Loyalty is seldom rewarded!

In an age where credit card companies are stepping onto each other to come up with their most alluring programs to reward customers who had stuck with their bank, I have increasingly come to notice a lot of other closer-to-life places where things are exactly the opposite. Let me give you two examples :-

1. In the (Indian) IT industry if you stick with a company for 4-5 years without jumping around like a frog, in all probability you will be earning a lot less than the next door "Mr. FROG" (a.k.a someone who has changed say 5 jobs in 5 years). Our frog would have received atleast a 40-50% hike with every jump. Poor you, who has worked your a** off with the same company is deemed worthless. Even if you are the top 5% of the company, you would at the max get a 8% jump in your salary year-on-year. So much for loyalty. Its like if you are at the same place you must not be good enough to jump like a frog!!

2. This is something peculiar I witnessed in US especially with Cable companies and Apartment offices. Lets take apartments first, if you religiously keep jumping every 12 months, there is a huge chance that you will end up paying around 100-150 USD lesser after a year, even if you would have moved from say #421 to #420. If you stick around (poor you!) you end up paying a premium of 30 USD extra per month, so yes your rent is actually increasing though you are living in the exact same house from the past 3 years and your neighbor (yes Mr. FROG) is reaping all the benefits.

Now comes cable companies - almost all of them have promotional tariffs for the first 6 months. Also prices for the same kind of service reduces over time but who gets these benefits?? NO, not the loyal customer who took this connection 3 years back but the cheesy Mr. FROG who had been religiously changing service providers every 6 months.

So what do we do? Is it good to be a Mr. FROG?

P.S. And yes - you guessed it right. Both of the above are chronicles of first-hand experiences.

The decade that was!

Its 8 PM Central on the 31st day of the 12th month of the last year in the first decade of the new millennium! Sounds complicated.. eh! Fine - its 31-Dec-2009 20:00 CT and I just thought a blog would just be a nice idea to wind up this decade. For most, a New Year is either a reason to party hard or just another day in the calendar. It had been the latter for me most of the 26 odd years of my existence. So what's special about it this time around? Well a couple of reasons actually!

I hate to admit but the last decade - yes the entire 10 damn years had been primarily an era of under-achievement(strictly by my standards) for me with some minor exceptions here and there. The first 5 years professional and the last 5 personal. My belief system had been shaken a bit and also life has taught me some important lessons; 'not to take life for granted' being the most important one. On the positive side, I think I had come out as a much stronger person than I ever was determined to turn things over more than ever. Also I have grown out of a shell - from a shy immature teen to a decently smart chap (again strictly by my standards LOL). It had been a learning experience, and also a time to perform under pressure and live upto expectations.

All in all now that I am armed and hopeful that I can turn things over - its time to party! So in just a couple of minutes I am off to a sports lounge to dine away into the New Decade/Year. I think this would be a fitting way to welcome something which could very well be considered "life changing". The Yard House - here I come... CHAO.....
And yes!
Here's WISHING EVERYONE A GREAT NEW YEAR AND A ROCKING DECADE AHEAD!

Love Happens....

Okay this is a recommendation from me to everyone who wants to watch a nice emotionally inspiring movie. Pick up a DVD and watch "Love Happens". The title is definitely misleading.. yes its about love and it does happen out of the blue but still the movie has a message. Its like a self help book on the silver screen and I definitely know and relate to people who would benefit themselves with the ideas of the protagonist of the movie. So without much thought, go ahead and watch the movie....

IMDB Link

Njoi!!

A waste of a weekend!

Duh! What a weekend!! [8th/9th Aug 2009]
Generally such exclamations are symbolic of a great weekend but mine was juuuust the opposite.. it seemed I got up on the wrong side of the bed (hey wait a minute! I didnt even sleep on one!!) okay then must have got up on the wrong side of my couch!! Whatever may be the reason it was a disaster!
Here goes the list :-

1. Suddenly out of the blue, got the news that there is a faint possibility that I may have to relocate for some time.. Where my frenz are finalizing their Miami trip, I have to just keep waiting for my manager to confirm his plans for me!! (gimme a break!!!)
2. Caught up on tennis just 1 out of the 3 days.. that 1 time I did play somehow did not enjoy 1 minute of the game...
3. Exercise - ZERRROOOO! The maximum I walked was from my apartment to the parking lot!
4. Study for GMAT - sucked biggg time.. am now behind schedule more than ever!
5. Study for certifications - ZERRRROOOO!
6. Visit to the theatre - nah!! this was atleast 1 thing I used to do religiously but this week even this eluded me...
7. Socialize with friends - Negligible!
8. Had kind of an argument with my cousin 'sis and Raj for not visiting Blore the last time I visited India!! What more it was on my sister's bday!!
9. Cooking - ZERRROOO! Weekend is one time I cook properly and have a nice 3-course meal. This weekend was shit load of junk food... what more yesterday wanted to have a Sub and literally toured the whole of Greater Chicago to find one damn 'Subway' OPEN at 10 PM but returned empty handed... panera bread (closed).. even Taco Bell (dont they advertise "Open Late" and crap!! So where did 'yours truly' finally manage to eat - BK (Burger King)! again full junk....
10. Finally had some pending office work which I thought would assign my offshore and sleep peacefully on Sunday night but damn.. he 'supposedly' is down with fever.. Incidentally he is sick once every damn week.... the other one is happily on vacation and then I have to listen to their pep talks!!! aaarggghhhhhhh
    
    The only 'worthy' thing - watched Frost/Nixon!! Looooved the movie.. what acting!!
    Hopefully for my coming weekends I have something better to write about... cant afford another disaster in this crunch time!!

In Maharaja's lap!

Okay, a post on something which happened a month back... it was on my first trip back home after coming to US. An honest confession - I loove aeroplanes, had always been fascinated with these mean machines and man's ability to be able to fly something weighing hundreds of tons and (ironically) made up of materials all found on ground! I have a habit of reading reviews, I find them amazingly informative, insightful and also amusing at times. So even in this case I read up couple of really interesting TRs on www.airliners.net before deciding upon the airline I wanna fly. A particularly great Trip Report (you can read it yourself here ) caught my eye and drew me to "new" Air India. Like Air India's self promotion, the TR seemed to scream its lungs out "Have you tried the NEW Air India?".......

So against the suggestion of practically everyone I knew in US, I went ahead and booked my return ticket from Chicago to Delhi on our national carrier. As an added bonus the tickets were quite competitive too but I guess the perks of flying AI would end here... Below is a small review of my experience on AI (few pros and relatively greater number of cons)

First the GOOD news :-
1. AI has started flying the state of the art B777 on select US routes - NY and CHI. These aircrafts have quite a generous seat pitch (almost 34" in Economy!!!) and decent leg space too.

2. Mood-lighting - these B777s have mood lighting and man the cabin looks beautiful n soothing once they are switched ON.. snaps coming soon.....
3. In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) - great AVOD screens with decent headphones... the flip side - bad collection of movies!!!
4. Food - For enthusiasts of desi food, no airline in this world will serve you better Indian Food than Air India... absolutely no comparison in this regard....Also AI is one of the very few airlines which serves free drinks on board (again in Economy).

Ok enuf of pros.. now for a larger list of cons.. I will only mention the select few which kinda perturbed me :-

1. In-flight service - the thing which according to me makes or breaks a good carrier. The sevice level in AI was below average. I flew 2 sectors - ORD - FRA and FRA-DEL and return, and the only time I got acceptable service was on my way back to US from FRA to ORD.... rest all were very very ordinary.. More so I was really irritated with the Behenji's (read Air Hostesses) on board the flight.. most of them were just too casual and indifferent.. one thing which particularly pissed me off was none of them had the courtsey to say "Welcome" after I said "Thank You!" Ok folks back home, please dont think I am being finicky here.. u expect these basic courtsey from air hostesses atleast!! They are India's ambassadors in some sort of way and when you stay abroad you take these stuff for granted... also there seemed to be a major underdose of "smiles" floating around!!

2. Delays - On my flight back to US, the flight was delayed.. I am not denying that this is something unusual on transcontinental routes but the worst thing was no one communicated this to us. I had a flight from CCU-DEL-ORD and I was supposed to change planes in DEL. In CCU no one cared to announce what is happening where the flight was delayed for around 2 hours (same as my transit time in DEL)

3. My ordeal with IFEs continued.. FRA - ORD the IFE wont start after the initial 10 mins.. and worst of all the collection was pathetic and exactly the same as that of my outward journey.. outdated movies and they did not even change the collection (I heard they are supposed to revamp the collection monthly) On the +ve side, I was not feeling that bad about the condn of the IFE

4. Co-passengers included 85% senior citizens, 10% foreigners and 5 % youngsters (and I am being generous here and counting people TILL the age group of 35 as "young").. May not be a big deal for many but helloooo it was for me!

All in all a pretty dissapointing experience.. Was I expecting more because of Mr Abrelosojos's TR or was I just being irrational? US carriers are notorious for their below average service whereas it is a common belief that Indian carriers and their service are the best in the world. Whatever it is, will I fly AI again? Unlikely... definitely it will not be my carrier of choice......

Sorry state of affairs!

I am frustrated and angry... and all because of Apple Inc. Suddenly since Tim Cook (COO and acting CEO) had taken over the reigns of the company, Apple seems to be coming up with these amazing (for some, weird for me!) promotions. 3 months back I bought my first Mac (an aluminium 13-inch one) putting in almost half of my month's salary and just yesterday got to know that these guys are shipping a MacBook Pro for the same (or wait, an actually lesser) amount. Damn these guys!!!

Next they come up with the new iPhone3G S and bring down the price of the current iPhone. OK, I have nothing against technological innovation and I knew this day would come and the newer products would be a lot cooler, but then that is not what I am angry about. Why cant Apple let the older n loyal users of iPhone 3G (like ME!) upgrade to the new software or even better the phone itself. I checked with ATT and they asked me to pay a freaking 500 USD for a shift to 3G-S. Ridiculous!!

Update : Apple did allow us to download the new iPhone v3.0 software which has few of the important tools that comes up with 3G S. Sorry Apple! you still are the best and I am a loyal fan! :)-



On a side note, take the auto industry of US for example. I think as per reports, US has the maximum number of cars per household in the WORLD. Buying a brand new car is relatively cheap as compared to most other parts, and it has a thriving used-car market. You get real good deals in the 7.5-10k USD range for an average user. Now lets just change gears and concentrate on the service side of this industry. If your car needs a repair (which it most probably would over a course of 1.5-2 years) you will be broke. Some figures :-
Used Honda Accord 2000 model - Around 6000 USD [Cool isnt it!! Read on!!!]

Service Costs :-
Catalytic Converters - Around 1500-2000 USD
Brakes (All 4) - Around 1000 USD
Auto Transmission - Around 2000 USD
Simple Rear body work - Around 1000 USD

It is highly probable that you will end up doing atleast one of the above. If you are particularly unlucky and end up doing more than one, time to buy a new car buddy!!!!

Alas!! India practically out of T20 World Cup! '09

India's early exit in the T20 World Cup had left me quite dissapointed... it was not quite long ago (in 2007) that we all cheered for India in the finals of the inaugural T20 World Cup against arch-rivals Pakistan and enjoyed every moment of India's victory...

I followed the last 2 games through cricinfo and for some reason it never felt that they were in control in either.. anyways without sounding too judgemental I wish Dhoni & Co better luck and games ahead!