Traditions, Superstitions, and Business Practices

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it.

Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result: all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now forget the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one.

The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, and then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water.

Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.

And that, my friends, is how traditions & superstitions begin. Business practices start this way too...especially the stupid ones.

Courtesy: The Net

Agile Programming

For those who are not yet aware of what Agile Programming is. Here are two simple explanations that will enlighten your minds! Truthfully, the first one is a killer :) Courtesy: Scott Adams.. Dilbert.com :)

Fun Organization

The title says it all and the following dilbert strip… even more!!!

Reports

This is one of my all-time favourite comic strips

 

Source: dlibert.com                     

Especially, the "Eighty-Seven" comes without missing a beat. Scott Adams is a genius and I am great fan of him. Sounds more like corporate satire, but the truth behind it is absolutely hitting the nail right on its head. 

So long, until the next post...

The Stork and Butter

The million dollar question – How to catch a stork? The million dollar answer – Use butter. Well, there is a famous phrase in Tamil

“கொக்கு தலையில் வெண்ணை வெச்சு புடிக்கிறது ”

meaning, Catch a stork by placing butter in its head.

Well, here goes the logic, be patient until you finish it

Step 1. Find a stork in the fields or in the market

Step 2. Have butter read in your hand

Step 3. Go secretly near the stork, without the stork noticing you

Step 4. Furtively, place the butter on the stork’s head

Step 5. Wait patiently until the butter melts

Step 6. When the butter melts, it will cover the stork’s eyes making it blind temporarily

Step 7. When the stork is not able to see, it will not move or fly

Step 8. Catch the stork -  do whatever you want to do with it, by making it a prisoner

See, easy isn’t it! This is what happens in the IT industry, people prepare PPT slide similar to the steps above and present it to the client. Do Step 5 above and there you go, you’ve got your stork…

So long, until the next post…

Thamilan da Thamilan

Bill Gates organized an enormous session to recruit a new Chairman for Microsoft Europe.

5000 candidates assembled in a large room. One candidate is our Ramasamy.

Bill Gates: "Thank you for coming. Those who do not know JAVA may leave."

2000 people leave the room.

Ramasamy says to himself, 'I do not know who JAVA is, but I have nothing to lose if I stay. I'll give it a try !'

Bill Gates: "Candidates who never had experience of managing more than 100 people may leave."

2000 more leave the room.

Ramasamy says to himself 'I never managed anybody by myself, but I have nothing to lose if I stay. Risk edukkaruthu Rusk sapidaramathiri !'. So, he stays!

Bill Gates: "Candidates who do not have management diplomas may leave."

500 people leave the room.

Ramasamy says to himself, 'I left school at 15, but what have I got to lose ? Evvalavo pannitom Etha pannna mattoma?'. So, he stays in the room.

Lastly, Bill Gates asked the candidates who do not speak Serbo-Croat to leave. 498 people leave the room.

Ramasamy says to himself, 'I do not speak one word of Serbo-Croat but what do I have to lose ?' So he stays and finds himself with one other candidate.

Everyone else has gone. Bill Gates joined them and said "Apparently you are the only two candidates who speak Serbo-Croat, so I'd now like to hear you have a conversation together in that language."

Calmly, Ramasamy turns to the other candidate and says 'Endha Ooru?'.

The other candidate answers in a meek tone… 'Madurai'...

So long, until the next post...

The Red Indians

It was autumn, and the Red Indians asked their New Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Red Indian chief in a modern society, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his Tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared.

But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?'

'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed,' the weather man responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more  wood. A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Is it going to be a very cold winter?'

'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'It's definitely going to be a very cold winter.'

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

Two weeks later, he called the National Weather Service again.

'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?'

'Absolutely,' The man replied. 'It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever.'

'How can you be so sure?' the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, 'The Red Indians are collecting wood like crazy.'

This is how software companies use technology. The company's top level management says "Use Java, HTML5" because client says that we should use it. The client says "Use Java, HTML5" because he hears from other software companies hitting him for a deal. Now you decide on who the Red Indians are!!!

So long, until the next post...

The Fish

A fisherman from the city was out fishing on a lake in a small boat. He noticed another man in a small boat open his fishing tackle box and take out a mirror. Being curious, the man rowed over and asked, 

"What is the mirror for?"
 

"That's my secret way to catch fish," said the other man. "Shine the mirror on the top of the water. The fish notice the spot of sun on the water above and they swim to the surface. Then I just reach down and net them and pull them into the boat."
 

"Wow! Does that really work?"
 

"You bet it does."
 

"Would you be interested in selling that mirror? I'll give you Rs. 250/- for it."
 

"Well, okay."
 

After the money was transferred, the city fisherman asked, "By the way, how many fish have you caught this week...?"
 

"You're the sixth," he said.

So, how many fish did your organization catch?

So long, until the next post...

The Cannibals

A big corporation recently hired several cannibals. The HR said during the briefing,"You are all part of our team now. You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria to eat, but don't eat any of the other employees". The cannibals promised they would not.

Four weeks later their boss remarked, "You're all working very hard, and I'm satisfied with you. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?"

The cannibals all shook their heads indicating no.

After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, "Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?"

A hand raised hesitantly, to which the leader of the cannibals shouted, "You fool! For four weeks we've been eating managers and no one noticed, but see what happened now, when you had to go and eat someone important!"

So long, until the next post...

The Burglar

A burglar decided to rob the safe in a store.

On the safe door he was very pleased to find a note reading: "Please don't use dynamite and blow it. The safe is not locked. Just turn the knob."

He did so. Instantly a heavy sandbag fell on him, the entire premises were floodlighted, and alarms started clanging.

Soon the police arrived at the spot. As the police carried him out on a stretcher, he was moaning: "My confidence in human nature has been rudely shaken."

The same is the experience of customers dealing with service companies, they are enticed with so many attractive jargon mesmerizing them, they don't wake up until a huge sandbag falls on them… :)

Moral: Never trust anybody!

So long, until the next post…

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...

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...

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...

The King Cobra hunt

Harry - a farmer - found a small snake, that was about a foot in length, roaming near his house. He immediately killed the snake and threw it away. That day He told his wife that he killed a snake about a foot in length near his home and asked her to be careful about that. As soon as his wife came to know that, the news started spreading. She told her neighbour that he husband killed a snake that was two feet in length. In a few hours, the news spread like Harry killed a cobra that was 10 feet in length and finally the people of the village came to Harry's home to congratulate him on killing a King Cobra that was 15 feet in length. After the villagers left, he sat puzzled. His wife asked why he was puzzled. Harry replied, "Do snakes grow after they die?"

The IT situation is no different, here is why.

The Unit Head says - "We are enterprise ready, we have the expertise to build Enterprise grade software", but this is what he hears from his subordinate, say a Senior Manager
The Senior Manager says - "Our team has demonstrated the capability to develop and deploy J2EE applications", again what he heard from his subordinate is
The Manager says - "Our team has developed a Java Module" which again is heard from the Team lead as follows
The Team Lead says - "The developer has successfully executed a Java Application"
But actually what the developer did was compile and execute a Java program that prints



"Hello World!"

So, how many King Cobras did your team hunt?.... :)

So long until the next post...

The Snake

There was once a group of frogs in a well that lived together harmoniously. One fine day, there was a small quarrel among two frogs, Arrowhead and Bob, for some small issue. Over a point in time, the quarrel grew into animosity.

As the animosity grew, Arrowhead, the dominant of the frogs decided that he should venge against Bob. He thought that hurting Bob directly or chasing him out of the well, would bring a bad name and so he came up with this idea.

Arrowhead ventured out of the well and searched out for a friend who will execute his plans. He found a snake that passed by. He had a small chat with the snake and told his vengeance against Bob and asked for the snake's help. The snake readily agreed. Arrowhead took the snake to the well

All the frogs panicked on the first sight of the snake. Bob knew its intentions and prepared to flee the well that night with his friends. And Bob flee that well.

Days went by, Arrowhead was happy as Bob had fled away from the well and thanked the snake for the help. Slowly, frog population in the well started to dwindle. Either the frogs fled or the snake was eating them one by one without the knowledge of Arrowhead.

One fine day, the only thing that remained in the well, was the snake alone after finishing off the last frog, Arrowhead.

The situation is no different from an IT organization. Employees have some disagreements, simmering etc that could be handled deftly. However, in most cases, the management decides to bring in some consultancy, survey, poll or policy to set the situation right. As a result, people start to flee or be eaten.

At last, you know what remains ;)

So long, until the next post...

The Lion

There was this poor king of the jungle - Lion - in an Indian Zoo that was even poorer than the lion. The lion had very meagre food allowances that did not fetch it beyond a chicken. The lion thought if it went some zoo in the US, it will be fit and well fed and started to pray daily.

One fine day a zoo manager from US came for visit to the Indian Zoo. The Zoo manager was interested in shifting the lion to the US zoo. The lion's joy knew no bounds and it thought it's prayers got answered. The lion started thinking about the luxurious life, posh meal with one or two goats daily, hygienic and well maintained environment and later the US green card too!

When it reached the US zoo, food was offered in a nicely sealed bag. When the lion opened it was puzzled to see that it contained bananas. The lion thought that there might have been some mistake.

The next day, the same thing; a bag full of bananas. And again on the third the same bag was delivered. The lion not able to take it anymore, grew furious. It stopped the zoo keeper who delivered the bags, smashed him like anything and asked "Are you kidding me? Don't you know that I am a lion - The king of the jungle? What's wrong with you guys and your management? Why the nonsense that I am fed with bananas?"

The zoo keeper politely said, "Mr. Lion, I know that you are the king of the jungle, but... Are you aware that you have been brought here on a monkey's visa?..."

No more explanations... :)

So long until the next post...

The Demon

Once upon a time, a man ventured into the icy mountains and got caught up in the freezing snow in the mountains. Not knowing where to go, he finally found a cavern like place where he could sit and rest for a while. While resting, to he closed his arms tight together kept near his  mouth and blew air in his inside his closed arms to keep himself warm. By then, a demon was passing by this man. It felt strange about the man blowing air in his hands. It went near him asked, what he was doing. The man replied, as he was caught in the freeze cold, he did that act to keep himself warm.

The demon did not understand and it asked how. The man explained that he blew warm air out of his mouth and that eventually keeps him somewhat warm. The demon took pity on him and thought it could provide some shelter and when the weather gets better, the man can go. So it brought the man to its home and made him feel comfortable.

Then it started preparing some hot soup for him to drink. Once the soup was done, it served it to the man. On receiving the soup, the man again started to blow it. The demon got confused, because why the man should blow the already hot soup to make it warm. It inquired, why he did that.

The man replied, the soup was too hot and he blew some cold air to make it a bit cooler. The demon got angry and shouted at the man. "I don't believe people having two mouths in one! Drink the soup and vanish away otherwise I will eat you!"

The picture in the organisations is no different, especially IT, you can see a lot of people with two or more mouths talking all the self-contradictory statements and more, that even the demons fear to be in touch with.

So how many demon fearing people you have met!!! :)

So long until the next post...
 

The Frog

There was our great researcher (Mad Scientist?) who did some intriguing and curious research on various things. One day he caught a frog and started training it to jump on command. The frog did well in training and learned quickly with zeal and effort. The frog could easily jump 10 feet on hearing the command "JUMP". At last, the day arrived, when the frog was to be put into real research work. So our great researcher took it to the lab and started his experiment.

He put the frog on the floor and shouted "JUMP". The frog jumped 10 feet. He noted it down. Now, he cut the left hind leg of the frog. Now, he shouted "JUMP", the frog jumped 20 centimetres. The distance was noted down. Then the researcher cut the other hind leg too, now the frog had just the 2 legs in the front. Our researcher again shouted "JUMP", the frog moved 2 centimetres. Again distance noted down.

Now, the mad scientist, sorry researcher, cut one of the legs forelegs that made the frog to have only one leg. Now, the command was given "Jump", the frog managed to move 1/2 centimetre. Again stats noted down. At last the final leg too was removed and when he said "JUMP", the frog never moved.

The researcher concluded the experiment with the report saying "When you cut all the four legs of the frog, the frog becomes DEAF".

This is what is happening to some good performers in the organisation. First their freedom and power is being slowly removed and at last they are tied altogether with no freedom or thought of their own, but has to act mechanical. But later when it comes to performance review or appraisal, the report comes something like "You have an attitude problem, maybe you should correct it :)"

The Mad Scientists keep on doing this to many frogs, that there are only crippled frogs out there. :)

So long until the next post...

The Monkeys and the Market

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and told the villagers, who were farmers, that he needs monkeys. The villagers laughed at him and never minded about what the man told. Later the man announced to the villagers that he would pay Rs.10 each monkey that the villagers catch for him. The villagers have seen a lot of monkeys in the nearby forest that used to raid their villages too, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought every monkey at Rs.10 and the villagers made a good deal. Soon the supply
started to diminish, the villagers thought that it was not worth the effort, so they stopped catching monkeys.

The man further announced that he would now buy each monkey at Rs.50. This villagers thought that it seemed to be a good deal, started catching monkeys again. And again, the supply diminished even further and people stopped the monkey business and started going back to their farms. Now the offer rate increased to Rs 75 and the supply of monkeys became so scarce that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catching it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs.200 per monkey! However, since he had to go to the city on some urgent business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him. In the absence of the man, the assistant placed a deal with the villagers. "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs. 125 per monkey and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for Rs 200". The villagers found it to be promising squeezed up funds from all their savings to buy the monkeys at Rs. 125 per monkey. After that they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!!!

Welcome to the Global Market!!!

So long until the next post...

The Cat

Once upon a time, there was a Guru, who was the head of a Gurukulam. He had many student disciples who learnt spiritual lessons from him. The Guru also had a pet cat, which wandered around in the gurukulam.

One day the Guru was teaching something very important in the lessons of spiritual enlightenment. By then, the Guru's pet cat strolled nearby. This caught the attention of one of the students. He started to gaze at the cat rather than listening to what his Guru said. The Guru noticed that and warned the student, in addition, he asked one of the other students to tie to cat to the mast outside and also instructed that cat should be tied to the mast to avoid his students gazing at the cat when it strolls inside.

From then on, when the class started, one of the students would tie the Guru's pet cat to the pole outside the class. A few years passed, the Guru died and the next senior person became the Guru of the Gurukulam. But the practice of tying the cat to the pole when the class started continued.

A few years passed, the cat also died. And in the next day, when the class was about to start, the new Guru shouted. "Where is the cat, don't you guys know that a cat should be tied to the pole outside before the classes start?"

The other students got afraid because the new Guru got angry, found another cat, tied it to the pole and then the classes started for the day.

These days, organizations getting the ISO/CMM certifications do such acts without meaning or purpose. Maybe, the processes recommended in those certifications are to streamline the functioning of the organization in a smoother way. But, many organisations start preparing the laborious and monotonous documentation only at the end of the project/cycle, rather than having them prepared during the course. Reason for preparing at the end - Come on, everybody is busy at the other times :)

So long until the next post...