Is Meeting Expectations Bad?

I am sure everyone who has been working in IT know that Meeting expectations is Bad. Is that the case? In normal circumstances HR will say meeting expectations is not bad but when it comes to issuing pink slips (as in the case with the recent issue with the large IT organization) this is communicated as bad performance by the same HR. I am not blaming them for the fiasco. So are the employees always expected to exceed expectations? 

Many organizations have a 4 grade system. There are cases where organizations have 5 grades or in some cases a 10 point scale. All these only causes more confusion and ambiguity. 

What is the solution to this? A change of nomenclature for rating to me is fine. You just have three rations - Exceeds Expectaions, Meets Expectations and Doesn't meet expectations. This way we can get rid of the ambiguity in the system. 

Exceeds expectations should be the people who did exceptionally well should be the top 10-20%. Meets expectations should be the majority of the populations - 75-85%. Doesn't meet expectations should be the bottom 5%. 

The bottom 5% should be put through the performance improvement program and set clear expectations on what they need to improve. In case the employee doesn't improve post that period also he/she can be let go. 

This is purely in the case of performance issues. However, that doesn't seem to be the only criteria with the recent case in the largest IT organization in India, where employees are let go because they were not utilized for sometime. 

Every mistake gives opportunity to learn. Every organization should also learn from each others mistakes. The current issue gives an excellent opportunity for everyone to re-look at their performance appraisal systems. 

Meeting expectations should not be considered bad. This is what the majority of the employees be rated as. 

I - Movie Review

Watched I last night at Santham. Watching a movie in Sathyam Cinemas after a very long time. 

There was a lots of expectations on the movie with Shankar, AR Rahman, PC Sreeram and Vikram.  

The cast includes Vikram who is a body builder, Amy Jackson who is a model, Upen Patel who is also a model, Suresh Gopi who is a family doctor for Amy Jackson, Santhanam who plays a friend of Vikram. 

Story is very simple - Vikram goal is to become Mr India and he also has a crush on Amy Jackson who is a super model. He gets to meet her once and things move along till they fall in love. Vikram becomes a model and replaces Upen who is a also a model. Upen also has a crush on Amy. Vikram rejects a cola ad for obvious reason which irks Ramkumar (Sivaji's son) who plays a rich businessman. Upen, Ramkumar, Osma (who is a TG stylist) and Suresh Gopi join together to take revenge on Vikram - Osma has a crush on Vikram and Suresh Gopi on Amy. The super model Vikram becomes the hunchback and the rest of the story is about how he seeks revenge. 

The story keeps going back and forth between the revenge part and the flashback. 

The movie runs more than 3 hours. And with a simple revenge story - you really feel that the movie runs. 

You get what you expect from a Shankar movie - grandeur and beautiful background. Other than that nothing that makes it a Shankar movie. We have seen commercials - but aila aila song is filled with commercials. That should be a first. 

Songs - Except Merisalayittaen and Aila nothing much to talk about. Not sure why that the third look of whatever it is (other than the hunchback and normal) is required in one of the songs. 

You need a strong villain to make the hero look good - you don't get that with Upen, Ramkumar and surprisingly with Suresh Gopi also. Vikram has taken lots of effort to play the body builder or the hunchback. Amy looks beautiful but surprisingly in many scenes there is no lip sync also. Santhanam can be said as a saving grace with his comedy - He has had two good movies - Lingaa and I in the last month. Vikram's age shows especially in close up scenes. 

This is a simple revenge story - which could have been made in a small budget without going to China or spending a lot of money and definitely in a lot shorter time (both running time and the time for filming this movie which took more than 2 years)

All in all I could be termed as a let down from Shankar. 

TCS Issue

There are rumors that TCS has fired nearly 25,000 people in the middle management and above. There were protests and some of the trade unions have also asked IT staff to join unions. 

A case was filed in the High Court and the court has stayed the firing of people terming it as illegal. 

There are also recording of exit interviews floating around which, if true, shows that it is not just about performance. 

Two things about the recent TCS statement issued via their Twitter handle yesterday

1) The data that they had provided is for the period till December - Most of the letters have been issued in December or January which make them effective from January or February. Their data doesn't include the fired people
2) They have also used the word involuntary - Which is not clearly defined 

Many company does similar stuff of asking people to go when they are on bench, but not in such large scale that is being talked about. However, the same is illegal as per the current labor law. All the businessmen are asking for the government for labor reforms which basically allows them to hire and fire. Till that is done this act is illegal. 

In the current context that it is illegal, what could they have done differently? 

1) Everyone working in the IT sector knows for a fact that companies do not grow at 40-50%. The new norm is around 10-15% and we need to reset everything to align to that. 

2) They could have delayed promotions - They could increased the time an employee has to spend in a role before getting promotion. For eg., if an employee has to be spend 4 years before getting a promotion change it as 5 years. 

3) In case the company is stretched in terms of profitability - they can stop giving hikes. All IT companies have variable pay and they can decide not to pay that.  

TCS also has to understand that the negative perception that has been created will cause even good people who are currently not impacted, to think about their job security and leave them. This will definitely cause an uptick in their attrition once the dust settles on this. 

There is another IT company which is still impacted with high attrition due to one bad HR move made few years back. 

All in all TCS has lost its image of a company which provides job security like a government job. 

God is a Gamer - Review of Ravi Subramanian's Novel

After Vanity Bagh, read God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian. With kids it's been difficult for me to read any book in a short duration. (Not that I do a lot of baby sitting or taking care of them). Read this book over last weekend. 

Like other Ravi's books this is a thriller with banking industry as the background. This book details how Bitcoins are used currently. 

This book is also like his earlier books where there are 3 or 4 stories and in the end he will show how all are brought together. 

In this also you have a Senator in US who is assassinated, a banker commits suicide in Mumbai, Another banker is killed in an accident, there is an ATM heist in US and the book is about how all this is ties together in a thrilling way. 

You have Aditya who runs a successful BPO and gaming company with his lieutenant Sundeep. They launch a new game which doesn't do all that well and in comes Aditya's estranged son Varun who takes care of the gaming business. 

Malvika who runs the Indian arm of NYIB commits suicide (but her daughter, Tanya,  feels she is killed by the Finance Minister). Tanya feels that the Finance Minister has an affair with her mother. 

Tanya and Varun fall for each other and Varun provides emotional support to her post the death of her mother. In parallel there is a Senator who is killed and a large ATM heist is carried out in the US where about 5 Million is taken from bank accounts in few hours. 

There are some random laptops that bursts because of overheating. 

Who killed the Senator, who is behind  the heist, was Malvika killed, why were the laptops bursting form the rest of the story. 

This is a very good thriller. Makes you want to finish the book quickly. The author will make you think about few people who could be involved but has some good twists along the way. Also this books shows how Bitcoins are currently used for all illegal purposes. 

All in all a very good thriller novel. 

Vanity Bagh - Review of Anees Salim's Book

I finally got to read Vanity Bagh by Anees Salim over the year end break. This book won the Hindu Literary prize in 2014. To be frank, till this book won the prize I have not heard of a writer called Anees Salim. Came to know that he has written four books and Vanity Bagh is his second. 

Vanity Bagh has subtle comedy running through the book. This story takes place in a fictional town called Mangobagh, which has two localities Vanity Bagh dominated by Muslims and Mehendi dominated by Hindus. The story is narrated in Imran Jabbari's voice. 

Imran is the son of the local imam and he and his friends form a gang called 5 1/2 men(all with Pakistan politician names) influenced by a half retired crippled don. They do re-possess a car and other than do nothing as a gang. 

After a while they get a job to be couriers and till a serial bomb blasts happens don't realize the enormity of what they had done. Two of them get caught and are sentenced to 14 years + in jail. Clearly showing how some unemployed youth get caught in the terror world without realizing what they are doing. 

The story goes back and forth between how Imran plots to jailbreak and the flashback of the incidents before he gets to jail and is also told with quotes from people from the town. 

Initial few pages are slow. Once you start getting into the thick of things, this is a very good read. All in all a good book to read. 

PS : Not sure what Anees has on Resul Pookutty. He has taken on Mickey on him in many parts of the book. 

Lingaa - A Movie Review

Watched Lingaa yesterday night.. Had tickets for 11am show but didn't take off from office to watch a Rajni movie.. Would have if I was able to get an earlier show.. In certain theatres there were shows from 1am yesterday... I think everyone knows the cast and crew of the movie.. 

It was always nice to watch Rajni movie on the first day... Each dialogue would be lapped up by his loyal fans.. This movie starts off that way in the introduction song.. Rajni looks stylish... The song doesn't have the punch that you expect in a typical Rajni intro song... Also felt like seeing Amitabh dancing - you all know how it is.. 

Started watching shouting thalaivaa... slowly the enthusiasm dies down.. not much punch in the first half.. Santhanam shines well in the first half and the second... 

When the first half ends you feel exhausted.. It's a bit long... The train fight sequence is well choreographed.. But there are certain scenes were it is clear that there is dupe being used for the sequence... Anushka looks beautiful... 

Second half is also predictable.. We know who the villain is and we also know what he is upto and we also know that our hero will stop him.. We didn't want Rajni to look like Golden Star NBK.. Agreed he has done such things in his earlier films but things have evolved... People laugh at stunts like he jumping with a bike from a cliff on top of an hot air balloon and doing a bicycle kick on a nitrogen bomb :(

Lingaa is a typical Rajni movie - He gets dragged into a situation which he is not initially keen to take up.. then understands the situation after hearing going through the flashback where he gives up all his wealth.. destroys the villain and saves the people... We continue to watch it because it has Rajni.. One main thing missing is that Rajni doesn't have a strong villain in this movie... 

Sonakshi Sinha is ok.. other support casts do their bit.. nothing great to talk about.. Karunakaran is just hanging in there.. not much to do.. There are certain scenes where it is obvious that Anushka is taller than Rajni.. what was Randy doing? 

Making - I expected the dam to look like a set but it wasn't that bad.. Many shots have been taken in an actual dam.. which was good.. Otherwise nothing great to talk about... Except Mona mona don't like any other song... Rahman lets down... 

Some scenes are good in a typical way - where Rajni talks about being contended with what he has or that everyone has to leave something behind when they leave... you expect these in Rajni movies.. 

Overall the saving grace were Rajni and Santhanam comedy... The movie is way too long.. 

Should you watch it.. we all watch any Rajni movie.. Will I watch it again - No, even though I had tickets for today morning, didn't go... Heard that there were tickets available in counter in certain theaters today itself.. 

Phil Hughes - A Life cut short

Phil Hughes, was an hardworking cricketer. He is not someone who was bestowed with natural talent but had to work really hard to make his way up. 

He scored loads of runs in first class cricket which ensured he came to the Australian team at a very young age(for Australian standards) of 19 and also become the youngest player to score 2 centuries in two innings of a test. 

He was about to make a come back to the Australian side for the test match series against India in place of injured Michael Clarke. 

That's when on 25th November a bouncer from Sean Abbott hit the left side of his back neck. The helmet doesn't cover this space. This is where the vertebral artery that takes blood to the brain is located which split and caused him to collapse immediately. He was administered CPR on the ground and taken to the hospital where he had undergone surgeries. However, on 27th November he passed away. Thus becoming the first cricketer at first class level to die because of an injury while batting. 

There are few deaths of cricketers that had affected me - Dhruv Pandove was the first. He was touted as the next Tendulkar. He was breaking many of Tendulkar's records in the age cricket and in first class cricket. He was killed in an accident when he was 18 years old. I was eagerly following his progress when this happened. The under 19 trophy in India is named after him now. Raman Lamba was the second when he was killed while fielding at short leg in a club match in Bangladesh. He was completely out of reckoning to play for the country and also was not a regular for Delhi Ranji team when this happened. And finally Phil Hughes'. 

This incident will have a huge impact on the way cricket is played (for a few months at least). Players will be more cautious in playing the hook or pull. There will be lot more ducking and swaying. The helmet design will definitely be relooked at to make it more safer. Not sure if we will have a HANS device like in car racing. Read that New Zealander's didn't bowl even one bouncer in the test against Pakistan which was on going at the time of Hughes death. The India Australia test series is also rescheduled and first test at Gabba is moved as the second and it is also pushed out by few days. 

The manufacturer of the helmet that Hughes was wearing at the time of the injury issued a statement that Hughes was not wearing the latest model. To me this was an accident that cut a life short. 

Coming to Sean Abbott who bowled the bouncer. I really feel for him. He is only 22 and will always have the guilt of bowling the bouncer which killed Hughes. Even though it was not intended to injure him. I had an accident(the person got injured and luckily it was nothing major) when driving a car and took me a long time to get back into the car. And the first time I did, I was completely shaken and mentally drained. 

Every cricketer and Cricket Australia has offered him all the support he needs but I am sure he will be undergoing counselling from professionals. However, it will take him sometime to get back to bowling. It is going to be very difficult for him to come back to bowling.