HOW DO THEY DO IT

Today, after a VERY LONG TIME I received a non-reject email from one of my dream company's dream role. A non-reject email is as good as a reject email only difference being you have a 50% chance of getting another role within the company. It's tiring!! Interviewing is tiring. With a 18 month old baby my body is giving up. My brain is failing me occasionally. My job isn't that interesting anymore. Yes, I took on this job for the money and for the slight flexibility with balancing being a mother and wife (the Indian way); however I can't keep going - I realized I need to love my job. I need to love what I do and whom I do it for besides the compensation. 

I am tired to even type this but I need to let out my frustration, my anger, my disappointment and my slow fading relevance amongst my peers. 

You know I am so reverse. When I was young and had a lot of freedom and time I didn't focus on my career. Now, my husband and family think I am less focused on being a mom and more focused on being a corporate leader. I feel bad at my core to some extent. I am partly responsible for not speeding up career prospects when I didn't have familial responsibilities but also what if I am focused on it now? Does it make me such a bad person? I know a lot of people who have been extremely smart at it - but not me. The point is I am not them. I failed to be them.

Where do you set the limit

     Where to draw the line 

Ever wondered how bad is really bad and how good is not that good. Maybe as bad as you can get is good and a breaking point for good happens when it turns bad. This thought hit my mind while working out at the Zumba studio. I have heard how strong and flexible these instructors are, how disciplined their daily schedules are and that to me sounds good even great right but on the other hand how soon their bones fade out due to these intensive workout sessions and how short their lifespan could be and their even shorted retirement period comes across as bad or sad.

For the kind of foodie I am I probably can eat anything that grows on this planet, well that's what I feel at 11.45am when am so hungry that I could even eat a raw pig meat. But come to think of it eating good food like eating 2-3 servings of vegetables and fruits everyday probably is not good or good enough. If you are a person who doesn't eat meat at all and not even eggs then you probably are so low on protein intake and this is a real life example where my friend got pregnant and had so many complications in the initial few months like the pain, the expansion of her backbone that if she were to eat even one egg a day that would help, however that's impossible for her and so she takes protein powders mixed with water by holding her nose tight.

Again not just food and health related aspects of life others too. I always tell my parents that you can't find the perfect person as life partner. Even a most perfect person is not that good for you. He/she could be someone who adjusts so well to all your needs and that ends up spoiling you as a person. Or the person is different in life and you are totally at-it most of the time no matter how small/big/severe/unimportant the issue seems to be.

There's always got to be a balance. Your relationship with a colleague, or how well/ timely you complete a project, or how much you spends, or how long you take to sprint 3 miles, or how addicted you are to a person or thing, or how much you love your family.

## Twitterati

https://twitter.com/krnsiuxx/status/713529630045507584

## Heights of deceiving (coming from an Apple AND Steve Jobs fan)
     Since when did 19.5% become > than 21.2%

## JOB INTERVIEW



Yawning at my desk post a heavy Indian buffet lunch around 1.30pm my phone buzzed. It was a phone number from Georgia and I was only little stunned since I was applying for a bunch of jobs anyway. The questions the guy asked me were quite similar to what I have been asked before only that the way he framed them. We have all been asked questions like - what's your strength or what's your weakness and state an example or what's unique about you or what sets you apart as there are several others with same skill sets as you or why should we hire you. In essence they all boil down to talking about your positives and negatives and pitching your negatives also as positives.

Only that this time again on a Thursday afternoon I was asked give any 3 positives and 3 negatives about yourself. My jaw dropped. My head spanned to only find no answers. My skin goose-bumped as I walked out the door to take the interview call and all of a sudden I found myself at a loss for any word to get started. After several such attacks on my body mind soul I came up with these and as I spoke I realized the list I made again on a Thursday afternoon post a heavy Indian buffet were quite brilliant. I will let you judge me -

Before getting started on the list trust me I had to recollect all those points I made (up) during the phone screening and it took me several edits as I wanted to maintain the order of my "true" story (it's true believe me)

Positives

1. I did not let go of my technical skills despite the functional aspects of this job. Even though I wanted to grow on the business side I carried my technical knowledge unlike most others
2. I don't give up. If there is an issue that's what wakes me up first thing in the morning - be it trying solutions to fix the design or talking to the person to resolve a fight
3. I have learnt to balance peoples' expectations and politics that happen during the course of a project and maintained how important is your direct supervisor's support than buy-in from stakeholders

Negatives

1. Loosing patience while dealing with business people who have little knowledge about IT systems
2. Pretty detailed in the sense periodic followups on action items and status updates. And some managers don't necessarily want to know about the progress but simply want to get the JOB DONE
3. I have been scared to approach and talk to people. It's good to talk and find out what mistakes they made and what would they do differently and incorporate that advise into your Career.

## THE 'J' WORD


So I often get along very well with male friends and I am not surprised about it as I did notice there were other women too out there like me. This article is mostly triggered by this incident that happened to me at work. I met this woman she was in my team but she was also another department manager's wife. As I was still in School I was trying to keep my distance from people and esp this because she always wanted to befriend me and tell me her problems in marriage, family etc. I was little taken aback to see after 3 years we are really good friends now. In the midst she quit the Company for another well paid job, got pregnant, bought some really high branded items as she was totally like one of the women from the above picture but the middle one mainly.

Until today she calls me and tells me her issues and there's probably not been a day when she has said anything positive about herself or her life. Therefore you might say this is expected but again not quite sure. I was thinking of  a Career change myself and have been talking to parents, brother, friends, colleagues at work who support me and what I did notice that she was the only one who spoke discouragingly about this job. I could be COMPLETELY wrong however I did notice that all her sentences had a 'BUT'.

My parents were little worried and so I wanted to see if she could talk to them as she knew them and my future job was going to very very similar to her job change at the time. She refused the request. I was alright when she said so since I can imagine her words were absolutely true - " I don't want to influence your parent's decision as they know you better and your life better". I totally get that however my dear colleague friend let's call her DCF (think deep) at work told me that she had begged  DCF to talk to her parents while she was making the move and I was simply doing the exact same thing.

Yes that's what am about to write down now...I was DEVASTATED..I was in SHOCK..I felt a deep realization go through me OMG so are my really close friends (hate to take the word) J of me? Don't they want you to grow despite the circumstances?

Why so..why now..and are you out there destroying someone's dreams?

## She really did that

I am not quite sure how to start expressing my thoughts on this very weird news I heard. It's either completely untrue and fake killing or it's just me going crazy. Little did I know that a (human) mother would do this to a (dog) mother and I am a woman analyzing this whole discussion and wondering is that even possible. How annoying were the dogs or in this case puppies and one dog disturbing her peace? Was she thinking through it before even committing this and also it's surprising coming from a city like Bengaluru (Bangalore). At least am glad to hear she admitted to it however she was still annoyed stating "I wanted to teach a lesson", that only makes me think how she has/ had been treating her own children (hey we all belong to the animal kingdom so don't think and keep reading).
Quite interesting is the fact that I DON'T like animals I mean I think I get really super scared around them even puppies yeah and the safest I feel around are probably fishes because I know they are inside their own water world and won't be able to touch me. It's sad though that how some people love being licked by their pet dogs and love pampering their cats and (my brother does this wait for it) touching gold fishes and grasshoppers skin. Sometimes I feel jealous. Sometimes dogs like the Bichon Frise are so cute that I have to have at least two people hold him/her so I can slightly touch their head. Sometimes I do watch cat videos. Sometimes even admire the fishes or ducks in their natural habitat.

Nevertheless coming from a person like me I do feel hurt annoyed shocked and even confused as to how she could have taken such a decision. Well one thing I did learn the mother dog (named Ammu) still goes to the site where her puppies were buried. Sad!