Damn’d

New York is an amazing city. By night, it gets even more interesting.

So instead of sitting all night in a bar on a friday night, we (Esther, Roma and I ) decided to do some ‘Night Photography’.

After dinner at Cowgirl (which had amazing pulled pork but horrible BBQ ribs) on Hudson st, we spent the next hour or so walking down Bleeker, 8 th Avenue, and ultimately finishing up at 6th and 14th.

Here are some of the pics below… and yes, I did take a picture of a man peeing into a telephone booth. Unbelievable, but i guess its a ‘new yorkish’ thing to do

Most gyms have ’tissue wipes’ for wiping the treadmill / elliptical trainer clean after you are done using them.

Most people don’t bother using them and usually walk off.

Today, the guy on the elliptical finished a few minutes before me and was pottering around as his wife was still on the treadmill. He had ofcourse not bothered to wipe it clean.

After I was done, I wiped up my elliptical and moved to the weights area. The guy had seen me doing it, and i was wondering what he would do next.

Surprise !! He got some wipes and wiped his machine. He obviously was not a regular ‘wiper’ because it was already a good ten minutes since he had finished so I assume he did it because he saw me doing it.

I guess most folks dont do the ‘right’ stuff because either they are too lazy about it or it just doesnt strike them…(another example which is very aptly explained in this awesome ad here.)

So if you want some things to change, lead by example

What is the Peter Principle ?

Its basic thesis is that workers in an organization are promoted to their highest level of competence, after which they become incompetent, thus resulting in work being done by those who are yet to reach their level of incompetence. More about it here

Just realizing how true it is !

The larger a company gets, the more the problem get exacerbated…

How do you motivate such employees ?
How do you ensure they are productive ?
How do you ensure that they dont mess up the people below them ?
Most importantly,how do you find the “Peter’s” in your company ?

While there maybe no simple answers for a company, as an individual, its important to understand and be self aware, to constantly evaluate if you have already turned into ‘Peter’…or are on your way to becoming a ‘Peter’…

Coz if you have, its time to hit the road

The Donkey and the Dog- Read and think-You may find one in your midst.

There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep too but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.

The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn’t bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.

Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.
Moral of the story ” One must not engage in duties other than his own”

Now take a new look at the same story…

The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey’s extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet.
The dog’s life didn’t change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dog’s duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed “ME” (Met Expectations) .

Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.

The donkey was rated as ” star performer”. The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards.

Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a NEW JOB …

Source: Internet fwd via Neetu Mishra

Saw this awesome sight while driving home…The Empire State Building in New York displaying the colours of the Indian flag atop its mast…awesome …

Happy Independence Day

P.S: The fuzzy pic ofcourse does not do justice to the actual vista…wish i had a better camera..

Watching a collection of MJ’s videos on the flight, I realised that he didn’t die recently. Atleast not for me

For a long time, I used to be a huge fan. Discovered him when I was in Std IV in a boarding school near Darjeeling.

Like it happens all ‘only boys’ schools there were times when you got into fist fights. During one of those fights, the guy I had just clocked, instead of punching back called me a ‘blackie’. I was dark and he was a ‘ fair’ guy.

To an impressionable 8 yr old, it hurt more than any punch.

And it was MJ’s ‘Black or White’ which helped at that point of time.

However, more than the social message, it was his music that I really liked. You could just hum most of his songs…even though i couldnt understand most of the lyrics, i just loved hearing the songs…

Those were also the days when magnetic cassette tapes were still in use and hard to come by. And they were expensive too (alteast compared to a school kid’s pocket money )

I used rent them from some of  the rich scmucks at school during the weekends. Later when I got my own Walkman, rather than buy whole albums , I would get a bootlegger to write about 12 songs on a blank tape. They cost like 5 bucks a song and were a much better deal than buying a single album.

I guess you could call me a cheap ‘fan’ but it was tough spending half your month’s worth of pocket money on single tapes.

Oh, those were the days.

Gradually, high school turned into college and Michael turned from black to white.(and i guess also went bankrupt fighting the child molestation accusations). He also stopped producing the kind of music that I liked. The breaking point came for me when i bought ‘ Blood on the dance floor’ and didn’t like a single song

Life moved on and he sort of faded from memory. Till ofcourse a few days ago.

Today when, I think about it, it’s amazing the amount of sub conscious impact his music has had on me, unlike that of any other musician.

As somebody was saying the other day, ” oh he was only 50 and should have lived longer”.

I don’t disagree with, that. However, in his 50 yrs, he has lived life on his own terms and more importantly ‘done his thing’ , creating history in the process.

Which is what counts at the end of the day.

May he R.I.P

Saw this old iMac in the trash room left by somebody who has no more use for it .

Wonder how will it be disposed off ?
Wonder if apple has a formal policy for reclycing stuff ?
Wonder if the user could have disposed it off in a more environment friendly manner ?
Wonder if it will end up in a developing country ?
Wonder if will even be useful in it’s current format in a developing country?
Wonder if I am wondering too much and ‘Waste Management’ will dispose it off appropriately ?

What would you have done ?

DSCN0351

Originally uploaded by abhikprasad

Saw the fireworks on the Hudson river as part of the 4th of July celebrations. Took some pictures but I don’t think any picture or video can capture the experience of seeing it ‘live’…was Awesome with a capital A

Check out some more pics on my Flickr photostream by clicking on the pic above.

Spent 3 hours in a line outside the apple store from 7 in the morning to get the new iPhone

I know there are like 21 million of them out there so thought that these things would be easier to get… Apple apparently doesn’t think so.

It almost felt like they were doing me a favour by allowing me to buy it… The way the lines were organized by the almost condescending apple staff (orange concierges) to the herding in store almost made me feel like my first day at school the fact that I paid over $300 for it almost seems incidental

But they have built a fantastic product and I guess are very much aware…

And it really is cool and not really a phone…again like the price, thefunctionality for making calls is almost incidental

Trying to blog from the wordpress app on the iPhone…seems pretty simple at the moment. Hopefully the writing will be more regular

is that service for Indians at Indian restaurants in the US is so pathetic ??

Or is it just me (and my ultra sensitive nerves when it comes to customer service )