Thursday, February 10, 2011

Performance under pressure

Yesterday, we decided to make biryani. But all we had were three tiny cookers, so we had to use all three to make a good quantity.

But these three cookers were not alike...

Cooker 1: It was a tiny cooker with no plastic handle, the valve was damaged and it was totally screwed up

Cooker 2: It was the same size as Cooker 1, but it was intact and properly functioning

Cooker 3: It was slightly bigger than the other two cookers, intact and properly functioning

Naturally, we had high expectations on Cooker 3, moderate on Cooker 2 and no expectations from Cooker 1.

So we put 3 cups rice in Cooker 3, 2 cups in Cooker 2 and only 1 Cup in Cooker 1.

After lots of whistles (not from Cooker 1 of course) and some time, we opened all the cookers and to our surprise we saw that

Cooker 3: The rice wasn't perfectly cooked

Cooker 2: The rice was ok

Cooker 1: The rice looked amazing, white fluffy and so yummy!

So we thought that the moral of the incident is

Good performers might break down when there is immense pressure and bad performers might perform exceptionally well when given the space and time!

Sounds like a Management lesson?

Nah!

We checked the cookers properly and found that

Cooker 3: The rice was uniformly cooked

Cooker 2: The rice was fine throughout

Cooker 1: The rice stuck to the bottom and quite a quantity was wasted

Next lesson: Good performers might break down, but their performance is of high quality;
bad performers always screw things up? or is it better to be moderate and stay out of the debate?

Nah!

Good or bad we ultimately ate all three types of cooked rice...

Sometimes u may perform well, sometimes u may screw up a lot...

Ultimately what matters is Chill!!! Be cool!!!

There are many external and internal factors for everything, no use breaking your head and trying to make sense of them!!!


:P

That's what I learnt :P

[This blog post evolved based on a discussion between DK and me]

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Harry Potter and me!



Harry Potter...this name brings to me a flood of memories...which I'm now going to dump in the rest of the blog.

I think the world went gaga over Harry Potter sometime when I was in high school...

I remember seeing some of my classmates reading the novels in the class...with the book hidden below the table. My impression at that time of the Harry Potter series was that they were a bunch of kiddish-fantasy books, adding to it the size of the books - and no way!... I wasn't going to read them! ...my eyesight was bad enough already.

Soon HP movies were on the loose (:P) and a year later POGO - the new channel on the block, telecast the first movie. I TRIED, really TRIED to watch the movie, but couldn't help dozing off midway.


5 years later...

I just entered engineering and was 'trying' to make friends with the new classmates. I started conversing with a girl and she said she loves Harry Potter books. So what did I do? I LIED (:D) that I 'read' (ya, right!) the 1st book long back...and well she seems pretty impressed! (Hey all's fair in love and war isn't it? [Love as in love for friends/ friendship]) Well, we drifted off to other topics and soon we were quite good friends.

Another 2 years later...

...the topic of Harry Potter came up between my friend and me (Coz we had nicknamed a girl in our class 'Hermione' ...and that girl wasn't me btw) and I was like 'Err...umm...I did not read any Harry Potter book' and I still remember the look on her face :P We soon drifted off to other topics and I guess after two years of friendship, how the friendship started off doesn't matter :D

As for me, I am now careful not to blatantly lie that way....I make sure I know at least a little background first (so officially it wouldn't be a lie) :P :P

After a year...

A friend and I discussed books in general and I told her that the Harry Potter books seem to be the most hyped. She then patiently explained to me that it is not hype but it is the author's imagination that has made the books popular. Then I thought....'May be HP isn't that bad after all....have to watch the movies at least'.

After 2 more years...

I watched the first HP movie again with a roommie - she being an ardent HP fan and having read all the books, explained each and every character and concept in detail. It was then that I realized the true magic of Harry Potter and just couldn't wait to watch the other movies! Looking forward to watching the movies during evenings became the order of the day...


7 Harry Potter movies later, I even had a dream with Harry Potter in it last week!

Right now it's HP all the way...and no other movie seems to interest me ;)

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