360 Degree Feedback. IT Industry Could Learn from Uber

An FB post from Feb 2018

Uber, a taxi services company is far superior to any software firm/scum. (Look how well they rhyme.) 

A few days ago I received an email from Uber intimating me that my rating was 3.5 out of 5. 

Curious, I read on. 

Just like customers were allowed to rate drivers, drivers were allowed to rate customers. 

The messaging was so subtle. 

'it may be the small things like the way you close the door, or slam the door unthinkingly, polite treatment of the driver, etc. Higher your rating, slower the wait time for a future ride ... And so on. 

This is 360 degree feedback in the true sense. 

Ratings from both customer and driver accepted, no questions asked. 

The underlying principle is, the rating may be based on reality or perception. 

If it is reality, make corrections where needed. 

If it is perception, then do what it takes to change the perception.

Most of the software firms don't have 360 degree appraisal. Meaning, mangers get to evaluate their team members but team members don't get to rate their managers. 

Even where there is 360 degree feedback, it is a sham. Mostly. 

Most of the managers get away with the help of their 'connections', having acquired them over a number of years they have spent in the firm.

To understand why you should be allowed to rate your managers, you must know two bits about these managers. 

Most of the managers, at least in the services industry, became managers because they couldn't become anything else. Most of them. 

If they were excellent in technology, they would have become tech leads and then architects. 

If they were good at analysis and understood businesses and processes, they would have become business analysts and consultants. 

Since there was nothing they excelled in, and spoke poor to okay English, they became managers - supervisors. All you do then is to learn how to use a few tools and remind other people to do their work, while you... 

(mis)Manage, demand subordination, play politics, engage in power struggle, favouritism, pass the buck, cheat the client, show delinquency in establishing processes, discredit performers, misogyny, tight fisted during appraisals... 

Their nuisance is unending. 

Like I said, a taxi service business is better than software scum.

Make Up or Break Up ?

Priya Rajvansh. 

A handsome woman, if not beautiful. 

And in that song, 'milo na tum to hum ghabraye milo to aankh churaye', the make up and costume make her look like a smudge, a mess, a cosmetic surgery gone wrong. I can't bear to watch it and since the sound of it brings up her repulsive images, I can't listen to it either.

Second Best (1994)

Watched ‘Second Best’ (1994) on Primevideo.

A British film based on a novel by the same name.

A grim, bleak and sad movie. I wouldn’t say poignant or moving, just a sad movie.

The gray climate of England doesn’t help in the uplifting of the mood.

Graham (William Hurt) is a 42 year old unmarried man who wishes to adopt a son. James (Chris Cleary Miles) is the one he chooses. 

Where he lives in England, the adoption process is a long drawn one, where an agent from the children’s home will supervise the meetings between prospective father and son and decide whether the adoption must go through.

While Graham is making the best effort, its not easy, because James is a troubled child because of memories from childhood, and memories of a father he absolutely loves, and is unable to let go of. The father was taken away by the police after he was allowed to spend some memorable quality time with his son.

Graham himself hasn’t had a normal childhood. His parents loved each other a lot but they were so full of themselves that they barely had time for him. Because f this, Graham is not very expressive of his feelings; in fact, he hasn’t experienced deep or intense feelings because of the distance there always was between himself and his parents and the little or no opportunities that the small town offered to socialize.

Graham clings to the memory of one time he spent with his father on a beach and loves his father entirely with that memory and nothing else. The father is bedridden with stroke and he cares for him.

The film shows how the two, Graham and James, get to accept one another. Graham gropes his way towards the child, coping with emotions he hasn’t quite felt before. While James must get over the resistance he feels to loving someone else as his father, especially after his own father had exacted a promise from him that he would love him and no one else.

A miserly and taciturn screenplay that hides more than it reveals, or reveals in scraps. Even in the end, it is not clear what it was with James’s mother, what led to her dying in the bathtub. 

The theme of adoption provides enormous scope to portray the coming together of an adult and a child, each trying to win the other’s heart, trying to accept one another; it could have been very touching, moving. But it ends in what seems like a very reluctant compromise…like a debt that had to be paid, there being no choice.

For all it's critical acclaim, I was waiting for the movie to be over.

Lines I noted…

(about adoption) 

‘Sometimes, you have a child of 9 or 10 who is stuck emotionally at 2 or 3 because he may have been caught up in social services' favourite game - pass the parcel’

‘You do realize that as a single man, you'll only be offered the older, most difficult to place, emotionally disturbed boy?’

‘The department will allot someone to assess you in your own home’

‘8:59 on the dot, I take up position behind the reinforced counter screen’

‘Married bliss! Doesn't it want to make you throw up?’

‘I'd expect you to look after me when I'm old and decrepit. You realize that's the only reason I'm doing this don't you?’

‘The sense of being beholden to me, must be very painful to you’

‘Did you know that the moon moves further away from the earth by a foot every 20 years?’

‘Anything is possible Jamie, except feeling nothing’

#westerncinema

Empire Records (1995)

Watched ‘Empire Records’ (1995) on Primevideo.

A movie that should never have been made. Hollywood worse than Bollywood movie.

A bunch of young boys and girls in a record store, Empire Records, each one either a perverted or a maverick, wasting themselves. 

As the movie begins, one of the workers who has been allowed to close the store for the first time, discovers by snooping around that the store is about to be purchased by Music Town, a nationwide music store with many franchises. With the hope to save the store from being taken over, he takes 9000 dollars in the cash register and drives to a casino in Atlantic city, hoping to double the money in gambling and initially wins but loses it all in the end.

In the end, they save it by organizing a benefit party and collecting donations by selling food and drinks, and aising money

In between there is a scheduled store event, the Rex Manning day. Rex Manning, a former 80’s pop idol arrives in the store, signs autographs for a throng of visitors, while trying to promote his new video. And there are some random events, a store worker tries to have sex with him and then runs away, another actually takes him to the bathroom and does it, there is a shop lifter, there is a mock funeral… 

A complete waste of time.

Liv Tyler looks pretty. She is perhaps the only likeable character in the movie.

Renee Zellweger plays Gina, the licentious one who takes Rex Manning to the bathroom and get him to bang her.

The song 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles, is the one that inspired ‘Koi Yahan aha Nache Nache’

Lines I noted…

‘My wife left me for another woman and my girlfriend forced me to leave at gunpoint’

‘She hates me’

‘She hates me too. But I have enough sense to hate her back’

‘I'm your typical nutty teenager from America’

‘You chose rap and metal and Whitney Houston. Someone like you needs to diminish their criminal impulses, not magnify them. Maybe some jazz or classical’

‘Did you compare the percentage of teenage male Rex Manning fans to homosexuality amongst teenage males?’

‘The long arm of the law has embraced our friend Warren’ (the shoplifter) 

‘Sometimes reputations outlive their applications’

‘My beatnik father turned this into a record store’

Beatnik - a member of the Beat Generation

- a person who rejects or avoids conventional behavior, dress, etc.

Beat generation - members of the generation that came of age after World War II who, supposedly as a result of disillusionment stemming from the Cold War, espoused forms of mysticism and the relaxation of social and sexual inhibitions.

- members of the generation that came to maturity in the 1950s, whose rejection of the social and political systems of the West was expressed through contempt for regular work, possessions, traditional dress, etc, and espousal of anarchism, communal living, drugs, etc

#westerncinema

Drive (2011)

Watched ‘Drive’ (2011) on Netflix.

Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt driver, also a mechanic, who moonlights as a getaway driver.

It’s strange that the movie did not give the driver, the protagonist, any name at all. Though all the other characters have names.

Yet another crime and heist movie. Made a pain in the ass by reticent narrative. (Why not go completely reticent and not make the movie at all?) it’s mostly a silent movie with one or two dialogues dropped in by accident.

After a point I stopped caring what was going to happen.

So this driver becomes close to the wife of a criminal who is in prison. Irene is the woman played by Carey Mulligan. When the husband whose name is Standard, is released, he is bullied to commit a robbery by some men who he owes protection money while in prison. 

The Driver chooses to help by becoming the getaway driver, out of his soft corner for Irene.

But during the robbery, the store owner shoots Standard. Also there is a second car nearby wanting to snatch the stolen money bag. Driver drives away. It turns out some Jewish mobsters his employer is connected had planned the heist. The money belonged to someone from the east coast Italian mafia who had stashed away all that cash in a store. The Jewish mobsters in Los Angeles had learnt of it and tried to steal it. Now the Jewish mobsters must eliminate the driver and anyone who is linked with it, so they will not be able to lead the east coast mob to them.

Anyway, the driver manages to be a step ahead of them and kill them all, T-bone the mobsters car in a beach from the highway, fatally stab another, and drive away, leaving behind Irene and her son, having ensured their safety.

Some lines I noted…

‘My name is Standard Gabriel’

‘Where is the deluxe version?’

‘Chevy Impala, the most popular car in the State of California’ (and therefore least noticeable, which is why driver chooses this car for his shady activities)

‘What's a Jew doing running a pizzeria?’

‘They call me a fucking kike’

Kike - a contemptuous term used to refer to a person of Jewish religion or descent

‘2000 heists a year in this city, he has to pick the wrong one’

‘Nature's miracle once more 

Will light the world 

But this light 

Is not for those men

Still lost in 

An old black shadow’

Ryan Gosling while shooting puts on a rubber mask that has been molded to have the features of the star he is doubling for. Interesting, didn’t know this.

A T-bone accident is one where the front of one car or truck crashes into the side of another vehicle. Broadside accidents most often occur at intersections when one of the drivers fails to stop at a stop sign or traffic light, or otherwise fails to yield the right-of-way to the other driver.

#westerncinema

Murphy's Law of Aunties

Murphy's law of Aunties

Those aunts and cousins whom cancer and sugar claimed were absolutely harmless relatives who always minded their own business and never came in your way. 

The bitches, the evil aunt and her battalion of daughters who told on you and smirked and watched the fun as your father caught you by the hair and jostled you, will live up to a full hundred years.

Shankaracharya Hill in Srinagar

My FB post on 22nd Feb 2020

After decades of darkness, Shankaracharya temple in Srinagar was lit up. 

The hill itself is called Shankaracharya Hill. Leftist Liberals prefer to call it Takht-e-Suleiman. Of course. 

We are Vaishnavites and do not celebrate any of the shaivite festivals, but my father always said no one has served India in the last 2000 years like Adi Shankara did. 

Hinduism was almost wiped off this land and Buddhists and atheists were running amok, scoffing and smirking at the vedas, when Adi Shankara turned all that around. Without using a single weapon! 

Muslims have finished off Hinduism in all of Kashmir but the temple to Adi Shankara, the saviour of Hinduism, stands firm atop a hill, proclaiming silently that Hinduism is here to stay!

Beware of Individualism

Individualism and not society, is an artificial construct. 

Coming from the evil west, it is also an instrument of capitalism. 

The more individualistic people get, and develop an exaggerated awareness of personal time and space, the more distant they become from family and more entitled to their 'rights' and 'freedom'. 

They are then bound to have conflicts with husband, in laws and think of even children as a burdensome duty. 

As they become more aloof and standalone, they will inevitably be lonely. The only remedy to such a state is shopping. Setting out of the house and making acquisitions. Food, clothes, accessories, gymming, cars, gadgets, apps, each of which acquisition gives a shortlived sense of accomplishment, even meaning and purpose to life.

And when it ends, you go shopping again. 

Who stands to gain? Shopping malls, businesses, corporate giants...Capitalism in one word. 

Individualism, feminism, deracination, removal of traditions, divorces, wokeness, loneliness, depression, broken homes, shopping,...all of these fall in the same bucket.

You may not be able to give up your selfishness or remedy your loneliness overnight, but definitely stop shopping, so you defeat the purpose of whoever designed this fate of yours.

I was never a fan of Ayn Rand. I knew her singing in praise of individualism was the result of being a victim of a bad implementation of socialism, that too, during extenuating times when a war torn world was dying of starvation.

The Photoshoot of My Life

I have given gifts to people. Books, show pieces, cards,..flowers. But none as personal, as intimate, as full of love and lastly, as satisfying as this one. 

This photo shoot for my little niece. Each prop, each theme, selected with so much care, the number of prayers said so that the baby would cooperate, the eagerness and perseverance with which it was executed, the relief and gratitude I felt at the end of it all... 

When she grows up, this will be to her, the celebration of a childhood that will never come back...

Guilty by Suspicion (1991)

Watched ‘Guilty by Suspicion’ (1991) on Primevideo.

A film about Hollywood Blacklist, McCarthyism and the House Un-American Acivities Committee.

‘In 1947, the house committee on Un American activities began an investigation into communism in Hollywood. Ten men who refused to cooperate with the committee were tried, convicted and sentenced to prison terms after the Supreme Court refused to hear their case. Thereafter no one called to testify, either in public or in secret could work unless he satisfied the committee by naming names of others thought to be Communist’

David (De Niro), a director in Hollywood returns home to find that suddenly there has been a rising tide of McCarthyism and random people have been summoned by the committee on the basis of suspicion that they are communists or communist sympathizers or friends or relations of communist sympathizers.

….while the reality of most people is such as this.

‘In New York, this girl took me to a meeting. Some people thought we could help the folks in Russia. By sending canned goods and clothing. Russia was our ally. The Germans were attacking Stalingrad. We were both fighting the damn Nazis…’

David finds that he is being accused of association with Communists. He was named by a friend who was being investigated and was compelled to name other people.

He is approached by a lawyer, arranged by a producer to help him, and asked to appear before the investigating committee and name his friends and colleagues who attended some communist meetings years ago. 

‘Did you think I'd be a fucking stool pigeon?’so saying, David walks out; he will not ruin the lives of his near and dear ones, because attending some innocent meeting which many people did, years ago, meant nothing.

But suddenly, nobody wants to give him work. No producer wants to be associated with a communist sympathizer. Its a very serious matter, not easily ignored or tackled as he had believed.

His wife, Ruth (Annette Bening) though estranged, probably separated, supports him and stands by him in his crisis. When he vacates his house, she accommodates him in her home.

(Those, probably were the good old days before feminism turned the heads of women and made them capable of becoming completely hostile, vicious and venomous towards their once husband, that they had shared their bed and board with, losing all sympathy for the man, the human who had provided for her, and turning stone cold, exacting from him his pound of flesh even as he was bleeding)

One day, he is summoned by the committee. These last ten minutes of the movie showing investigative questioning by the committee were excellent. The best I have seen so far. 

Committee: ‘Witness attending a rally of the federation of atomic scientists at the Institute of technology, April 17, 1946. The topic of that rally was the elimination of the atomic bomb as a strategic weapon. You were there as a member of the Hollywood peace forum?’

David: ‘Yes’

Committee: ‘Statement made by the chief of the FBI J Edgar Hoover: the Hollywood peace forum cries for peace every chance it gets but has only one purpose: to disrupt public opinion on the matter of the atomic bomb long enough to give the Soviet Union a chance to complete it's preparation for war, I.e., their bomb’

David is asked to name people but he argues with them and questions them boldly, like a hero and refuses to give away names.

Thousands of lives were shattered and hundreds of careers destroyed by what came to be known as the Hollywood blacklist.

People like David and Ruth (his wife) faced terms in prison, suffered the loss of friends and possessions, and were denied the right to earn a living.

They were forced to live this way for almost 20 years. It wasn’t until 1970 that these men and women were vindicated for standing up - at the greatest personal cost - for their beliefs.

From my notes…

‘1951, house committee on Un American activities, LA, California’

‘She wouldn't swear to a loyalty oath, therefore it wasn't in my best interest to marry her’

‘83257 American battle casualties in the Korean War’

‘I'll have to stay away from mirrors all my life. I can't do that. I like looking at myself too much’

Says Joe, who'd rather go away to London than appear before the committee and give away names of innocent people and ruin their lives

Convicted Communist Spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg sit on death row condemned to die in the electric chair for acts of espionage against the US 

‘Wait till they put your nuts in a vise’

Vise - any of various devices, usually having two jaws that may be brought together or separated by means of a screw, lever, or the like, used to hold an object firmly while work is being done on it

‘Don't forget, we've got a lien on your house’

Lien - the legal claim of one person upon the property of another person to secure the payment of a debt or the satisfaction of an obligation

‘I wouldn't let these guys run a tractor much less the country (politicians)

‘Those libraries ought to be burned. They are full of Communist filth’

#westerncinema