A friend v/s a colleague

A friend in need is a friend indeed. Each one of us need a friend who is there to help us in the times of need. Those of us who have a friend are really fortunate. And others who do not have, are in search of one.

Ever thought that your colleagues can be your friend? Let us take a scenario. Your friend joins the same organization for which you are currently working. He is now your colleague. You will definitely consider yourself lucky. He is going to be by your side through-out the day, may be even outside the office hours.

Now let's take the other scenario, where you are looking for a friend amongst your colleagues. This is not a very comfortable situation. Finding a friend is not a piece of cake.

If you are trying to figure out as to who among your colleagues can be good friend of yours, try to gauze how much he or she is interested in you. The following points can help:

Friend: Is interested in your life & career apart from his own.

Colleague: Is interested in you if you are helpful in his life & career.

Friend: Will share your workload if you need it, irrespective of his roles and responsibilities.

Colleague: Will ask you to share his workload.

Friend: Will wait for you so that you can join him for lunch.

Colleague: Will tell you that he had to miss his lunch to gain your sympathy.

Friend: Will share all the information with you irrespective of what you share with him.

Colleague: Will share information with you if can extract something more from you.

Friend: Will even wait for you after the office-hours so that both of you can leave together from the office.

Colleague: Not concerned as to when you leave the office.

Friend: If you are not well, he will be there to care for you in office, and outside the office.

Colleague: If you are not well, he will ensure that he does not get your workload.

If any of your colleagues satisfies most of the points mentioned above, then he/she is planning to be your friend.

Remember that the best way to make a friend is to be one. Look back at yourself & introspect whether you can be a friend to somebody or not.

If we don't focus...

When we are about to undertake a new task or new project, we need to ensure we don't lose our focus till the completion of the task. The sole purpose for which the task has been undertaken should not be forgotten, and all the activities that are done to complete the task should not conflict with the final purpose.

If the focus is lost, then the entire project goes haywire, and the end-product is something that nobody could have thought of during the initial stages.

Below is an example of one such project. The board displayed in the picture is meant to inform the travelers about a bridge ahead. This information appears at the very bottom of the board. Looks like the focus was somewhere else.

Quotes worth citing #3

Love is one of the most wonderful creation of God. It makes us happy at times & sad at other times, depending upon the situation. Love involves sacrifice too. A lover can give his life for the sake of his love. Without giving, love cannot exist.

This is the essence of the following quote that I found last week:

"You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving."

How to handle a person who complains continously

Many of us would have come across people who keep complaining about everything in this world. It is a very dificult situation for us as we may not agree with them but still we have to listen to all they have to tell us. How do we get out of such a situation?

I found the answer on the link given below. It says that the best way is to empathise with them. That is what they are looking for. Your empathy will give them a lot of self-satisfaction & assurance. For details, follow the following link.

How to handle chronic complainers

An Amazing Ad

Marketing a product requires an optimum mix of 4 Ps: product, price, promotion, & place. Most important definitely is the product. And the other three are equally important if you need to market the product well.

Look at the image below.

Can you tell what the following ad is for? This ad is for a special promo from the local bus transport service. The traveler can go around the entire city by paying only Rs. 2 ($0.05) with some conditions attached. Right?

In fact, this is an ad for a local daily in Bangalore, India. Think about the placement of this ad. Do you find it misleading………?

Why secret salaries are a bad idea

In most of the organizations the salary of the employees is kept a secret. This is done so that the management can avoid justifying the salary difference to the "lesser-paid" employees when compared to the "well-paid" employees. Many of accept it as a norm.

I happen to come to the following article, and it makes us aware as to what benefits a company can harvest if the salaries of the employees are made public. The followong are the highlights.

Making salaries public (inside the company of course) has some major advantages:

1. Salaries will become more fair. The system gets a chance to adjust itself.
2. It will be easier to retain the best employees because they’re more likely to feel they’re getting a fair salary.
3. The pressure is on the people with the high salaries to earn their keep. Everybody has to pull their weight - the higher the salary, the larger the weight.

Visit the link below to read the entire article.


Why secret salaries are a baaaaaad idea

Launch of Suggestica

It is said that books are the best friend of a man. They are one of the best source of guidance to all aspects of life. Today heralds the day for the launch of a website that has a very good collection of books written by various experts on many subjects. Please visit Suggestica (Beta version) and browse through the huge collection & enjoy...

Write down your goals

Last week there was some problem with the centralized server in our office due to which the server date was displaying a past date. Since all of us login into the server through our local machine, our system threw up a error message informing us that the local system time & the server time is different. When we opened Outlook to check our mails, the view was very different. Outlook displayed mails categorized as "Tomorrow's Mails", "Next Week's Mails", & "Next Month's mail". It was so funny to imagine that we know what mails we are going to get in the future & what action we will be taking against them. How nice it will be if we get to know what will happen in future...!

Recently I was reading the book Goals by Brain Tracy. The entire essence of the book can be summarized in just one sentence: "You are responsible for your life". Another important lesson that the book teaches is that we should all have written goals. This works miracles. A goal that is written acts as a manager who is has given you deadline but leaves you on your own to decide how to accomplish it. So even though you may be busy in your daily activities, you will always have a nagging feel at the back of your mind that will remind you of the goal that YOU have set yourself. This feel make you undertake actions that will direct you towards the goal. And finally the goal will be achieved by you. There are always some pre-requisites for success of this kind. The goal should have a deadline. It is said that a plan is a goal with a deadline. With the deadline, our goal becomes a plan to succeed.

The deadline is similar to a mail that is labeled as "Next year's Mail"...

Quotes worth citing #2

We all would have heard that there is nothing bad in this world; every thing happens for our own good. But when the testing times come, we generally tend to forget this. We never realize that same situation can make us laugh at one time & cry at another time.

Remember a past situation that occured at least 5 years ago when you were shedding tears due to some reason. When you think about it today, mostly you will laugh at yourself wondering how could you cry for such a 'silly' reason. Now think of another situation where you were having a lot of fun with your best friend(s). This also should have occured 5 years or earlier. You will feel sad immediately, especially if you are not in touch with those friends. You will ask yourself as to where have those beautiful days gone? Two different situations, make us laugh & cry at different times. Isn't it?

My colleague Soumya send me the following quote that just explains everything above...

We always know that looking back on our tears would make us laugh. But we never know that looking back on the moments we laughed together would make us cry.