Help - Show the direction!

Last sunday, I saw a TV programme - a debate on lavish spending against stingy spending of money.

A lady from the stingy spending side complained that her husband who is in lavish spending side, spends large amount of money on helping his friends. Once his friend sought for help saying he is struggling for living. Her husband gave Rs 10,000.

Later it is found that the man who got help from her husband bought TV set for the money borrowed.

Her husband on the other side argued that still he is ready to help his friends even though he found some of them were cheating. It is their fate to use it properly or not.

He said the reason for helping is he was struggling for living three years back. And no-one was there to help him. Even his friends. He struggled a lot and got the drive to achieve in life. And now he is the CEO of a company founded by him. So now he is in a position to help other who struggles for living.

And the debate went on. But I had the thought - his stand on helping others showed his good hearted nature. But unknowingly he is spoiling a part of the society. Helping his friends by providing money is spoiling them. He injects the thought that they could get money/survive with the help of others. This would never spark the fire in them to get the drive he got that brought him to this stature.

He can help his friends by showing the direction to come-up.

Career - decide yourself

The recent recession impact on IT industry heavily affected the students who are to make their decision on career choices. I could see reports on dailies and news channels highlighting students have chosen areas other than IT for their engineering due to the current market situation.

On asking students the reason for the choice, most of them said that they are advised by their parents, neighbors to do so. I rarely see the case where the students made their choice out of their own interest. Students are forced to choose their career based on the current market scenario. They are not allowed to make the choice out of their interest.

People can be successful only if they make their way of their own interest. And there is no relation to the current market scenario.

Career choices should not be guided by fluctuations in the market. Education should be seen as a tool that nurtures an individuals personality and equips him/her to withstand such fluctuations for leading a healthy and balanced life.

You build trust in us, we build business for you - Customer

One evening after office hours, I was in a hotel to have some good dinner. It is a non-veg hotel.

It is not the regular one I usually prefer. I came to know about the hotel when I came to near-by stores. I wanted to give a hit.

I was seated in a table and provided with the menu card. I couldn't make out the decision to order a non-veg curry. So I decided to get the help from the server.

I asked the server to suggest a non-veg curry that would have some pieces of mutton. He suggested one curry (I don't remember the name). He said that the curry would have three pieces of mutton. I decided to go for it.

After a while when the dishes were served, I was surprised. The curry I ordered for was not of the type I expected. The dish that was served as what I ordered was not gravy item. It was a dry one. The dish served was three pieces of masala stuffed mutton. There was more masala and I hardly found mutton. Very oily.

I experienced a very tough time having food there. I felt I was cheated. And I felt guilty over spending money unworthy.

I made up my mind not to visit this hotel anymore. Also not to recommend this hotel to anyone.

They failed to build trust. They failed to understand the requirement of the customer.

Machines don't lie but...

I was on board of the flight to Chennai from Mumbai. I started conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me. We discussed each others profession, day-to-day issues etc.

During the course of chat he asked me how often do you check the receipt while making purchase in supermarkets. My answer is certainly a no. He said yes we trust since everything is automated. The price is listed by reading the product code. The price total is computed using a computer. So we trust that there is zero percent for errors. He said this is not true in all cases.

A week after returning Chennai from Mumbai, I and my brother went to a supermarket near by my house. The supermarket is quite a popular one that has chains through out the city. After collecting the items to be purchased we were in the cash counter.

Remembering the chat I had with the gentleman, I started checking the price of items one-by-one as it is listed.

I found an item which I specifically picked checking its price was quoted double the actual price. I interrupted the person in the counter and asked for the reason for the item is priced double the actual amount.

The person in the counter informed me that there could be a problem and he corrected the price. I started inspecting the price of all other items. The surprise is that I could manage to find two more items for which the price is quoted higher than the actual price.

Machines don't lie. But after all we should not forget who initiates and operates those machines.

Birth redefined

We say birth for a human when he/she comes into the world as a child. But the question is, do a human born right at that time. Yes, the answer is no :). Human born only when he/she gets the maturity to understand the world, love neighbors, acknowledge neighbors, grateful to neighbors.

Today people are concerned only about themselves. They do things only that matters for them. That too, they don't consider or even have the courtesy to others who get affected/bothered by their deeds to get their things done.

The worse is, if they find the things matter them would benefit the neighbors then they keep themselves from doing that. They feel they could adjust without it but the neighbors should not get benefited from them.

Also many are not grateful to neighbors for they benefited from them. Blame neighbors for their failure in life.

Let us get into the world as humans.