Sunday, December 3, 2023

3 Things I forced myself to learn - Week 2

History always repeats itself - mostly because the lessons of history fades away from our memory. The Malayalam movie TRAFFIC showed a possibility which arises from jumping traffic signals. People were very wary of it then, not so much now - I was a witness to a near miss event just today.

P.S. The flavour of the hour is to hold tight your kid's hands, and never let them get away from your sight. 

Coming back to topic, there is a reason why you chose not to watch THAT movie till date. With zero external compulsion, with no threats of blackmail, and with no tantalizing reward on offer, why I still chose to watch PERUCHAZHI will always be an enigma. Why I chose to complete watching the movie is on me though.

After intensely studying the subject for close to two hours - on whether this was a self-depreciating spoof movie or not - I'm still unaware of the intentions to make the movie. Maybe they just wanted to have a month in America.

Umpteen times have I fallen for this trap, and as soon as this experience faces from memory,  one more time will I repeat it in the future. History always repeats itself.

***

The things I learn at work are mostly in the operational category and are of not much use to you. Initially I thought of extrapolating such things to the general sphere of activity to make sure that there's some use of it for you. But then, if that was the case, you would have tried to finish those two paid courses you started at Udemy an year ago (says he looking at his reflection in the mirror).

So, I have decided to go the other way round. I'm going to give you three examples of how I picked up something from other walks of life to use in my job.

***

1. It's all in the numbers.

It was always fascinating to hear my father speak on the phone. He would say 98115 coach to be moved to rack in the morning, and 99124 to have its alternator checked. He has the ability to recollect things to a high degree, which is something he passed on to my brother. As for me, a goldfish will fare better than me when trying to remember what it had for breakfast.

Anyways, one thing my father told me is that since he knew the numbers, his colleagues knew they had to be precise. Data is king. Anyone can make a story, but there has to be data to back it up. And that is something I steadfastly hold on to in my work.

2. Teams

"Boop beep. Boop beep beep. Boop beep. Boop beep beep"

I'm pretty sure that sound made you shudder inside. We are now a generation working through online meetings. I had been watching my missus attend such meetings for a long time. The decorum they keep on their meetings - being online on time, giving value to everyone's time and sticking to the schedule and topics, not unnecessarily turning on camera / microphone, not forcing anyone to come on camera, etc - were little things obviously, but oozed respect for each other. 

Once covid fast tracked online meetings to traditional workplaces like mine, I have been following these simple rules myself.

3. Patience

I had seen it in movies and comics, but I never thought it actually happened. My curious little monkey found out the word "Why?" and decided to repeat it until she got to the bottom of every mystery in the world. And it taught me levels of patience I never knew existed. But again, it came good.

Having a client facing job is strenous work. You need to keep calm and accept that there is a mistake, even if you haven't committed any. Take for example, take the case of an IT professional somewhere far, far away - probably on a work from home schedule. They wake up one day and decide that one year from 01-12-2023 is 31-10-2024. And the field having the second date is non-editable. This halts operation for the day. You cut a sorry figure in front of the customer for no fault of your own. You are instructed that this issue will be resolved tomorrow. You use your entire gamut to convince the customer to come the next day. Next day arrives, so does the customer. And the second field date shows, "31-00-2025". Patience is very key to sit through another day.

***

So, that's all for this week then.
Have a great weekend!!
'til next week.

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