WORK LIFE

As a person who has around 4 years of experience working in a corporate environment, I can say with 100 percent conviction that people management is an ART.

I had dealt with all kinds of people, worked with some really naive / dumb to extremely brilliant / smart assess. Now don’t take that naive = dumb, I meant both kinds of people. I always consider myself to be dumb in a lot of things, so being dumb is nothing to be ashamed off. I try to be honest about my opinions and I never get scared that I might offend others. Now for all the people who have worked with me please don’t take it in the wrong sense, people who know me well will know my respect for them. For those who don’t, please don’t assume things and my opinions doesn't matter anyways.

I know I might be wrong and others can always prove me wrong. But it takes some effort to do that and I often find people not ready to talk about difficult issues. When you ask a difficult question it’s easier to avoid or sidestep it than voicing your true opinion. Very few people are brave enough to say what they actually think.

Say out of 10 people if 8 are saying you are good with your work and relations and only 2 have problems with you, then overall you are a success at what you do. You cannot satisfy everybody. The 2 are a minority and most probably the problem is not with you. Of-course you try to sort things out with the 2, if that doesn’t work then you just carry on minding your own business. I have done this and it worked most of the times. Sometimes even your good intentions can be misinterpreted as bad. 

e.g. – I know this guy who used to work his ass off, everybody loved him for his dedication and honesty. But he still had his differences with his managers and he became a troublemaker for some. I told him not to slog so much. Only slog when it matters, eventually he too agreed to my point when he got screwed :-)   

"Difference of opinion" is a given in any work space, it’s how you deal with it which matters.

e.g. – I used to fight with my manager on a lot of issues, of course I have utmost respect for him and that was the reason I made an effort to fight or express my strong disagreements on issues. No matter how many disagreements we had my manager understood my intentions so we always tried to workout solutions. He is still a very good friend, a well wisher and an excellent critic.

The few people, whom I don’t respect at all screw up themselves without any outside help. Now that is also an art I suppose.   

Cheers

Pradeep

12 MONKEYS – Directed by Terry Gilliam

CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY all the way….. Wait a sec, I’m not crazy but this movie might make you one :-) its such a layered, complicated story. One might have to watch this movie multiple times to grasp every little detail and if you blink you will miss something. A movie which has two Hollywood greats Bruce Willis & Brad Pitt - can’t go wrong.

“The story goes from present to past but its future to past and present to us the viewer but not for the lead character James Cole played by Bruce Willis ” :-) Now to understand this sentence is same as understanding the movie, you will eventually. The movie was released in 1995. I first watched it many years ago; saw it again today and it still surprises me. Bruce Willis plays a different kind of hero who is vulnerable and tough at the same time, he has given a kick ass performance.

Brad Pitt – now what can I say about him, whatever character he chooses to play this guy makes it look COOOOOOOOL. He plays a loony character and it can’t get any loonier than this. One of his best performances ever and he was nominated for an academy award in the best supporting actor category.

One gripe about the movie is that I found it a bit too long. For a movie were the world is at danger and Billions of people dying I missed a sense of urgency in the later half of the movie. But its one of those movies which will Psych you out. Dunno if everybody will like it because the viewer really has to concentrate as it’s not a simple story.

Cheers

Pradeep

Musings

Its extreamly difficult to find a good critic who is neutral and backs his/her comments with logic.

Cheers
Pradeep

Musings

Wonder why many people JUMP to CONCLUSIONS or ASSUMPTIONS  without even raising some basic questions?

Cheers

Pradeep

THE SHINING – Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Phew……this is by far one of the SCARRIEST movie I have ever seen. I usually don’t dig spook stories as I don’t believe in GOD and Ghosts, because it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe that’s the reason I saw this movie hoping for an explanation at the end as I didn't have much clue about the story line before watching it.

Basically it is a story about ghosts and how people get affected. A writer takes his wife and kid to a hotel which closes down for the winter season. The family stays alone in the big hotel which is haunted by ghosts. The story is a bit confusing. Later I found that people who watched this movie did have their own interpretations of events happening in the movie. Now that is synonymous with the master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, the movie does have multiple shades and levels.

I always like to be surprised when I watch a movie, rarely does that happen. I did have an idea that this was a classic and it was scary, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. Of course it didn't scare me like I’m afraid of ghosts or anything, but the performances of the three lead characters the writer, wife and the kid were scary. 

The most outstanding thing about this movie is JACK NICHOLSON, he is one SCARRY………………. Even when he smiles it looks psychotic.

For a movie in the Horror genre, there aren't many gory scenes or killing shown. But the suspense is built by excellent screenplay and a haunting background score. Come to think of it the background score makes the movie work so well, if you watch it alone with a surround sound system you will be scarred so much that you might check if there is someone else in the room. Yeaaahhhh it’s that scary.

Watch out for the scenes were Nicholson is disturbed by his wife while he is trying to write, acting at its best.

   

Cheers

Pradeep