almost everyone, not just me: There comes a time in life when you walk away from all the pointless drama and people who create it.

- You see so many people around you - colleagues, friends, friends of friends. You hear their stories from them, you read stuff about them on their blogs and facebook profiles. You monitor their activity on twitter. You analyze their careerpath on linkedin. And then you think you know what there is to know. The thing is - you dont. What you hear and see is only the mundane stuff. What is never told is the real story. Everyone's lives are more complicated than you think they are.