HR Masti and Making money

Actually they are two different things and deserve separate posts ... anyway here goes ...

1. HR Masti

An incident which happened in the HR class this week ... Prof was a pretty good one ... draws parallels to things in day to day life to explain HR concepts ... has good insights about the reasons behind the different kinds of policies that a company might have ...

Topic was about performance appraisals in organizations ... He asked the class about issues in this process.

(Switching from past tense to present tense ...)

A girl in class offers a point ... "During the period in which a person is appraised, he might have had a month of good performance and a month of bad performance for whatever reason ... The rating given to him should neither reflect the former nor the latter and should reflect only the average of his performance throughout the year" ...

The prof gets a bit disturbed upon hearing this point ... He raises his voice a bit and asks ... how can u take the average of performance ?!? if u r a boss, do u want a person who has spikes and troughs in his performance or uniform / consistent performance ?!? what would u want ?!?

He then moves on to an example in real life to make us understand ...

Let us say there is a pond of water whose "average" depth is 1 meter ... will cross the river without a boat ?!? Ur height would definitely be more than 1 meter ... why not cross ?!? Will u cross ?!? The girl, obviously, did not answer and was regretting having made the point (which is not @ all rare ... every person goes through this cycle every other day in class) ...

The prof has efficiently got across his point ... "average" quantities should NOT be used in certain cases ...

Everybody in the class is able to see the funda ... except for one guy ... Let us call him Tim ... Tim had been doing a lot of mugging the previous night and is unable to control nodding off in class ... He is blissfully unaware of the proceedings of the class, right from the point that Katyayini made her point ... And he is sitting in the first row ...

The prof is still a bit disturbed that such a simple thing has to be mentioned in class ... He is not getting the answer from this girl ... He looks around trying to catch anybody else who may answer ... Unfortunately, he takes a look @ Tim ...

"Tim ... Will you cross the river ?!?"

Tim woke up with a start !!! He has absolutely no idea about the context in which the question is asked ... He has to do some quick thinking ... reflects upon the last question which the prof directed at him ...

Answers "No Sir" ... Prof. is happy ... Tim is a bit relieved ... Thankful that his hunch based on the question alone was right ...

Prof. pushes Tim further ... "Why would u not cross" ... Tim is cornered now ... Wracks his brain wondering how crossing a river relates to any funda @ all in HR ... Gives up ... And then gave the answer which set the whole class in laughter for the first time since the course started ... It was as if a huge wall of ice broke at that single moment ...

"BECAUSE I WILL GET WET, SIR" !!!!!

Prof is like ... #@####$$$#@##$$ ... All his effort gone waste ... After all his effort, this guys talks about getting wet, of all things and not about drowning which was the crux of the argument !!!

"This is the first time in my teaching experience in PGP that I got such an answer ... I really do not know how to react ..." Thankfully the prof was in a good mood that day ...

Was a good ice breaker ... I am sure Tim will not doze off @least in HR class any further ...

2. Making money

What are the ways of making LOTS of money in this world ... I can think of two ways ...

a. Pursue whatever u love with the most intense passion ... Programming, balancing accounts, biking, painting, trading, gambling, marketing, pizza making, ... learning whatever is available in that field ... excelling in it ... attaining an advantage unique to u in that field ... ensuring that u retain the advantage relentlessly ... rest will fall in place ... the money will come sooner or later ...

OR

b. Become a Tahsildar ...

There was a particular form that I had to get filled by my parents and endorsed by a tahsildar ... Can u imagine the kind of money that was demanded for one signature ... FIVE THOUSAND BUCKS ... Yes ... u read it right ... That is more money that what a brilliant programmer in India - working in say, the world's best paying s/w company, makes in one WHOLE day ... And the income is not taxable either.

Quit dreaming of becoming / grooming ur wards as CAs / Doctors / Scientists / Engineers / Artists / Researchers / Armed force employees / Entrepreneurs ... Groom them into Tahsildars instead ...