A leap of Faith, literally

This post is for my dear friend and colleague, Edwin - congratulations to you and Belle on the birth of your daughter - Faith! I am very very happy for you guys.

Running out of options

This afternoon will see two important things happen for me at work - performance appraisal for 2007, and discussion on what role/job I want to do in 2008. For the first, I am not very hopeful since I frankly feel that I did not do much last year at work. Partly because of my own lack of interest, but mostly due to the unstable work environment. On paper I did have a boss for the first 8 months of my role but I hardly ever saw him. I had taken up the challenging role, hoping to learn and gain knowledge from him, but that never happened. And then he left abruptly - while I was out of the country - without bothering to let me know when he very well knew I wouldn't be here on the day of his departure. I feel it smacks of irresponsibility from all angles.

The bigger and more difficult issue at hand is what role do I want to take up in 2008? This has been a constant source of tension for me for the past few months. Frankly, there is nothing in this organization that appeals to me - given the kind of people and politics, any role seems to be a waste of time. But I got to do something - not only for bread and butter, but also because I cannot live with the fact that I am getting a salary for doing nothing. I would like to earn what I am being paid for. So far, the only time I have been happy (a very rare thing) at work is when I worked in a development team with a few other people who were motivated and driven. Such people are a rarity here, and if they do happen to be here by mistake, they leave soon, given the amount of unnecessary politics that plagues people. Other than that, it is the same mess everywhere within this department. Or is it true of the company in general? Where do I go now? My heart says that I should just leave this department and try something completely new - new domain, new role, new colleagues, new seat! But would that necessarily advance my long term career? Or should I not care, since whatever I do in these 6 years is not going to help my future career anyway? Should I just give up the technical field and take up one of those project mgmt positions? Or should I go into sales, which here pretty much means "selling without understanding what the department does, and then let the delivery team bear all the shit". Or should I go join one of those sexy-sounding but flaky cost centers inside the company whose job scope is very fluid? I have so many equal choices out there, yet I feel I am running out of options. And I still have 33.5 months more left to serve! I got to find something that can make me happy - if not monetarily, then by virtue of the role itself. 3 years is a long time to remain unhappy, isn't it?

On a not so lazy Sunday morning

Sundays are usually for sleeping in - to catch up on those hours of lost sleep during the week. Last night, I slept soundly after a long time and was hoping (sub-consciously ofcourse) that I could continue my blissful sleep until late morning. I was having a dream sequence composed of Govinda (a Bollywood actor) and Julia Roberts involved in competing for a race on finding something inside a safe inside some room down some stairs. And Julia Roberts had just beaten Govinda by getting into the room first (Govinda got confused between 3 doors and chose the left most instead of the right most) and opening the safe, when my bladder jolted me out of my dream and send me straight to the bathroom. And that was the end of my Sunday sleep-in - at 7:30 AM. Once I get out of bed for any reason, I can never get back to the business of sleeping.

Having woken up early, I decided to finish off some chores around the house, and then thought I would surprise Nirva by making omelets for breakfast. I decided to catch the last day of the 2nd Test match between India and Australia at Sydney, while having my breakfast. I hope India can draw this test (a win would be just out of the world!!!) so that series still remains alive. And I really hope the racism accusation on Harbhajan Singh gets sorted out fairly - if he is indeed found guilty, then ban him, but if he is not, I think the Australian captain and the team needs to be given a rap for bringing such a serious charge against a player with no evidence.

By the way, if you are wondering why Bollywood and Hollywood actors figured in a race in my dream, I can explain - So happens that that evening I was reading a news report featuring Julia Robert's role in her latest movie (Charlie Wilson's War) and how she could be nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar. And during dinner, I was watching the music video of songs from the movie Salaam-E-Ishq featuring Govinda. And during the day, while watching TV, I had seen many ads regarding the Amazing Race Asia. I think these 3 things combined together to produce my vivid dream-:)

P.S. As I type, India have lost their 2nd wicket. I really hope we can last out the remaining 60 overs and not lose this test.

ESS = Lip Service?

Today, I saw an email in my Inbox asking us to fill out the customary annual Employee Satisfaction Survey (or ESS). Year after year I have filled it out diligently - not only providing responses to the multiple choice questions, but also to the additional comments column that most people leave empty. But I sometimes wonder if all this ESS business is mere lip service? In the 3 years I have filled this out, my constant theme has been that managers in this company are not people managers. Yes, they can do profit & loss management (only some of them do it well to be true) and relook at processes (again some of them don't even have a clue about this) - but is that all that a manager is required to do? I believe that in the SI (Systems Integrator) line of work, people are your greatest (and perhaps only) assets, because people design the systems that the company eventually sells to make profit. So shouldn't a major part of company's resources be devoted to people's well being? Good employee benefits and DnDs are all fine, but the most important aspect of this are the managers. This group must have people management skills as a key competency - they must be able to talk to employees, motivate them, help them build their careers and give them that sense of satisfaction and pride at work. There is no use lamenting why the turnover is so high. And there is no use offering people more money the moment they throw in the letter. I don't think all people are solely after money. If the company cannot offer a good career path to its employees and if the managers are not competent in people management, i don't see why an employee will stay beyond 1-2 years. And I have repeated this point in all the 3 ESS. The question is whether this ESS is taken seriously or is it just another statistic, another chore that the HR has to do in order to meet its objectives - on paper?

A Healthy beginning to 2008!

Ever since I read in the news that the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network (PCN) has been completed, I have been wanting to go on a bike trail along this network. For those who do not know what is PCN, check this site. It basically connects the different parks on the eastern side of Singapore. This is what the network looks like:

Nirva and I wanted to do this last weekend, but to our dismay we found out that her bike was flat and we could not pump in the air at the gas station (the bike shops were all closed since it was a sunday). So I thought, what better way to start the New Year than going on this bike trip on the 1st of Jan! I got her bike fixed on the 31st so that the only thing that could keep us from doing this is our own lethargy-:) Although we got up late, we decided to go for it anyway - the weather was the deciding factor - it was cloudy and windy and the temperatures were low for 2:30 in the afternoon.

So we set out, in full josh, from our home with a bottle of water and a camera (without which this blog post would be quite boring). After crossing the train station (Kembangan) next to our home, we headed into the Siglap Park Connector. From there on we biked for about 4.5km before hauling our bikes up an overhead bridge, which took us right into the East Coast Park (ECP).

We rode along the scenic East Coast Park until we reached the cable skiing area, at which time we decided to take a much needed break (as seen in the picture on left). After resting for a bit, we decided that to do the entire 42km stretch would be a bit too much for the day - so we decided to do the shorter (18km) route that goes through bedok park connector instead of the coastal park connector. This entailed taking the bikes via an underground tunnel to reach the Bedok Park connector. I hauled both Nirva's bike and mine and finally we were on our way on the Bedok Park Connector.

Little did we know that the Bedok Park connector would run for such a long distance. And we were also pleasantly surprised when we saw the Bedok Road Food Court en route. We really could not resist taking a break and having the famous Cheng Tng from this food centre (as shown on the right). Nirva and I enjoyed the cold and hot varieties respectively of the Cheng Tng

Fully rejuvenated, we decided to carry-on uninterrupted for a while since we had taken too many breaks in succession. The next leg of our biking adventure along the loooooong Bedok Park Connector brought us to the canal that runs across the Bedok Reservoir. It really seemed very scenic indeed and the weather added to the charm. Right before reaching the Bedok Reservoir, we had to dismount to push our bikes across another overhead bridge (across a ramp). It would be so much better if these bike paths could allow for uninterrupted cycling - going through these overhead bridges and underpasses really breaks the flow. Anyway, there we were, right at Bedok Reservoir and we decided to move on, since it was already 3 hours since we had started on our bike hike. We crossed into the Bedok Town Park after some confusion with the directions.

This turned out to be the hardest part of the journey. The bike path through Bedok Town Park was a series of slopes and it really took the life out of us. We decided to dismount and just push our bikes through the upslopes until we reached level ground again. All of a sudden, the bike path ended and before us loomed an overhead bridge with no ramps! We realized that we would have to really push our bikes up along the stairs of the overhead bridge and that seemed daunting, given our energy levels. But, we had no choice and so we braced ourselves and conquered the bridge-:). But the reward for crossing the bridge was very heartfelt - we realized that we had come to the area where we normally jog until - that meant that home was not far away - YAY! This gave us energy enough to pedal our way onto another overhead bridge (this time with ramps) that leads right into our HDB estate. We were finally home! We had covered about 18km in 3.5 hours - albeit with numerous breaks in between - but we had done it! Mission accomplished - now give it to the shutterbugs please-:)

Happy New Year!

Hi all - a very happy new year to you and your family! I just looked at the last (and the first) post I made on this blog and I am ashamed - it has been almost 4 and half months of laziness on my part. I really hope I can blog more regularly in 2008. I feel it is a good way to collect my thoughts and review things happening in my life.

So how did you spend the night of 31st Dec 2007? My housemates and I invited some friends over and we played board/card games like UNO and Risk. We ordered Pizza for dinner from Sarpinos Pizzeria (I know this might sound strange to those in the US but having good pizza in Singapore is a rarity) and counted down 10 seconds before midnight. This was followed up by some dancing, of which i was a reluctant participant - but i did enjoy some of the salsa moves. It felt good putting the 4 weeks of salsa lessons to use. I think salsa is a lot fun when the girl really lets the guy lead with no pre-conceived moves in mind.

The next day (1st Jan 2008) was a holiday and Nirva and I decided to start the New Year on a healthy note. We decided to go on this 42 km bike trail - the parks on the eastern side of Singapore are now connected to each other and the whole trail is 42 km in length. We started at about 2:30 in the afternoon - the weather was really nice - cloudy and windy. In the end we did only 18km, but it was so much fun. I will post in greater detail about the bike trail later (with photos).

Another good thing I did yesterday was to call all my mamas (uncles on my mother's side) and talk to them. During the last year, I did not call any one regularly besides Shankar mama, mostly out of laziness, and also because Shankar mama and I can really talk about a variety of things ranging from politics to books to movies to cricket etc. Now when i was in India, I was really very close to all my 4 mamas - so at some point of time last year, my other mamas started feeling a bit left out and thought that I was not very keen on talking to them - when that was definitely not the case. So I forced myself to sit near the telephone and call each one of them one by one and talk to them for at least 15 min each. I also spoke with my cousin and her wife and heard the first words from my niece's mouth - it was just wonderful! At the end of it, I was a bit exhausted after being on the phone for about 2 hours - but it felt very good. It felt that I had started off 2008 on just the right notes - be it personal health or relationships. These are 2 of the 3 things I want to work on in 2008.

The 3rd and the hardest thing for me is to address my work - it has been 4 months since I have really lost any interest whatsoever in my job. The workplace itself seems to be going from bad to worse - come to think of it, it has been unstable since I joined in 2004, with no signs of getting settled ever. I would so want to just get out of this place and do something on my own - but I have 3 more years of my bond to serve. I really must force myself to think clearly and talk to my managers about getting into a meaningful job position here - after all I can't sit here unhappy and under-utilized for 3 years! I just need to do this for myself - for my own good. I do wish I can break all self-imposed barriers and get on this task asap - that would really make the start of this New Year absolutely rocking!