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Humanity at Workspace

Recently there has been a lot of news about Layoffs. It has kind of become a trend. Every other day we read that X company is laying off thousands of employees. Such news is followed by responses of affected employees who express how the layoff decision was so sudden and how they were not prepared for such a thing to happen to them.

As spectators, for us these are only “numbers”. The news agencies report the number of employees laid off. When the management takes such decisions, again it is only numbers for them. But we often conveniently forget that these are not merely numbers and are “Human Beings”. We should not forget that these are breadwinners of the family on whose shoulders there is responsibility to provide the next meal.

Nowadays, Bosses are not called Boss/Reporting Manager/Manager anymore. We call them “People Manager” in HR terminology. Maybe, the term was introduced to remind the bosses and/or leaders that they are managing people and not some assets which can be bought and laid off as & when required. But now, I think it is time to change the term again and call them as “Human Managers” to remind them that they are working with their fellow Human Beings.

In my professional life, I have had an opportunity to work with one of the finest human beings. He was admired by all for his values, his principles, his vision and most importantly his people management skills. He always stressed on “Dignity of an individual”.

During my experience of working with him, I have learnt that whatever be the circumstances, however the employee performs, his / her dignity as an individual should always be maintained. We should never forget to respect him / her as a fellow human being. Employees could be from different ranks and grades based on their professional roles and designations. But as an individual, all employees are equal human beings.

I believe all the organisations should adopt this philosophy. The larger responsibility does lie with the people in leadership positions who are responsible for all the humans under them. With the capitalist ideology, most leaders take responsibility of numbers such as revenue, expense and employee count. But they don’t really take responsibility of maintaining humanity in their team.

If someone performs good and achieves targets, they’re applauded, appreciated, maybe even give monetary bonus and that is it. When the same person performs bad, the same leader would be quick to put the employee in the line of fire, maybe even shout at them and dismiss them. The complete relationship is just driven by business performance. The same leadership could be very accommodating to one person who is believed to be performing good and be outright mean, insulting to another person from the same team. This is where we stop valuing dignity of individuals, this is where we stop respecting them as human beings.

We should always remember that all employees are humans first and deserve equal respect. Their designations, grades, ranks are secondary adjectives. If they do well, we should encourage them to do better. If they don’t do well, we should take joint responsibility of the failure. We should acknowledge that as leaders somewhere even we were not as attentive as required. We did not identify that they were struggling and having difficult time. Once we accept our failure too as a leader, we should sit down and talk and understand what went wrong, how we could have avoided the issues and why and what needs to be done to either correct the situation or ensure that same issues don’t happen again. Then together, we should plan and take measures to improve the performance of the employees.

Sometimes, organisations do go through some difficult phases where they need to make sacrifices. There is nothing wrong in laying off people. If by laying off few employees, we can save the organisation and jobs of many, it becomes the right step for the greater good. But the process of lay off should be gentle. We should remember they are people who trusted the organisation with their careers and trusted the organisation to support them in exchange of using their skills. The managers need to have heart-to-heart talk and explain the reasons for taking the decision. They should respectfully inform the employees of their decision and if possible, even provide them assistance to find new jobs. The exit should be made respectfully and on good positive note and not cut the ties sharply like with a knife.

The ultimate responsibility of the HR and Management is to remember that when they recruit employees, they are not recruiting robots to fulfil their needs. They are recruiting human beings with emotions and hence they should be treated with utmost respect during their tenure with us. Criticism should be for work done badly but not for the individual. That is true Professionalism.

What are your thoughts on the same?

Featured

Silence

Silence…. Such a glorified word in literature.

Leonardo Da Vinci said, “Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence”. (1)

Thomas Carlyle said, “Speech is Silver, Silence is Golden”. (2)

But, is it really true? Is Silence really a strength?

My personal opinion says “No.” Silence is a weakness. In today’s world, you get continuously hurt if you are always silent.

A person who is forever silent is definitely a wise person. They choose to be silent instead of speaking to protect peace. They remain silent for the greater good of the people around them. They are being selfless and care too much about the world they live in. They try to protect the fragile human relationships by staying silent. They try to be greater and better humans in the process.

But what is the point of all this silence? Yes, the world is better. The world is peaceful. The world is happy. The relationships are saved. But what about the person practicing silence? Who cares about their peace and happiness?

In the process of staying silent, this selfless person keeps getting hurt. Their self-respect is hurt, their feelings are hurt, the relationships saved could be toxic for them causing stress and unhappiness, their heart and soul is in turmoil. And it all stays within. Because they chose to stay SILENT.

Nobody really cares about such people, otherwise they would not always be silent. Sometimes silence becomes a habit, even a forced habit. The person who stays silent is perceived as a weakling. People keep hurting them because they know there will never be a word said, never a tear shed, never the truth revealed. People keep abusing them, taunting them, hurting them, because they know that this person will always remain silent and not retaliate. The Silent person will keep tolerating everything, for the better interests of the world, even if it causes deep wounds in their hearts and souls.

If one day this forever Silent person manages to express dissent at the mistreatment, if this forever Silent person manages to express the hurt and unhappiness they are experiencing, they are quickly judged as the Villains. How dare the Silent person raise a voice? They are expected to stay silent and so they have no right to object to anything. That is how the world is. Rebellious people are expected to rebel. So there is nothing wrong with their rebelling. They are never criticized for that. But when a tame person rebels, all hell breaks loose. How dare they change their expected behavior pattern? Change is not welcome. They better stay tame, they better stay silent. They are not humans, they have no right to express their feelings of hurt. They only have the responsibility of maintaining silence.

Responsibility…. Why the Silent person is only considered responsible to maintain peace and happiness? Why it is not the responsibility of the person who always causes trouble? Why is it that their troublesome behavior is an accepted norm and not looked down upon but the occasional words spoken by a normally Silent person treated as evil? Why does a Silent person not have a right to express their pains? Why a Silent person resorts to bottling up the pains deep in their hearts? Why the Silent person has to shed those heavy tears alone in the dark of the night when the world is sleeping or in the rain or showers where nobody can see those tears? Why their pillows are always wet and salty with those secret tears? Who gives the world a right to torment the Silent person just because they decided to stay silent voluntarily to avoid distress to the world? Who gives the world a right to emotionally torture the Silent person and restrict their freedom of speech by hurting them even more when they express their pains?

What do you think? Should the Silent person become selfish for once and seek their own happiness and peace of mind? Should the Silent person stop being silent and fight for their rights to equal treatment? Should the Silent person make way for themselves in the world on their own? Should the Silent person try to heal the deep wounds inflicted on their heart and soul? Or, should the Silent person remain SILENT and let the status quo remain?

Do share your views in the comments section below. If you like this blog, do click on like, share and subscribe.

References:

  1. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/silence
  2. https://wisdomquotes.com/silence-quotes/

Planning – Should we even plan?

Hello everyone!

So today, I want to talk about Planning.

You would say, why plan when life is so uncertain? Post pandemic, everyone has realised how some of the best plans can go down the drain in the face of huge uncertainties like the one brought on us by the Covid-19 pandemic. Unimaginable, unpredictable, unforeseeable circumstances became our reality. So why take the effort to plan?

Well, I will answer that. But first let’s understand what planning is.

As per Collins dictionary, “Planning is the process of deciding in detail how to do something before you actually start to do it.” As per Wikipedia, “Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal”. The important word here is “Goal”.

The whole story starts with setting up of a Goal. Goal is a vision; it defines what we want to achieve at some point in future. It could be a personal goal or professional goal or an organisational goal. It gives us a direction to move ahead. Without goal, we would be headless bodies moving anywhere and everywhere without any sense of direction or milestone. In the end, we would realise that even after moving so much, we are still at the same place. We have not moved ahead at all. Thus, setting up a goal gives us a direction to move ahead in whatever we are doing. We can “go with the flow” and “take one day at a time”, but at the end there won’t be satisfaction. We would not get the happiness of achieving something that we dreamt of achieving. Yes, we should not pressure ourselves. But a healthy, positive, constructive push is always a good idea to move ahead in life.

But setting up a goal alone would not help at all. It will be similar to dreaming. It takes us nowhere. Goal needs to be supported by a plan to achieve it. I can set up a goal to land on moon someday. I can dream about it and leave it at that. Or I can plan!

I can plan for two ways of reaching moon. I can study more and become an astronaut. Alternatively, I can earn more and earmark a separate fund for moon travel. With commercial space tourism becoming reality, I can actually opt for Lunar Space Tourism and pay my way to the moon. And here comes the role of planning.

To make my dream a reality, I need to plan in detail my future course of action. Going back to academics could be difficult option. So, I can plan on hustling more to earn more income. I can cut down on my expenses and create a separate savings fund for my personal Lunar Mission. I need to research on what is the cost of such trip and the proposed time of such trip. Based on my research, I need to plan annual savings to achieve my target funds by the time the trip can be arranged.

The same is true for professional or organisational goals. There is always a typical friction between management and sales team when it comes to planning. Management likes to set up targets while sales team believes it impossible to plan for future when they don’t even know how the immediate next day will turn out to be. But, if they were not given any targets, they wouldn’t really grow well because there would be no aspiration, motivation and drive to excel. A strong vision and plan drives the organisation and each individual who is part of that organisation to excel and grow by leaps and bounds. A strong plan will definitely take the organisation beyond normal, routine, organic growth even if they are unable to achieve the desired goal.

There is a saying in Hindi “Aasman se gira, khajur pe atka” (falling from the sky and stuck on the date tree). If we give positive makeover to this saying, we can say “Aasman ki khwahish karo, sabse unche ped tak to pahuch hi jaoge” (desire for the sky and you shall reach the top of the tallest tree atleast).

So, good luck and all the best for “planning” your life.

Happy dreaming for the sky!

Happiness – A Relative Concept

Happiness – We all wish for happiness when we send our good wishes, greetings, and blessings. Merriam-webster dictionary defines Happiness as “a state of well-being and contentment, joy, prosperity, a pleasurable or satisfying experience”. Everybody talks about the “pursuit of happiness”. Aristotle once said “happiness depends upon ourselves”.

Well, I agree to disagree happily. Talking about happiness in a theoretical and philosophical sense is easy. But pursuing happiness in reality is a challenge. Happiness is a relative concept. Definition of Happiness is different for each individual. Person A might get happiness out of earning more. Person B might get happiness out of spending more time with family even if he has to sacrifice their earnings. Person C may get happiness from doing something for the community even if it is at their own cost. And achieving the individual goals of happiness needs support of the surrounding ecosystem. It depends on not just ourselves but on the people around us, the environment around us.

Person A may work harder than others to earn better but whether they will actually get it depends on people who value their work and decide their pay. Person B may strive hard to complete work on time and be with family but their employers or bosses might force them to spend more and more time at work. Person C may try hard to work for the community but whether they will get the opportunity to do so depends on the community.

Thus, our pursuit of happiness, depends a lot on the universe we are in. What is important for us may not be that important for others.

So how to be happy, you say? Well, there is always a work around.

First decide what makes you truly happy. Don’t be guided by the family, friends, peers and other outside influencers. Have a heart to heart chat with your heart and understand what makes you feel Joy.

Secondly, decide how to achieve that joy. What will you need to do to be happy? Do you need to have a talk with your team to add more meaning to your job? Do you need to change jobs to be happy? Do you need to plan time-outs to follow your hobby? Do you need to work with an NGO to satisfy your hunger for social good?

Thirdly, mould your ecosystem. Communicate to them clearly your needs and inform them why you are doing what you are doing. Take their support to find alternative solutions, if available and get their buy-in.

Fourthly, do all that you feel will make you happier at heart. Plan things out with your mind so that you have a foolproof plan to help you survive through everything. Don’t let the heart take over on this step. Once the heart & mind are set in one place, it is easier to execute any decision taken.

Lastly, be happy. Earn your happiness with your efforts and support from your ecosystem. Follow your own path towards pursuit of happiness.

Wish you a meaningful and successful pursuit of your own happiness!

The Great Mumbai Local Trains!

Hello there!

Happy Diwali and a prosperous New Year!

Festive season is at full throttle. Navratri followed by Sharad Poornima followed by Karwa Chauth followed by Diwali.

Hindus are the most lucky and unlucky community when it comes to festivals. Lucky because there is some or the other festival to celebrate every few days. Unlucky because they are constantly active, no relief from the festive fervour, and so many related expenses like food, clothes, gifts, etc. And in this inflation, too many expenses does make life difficult.

Still we all enjoy the festivities with our loved ones. But, the best place to experience the festivals besides our own homes is the great Mumbai Local Train, followed closely by Workplaces. Local Train is the lifeline of Mumbai and the people of Mumbai. A typical working Mumbaikar spends almost 15% of their day in the Local Train. Co-travellers become extended family. Birthdays, anniversaries, festivals, work achievements, you name it and it is celebrated in the Local Train. Birthday cakes are cut in train. Snacks are shared. Literally parties happen in trains where turn by turn people of the group get snacks for all. Sometimes even dinners and weekend outings are planned with the fellow travellers.

There is a strong emotional connect. The people meet only twice a day on account of the commute together. And in that shared journey a strong, everlasting bond is formed. This is especially true for Women. Being a woman myself, I have witnessed moments of joys and sorrows being shared amongst close-knit groups in this very train. The bonding is so strong. The train friends stand by each other in times of need and even fight for each other if need be.

You know, during Navratri, we have the tradition to wear different colours on each of the 9 days. It is a symbolic reference to the Goddesses that each day is dedicated to. I don’t know who decides the colours and how it is decided, yet. We get this communication in Whatsapp groups and Official workplace mailers specifying the colour code for each day. And we all try to follow it. Both men and women. And it is definitely a sight to see. If it is say, yellow colour, you get to witness all shades of yellow in the clothes of people travelling. There is a sea of Yellow on the local railway platform. Waves of yellow entering the train as it arrives on the platform. And then the waves are subsided by a calmer and smaller sea once the train leaves the platform. Within the train, men sing bhajans (devotional songs). Some men even carry musical instruments for singing bhajans. Such sessions makes them forget their more than an hour journey. Women sing garbas (traditional folk songs sung during Navratri festival). Some women even dance to those songs, making a circle in the aisle of the train. And it is not actually restricted through religion. Anybody and everybody who wants to join and have fun can go for it. And everybody enjoys the music. Secularism bang in the middle of the lifeline of Mumbai. And those politicians just talk shit about “Secularism” and actually try to divide people by talking about Religion and such allied things. And singing is not related to devotional music only. Even Antaksharis are played with Bollywood songs. Thanks to smartphones, commuters love playing Ludo game in group as it reminds them of their childhood memories. And it’s fun to see them playing, pulling down each other just to win the game. At times, you’ll also enjoy discussions relating to politics, stock market, Bollywood movies and what not. Some people brag with so much confidence that you’ll almost believe them to be true. These people know how to have a good time in adversity. I mean, all these people could have had a horrible day yesterday. They could be looking forward to yet another horrible day ahead. They could be stressed about work, about home, about family, kids, chores and what not. And yet, in the company of the fellow travellers, who could be experiencing the same things in their own lives, they forget their respective troubles and enjoy the moment. This is probably what keeps them energised, keep them going throughout the day, each day, inspite of all the troubles.

Another aspect of the festivities is dressing up! The favourite activity of women. Women dress up for so many things. Festivals, Public holidays, and so on. And it is another important part of the train friendship. Come any such event, say Karwa Chauth. Days ahead women will plan with their group members about what to wear, what accessories to wear, what to cook and so on. Members help each other by lending their own stuff and/or going shopping together. There would be a full on Make-up Masterclass right in the middle of the train. The pro person of the group would advise on shade of lipstick and nailpaint to be used. Even apply the eye-liner and lipstick and do hairstyles for the group members in need. It is like a free of cost, everyday salon.

And these local trains are so important for lunches of the working people. The local trains are an important part of the tiffin delivery service run by the famed Mumbai Dabbawalas.

For the uninitiated, The dabbawalas constitute a lunchbox delivery and return system that delivers hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work in Mumbai. The lunchboxes are picked up in the morning, delivered predominantly using bicycles and railway trains, and returned empty in the afternoon. They are also used by meal suppliers in Mumbai, who pay them to ferry lunchboxes with ready-cooked meals from central kitchens to customers and back. (Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala) It is an Army of 5,000 Dabbawalas fulfilling the hunger of almost 200,000 Mumbaikar with home-cooked food that is lug between home and office daily. They are Six Sigma Certified and is a great example of solid, organised team work. They are an integral part of the life of the Office-goers. And now they even have their own centralised kitchen to provide the comfort of home-cooked food to people who are alone or do not have somebody to cook food for them at home. You can visit their website http://mumbaidabbawala.in/# for more detailed information. Trust me, you would be fascinated to know how they operate. And they are strongly aided by the very same Mumbai Local Trains in their daily operations. Tiffins or Lunch-boxes are collected from homes and transported to the nearest railway station by Bicycles. At the station, they are sorted based on the Destination station and accordingly the men take responsibility of their respective allocated locations and load the tiffins in the train. At destination station, the tiffins are unloaded, sorted and then sent away on bicycles to reach the final destination. All before the lunch time. Every single day, whether it is raining or sunny, whether the trains are on time or late, whether roads have traffic or not, the Dabbawalas ensure that the tiffins reach the people on time and everybody gets their own tiffins. There is always First Time Right. No room for error. And after the lunch time, these empty tiffins are also collected and delivered back to the homes they came from. It’s marvelous how this process is repeated every single day, without any mistake. And the centre of it all is the Great Mumbai Local Train.

Local trains in Mumbai are truly the lifeline of the civilians here. Everybody’s life is connected to it. If the local trains do not work, their lives come to a standstill. Travelling anywhere within Mumbai becomes a nightmare. So cheers to the Awesome Mumbai Local Trains.

Share your experiences with the Mumbai Local train in the comment section below.

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Tada!

Goodness of Black

Festive season has started. So many happy occasions. People celebrating festivals with family and friends, dressed in colourful clothes, consuming sweets, singing, dancing and partying. And in all these festivities we treat one beautiful colour like a pariah. Can you guess which colour I am talking about? Well, that colour is Black Colour. 
In Hinduism, black colour is considered inauspicious. In any festival or any good occasion, we are not supposed to wear black. Personally I love black colour. It is such a beautiful colour. Gives a strong personality to the wearer. And yet we are not allowed to wear it. Whenever I pick a dress in black, I get scolded by my Mom. Unnecessarily I feel.

So why this hating? I really don’t understand it. So let’s try to understand, starting with the science of colours. We have all learnt in schools that White light is the combination of all colours.


Now a little lesson on how we see colours. It has been picked from American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) website.

When light hits an object, the object absorbs some of that light and reflects the rest of it. That reflected light enters the human eye and thanks to the Cone cells in our Retina (part of eye), we see different colours. Cones contain photo pigments, or color-detecting molecules. Humans typically have three types of photo pigments—red, green and blue. So all the colours we see are combination of these three colour pigments. Each type of cone is sensitive to different wavelengths of visible light. Based on which cones are activated and strength of signal, brain processes the colour we see.

End of the lesson. 😉 But for the curious ones, you can get detailed understanding at the below page.
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/how-humans-see-in-color

So, in layman’s terms, when a white light falls on any object, the object absorbs some part of the light and reflects other part. The rays of light that are reflected back enter our eyes and based on the processing of our brain, the colour we see is determined. If an object reflects Red colour, and absorbs all other colours, we see Red colour. If an object reflects Blue colour, we see blue colour on the object. If the object doesn’t absorb any colour, and reflects back all colours, it appears White in colour. Infact, this is the reason white colour is considered cooler. This is the reason the terraces of buildings are painted in white colour in Summer when it is very hot to reduce heating up of the houses or rooms right under the terrace. It doesn’t absorb any colour. So no heat is absorbed. And hence it is cooler. On the other hand, black colour absorbs all colours. It doesn’t reflect back any colour. Hence, it is hotter.

If we look at the characteristic of black colour with a human angle to it, black colour is very kind. It accepts all colour rays and absorbs everybody. Not a single colour is thrown back. It doesn’t discriminate between different colours. Isn’t that sweet of it? And we treat it like a bad influence. We treat it like a sinner, a villain. As if it has caused some harm to us. I still don’t know or understand why it is associated with negative connotations. Maybe because darkness is Black. And we fear darkness. So we project our fear of darkness, our fear of inability to see, our fear of unknown onto the innocent colour Black. Maybe it’s time to rethink and shift our belief from Black is Bad to Black is Good. Maybe it’s time to respect Black as a colour and not as a negative emotion. What do you think?

Do share your thoughts in the Comments section.

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Chemicals

Hi!

I am back. With a real conversation about the most commonly used term “Chemicals”.

You must be wondering, is it a science class or what? Why talk about chemicals? Yikes… Read on to find out what I have to say.


Today morning while getting ready for work, I was thinking about all the chemicals we use. Cosmetics, household cleaning solutions, preservatives in food and so on. And then I realised how wrongly we treat chemicals. I mean “Chemicals” word means a dark world to us. We all have the general belief that the chemicals are made artificially and they are definitely harmful. And all herbal products are good. But are chemicals the real culprit?

Technically, a chemical is an element or any combination of elements (as per Study.com). It is just a substance and could be in solid, liquid or gaseous form. Everything is made up of chemicals. So chemicals altogether are not Bad Villains. The reaction that a chemical causes makes the difference. Some chemical reactions have good effect and some have bad effect. Then there are some chemical reactions which primarily have good effect with partially bad side-effects. It is wrong to disgrace the word “Chemicals” based on our myths and beliefs. 

We have this myth that anything that is labelled “Herbal” is good. What we don’t realise is that Herbal products are also technically chemicals, even though they are sourced naturally. Only difference is that chemicals in herbal products are not created in laboratory but probably extracted from plant sources and then further processed. So assuming that everything with the label “Herbal” is safe, is wrong approach. We need to be really aware of what products we are using. We should always check the ingredients and if anything seems wrong, we need to check and verify before using the products.

So, takeaway from this is that we should differentiate products based on how they are generated and processed and how they affect us. We need to be more aware of things we use and make informed decisions. Do you agree? Let me know yout thoughts through comments below.

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My First Blog

Hello!
I am Richa and I am here to start my blog. But before I start sharing my thoughts, I would like to introduce myself properly. I want my readers to know who I am as a person and then go on and read my thoughts. It will help you understand me and my thoughts in a better way and we shall connect well.

So, about myself. I am a working Mom to a 16 month old cherub and a Mumbaikar. Academically I am a Chartered Accountant and am working with an Insurance Broking company. Recently, I resumed work after one and half year of Baby Break. I wanted to spend decent amount of time with my Baby before I resume. Once you start working, you get less time to spend at home with the child. I wanted to witness his early firsts like learning to speak mumma, eating solids, sitting up, crawling, walking and even dancing. So, once he achieved those milestones, I decided to get back to work and start focusing on my career too.

So since I am busy with my job and my baby, why blogging now?

While I was on the break, I was totally cooped up at home, spending every moment with my little munchkin. During that time, I also got time to think, introspect and reflect on my life. I had the opportunity to mentally see my life in flashback. I remembered how I used to write poems in school and early College days. I remembered how I dreamt of writing my own book with a rough plotline ready while I was still in school. But then I just got busy with studies and then work and marriage and now kid. Somewhere in all that, my innermost desires, my hobbies, they all took a back seat. But now, I have decided to start finding time for myself and fulfill atleast some of my dreams. And I have that opportunity too. My office commute takes about 2 hours one way and this gives plenty of Me Time to start with. And thanks to technology, I can easily write on my phone and post it online.

So, look forward to my first write – up which will be up soon. Hope you will like it. Till then, Ta-da.