Apr 25, 2008

Some generic rant...

I am pissed. Genuinely pissed.
Nothing wrong with my life. Good job, loving parents, comfortable life, no one standing on my toes in the morning train, in short, no "life eej hard" feelings... but I am pissed all the same...

It is the little things tht irritate...
Like the other day, when I caught a cab... sat in the front seat (instead of the usual back seat)... and relaxed... had some wet feeling on the back of my shirt... thought I was sweating more than usual, blamed the mumbai weather for being soooo humid, and jus relaxed... I get down, and my shirt is practically clinging on to me... and then I look back, only to find a wet, dirty rag draped over the seat... I look at the cabbie questioningly, and he says, "arre saab, aapko batana bhool gaya... woh kya hai na... gaadi saaf karke kapde sukhane ke liye seat pe daal diya..."
and so, I go to office with a suspicious stain on the back of my white shirt... but, I did not get pissed then... you see, positive thinking, deep breathing and all that load of shit...

I come back home after a hard day, find the lift is not working, climb six floors, panting, huffing, thinking 'weight kam karna padega'... and remove my shirt... see that the stain is not too bad... or atleast i try to convince myself so... and while I switch on the TV, there goes a tag line "Daag acche hain"... grrr, THAT was when I got pissed...

Or this other day, after flying to and from Delhi, on an airline that prides itself on releasing a calendar full of hotties year after year... and finding, much to my dismay, that THIS particular flight did not have any stunning airhostesses... blaming my bad luck... not pissed... deep breathing you see... not panting, deep breathing...
I come back, switch on the same TV, and see this stupid chick saying "I rebelled against society from my childhood..." and "I love my mother, I just don't want to be like her"... and showing a trekking, adventurous chick, and I am thinking "Oh, seems to be some new Roadies style program..." and slowly realise it is a stupid airhostess training commercial...
Grr... all that societal rebellion and brave statements sound good... but for now, just run along, and fetch that coffee...
"No offence to dignity of labour and all that..."

Then, there are times like these... waiting in office, for some obscure document to be signed by a non-obscure person... with nothing better to do... so, writing a blog post full of crap...
pissed man... PISSED!

Apr 1, 2008

Now, that's bullshit!

Gobar Singh (the villainous Sardar from the famous management institute in Calcutta, now CEO and Head-Strategy) cleared his throat and started, “Arre O gaon-walon… oops, wrong movie, dear friends, we have gathered here to discuss our diversification strategy of commissioning a biogas plant, running only on bullshit. This move is a no-brainer, since we have a core competence on the subject.”

The VP-Marketing (whom we don’t bother to name since marketing people are nobodies anyways) did what he is best at – put in an inconsequential line, also known as DCP – “yeah yeah, nobody knows more about bullshit than us. All of you should know that I was awarded an A+ in that subject.”

Mr. Bull-chandani, the canny Procurement head, who prided himself on being a man of action, butted in, “ah, what is the point of getting grades in a text book world? Have any of you actually gone out in the field and dirtied your hands?”

“Sir, you do not mean that literally, do you?” squeaked GasAarKay (we will just call him by his initials, since his name is too long even for call centre chicks to pronounce correctly), the newbie management trainee, eager to make an impression and get a big fat bonus.

“Of course. What did you expect? We procurement people do not deal in metaphors. We live in the real world” shot back Bull-C.

“You see, everybody knows that the secret success of any successful company lies in its supply chain. And, I am a PhD on bull-shit effect, in which I wrote a thesis on how a small change in the feeding time of the bull leads to escalating changes in its crapping time”, he continued.

“Can we get the bull to crap in different SKU’s, from a small sachet size to a big family pack? After all, we have to cater to the customer’s demand. And while we are at it, can we feed beetroot to the bull to get red coloured stuff? I mean, red is the new black. Or green”, asked the VP-Mktg (the one whom we shall not name), thus proving that he can speak on any unrelated subject without invitation.

“oh c’mon, more the SKU’s, more the inventory, lower the profits. I am trying to initiate a process where the bull will be fed in measured quantities to ensure EoQ in output” thundered Bull-C, barely hiding his contempt for the marketing people.

“I am also pioneering the Indian technique of SHIT (Some How In Time), which was practiced by our engineering student ancestors way before the Japanese copied it and called it JIT” he announced.

“Of course, there is a good 'I' and there is a bad 'I'. The good I is information, which is much more than day-tuh, whereas the bad I is in-vhen-tory” drawled Goh-swa-mee (the IT head), subtly reminding the others that he spent time in the US while they slogged their asses in India.
“We ah-lso have a software ex-cluh-sively deh-veloped for us to deal with the in-vhen-tory problem. We can provide up-to-date day-tuh on in-vhen-tory within three nanoseconds from the last stock tah-king millisecond”, Goh-swa-mee drawled again.

“Did you know that a bull produces 5 tons of dung a year on average?” whispered GasAarKay, proud to show his googling skills.

“Ah, we will start a motivational program to ensure that the bull generates more than three times that amount. We will also provide a (toilet) training program it to ensure that it shits where we want it to, when we want it to” announced Head-HR (who also goes unnamed, because HR people matter even less than marketing guys).

“And I have this wonderful financial model here, which shows the profitability of the biogas project taking a base case assumption of 5 tons a year. I have also done a sensitivity analysis varying the cost of feed, quantity of dung, quality etc, and run a discounted cash flow model. You can see the entire sensitivity analysis at the click of a button. It even generates multi-coloured 3-D charts on its own” excitedly shouted Money Aiyer (Head-Finance, no relation to the sports minister), while the others looked at his model with glazed eyes.

Gobar Singh, who had bull dozed off to sleep, suddenly woke up and asked, “So, I propose we go ahead with this project. Any objections? If you have any, we will discuss it after your appraisal meeting.”

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Disclaimer: Some of the quotes have been inspired from real people, and are not acknowledged because they wouldn't want to be associated with this crap.
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On a more serious note, The Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (AH&D) - now renamed as Department of Animal Husbandry Dairying & Fisheries (DADF) - points out:
"Availability of dung from 67 lakh buffaloes for a period of 5 years @ 5.4 tons/annum will be
= 67 lakh x 5.4 x 5 = 1809 lakh tons.
Farmyard manure that can be made out of this dung will be= 1809 x 2 = 3618 lakh tons.
Land that can be cultivated using this farmyard manure will be 482.4 lakh hectares.
Foodgrains that can be produced on these 482.4 lac hectares of land will be 666.68 lakh tons, without the major cost of chemical fertilisers.
The total value of foodgrains thus produced will be Rs.27,592.42 crores.
Fodder which can be produced as bye-product of the above food­grain production will be 20,000 lakh tons, sufficient to feed 555.57 lakh buffaloes for a year.
The above quantum of foodgrains produced at substantially low cost can meet the foodgrain needs of 37 crore human beings for a year."

(pt.55 in the link)

Think about that the next time you say "BULLSHIT".