Sunday, July 25, 2010

The Mathematician

Once there was a competition held between an engineer, a physicist and mathematician. The competition is that each of them will be placed in a wooden enclosure covered on all sides and the one who gets out quickly is the winner. All of them were put inside the wooden box at the same time and the competition started. The engineer came out in 2 minutes destroying the wooden box. When asked how he came out so quickly, he replied that he kept tapping all along the wooden box to find out where it sounded the weakest and then broke open kicking at that area.

Ten minutes later, the physicist came out opening the box. When asked, he said that he tried shaking the box and he found the spot where the equilibrium was less and he decided that he could break open the box at that spot easily and came out.

Only the mathematician was left and people waited. It was 4 hours; 6 hours and then 8 hours but no sign of the mathematician ever trying to come out. Finally, the judges decided on opening the doors themselves. And when they went in, the mathematician was still pondering on something, having written something on the paper. The paper read, "Assume, I am out of the box..."

Now the IT version, there was this challenge between a developer, a lead and a project manager and as usual the one who solves it quickly is the winner.

The developer solved it quickly, but taking a look at the code and isolating what the problem was. The lead was also on the same line, but he compared different versions of the code to isolate the problem and fix the issue.

And now the manager's turn, he had written... "Assume the problem is fixed, now what do I do...?" :)

So long. until the next post...

Monday, July 12, 2010

The Truck Driver

Once upon a time, a truck driver was doing his usual load delivery at a mental hospital, by parking his vehicle beside an open drain. He discovered a flat tyre when he was about to return from the mental hospital. He jacked up the truck and removed the flat tyre to fix the spare tyre. When he was about to fix the spare tyre, he accidentally dropped all the four bolts in the open drain. As he cannot fish the bolts in the open drain, he started to panic as to what should be done?
      
Just then, one patient happened to walk past him and asked the driver as to why he was looking troubled. The driver thought to himself, since there is nothing much he can do or this mental joker can. Just to keep the bugging away, the truck driver informed the whole episode to the mental patient and gave a helpless look.

The patient just laughed at the truck driver and said you just cannot even fix such a simple problem? No wonder you are destined to remain a truck driver for life. The truck driver was astonished to hear such a compliment from a mental guy.
      
Here is what you can do said the mental guy. Take one bolt from each of the remaining three tyres/wheels and fix it on to this tyre. Then drive down to the nearest workshop and replace the missing ones. Simple, isn't it! - the mental guy exclaimed

The truck driver was so impressed with this quick fix answer and asked the patient, how come you are so smart and intelligent and you are here at the mental hospital?

The patient replied... "My dear friend! I stay here because I am crazy but not stupid."

There are lot of Truck drivers in the corporate world, who just think the other people below in their hierarchy are crazy... :)

So long, until the next post...

Friday, July 9, 2010

The Donkey and The Dog

There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog.One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep but the donkey and the dog were awake.The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn’t bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.

Moral of the story: ”One must not engage in duties other than his own”....

Here comes the corporate version…

The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute.He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it.Looking at the donkey’s extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet.The dog’s life didn’t change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dogs duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed a ”meets requirement”. Soon. the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.The donkey was rated as “star performer”. The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards. Soon, he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a job rotation…

That - is the corporate environment, with such great characters as the farmer, the donkey and the dog.

So long, until the next post...