Friday, March 9,2007:
We officially got approval to get the DirecTV package for World Cup Cricket in the office. That means, endless screaming during office hours! Me turning into a cricket fanatic again!
Sometime around the evening, my manager offered to send me to a summit at the headquarters in SFO. I booked the tickets immediately before he could change his mind :))
The temperature was close to the 60's for the first time in 2 months.
Saturday, March 10,2007
One of my best friends had come to Pittsburgh from NJ. It was great meeting her after 3 years!
Spent the day with her and went around Pittsburgh for quite sometime.
Sunday, March 11,2007
Flew to San Francisco. Reached SFO late that night, and had "aathu" rasam and authentic home-made lemon pickle after a REAL long time in my cousin's place!
Monday, March 12,2007
Got ready early in the morning for the summit. SFO rocked!!!! The weather was beautiful and I was awstruck at the first sight of the NetApp headquarters in Sunnyvale. The infrastructure at the HQ was simply phenomenal!
Day 1 @ the summit was good, though, I was totally swamped with information. Only 20% went inside and rest all were OHT!
In the evening, while waiting at the HQ for my cousin to come and pick me up, I sat in the sun for quite sometime as I realised I'd never get this chance when I get back to Pitt. :)
I loved the roads, the weather and just everything about SFO! By the end of the day, I was pretty much sure I would get a transfer to the HQ after a year more at Pitt, the earliest I can get a transfer!
Had dinner at a Thai restaurant in Silicon Valley and a perfect end to the day with an icecream at an Italian place.
My cousin's place is the best! I watched SUN Tv for quite sometime that night before going to bed and that night was the best sleep I ever had in 2 months!
Tuesday, March 13,2007
Called Sundar and made plans to meet for dinner that evening.
Same routine at the summit-Day 2.
Met Sundar and Prashanth that evening and had dinner at an Indian restaurant, which made the trip complete in all ways! :)
They dropped me at the airport and I am back here at Pitt!
So, that was a great weekend I had after a long time!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Summit Syndrome
It was a regular team meeting at work today. We were discussing the usual achieve milestones,meet deadlines, fix bugs, status updates....After half an hour, my manager started talking about doing a self-evaluation of performance once a week. He gave an awesome talk for about a half hour. Given a chance, I could keep listening to him talk for hours together. He's been in the industry for about 15 years now and he reads a lot. One thing he mentioned today really affected me and made me think a lot.
He talked about the term "summit syndrome", about which he recently read in a Harvard Business Magazine article. Summit syndrome is something that hits extremely talented, aggressive and intelligent people when they overcome their challenges, they find it extremely difficult to carry on with the normal routine. They lose the fire to perform and become obsessive with other things, like sudoku and crosswords at work. And this is very difficult to spot in the early stages. Some of the few effects of people affected by this, which he mentioned were very troubling. This could make people do grave mistakes for which they will repent their life-time, their personal life would be in danger, health problems, people just quit organizations for no reason and start focussing and diverting their attention on other hobbies which are far-less interesting.
So, he talked about how a best manager would be able to actually identify this syndrome before it becomes a threat and avoid it by exposing his employees to other challenging problems.
The talk has been on my mind for quite sometime now and it has sunk in pretty well. Work and personal life are inter-connected with each other, atleast for me and any small ripple in either one of them affects the other drastically. So, thanks to the good talk today, I have decided to do a self-performance evaluation every week, or every 3 days to assure myself that I love what I am doing and if things are going on track.
For people who are more interested, you can read the actual article here:
Harvard Article on Summit Syndrome
He talked about the term "summit syndrome", about which he recently read in a Harvard Business Magazine article. Summit syndrome is something that hits extremely talented, aggressive and intelligent people when they overcome their challenges, they find it extremely difficult to carry on with the normal routine. They lose the fire to perform and become obsessive with other things, like sudoku and crosswords at work. And this is very difficult to spot in the early stages. Some of the few effects of people affected by this, which he mentioned were very troubling. This could make people do grave mistakes for which they will repent their life-time, their personal life would be in danger, health problems, people just quit organizations for no reason and start focussing and diverting their attention on other hobbies which are far-less interesting.
So, he talked about how a best manager would be able to actually identify this syndrome before it becomes a threat and avoid it by exposing his employees to other challenging problems.
The talk has been on my mind for quite sometime now and it has sunk in pretty well. Work and personal life are inter-connected with each other, atleast for me and any small ripple in either one of them affects the other drastically. So, thanks to the good talk today, I have decided to do a self-performance evaluation every week, or every 3 days to assure myself that I love what I am doing and if things are going on track.
For people who are more interested, you can read the actual article here:
Harvard Article on Summit Syndrome
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Mozhi-A musical feast!
The movie Mozhi has been hailed as a very simple and sweet movie in the recent times. I've been mesmerized by the song "Kaatrin mozhi". It just melts my heart whenever I listen to it. Have been humming it all day long since I woke up. A beautiful melody after a very long time! Vairamuthu has been too poetic and both the male and female versions are equally awesome!
One another song from the same movie, is "kannal pesum penne" by SPB. From the lyrics, I am guessing the song is about a guy trying to console his sweetheart who's angry with him. This song's lyrics is just too sweet. He says, how his life is without talking to her!
"vaazhkai thuvarkudhadi, vayaso kasakudhadi...
saigaiyile enai manithu, saabam theeradi....
sella konjam vendaam...chinna cheendal podhum
paarthu pazhaga vendaam, paadhi chiripu podhum
kaara paarvai vendaam, ora paarvai podhum
vaazhkai kadakudhadi, naatkal naraikudhadi
iru kanaal en vaazhvai nee eeram seiyadi!"
This song is inspired by "walking in the moonlight..Ilamaan kanilude" - (A mallu song sung by Hariharan) by vidyasagar himself.
After a very long time, I've liked all the songs in a movie :)
One another song from the same movie, is "kannal pesum penne" by SPB. From the lyrics, I am guessing the song is about a guy trying to console his sweetheart who's angry with him. This song's lyrics is just too sweet. He says, how his life is without talking to her!
"vaazhkai thuvarkudhadi, vayaso kasakudhadi...
saigaiyile enai manithu, saabam theeradi....
sella konjam vendaam...chinna cheendal podhum
paarthu pazhaga vendaam, paadhi chiripu podhum
kaara paarvai vendaam, ora paarvai podhum
vaazhkai kadakudhadi, naatkal naraikudhadi
iru kanaal en vaazhvai nee eeram seiyadi!"
This song is inspired by "walking in the moonlight..Ilamaan kanilude" - (A mallu song sung by Hariharan) by vidyasagar himself.
After a very long time, I've liked all the songs in a movie :)
Friday, March 02, 2007
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