Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Expendables!!!

Labor rights and employee welfare seem to have lost all meaning. These are terms of a now Jurassic era when they meant PF, retirement benefits and performance incentives. Now these terms are synonymous with retention of productive employees, enhanced training, retraining and multiple evaluations. Somewhere it has become more structured and efficient like the computers we work on; elsewhere it has lost that human touch. Is that all there is to business? Has it no heart and life but is merely a monolith? Are we just tomatoes in a packaged tomato soup factory?

Welcome to the time of the "Live & Let Die"!!!




References:

India Satyam has 10 percent extra staff says chairman: report


`Cisco could announce 10% layoffs'


After the Layoff, Infosys Extends Training Period






Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Steel / Brain That Wouldn't Die

MS would support XP till August 04, 2014!!! A job well done can not be overshadowed by subsequent newer versions and more so it refuses to accept its age. Call it Timelessness or the Limits to Innovation and Imagination!!! Something like the Mustang, VW Beetle or Citizen EcoDrive.


References:

Windows XP: the OS they couldn’t kill

XP: The operating system that refuses to die

Microsoft ends mainstream XP, Office 2003 support





The Irony of the "best" !!!

Being the best should also account for best in human interest and relations, or have I got it all up-side-down!!!



References:

Infosys fires two thousand employees

Infosys ranked top IT infrastructure; may sack 2100 employees news


Infosys postpones campus hiring from sixth to eighth semester


Saturday, April 11, 2009

Heads they win, tails you lose!!!

They shall however put you on a performance improvement course and give you a chance to improve before asking you to leave!!! OR should they not tell you the truth and just ask you to leave right away. Oh No!!! that would be oppressive rather than being correct Human Resourcefully ... eh!



References:

Infosys fires 2100

2100 Infosys employees face axe

Infosys ranked top IT infrastructure; may sack 2100 employees news






Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Industrial Disease!!!

Now warning lights are flashing down at Quality Control
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
There's a meeting in the boardroom they're trying to trace the smell
There's leaking in the washroom there's sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
'Goodness me could this be Industrial Disease ?'

Caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
Refusing to be pacified it's him they blame the most
Watchdog's got rabies the foreman's got the fleas
Everyone's concerned about Industrial Disease
There's panic on the switchboard tongues are knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it's the Industrial Disease

Yea, now the work force is disgusted downs, tools, walks
Innocence is injured experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages, everyone agrees
That these are 'classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze'
On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless; theology is worse
History boils over there's an economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean 'Industrial Disease'

Doctor Parkinson declared 'I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got Industrial Disease'
He wrote me a prescription he said 'you are depressed
But I'm glad came came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - next patient please
Send in another victim of Industrial Disease'

I go down to Speaker's Corner I'm thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong
There's a protest singer he's singing a protest song - he says
'They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They wanna have a war to stop Industrial Disease

They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you Rule Britannia, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease'
Meanwhile the first Jesus says 'I'll cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons'
The other one's out on hunger striker he's dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease?

- Industrial Disease, Love Over Gold, Dire Straits (1982)



& let the disease speak for itself ...



References:

Skoda sees sales slow to single digit in 2009

Sensex crashes by 338 pts as equities plunge on global weakness ...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is ready to talk to 'honest' Barack ...







Thankless freeloaders Part 2 ...

Despite RBI's persuasion and surplus cash with banks, lowering of interest rates have not seen the light of day. Private profiteering? or just that PSU Banks are stupid!!!



References:

India call rates dive on surplus cash with banks

Bankers say no to lowering lending rates

RBI asks banks to ease lending rates

Real Interest rate increases with inflation dipping down







Tuesday, April 7, 2009

3rd World Dump ... Uranium!!!

It might be a threat of terror or might just be that fertilizer imports are used to dump uranium and other hazardous waste in unwary countries like India. This might thus be the result of more than a decade long process of covert hazardous waste disposal.



References:

India probes uranium link to disabled children

Panel to probe uranium in kids

Horrifying Presence of Toxins Found in Punjab Children





Thursday, April 2, 2009

The fault is in ourselves ...

Lack of political will based upon and fueled by corporate selfish interest, holds back R&D and exploration of non-polluting sustainable unconventional sources of energy and prevents them from becoming conventional, in these dire times, demanding cure for this ailing planet. After all ...

"Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
-- Cassius, Julius Cæsar (I, ii, 140-141)




References:

KG gas to save 10% oil bill at peak

RIL surges 4% on gas output from KG basin