Importance of clear communication

Sometime when we communicate to people surrounding to us, we felt that whatever we are communicating to them, they are getting it completely. But when we try to communicate further on the same topic we have discussed few days back, we came to know they they could not get the discussion even half at that time.

Similar case has been happened with me when I was chatting with my client on Skype. We have discussed some functionality and both came to conclusion that we have understood completely. But when I was trying to rediscuss the same thing for some clarification, I came to know that our perspective were not matching at that time.

The reason for this mismatch in communication was, He was assuming that I already have that kind of mindtest in which he live. So he didn;t explain the details about that. And that causes the confusion.

Anyway I have learned one more thing from this, Listen carefully to other and also document whatever discussion has been happened. Review it again for better understanding and ask about clarification without any hesitation. Through this way only we can avoid the mis-communication.

These days, I am enjoying my holidays in my friend house in Karol Bagh. Here everything that you need is very close to house. So we never have to think twice.

Here is also one school in front of the house. In this school every morning one can see children playing, exercising and performing lot of extra curricular activities. One morning i saw group of children performing Yogic exercises. Everyone was performing Suryasana very well except their Instructor. In fact she was the one who was not doing yoga at all. Also her body structure was also explaining that she can't do yogic exercise, but she was instructing whole group of children to do yogic exercises.

After seeing this, the thought came to my mind was, how can be possible to learn from an instructor who does not have any knowledge of the subject that he/she was instructing.

I also discussed same thing with my friend, according to him, "Here, we don't assign the job to a person who is capable for that, instead always assign job to a person that we know is not capable but expect from that person to do well in that job."

Selecting a suitable organization

Although title seems that it is going to explain how to select a suitable organization to work, when you have expertise in one area and want to pursue your career in that area only for long run. But in fact it puts up questions rather than giving answers before selecting a suitable organization. Here in this case i am taking an example of my close colleague. It might be same for others too who has the same feeling as he had.

Right now after working in IT industry over 4.5 years in J2EE platform, He has decided that he is going to continue his career in JAVA only. But since last few months people who were leading the project wants him to leave the JAVA and enter into build and installer area that he was not looking for. So things happened like, he have to leave the projects.

Now these days he is looking for suitable opportunity that should be well aligned with his career goals. But some time he got confused weather he should go for managerial area or technical area.

So If any one has suggestion on his situation please make comment. People who had already faced that phase are most welcome to comment on this.

Having a Bad Lead or Boss

I don't know how many of you have ever faced this situation. But I faced it at the very beginning of my career when i just entered into the software industry. That was the time when lot of product companies were here in NCR region. And each of them were having one office in United States.

I joined River Run Software as a fresher and got involved in a project where every team member was having more than five year experience at that time. except one guy who was my two year senior. In that project i got a bad boss, who was not having much experience with handling freshers i guess. So he was treating me like normal experience guy and was behaving like same.

Soon I got fed up with him and feeling bored in the project. Apart from that he usually kept a constant vigilance on me and push me to stay late and finish the job by that day itself. In fact he usually used to push the whole team to do same. That gave me really bad experience and i changed myself as defensive rather than creative and innovative person.

So after working with that guy around one and half year, I joined the Induslogic. Here i got a best lead i would get ever. He knows how to handle the fresher as well as some normal experienced guy. I gave my best during the whole duration i worked with him around two years. That is the person i would like to work always in my future too.

Then I got the chance to go to client side at Clarus System. Here also my luck was good. And i got a really good VP. She was also having lot of experience how to work with experience guys. i also enjoyed working with her for about six months.

Now bad time starts for me, may be to teach me few lesson required in life. I got a bad boss in the Clarus itself as new VP has joined the company after sacking old one. This guy was also tries to keep pushing the guy till the guy does not oppose. I am not that kind of guy who likes to be pushed always. For me, all that matters is the result. So Bosses should only care about that. They should not care about the timing invested in the office by a sub-ordinate. So that was a bad experience of about three months.

Here after joining Induslogic India office, I joined in a new project. Here also the same issue. I guess my bad luck was continued. But this time i was prepared how to tackle this. And i opposed the kind of keep pushing behaviour. In result Lead felt bad. I discussed the matter with him and explained him my way of work. Up to some extent we both agreed not to do this again.

Now i am working with different lead and it seems to me, he is good person as i always look for. Basically he is a logical person who understand the things first and then forward it to us how to execute. I like this kind of behaviour. And i am in hope that things would surely improve in future.

Fighting with myself

Sometimes it happens to me that i have to fight with my inner-self to prove that i am correct or vice verse. This situation arises when i tried to create my image in eyes of some body else which doesn't reflect my true image wholly or partially. For example, Some friends thinks that i am a miser person who does not spend money easily.

But my definition of miser is little different, i.e. person who does not spend money easily when needed. So usually if person is close i tries to explain him my perspective of miserliness. but when person who is not close or i have just met, it usually becomes little difficult for me to pursue him. And then self fighting starts for either my definition is correct or what people thinks is correct.

For example like yesterday's incident, i was returning from Oakland after moving luggage of my friend on his new hotel. There in hotel, i met many new people who were working for the same client for which my friend was about to start. After meeting and talking with them, i decided to return back to San Francisco on the same day as another friend was about to come in my Unit.
Way of returning from Oakland is, one has to reach the nearest BART Station and then catch the BART to San Francisco. That nearest BART station was around 15-20 minutes distance by walk, as per hotel staff updated me. So i put this suggestion to all other people. One of them give me a look like, if i am fearing of spending $1.50 just for reaching the BART station.
Although that was true, But I don't want to show them that feeling, instead of trying to give them another way for thinking. I explained them that it is not like that i don't want to catch Bus, instead i want to cover that distance by foot, so that when i have to come back alone, i should not forgot the way. Then i saw on the faces of those people, it seems to me that they were convinced.
Although finally i catch the bus only and found that distance was more than 15-20 minutes. But my inner self was not convinced that time with the explanation i had given to those people. Finally i have to told my self that whatever explanation i had given that time was the correct. It took me more than 30 minutes to pursue myself for that. But at last i was successful.:)

Bothering with strange feeling

I am a professional in software industry since last four years and doing well in other's (not me!) perspective. Although I do my job with great enthusiasm and dedication and tried to finish the job with almost no issues, but sometimes, I could not achieve the stage of perfect ness as I have expected from myself. But for that, I believe that is fine too, as it also helps in some form of improvement.

But I realize one issue within me during four years span of my experience. This issue always comes after three or four months of joining new projects. Whenever I join new project, I tries my best to keep my learning curve high, so that I can cover all information in fewer time than anyone else. During learning curve, I felt so much excited that I can't explain here in words.

But as soon as I learned in good extent about the project and felt comfortable working with project, I felt bored with the project just after working for one or more month in that project with my full capacity. It seems to me that there is nothing new to do in the project. Sometimes even situation got so worse that I don’t feel to do any work that is related to the project for few continuous days, and that situation makes the matter worse. Even sometimes that raised the concern within myself that if I am heading in right direction for my future.

At that time I extremely felt to search something new in technology or anything that I have not done earlier. In this whole process, I evaluate myself very badly and then felt frustrated. This feeling continues until I do something new in any forms, weather it was related with software industry or anything else. For example sometimes finding new website that help others for some troubleshooting provide me satisfaction or finding a new News website in Hindi, even learning cooking was also one possible solution for me to come out of that situation.:)

I am not aware if any one else has also felt the same with oneself. As I never heard other people to say like this. So I am trying myself to overcome this issue.

Understand the difficulties attached with simple task

Sometime you don’t realize that, some things that might be so obvious to you may be too hard for other. For Example e-Mail, it seems so easy for us that we don’t think that it might be hard for other. If you are also in the same state, think again!

My father has started to send me e-mails few months back. For me sending email is just like doing daily activities. Believe me! Being in software industry, this happens to everyone I can bet.

Today when I saw the mail from my father, I don’t know how I realized that sending mail to him be quite difficult. As he has to learn everything from scratch, that includes, starting Windows, opening the internet explorer window, open the mail web site (he use yahoo), login into the e-mail account; compose the mail, writing the e-mail address and sending it through clicking send button. But more than that, believing that e-mail has actually been sent. (Just try to remember when you send your first mail).

I think he had done the great job and he learned so quickly, even I can’t think of it, when I would be of that age. I am proud on my Father.