Friday lunch

One thing that I liked while working are the Friday lunches. Not only was it a relief from the bad food at the canteen (the food at the canteen has to be bad in a software company in India ) but it was also a great bonding experience and a chance to try out the different restaurants around the office. The best though was the first six months at work outside college when we had very less work. The weekend would start right on the Friday mornings. Not that I missed them but I just remembered those days when I went out with the team here today. It was my first Friday lunch with one of the teams I am interning with and it was a nice and different experience. We went to Bonifacio high street , which I would recommend for luxury shopping . Btw, I just go for food (esp donuts at Krispy Kreme) and not for any luxury shopping(I made a note of the ALDO accessory shop there though since I am searching for a good leather wrist band for long now) . The experience was different but expected. I know being an Indian among these Filipinos, most of the talk would be about comparing India and philippines. So, right from the time we left the office till we started running towards the office after the lunch because of a sudden rain , we compared as many things as we possibly could : the cable television, the cars, the export of milk, shopping habits of Filipinos (all Filipinos love shopping but lets just say women are worse), software jobs and salaries, telecom provider rates,Katrina Halili sex scandal and one Martial art the name of which I forgot. One of the conclusions of the discussion was that Philippines is an expensive country than India, something I found out the first day I entered this country. But it was an interesting discussion and a nice experience. The food was good too . We went to an Italian restaurant and I had a Seafood Cioppino.

20 ways to get and stay Happy

In this time of economic crisis there are many articles that offer help and guidance to people to keep themselves up. I found this article titled the same as this post in TIME and in fact found it interesting. It is from 2007 but has resurfaced again. It has some usual advice but some of them are different and interesting.

Count your blessings
Hear the Music
Snog. Canoodle. Get it On (Now it is getting interesting :)))
Nurture your spirituality
Move your body
Laugh Big
Do something nice for someone else
Make more money than you peers (I told ya it is different)
Seek Positive Emotion as a Path to success
Identify with your heritage and culture
Use a happy memory as a guide
Play the part of an optimist
Try new things
Tell your story to someone
Balance work and home
Keep expectations realistic (Be like the Danes)
Make time (avoid saying that you are always busy)
Visualize Happiness
Smile
Marry Happy (not necessarily the rich)

You are an AIM MBA if….

1. You enter the school with the expectation that b-schools generally have big campuses when in fact you are already standing near the back gate
2. You experience the most authentic Indian MBA experience you can ever get
3. You have hardly been to Manila though you study at AIM, Manila.
4. You realize there are more secretaries than professors in the school
5. You have never seen two professors together
6. You have to get 80% to pass a subject
7. You realize ‘low pass’ means a Fail
8. You make up some imaginary illness and visit the in-house doctor and the nurse once a week
9. You think everyone except you in the class is always bull-shitting
10. You feel like punching the bank clerk when she says the words ‘debit’ and ‘credit’
11. Two weeks into the course you stop worrying about getting a job because you can get a job as an accountant anywhere
12. You can talk about restructuring ‘WalMart’ at 8 o’clock in the morning having got up only at 7:55am and without reading the case
13. You definitely know for sure that if your class is asked for “100 business ideas” , 98 will be about selling Indian food and that too inside the campus
14. You still believe Operations Management only applies to restaurants(esp japanese) and hospitals
15. You are surprised when Operations Management is mentioned as a quantitative subject in your score card
16. You realize that only Marketing is being taught under different subject names
17. but still you didn’t know what the 4Ps were when you got a marketing WAC
18. Your favourite subject is Strategy Management and Ethics and it is the same with everyone in class
19. You still wonder how ‘Class Participation’ is graded and think your ‘nationality’ matters.
20. You think ‘culture’ (or ‘kulchure’) of a company is the source of all problems in the corporate world
21. You can proudly say “I know many people from the Embassy”…whichever country you are from.
22. The coolest thing that is ever done on campus is throwing somebody in the pool, which by the way is banned
23. You feel you are really cool because you can sit by the pool side and booze till 8 o’clock in the morning
24. Your future wife/husband is shocked to see ‘Jessica’ and ‘Heidi’ in the 5 favourite names for naming your Indian daughter
25. ‘You still love the school’ but wonder Why

There is so much that we can add, so if you can think of something good put it in the comments and it will be added.