If only India had daylight savings time...

Today, as I sit at a vague time of 3:00 am in the night on my computer, I experienced something unusual – the clock on the Windows tray turning back to 2:00 am on its own even though it had reached 3:00 am. Of course, this was the end of the daylight savings time here in Europe. We were reverting back by 1 hour to normal time. This now means that we are 4.5 hours behind India instead of 3.5 hours… The biggest benefit for now is that I get 1 extra hour of sleep on the weekend!

However, I was just wondering how this 1 extra hour would be of such great benefit though for us back in India… Here is a look at the tremendous benefits it offers to a wide cross-section of people…

1. Our politicians – The junior Gowda who had in the evening agreed to support the Janata Dal, decided to create the 50th twist in the whole (a)pisode. He is in talks with esteemed madam Mrs. Sonia Gandhi Jee to share power at the center in return for supporting a Congress govt. at the state level. Mrs. Sonia Jee in the meantime has given 7 more instructions in the additional hour for Mr. Manmohan Singh to carry out. In parallel in Gujarat, somewhere in collusion with the same people who were exposed on the Tehelka video, Mr. Narendra Modi is trying to figure out more means to block all access to the entire internet, print media and radio so that the Tehelka expose does not reach his people.
2. Our film personalities – 5 more trailers of Om Shanti Om were shown on around 25 different channels thus increasing the number of total impressions by 125 and the effective headcount of the mega marketing reach by around 2.5 people. The Big B meanwhile has signed up for 5 more brands to advertise this year, having had to compensate for giving up his claim on the farm land.
3. Our sports heroes – Current captain M S Dhoni has once again managed to get a new haircut – this time a 70s style haircut aka Shah Rukh in OSO, to woo model turned actresses who act as 70s stars. At the same time, ex-captain Dravid is utilizing the 1 hour for figuring out how the fortunes have completely turned for him – from producing India’s best, to be given a rest* (E.g. of * -. Teachers picking out “volunteers” in school to do stuff). Sehwag was last seen laughing all out for this 1 hour thinking about how many series he has been persisted with despite his “spectacular” form.
4. Our IT Services companies – Revenue-wise, there is no addition for the year since they lose this 1 hour in March when daylight savings time comes back in. However, they utilized this time to recruit 20 more people each and train them on the basics of computing. The overall training period has gradually shortened from 3 months to 2.5 weeks now.
5. The educated gentlemen and ladies – Most of our grads and multi-national employees are using this 1 additional hour to figure out how to make more money, progress in career, marry their darlings, take care of their babies or buy that splendid new apartment. The rest (like yours truly) are doing the same things at a place away from India (or trying to get 1 more hour of sleep).
6. The common man – He gets to see one more hour of all the above drama unfolding in front of him on the various news channels as more “sensational breaking news” fills up this hour. He cringes about how bad the politicians but knows though that the opponents are no less crap. He is hoping that some of the educated classes will save India someday. He does not know that this educated class is more foolish than him to depend on some politician saving them.

Any more such activities people can do in that 1 hour, please do post in the comments section…

The real meaning behind MBA resumes

One of the most important things that B-school students learn during their 2 years in college is the art of preparing resumes. They understand that their resume is their biggest self-marketing tool and spruce it up with tons of high-flown adjectives, adverbs and what not to ensure that they come out tops in getting at least a shortlist for an interview. Let us demystify some of the jargons that they use to spruce up their resume after a couple of years of life in IT.

Resume usage: “Core member of a large development project”
Real meaning: Was mostly involved in buying snacks for the team members. Helped out in some minimal documentation when someone was sick in the project…

Resume usage: “Led the business development team to win a large multi-year multi-million dollar proposal … “
Real meaning: Copy pasted over 75% of the proposal from a previous one. When everything else failed, we reduced our rates to such a ridiculous amount that we had to get the deal.

Resume usage: “Helped strategize on the business plan of the practice to focus on new and upcoming areas”
Real meaning: Put up a presentation for the senior management during one of the strategy sessions. PPT shelved into cold storage the next day.

Resume usage: “Underwent an exhaustive training program on strategic leadership”
Real meaning: Went to GRT Grand Days and had an extremely fulfilling buffet lunch. Had a good sleep away from project pains during the training sessions…

Resume usage: “Championed organization activities including recruitment efforts, pre-placement talks etc.”
Real meaning: Was one of the over two hundred panellists in one of our usual mega-recruitment drives when the number of panellists is generally more than the number of candidates.