Jobhunting Methodologies are a Dubious Cocktail

There are various perceptions about finding jobs.

Those who believe that finding the right job is about formula find that the neighbour who has the greener grass in his backyard is not likely to share the formula with them.

Those who believe that miracles rule successful job hunting also find that the guy next door is better blessed.

Those who see the hand of karma are least stressed. The wait and watch style in job hunting is relaxing as long as it does not become too long.

For most of us job-hunting is a dubious cocktail.

Perhaps what is shared by most job-seekers is the fact that jobs have to be caught and got.

Most of us are armed with lists of where to go and whom to ask which get taken out and dusted free of the cobwebs of the mind, on a need basis. Added to which are a few new things which others are using.

After all, what is the fuss when all one wants is the next best job?

Easier said than done, but jobs, like marriage, is about finding the right match. Unfortunately, finding the right match is not all there is to marriage.

Going beyond methodology implies that one discards tried and tested methodologies, or logical courses, in favor of creating something new. We favor following the herd, then trying to beat it by being the first at getting to greener pastures. Since everyone else has the same idea, we get hurt in the stampede.

Competing for jobs definitely means using a strategy that no one else has.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author 

A Molecule of Mediocrity

As Indians we are used to crowds. We tend to become faceless to others as they become faceless to us.

This results in an ambiguity resulting in mediocrity. And – Thodi si mediocrity is more than thodi si compromise for most of us.We lose that essence of pride in what we do.

People in India are used to being part of a crowd- a person without a face.Swallowing the feeling of pride and self respect comes easily. We blame the system.In spite of all the air- conditioning and carpets, we still have to stand in a queue in many places. When our bank employees go on strike and we have no access to our own money we brush it under the carpet,the bureaucrat who says come tomorrow I am busy, we brush it under the carpet, when the school rejects our kids for failing a test, we brush it under the carpet.

We have a huge pile of crap under the carpet.Every time the termite takes a tiny bite, something comes out.But we remain stoic.

All this can work well in certain circumstances like suffering a bad neighborhood or a bad mother- in -law, but when this attititude seeps into business practices we create a handicap.

We become incapable of Empathy.

Empathy has become a dirty word in our circles. The victim-victor cycle completes...And you become what you despise.Like the lady in the government office my father once worked in- "She finishes her lunch -sandwich in full view of the queue in front of her and then spends 55 minutes knitting in full view of the waiting queue till her one hour lunch- break finishes.

Ask her how does she does it and pat comes the answer. " The queue is eternal.So what do you expect?Do I take my lunch break in the toilet? Or the lawn outside? In the middle of this summer heat wave?

She is actually a very nice lady outside her office.So maybe you can explain why she is what she is in her office.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Hello Bolo !

This comes under top secret, classified Government secrets – but I can safely tell you that we have no need to really worry about the nuclear bomb. The new weapon of mass destruction is worse – the vernacular.

The fall out is also more deadly.

We had disease, floods and droughts that once killed off our population in vast numbers. Now all we have to do is get p’proper government approved schooling. The advantage here is that you can opt for your vernacular. But the fallout is that it gets your jugular.

Ambiguous?

Try sitting for an interview where the interviewer knows only Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali, while you only know Telugu. Just the same if you knew only Swahilee and your interviewer, only Japanese.

No good for getting a job, is it?

But if you did some wire pulling and got a job in spite of such communication breakdowns at interviews, because you knew the prime minister’s secretary’s mother, then I suppose you would not fall into the category of the jobless, starving masses. If you were lucky, you could even land up with job as a doctor where always the doctor has the upper hand in killing the patient and not vice versa. (Legally you can blame it on the Latin in medical textbooks.)

Well, the History of Lingo is a bloody one!

When the first colonization took place, the British had dinosaurs for neighbors. Like all good neighbors, they were suspicious of each other and the fact that they did not speak each other’s language made things worse. The rumor that the dinosaurs ate humans for lunch was rampant.

So they hired a British multi – linguist spy to check out on the dinosaurs. The spy was told to give a precise report which stated whether the dinosaurs were vegetarians or non- vegetarians.

The spy lived in the dinosaur colony, for a while, observing them and was impressed with their kindness and consideration towards him and their peaceful compatibility with each other.

When the spy returned, he was asked for written report.
Precise – so a military decision could be taken.
Tick the appropriate – Vegetarian or non -vegetarian.

The spy simply wrote – truly Humanitarian.
The next day, the humans exterminated the dinosaurs.

India had British imposed English language while they (the British) ruled, and when we became independent (true Desi colonial rule), we became multilingual. But we have had to develop our own indigenous interface with languages so we can understand each other.

New developments took place.

Like Honking on the roads while driving anywhere, all the time.
The need for translation is not required.

Different states have adapted in their own unique ways to handling multilingualism.

Let me tell you about Delhi as an example. I live here. Perhaps the most unfair accusation the Delhi’ites are subject to is their reputation of being rude. This is simply not true. It implies that the Delhi’ites talk in a language which others can understand.

Soul language is the mother tongue of the Delhi’ite. It can be interpreted, but never interrupted. This is a language where words do not matter, but the emotion counts. It has its own uniqueness … and starts with Maa Ki… Behen Ki… or involves sign language involving thumbs with fingers along with vocals…there is also rich literature involving body parts.

Being the capital it has adapted to encompassing multilingualism on a global scale. You cannot feel lost here, you will always feel at home – like the generation gap with your parents, you do not understand it, but you feel it, it also has an association with home.

India is fast becoming the most favorite tourist destination for Indians. Go to a small, remote town in the interiors of this Asian sub -continent and you will be surprised- not only will you not know where you are, the locals will not be able to tell you too. The road signs will be in strange squiggles which will not match the GPS on your mobile and the sign language will fail to produce food, water, and directions.

No wonder the tourism industry is globally promoting India as the number one destination for adventure tours.

India is probably the only country that has shown great breakthroughs in solving the multilingual crisis. The solution is to go atomic.

Let me explain. The science of communication as we Indians have discovered, can be condensed into an atom – Hello. How you say it be it hello, Helooo or heliwo will convey the sentence, the mood and the meaning.

I learned the art from my Mother in- Law.

Relationships can be condensed into a single hello. She gives give me a cue – and I wish a hello, to my numerous in-laws, in the correct precise way (the pitch and tone precisely matched to the relationship). I do not remember ever having the necessity of adding any syllable to the hello. Or even going a word beyond it.

No linguistic or relationship complications, here.

And I am proud of my linguistic competence of being able to talk to anyone on any subject, in a single monosyllable.

Hello?

No understand? Then you must be – Chinese? Briteesh? Bhusavalese ? Udipese ? Sirsaese? Tejpurese ? Malerkotlese ?

ISSUE 200 Jobnet magazine
Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the Author and publishers of Jobnet magazine

Every Jobhunting Abhimanyu's Chakravyuh

Does every Jobseeking Abhimanyu have a Chakraview?

Winning a war is not just about staying alive; it is about killing the competition.

There are fortunately two renowned schools of war management offering their expertise in the secret of this job market Chakraviewha.

Gurus from the A Business schools say that success lies in the review of the Chakravyuh. The view from the generals’ tent gives many options for better MIS (management info systems)

Those from the B Business schools say that success lies in the retreat from the Chakraviewha. Well, if you do not know how to get out, if may be wiser to focus on your retreat rather than on your funeral.

Both are absolutely right.

The Indian Job-seeker is worried. If what the pundits say about the secret of successful job hunting is true, then why exactly is no one explaining what this Chakraview is ?

Perhaps the Jobseeker is only bewildered because in this job hunting Mahayudh there are more generals than foot soldiers? Other-wise who would design this crappy formula for job hunting that requires a rocket scientist for a translator?

When did this job hunting business get to be a business?

I do not know? But I suppose ever since the resume ceased to be a resume.

Ever since we began to feel incompetent in describing what we do and what we are good at- just because we could not fit it into popular keywords.

Perhaps Indian Jobseekers need to shift their focus from the battle field technologies on- How do we get in? The right education? The right resume keywords? Mass mailing resumes? Mass contact of placement consultants ? Job alerts from famous websites? Resume blasting, resume bombing, resume land mining and resume cannoning?

How to get in is not as important as “How to get found?’ Yes the pundits forget to mention that getting found is the most important factor in the job hunt.

Do we need an expert to tell us how to get found? The age old battle cry of the jobseekers has always been- I am here, come and get me if you can! Only the platforms have changed.

Job hunting still remains the same old game of winning – over everyone else.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Let’s Microwave Darwin

The boss called one of his employees into the office. “Anil,” he said, “you’ve been with the company for a year. You started off in the post room, one week later you were promoted to a sales position, and one month after that you were promoted to district manager of the sales department. Just four short months later, you were promoted to vice- chairman. Now it’s time for me to retire, and I want you to take over the company. What do you say to that?”
“Thanks,” said the employee.
“Thanks?” the boss replied. “Is that all you can say?”
“I suppose not,” the employee said. “Thanks, Dad.”

It does not matter anymore that we took a couple of million years to develop into what we see in the mirror today but we seem to be in no mood to continue the process at the same speed.

The experts tell us that it takes fixed time frames to complete infancy, adolescence, adult hood and whatever else that comes in between maturity and geriatrics, but somehow the calculations are not quite adding up.

The developmental journey of humans was a long drawn process but today because of environmental pressures causing intense competition, we are being forced to mature much faster.

Focus is the essence. Armed with technology and information we no longer need to become Columbus to discover the new world. It has become unnecessary to emphasize the development of skills of discovery, innovation or creativity as much as the skills of application with precision.

Everyone seems to be growing up faster and are capable of doing things that they are too young to do. And I am not only talking about sex. But even if I do take sex as an example, the modern fledgling has scored over us again thanks to television, which did more for them than the Kamasutra did to ten generations of our ancestors.

When I see the quiz contests of school children I am quite convinced that they have more evolved neuronic connections in the brain which enables them to learn about the exact number of chairs in every room of the United Nations and the names of six hundred kinds of sharks with equal élan.

The ancient Hindu scriptures talked about 4 distinct life stages — student, householder, retiree and sanyasi –
The whole process of personal and social evolution that took a life-time.

We have recently realized that, ever since the word play got replaced with learn, our babies are born grown up — Generations later, like the magic beans that grow into the clouds in a single night, our future test tube babies will thrive.

So what has happened to the time cycles of learning and growing? Have homo -sapiens finally managed to find a new shortcut to the evolutionary process? Yes, I think so. Much like what science fiction talks about worm holes that allow you to journey across different parts of the universe in moments.

A long time ago when Alvin Toffler talked about Future Shock, we realized that survival is about change management. But it is only when we have been transported into this reality do we realize that change cannot be managed. And in spite of the technology at our finger tips it also cannot be controlled.

For a short while we had become dinosauric in our existence, focused on the maintenance and preservation of our form, unable to grow beyond our own self-preservation. Today we have simply given up. Somewhat like the old saying that says when rape is inevitable you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Andrew Carnegie, who was once considered to be the steel king of USA, stated that “It is a matter of course for individuals to work hard in society. But whether one becomes successful in life or not depends on how he uses his time from 6 to 8 pm; after work.” What is six to eight after work? Half the world cannot figure out the concept of after work and the other half cannot figure out the connotations of what comes before work.

There is no point in asking questions that no one has answers for but I can’t help it if I get an immense sense of happiness from knowing that you are as lost as I am.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

How scientific do Jobseekers have to get ?

Earning a livelihood today is not about knowing, guessing the answers or figuring it all out.

The parameters are changing and we are in a brave new world with an awareness that we are not being brave at all.

The Indian Job seeker faces many dilemmas today.

Am I intelligent enough to know what to do?Do I have to swallow poison to prove that I am scientific and practical?In all this crap I am lost and how best not to show it to others?

The list is long…

Perhaps the Indian Job seeker needs to focus less on what to do or not do.

Maybe the solutions lie in understanding that the uncharted seas are not the problem, but the inability to navigate uncharted seas is what the problem is in these alien waters.

But no one else, even the experts know how to.

Hey, we do not have to be good to get, we do not have to be perfect not to lose what we can manage to get!

Livelihoods and jobs are about what we can give, if only we can find someone who we can give it to.

Easier said than done, Job hunting is not about knowing the technology of finding jobs. It is also about figuring out what needs to be figured out and what does not.

But in this entire exercise one needs to realize that the handicap of not knowing how to get jobs is not personal but about hitting the right combination…

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Customer Care In India

What ails us as a nation today is the fact that our customer has become dehumanized. A number, a statistic, a category or whatever…

The bigger the business operations the smaller the personalized, customer contact and care.

Customer care for the customer has become a dirty word, ever since the customer started feeling that a product or service needed a special department to talk to.

Tell me, when did any company become bigger than its customer that it needed to tell or justify the fact that it needed an impersonalized service that could be a good thing for its customer?

The volume game is the only one that works today, especially if you aspire to be big, or are fortunate enough to be already big.

But handling a large volume of customers must not make us impervious to the fact that each of them are individual human beings. Franchise business for any product, be it for MacDonald, ICICI or Benetton have to also have a package for customer handling, along with its operations. The feel good feeling that they must convey to their customer will always remain a challenge for any organization, be it big or small, but the larger the organization the more difficult it gets.

Service to a customer is more than solving problems. Or hearing out complaints.

We dehumanize a customer if we mispronounce his / her name. We insult them by going on like a recording machine, informing them about their own telephone or their credit card number , as if they are suffering from advanced Alzhimezers. Will the customer not feel like an idiot if asked security checks which needed him / her to give their mother’s 10 years old residential address , or even their own, which they gave ( faked ? ) on a rented house that they shifted out of 5 years back.

So what is the big deal you may ask, when volumes count?

How much can you worry about the feelings of a single customer? I don’t know, but no business can take a chance about brushing a customer under the carpet however negligible that may be as a statistic.

Today we have begun feel pompous about the fact that we can create demand even artificially, for products that may be not based on real needs - through advertising. Advertising is about the power of reach, but business survival is beyond that – it is about the power of touch. We have to be so careful about that.

Customer feelings are all that matters the most.

What is customer value or customer care in India? Dehumanizing the Employee results when customer value or customer care is compromised.

Unless we can give value to our customer, we cannot feel valued as employees. Any company who neglects this aspect dehumanizes their employees. How to survive in great jobs, in great companies, in a great bubble excluding sensations of customer satisfactions, is a feat for some and an easy switch-off for most.

The resulting ambiguity in employees makes them mediocre. And – Thodi si mediocrity is more than thodi si compromise from the perspective of business survival.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Are you Mummy Friendly?

This business of “keeping it new is an old one.”

People do not want to remove plastic from new things. This applies to the covers of new cars, remote of the new television, bodies of washing machines, new crockery, new mixies, new sofa sets, et all.

Sometimes even from people. My friend never took the plastic off from her new born baby for months. My mother-law never took it off from her husband for years, in the hope that there would be a magical transformation of making the old into new, but it did not happen…

Those who know how to maintain One -upmanship survive. It keeps the competition confused long enough to give up.

The secret lies in keeping the old new and the new old.

Let me explain it in a modern context.

How to make the old new? Perhaps this example will enlighten you.

Do you wonder why so many people who are “old enough not to do it-do it.” That is dye their hair, get flat Abs at the gym, shed 10 kilos and as a matter of principle refuse get into the senior citizens queue though there is no one in front. Of course if you are Hugh Hefner then you can get to pose with your 19 year old sex partner who is actually in reality not your sex partner. This comes under the classification of one upmanship oops… one up- womanship too.

Our societies have a youth oriented culture. We sell age defying creams and all our advertisements are about going back into the past- like looking younger, more energetic than our years, successful fourth marriages, second careers and bonding with our grand-kid without getting breathless.

To get the perspective we have to examine how to make the new old too… And how that matters.

Take crockery as an example.

My mother in law who is an absolute expert on what good investment is, says “ Its crockery.”

(She is correct says the International Monetary Fund. And they have the second last laugh on anyone who says “but I thought it is Gold?”)

Even the pharaohs knew that crockery was the best investment. They took with them a lot of crockery and saved it in their tombs. Today it has become priceless.

Gold gets stolen easily and goes into the family of its robbers, but crockery remains…

My mother-law the expert on the preservation of everything and a specialist on crockery, may even graduate to becoming a superior mummified Mummy. She even has secret investors lined up for the construction of her pyramid.

The problem we face is a decision on what matters most. Is it the antique or the new?

Well being a superior generation we have no problems with that. Both are required- the new serves the purpose of making us superior to the neighbors’ and in laws, and when the new becomes old we can pass it down to our kith and kin as antique heirlooms.

Let us digress and examine a new perspective on how all this is affecting us. And what all this is resulting in.

Psychologists called it the Collyer’s Syndrome. Hoarding was once a word associated with a hobby- like a coin or stamp collection, or Pokémon cards. Now everyone seems to be doing it.

Defining what is junk is becoming extremely difficult. We are told that every thing can have a use or can be recycled, given to someone, used for school projects, used for home decoration, used for creative writing, consumed, eaten, given to the underprivileged, left in your will as for your descendents or for the future archeologists of this planet.… the list goes on…

That is why no hoarder can be called a person with Collyers syndrome- Even if you have no space to stand in their house.

The issue of being planet friendly is too complex for most of us. The next generation will be more educated on this In the future all schools have dustbins with 17 slots along an educational curriculum with 11 semesters on how to use them so that we can have a direct hand in saving our planet.

For the moment let’s not worry about the planet but ourselves.

The best investment today remains the same as time immemorial- the Greeks, Harappans and the Egyptians who invested and buried their crockery; those who are now long dead would be quite rich on their antique crockery if they find a way to get alive again.

Here is my advice.

Avoid plastic crockery because of its ability to not disintegrate easily. That would lead to complications in assessing their antique value for your heirs.

You do not need to go for expensive brands like Wedgwood, Corelle, Corning or Sevres.(Even though many of them throw in a free pyramid as a bargain on their designer brands).

Just go for breakable crockery. Local brands will do too. It must have the ability to get damaged and restored by eminent restorers using latest technology to qualify as superior antique. Even if they are damaged but not restored they can adorn and add value to your descendents’ drawing rooms like headless Greek statues do.

And if all this is done with meticulous planning and precision then all of us who know how to store, preserve and mummify can look forward to …perhaps becoming an authentic mummy with a real pyramid?

Wonderful.Isn’t it?

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Niceness is Serious Business- Take a lesson from the Placement Industry

There was a time when I used to work as a Placement Consultant.

Placement business is a pure people business.

There is more to it than resumes, matchmaking, and getting the ideal job fit for the involved parties.If we look at any placement firm that boasts of surviving over five years then it would qualify as being good at being people friendly.

Let me give you an emotional perspective.

People who are in the people business have to treat people as important. Since we cannot always know who deserves to be called important we stick with presuming all people as being important.

If a man walked into your office in a shabby dhoti and barefoot, looking like a tramp, with a resume, how would you treat him as a potential candidate for placement?

Suppose you could not put a label on him?

What if he was Mr.Ambani junior, how would you treat him? What if he was the rebellious teenage son of your most important client?

There are no rules here. But as a placement consultant, the safest marketing bet is to be nice, without mindsets.

Placement firms that are “Not nice to people” have a very high death rate.

One of my jobs over the years is to constantly find a large number of new placement consultants for including in each new edition of The Jobnet’s Directory of Placement Consultants. And I can vouch for the fact that hostile, suspicious or rude companies do not live long.

People who are in the people business make it a habit to be generally nice and polite to people. After a while it becomes a natural part of one’s personality.

Success in the people business is about how well they handle people to create a network of goodwill. Goodwill cannot be calculated but it is like manure spread on a field, if it rains then who knows which seed will wake where.

Niceness is serious business.

I was 11 years old. My cousin won a medal for some Boys Scout achievement, and my aunt managed to get me a free invitation for the ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi.

Here I was at a tea party. I wore a sari for the first time in my life (that I could not handle) I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere- A gawky, kid, all alone.

Then a nice man came up to me and asked me if I won any medal. I said “No.”
Then he said “I welcome you to have tea and samosas. I hope you enjoy it”.
That made me most comfortable. I enjoyed the rest of the party.

My Aunt told me later that the nice man was ‘THE President.’

Why do we remember people or feel positive about them? Not because they are great or famous or even important - But because of the way they treat us!

The Placement industry is a fitting example of how the people business should be run. Maybe we should apply it elsewhere too.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

E – roses – My Love !

Question: If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?
Answer: No time at all it is already built.

They failed me in mathematics in school for that answer. Because the right answer is supposed to be a number, not a sentence.

Precision – to the point, number or to the button is of crucial importance.

The list of what all I do not know, never affects me much. But what I need to work on is my button intelligence.

I am a moron; my button IQ is pathetically below average … it has been proved time and again.

I am told that I am not an impossible case. The formula for being correct is so simple today – Every thing can be correct; you just have to press a button. (The small print says the right button, to be right, the wrong button to be left – (out).

I have problems deciding which is the right – button to be pressed.

With time, the buttons have gotten smaller, and my fingers bigger. They never could punch a single key. Then the print on the buttons got smaller and smaller and smaller…

Every one feels sorry for me.

It means that my million best friends whom I do not know, cannot get my profound one liner. Or my e – lover cannot take me to a 5 star e- dinner in Paris, without my husband knowing. Or my husband cannot give me an e- platinum mangulsutra on my wedding anniversary with a card that says “with this we again wed, but now – properly”.

My life’s ambition is to be like everyone else. Be it the Joneses, or the Sharmas or the Vermas or the next door neighbor whom I do not know. I would do any thing to be, button savvy!

I should be fearless, I am told.

People, who do not know how to read or write, can also press buttons. Buttons don’t bite.

Only thing to worry about is that the passwords you use everywhere be regularly changed to avoid the hackers. The sharp ones who know how to, can, get in and those others too, who do not know, but have accidentally hit your password by error because they were lost and experimenting.

According to statistics, your hitting the lottery button is zero. The fruits, according to karmic law fall only on those who do not want to eat it – Like Edison who wrote a library of scientific literature on an apple falling on his head. Ever heard of a starving beggar on the road having an apple falling on his head?

Scientists world wide are doing research on button pressing issues and its effects on humanity. They are worried about some idiot who would accidentally press the enter button on a nuclear bomb thinking that pressing enter would shut it down like it does for a computer.

No one who is a button moron would ever qualify with either the espionage agencies or the terrorists. Both only hire those who are either, button or trigger savvy!

(Ironic, but, people who hesitate, even when there is only one button that says shoot, qualify with either employer).

In spite of being button phobic, people like me are getting to be highly valuable to society. They do not add much to the e- economy but, I am pleased to be informed that even Darwin would have agreed with all other renowned scientists today, that the survival of the species would be directly linked to the button ignoramus.

This is what they say…

The future is here already. The unification of the universe is no longer in the spiritual but in the one universal screen – the TV, Computer, Telephone …. Are all now linked to the universe.

The debate on Darwin’s concept of the survival of the species has concluded, that people who are button savvy, may be the fittest, but they will not survive.

Simply because they will be less bored.

Novelty is stimulating. It is available on the internet. The button savvy will have a great time, having fun. They will even graduate, to having sex with holograms, and have harems to choose from.

But what will happen to the button ignoramus?

They will be left behind. To remote- controls that say; up- down, 1,2,3,4 etc., or on – off – All that simple stuff that even two year olds know how to handle.

Bollywood and Mollywood would cater to people like me, by continuing to churn out fixed formula entertainment, movies and mega serials with stories that are interrupted by songs at regular intervals and commercial breaks at irregular intervals. People as usual will get bored with reruns and then, like our ancestors, would engage in the time honored sport to relieve boredom – sex.

Beats virtual sex, if not for titillation, at least for babies!

(I think, Hollywood would go bankrupt because they would be competing with an English speaking audience using internet language. They never, ever could compete with either Mollywood or Bollywood. They could try the Chinese, who are currently upholding the number one score in population volume. But dubbed Chinese tastes like Indian Chinese cuisine. The Chinese would prefer to go hungry).

The mental regimentation program that humans have adopted as a means for survival is backfiring. Primarily because of our misconception that knowledge is a perquisite to wisdom. We have subjected ourselves not only regimentation of knowledge and experience, in our schools, but also in every other aspect of our lives.

Every thing we do is governed by the ease factor or the correct answer. Perhaps we have become the buttons, we so admire.

But my opinion is incorrect, so my therapist says. Because I am not button savvy, I suffer from button envy.

But the button savvy have their problems too. It is the ultimate lifestyle disease today. Affects everything; mind, body and fingers.

I recently dialed the personal telephone number of my bank officer who also happens to be my cousin. I know him quite well. He had just returned from a skill upgradation program for bank employees

“Hello” I said
He said “Please press star to continue in English.”
I thought that maybe it was a wrong number.
I carefully dialed again and asked “Is this telephone number 97609812389?”
The answer I got was, “yes, yes, no, no, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Please press one if the number is correct or else dial another number…”

Such things happen too…

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Switch the backdoor while job hunting

Perhaps it is time to address the problem about why education does not include job hunting methodologies. 

Why do we allow educational institutions to limit the vision of job hunting to who they can invite to their campus? What about all the rest of their crowd who do not make it at first go in the job hunting season  - Those who did not find a job because they do not know how?

Finding jobs through the effective use of placement firms remains a backdoor methodology. When most private sector jobs are processed thru them how can they be relegated to the status of witchdoctors not invited to the doctorate banquet?

Perhaps the first most crucial step is to convey the fact that jobs do not find you because you are the best,  but jobs are got because you know  how to.

Much like explaining electricity to a caveman, but it has to be done.  

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

The New Baby Politics of India!

My friend is teacher in a school - the Delhi Public School.

She is popular with her students, which is strange, considering, that her pupils are long haired teenagers with a war cry towards authority. Incidentally, she loves her job.

So I ask her” Why are you stressed?

She says “I have two lovely kids aged 7 and 10.”

(Well I think they are brats, but being polite, I do not say that).

So, instead I say, “How do you manage a class full of 48 teenage brats and not get stressed?

She says that it’s not the same. Baby sitting other people’s kids is better.

Even with the best baby sitters running 2 shifts under the supervision of her mother- in- law, her kids are complaining about being deprived. She worries about the long term consequences of imperfect child management. She is seriously reviewing the situation, and planning on getting into better child management systems involving tutorials, dance school, finger painting classes and…

Being experienced in the fine art of politics and proficient in the new course of the art of living, I quote the unfailing methodology of success “your in-laws are always better in every way, than my in- laws.”

She says, “I applied that formula that but it had a technical hitch - my husband agrees! But I would not enlist the services of his in-laws too…”

Motherhood has become a totally new phenomenon for us modern Indian ladies.

Our Mummy says – “Competence in child rearing is equivalent to training a mammal to keep its epiglottis closed under water! But do we really need to watch over the new mammalian species so he/ she, does not drown while breast feeding, or over the coke at MacDonald’s? “

But Mummy is wrong. Performance is the keyword today.

That is why for us, surrogate parenting is no longer the issue. Once anyone could baby -sit your baby, but not anymore. We are not looking for substitutes for parenting but superior surrogates who will compensate for our deficiencies and improve the quality of our kids.

Finding the right babysitter is directly proportional to the level of perfection in the kid’s development. This is where the expertise is directed towards, the science of good babysitting. Do not get fooled by the Maids in Macdonald’s who accompany parents at large social gatherings involving joint and extended families, as babysitters…they are passé…

Today, what has emerged as a superpower, the supreme babysitting services is the Educational system in India.

From the age of 2 years they can be used as the best in surrogate parenting. All we need to do is to find a good school, and afford it.

In fact the Government of India is extending schooling years on a regular basis, because of the pressures from mothers.

Today kids in India spend at least 3 years in playschool, which expect you to begin training in nursery rhymes in the womb to save precious education time. 12 years in regular school is prevalent. And I am happy to announce that I have the backing of a million mothers country wise, and around a few crores world wide, who wish to extend schooling till the age of 40 years for boys, and the age of 55 for girls so that they can become properly mature, under supervised babysitting services, before they become active participants of society.

It has led to a few lopsided laws in the country, which some people believe need to be changed.

In India our youth have a different minimum age for marrying – 21 for boys and 18 for girls. They can drive, vote and marry, produce babies, but they cannot drink alcohol by law in a bar before they are 21 years of age.

Parents are comfortable, but social change always has fallouts.

All this has led to a revolution no less bloody than any other. Historians call it The Indian Revolution of the Babysitting Era.

This is about a very cold generational war, and the formation of The BBB of India: Bharatiya Babysitters Body of India.

The BBB started as a dangerous underground movement by the experienced generation of mothers and in-laws and others who felt that their superiority in babysitting was being undermined by women who felt that the new fangled information resource like the internet, pediatricians with dubious connections with sales force of pharmaceutical, toys and diaper companies, schools with secret alliances with textbook and computer companies and so and so forth… were not good influences for kids.

Today, we have nothing to fear because the BBB of India got official recognition as an NGO with Funding from the UNICEF and is now affiliated to The World Baby Sitters Body,( international is better than desi, since the NRIs have become a majority). They are now expanding their agenda to babysitting not only for human babies but pets and plants too…

(Incidentally, my Mother- in- Law has recently been appointed as the Vice President, so now you can woo me as a person with contacts, all bribes are welcome too).

Today, the BBB of India is revising their manifesto, in order to accommodate new modalities.

This trend in society towards institutions rather than individuals for child rearing is a trend that cannot be stopped. The more information oriented we become the less confidence we will have on our level of individual expertise. We have spent centuries of time raising children to be the clones and inheritors of our selves. Today we have new dreams about creating future generations who are not just survivors but successors in a terrain that is unfamiliar to us. And I am not talking about just Mars or Jupiter but our backyard and playgrounds which have new terrain - trees replaced by plastic slides, free pornography for all ages, good instant cooking in cling film, and friends on twitter…

Why protest against the new. Most the old remains too.

And sometimes it’s refreshingly good. Like the legal ban on bride burning, but no law on killing the plants- in- law.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

The Indian Jobseeker's Buttocks

The swivel chair ? Yes the movies did catch on and we have those pictures about success.
 
The buttocks are the ultimate definition of job success.

Indians have a strong conviction that the buttocks are the defining criteria for future success.

The youth needs hard seats to develop brains for success. Schools and all other educational institutions agree to its role in future success.

As a mother, I  have checked the availability of water coolers, the quality of teachers, the accreditation, the lab facilities, the sports facilities, academic facilities, the toilets, hostels rooms etc- And always the Buttock- Rest offered by an institution.

The hardness of the buttock- rest is directly proportional to the success of a student .

All Indian schools always believed in the Buttocks Theory of Education.

Once upon a time corporal punishment was quite the in thing and one got caned on the buttocks to improve performance.Even if it did not work for some, it did wok for some others- so I am told.

But because of statistical problems( I must explain that the the proliferation of idiots who could not be improved and the save the forest naturalists who wanted to reduce the cutting of wood which went into the cane industry, thereby killing our forest,s which was happening because of the unnatural number of idiots being born in that era) all led to the government banning corporal punishment in schools.

The Educationists and the Politicians did much mud flinging but luckily the Parliament passed it.

To counteract this crisis the government as well as the private education authorities advocated a new educational policy of 'the hard bum education plan' to help improve the quality of education.

Finally the true test of success would be the swivel chair with a soft seat. If you feel soft on the bum while working that means you are the boss -you have arrived.

Somehow  education is still a primary problem.We must outlive the brochures that lure us to a seat which promises a softer future for the buttocks.Employment just happens to the bastard baby that lands up in your lap.

Unfair but real.

The unemployed job seekers who got the so called best of education are the ones who suffer the most. The quantum of suffering being directly proportional to the fees.And the Bum

But the Butt still hurts

Hey - that calls for some justice- but a cushion would help too

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Who is the Father of my Nation?

Much has happened after the Hapsburgs or the first landing on the moon — and an education that says that my two fathers are not the same – The one who fathered my nation and the one who is the father of my nation.

For me, I have often wondered about my education. To Be or not to Be was not my question (Pardon me, Shakespeare, for the theatrics of life). Rather it has always been — Did I or did I not ?

Some time ago, some psychologists like Mark Rosenzweig, while experimenting (with rats), discovered a striking increase in the mass and thickness of the cerebral cortex as well as accompanying changes in brain chemistry in animals, when they were kept in a variety filled, lively, enriched environment. Since a more massive cerebral cortex would play a role in future learning, the importance of enriched childhood environments was clear.

That was when the play ground got replaced by the playschool.

Not mine.

Playschool deprivation, which I have because I didn’t go to playschool could be a major handicap. I am told that it is the reason for my lack of understanding of my co – humans. Also, my ignorance of drawing and nursery rhyme skills could be one of the reasons why I am not as talented as Bill Gates or Rowling.

My school - going son, who like me also has a problem about figuring out the utility of his education, is confident that he will be better off than me.

At least with the number of hours he puts into playing in his virtual playground, killing Jedis, Ninjas, other sundry good and bad guys and Lara Croft and other sexy girls on his T.V. and Computer- What he learns is much more relevant to survival in the social and corporate jungles, and of course he has in the process also learnt how to fly and crash all kinds of airplanes with admirable nonchalance.

And I am impressed. I never learnt to fly or crash a plane - virtual or otherwise.

Virtual problem solving is a great development of the modern times. And as usual we resist good ideas with great gusto. As modern parents, we are ready to buy the CD version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the advanced Math tutors, the National Geographic and wonder why it fails to either interest or impress our youngsters.

Is it only us, who make this merry – go – round, go round and round? Because we know no better?

Can we let go of what we know? We must. We no longer know how to educate them. We are offering knowledge that has no relevance to the kind of life they will lead. Even in terms of the future demands as employees or entrepreneurs, knowledge will be proved to be a handicap and hindrance to innovative ways of creative problem-solving that will have no past precedence for reference. If one plus one may not add up to two in some applications with different parameters in the future, we are better off in striking it off the curriculum today.

But we regard our educational curriculums as a precious heritage that has been nurtured and updated over the millenniums that we can’t let go. And worse, we have no idea what will replace it.

So we continue with what we have.

Writer A. Toffler was famous when I was in school. He wrote this.“Today, children who enter school quickly find themselves part of a standard and basically unvarying organizational structure: a teacher - led class. One adult and a certain number of subordinate young people, usually seated in fixed rows facing front, is a standardized basic unit of the industrial era school. As they move, grade by grade, to the higher levels, they remain in this same fixed organizational frame. They gain no experience with other forms of organization, or with the problems of shifting from one organizational form to another. They get no training for role versatility. And no advance experience of what they will face when they begin to move through the impermanent organizational geography of super- industrialism”.

Today my son studies in the same system that I did.

Do we really need the excuse of waiting for spring time to do a spring cleaning?

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author