You are fired!

No other act has seen use of so many euphemism as corporate action of firing employee off. In quest to be as sweet as possible while doing the exact opposite, corporate HR should probably won some kind prize for coming up so many ways to not say what they want to. Not that I believe companies shouldn’t fire people, but it will be worth a bit honesty and ethics to not rub salt on it. Of course, honesty and ethics are kinds of things you wouldn’t associate with any big company anyway.

In the sprit of doublespeak, then, here is collection of what ‘you are fired’ may sound like:

assignment ended
assignment expired
best shoring
bought out
bounced out
career change opportunity
career transition
cashiered
contract not renewed
contracted out
decruitment
discharged
dismissed
down size
early retired
eased out
end of trial period
freed up for the future
going in different directions
headcount adjustment
headcount reduction
helped with exit
invited to be successful elsewhere
involuntary separation
laid off
let go
made available to industry
made redundant
make internal efficiencies
managed out
off shoring
optimized
outplaced
outsourced
personnel realignment
personnel surplus reduction
position has been eliminated
promoted to customer (retail workers)
pursue other opportunities
rationalize the workforce
reclined to extend
reduced headcount
reduction in force
re-engineered
regime change
released
released from the talent pool
relieved of duties
reorganized
re-prioritizing labor expenses
resource action
responsibilities have been reassigned
right size
separated
services no longer required
skill mix adjustment
smart size
stepped down
taking it for the team
terminated
unassigned
we really feel like we’re holding you back here
workforce efficiency initiative

Three Men in a Boat

When I started reading Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome, a humourous book written in 1889, I had not imagined that what lay ahead of me. Book is through and through hilarious story of three good-for-nothing lazy hypochondriac friends who decide to take one week trip along the river to help them relax. From story point of view, book offers little; rather, one can say that there isn’t really an story. Indeed what constitutes this 200 odd page narrative is collection of numerous meanderings off-shots tales which either recounts some historical episodes from protagonists past or are part of wild and vivid imaginations. Narrative is definitely old English yet flows freely and isn’t trouble to read or understand. In fact, this book affirms faith that despite hundred and quarter century of time difference and thousands of miles of cultural difference between me and them, basic human nature has hardly changed. If a minor annoyance must be noted then that should be about convoluted names and British history of various places on river they visit which a modern and non-British reader may find unfamiliar. Best way to present what is awesome about this book is exhibit collections of quotes from within. And if you don’t find them hilarious, then perhaps this book isn’t for you.

Book introduces our protagonists and their hypochondriac nature:

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.

I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.” What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.

And when they decide to take trip down the river:

…said, however, that the river would suit him to a “T.” I don’t know what a “T” is (except a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and-butter and cake, and is cheap at the price, if you haven’t had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody, however, which is greatly to its credit.

Describing one of the member of journey:

You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris—no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never “weeps, he knows not why.” If Harris’s eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.

Oh and oh, three men in a boat also have a dog with them. His introduction follows:

To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the most disreputable dogs to be found in the town, and lead them out to march round the slums to fight other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency’s idea of “life.”

Montmorency’s ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted.

Planning for the trip:

“Begin with breakfast.” (George is so practical.) “Now for breakfast we shall want a frying-pan”—(Harris said it was indigestible; but we merely urged him not to be an ass)...

And packing for the trip:

I said I’d pack.

I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person living. (It surprises me myself, sometimes, how many of these subjects there are.) I impressed the fact upon George and Harris, and told them that they had better leave the whole matter entirely to me. They fell into the suggestion with a readiness that had something uncanny about it. George put on a pipe and spread himself over the easy-chair, and Harris cocked his legs on the table and lit a cigar.

This was hardly what I intended. What I had meant, of course, was, that I should boss the job, and that Harris and George should potter about under my directions, I pushing them aside every now and then with, “Oh, you—!” “Here, let me do it.” “There you are, simple enough!”—really teaching them, as you might say. Their taking it in the way they did irritated me. There is nothing does irritate me more than seeing other people sitting about doing nothing when I’m working.

I’m not like that. I can’t sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can’t help it.

And so on and so on. I could cite many, trouble being the given the wandering nature of book, quotes tend not to be just quotes but paragraphs themselves. Not good for blog but a recommended read. You have no excuse since it’s even free and available on Project Gutenberg.

Dork – Book review

I am unsurprisingly lazy at writing review but given extra free time I have today, let me put down my thoughts on fictional novel “Dork” by Sidin Vadukut. Review contains minor spoilers.

Dork is a story of an MBA graduate from IIM Ahmedabad who lands a job at a mid-size consulting organization and his first year in the firm. Book is hilarious to the core and an easy read throughout. Book specially appeals to people who are familiar with culture of MBA institutes and consulting companies because author doesn’t bother to clarify things for those unfamiliar. That said, while some humour may be lost, others can still enjoy the book based on simply the character that the protagonist “Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese” is.

Robin, or he likes to be called, Einstein, is an utter optimist but a mediocre — as mediocre as one can be given that he is in IIMA — student who is in too much awe of himself to notice anything else. His luck, adventurous nature and audacious confidence carries him through ups and downs of campus and work life in a rollercoaster ride which will make you laugh out loud quite a few times and chuckle many more. As all Indian stories must include romantic side interest, Einstein too has one-sided (what else?) crush on his batch-mate from college which he manages to advance to “next level”. Nuggets of Robin’s self-confidence even when he is the laughing stock of the whole world give book its regular dose of wit. For instance, when projected as expert of mechanical engineering to prospective client by his superiors in consulting firm, Robin assures them of his ability because, after all, he was twelfth ranker in his class in engineering and joint fourth when only counting top three courses in last two semesters including Basic French! His interview in the end is not to be missed.

While book deals with eccentricities of consulting profession, it doesn’t take holier-than-thou attitude as I suspected when I started reading. Robin is sole focus of the book and occasional unethical nature of consulting world is mere stage for his fortune to dance upon. Most of the humour in the book is subtle (a parenthetical “not needed” when Robin is wished best of luck for a job interview, a microwave that works only for 20 seconds, and exhibition in Paris for dog) and not in-your-face “I cracked a joke now you should laugh” type which respects intelligence of its readers. While luck shines way too much on Robin, story remains largely realistic.

Book is peppered with mild profanities (‘fuck’ and ‘chutiya’) and few innuendoes (extra hard drive space) but it should offend none but Victorian prudish. For a mass-market fiction category that this books fall into, narrative and English are good (atleast as good as I can judge, which you can judge yourself). For 149 bucks, book is sure worth keeping in your library.

Thank-o-meter

Cultural differences between oriental and occidental societies are well known and expressing gratitude through explicit thanking is one such area of difference.

European and North American societies exhibit an all pervasive tendency to thank family, friends and strangers for the most trivial of the matters which grates Indians — or at least me — in two ways. One, it reduces act of thanking to mere perfunctory ritual rather than heartfelt recognition of gratitude received because it becomes difficult to recognize true thanking to courtesy thanking. Two, it embarrasses me to receive profuse thanking for task which I don’t consider worthy of gushing praise bestowed on me. One English colleague at my firm, for instance, once asked me for “a very very big favour” by asking me to explain her how many thousands were in a lakh. I am often at loss to even respond to such overwhelmed dose of expressed thanking.

Asian societies, on the contrary, are more cautious in thanking and when done, it is almost always to strangers. In fact, a good yardstick to measure how close one is in personal circle of thank-er is to notice for what and how often one is thanked. A close friend or family member never expects to be thanked and some even take offence at thanking. Even strangers are thanked for things more substantial than mere getting out of the way on footpath. This, naturally, comes out to West as rude and ungrateful behaviour.

Those of us educated and exposed to Western culture are pushing thanking in Indian social interaction to same extent. While thanking someone for efforts he put into helping you is desirable social mannerism, anything done in excess loses its meaning as happens on the other side of the Earth. What we need is moderate amount of thanking and thanking from heart for things for which thank-er is really thankful about. What we need is thank-o-meter™!

Thank-o-meter is each individual’s personal cumulative counter of thanks he received and thanks he gave throughout his life. Because thanking someone will decrement thank-o-meter reading, one would do so only when meant genuinely and when other’s effort are substantial enough and worthy of a thank. This will obviously increase value of thank to receiver as well. Because one will be able to thank only when he has positive balance of thanks, he will have to earn thanks through efforts before he can spend them.

Implementation of this scheme can only be undertaken by God for He only has such scalability and omniscience required for this project. Implementation details such as initial stock of thanks can be worked out. What may happen is that some miser may stop handing out thanks or some other start hoarding them. Thanking in return of cash gift would be equivalent to selling thank-o-meter readings. Humankind may end up deciding price of a efforts in units of thanks which will be function of demand (low during natural disaster) and supply (high during charity event) and may work much like today’s forex market (and can possibly be traded).

The end of the beginning and the beginning of the end

Starting now, I am a family man.
And “uncle”.
And among set of people who have tasted proverbial laddoo.
And can empathize with, and not merely laugh at, marriage jokes.
And will live longer.

Starting now, I cannot sleep till noon.
Or skip meals.
Or not shave for days.
Or leave my room cluttered.
Or wear same shirt for fourth consecutive day.
Or ogle at beautiful ladies.
Or watch porn (as frequently).

And my wife is awesome (she is watching over).

Wish me luck. I am marr(i)ed!

Calcutta and a car with no driver

North Indians who had never been to Calcutta had surprisingly consistent reactions when I mentioned that I will going there for my next project. Calcutta is perceived as an unappealing city — city where there is nothing to look forward to, city which is old and dirty, city where no one in sane mind would want to go. There is not so much of disdain than surprise and disinterest. Fortunately, I didn’t have any such presumptions to begin with.

I knew Calcutta is left behind in march of ruthless progress which has painted facade of other metros and tier-I cities in India but I was also keen to visit part of country which I’d never been before. Calcutta didn’t disappoint me. As a tourist, at least, I walked into a city frozen into sixties but came out happier. Streets hustling with crowds and vendors, pavements lined with myriads of goods decorated in many ways, dilapidated trams crawling in middle of road and denizens relishing uniquely Bengali delicacies sent me back to memories of childhood fairs. That my most favourite snack gol-guppas were staple of city did help the matter. I didn’t see city much in two days but got glimpse of life in general. Victoria memorial at night was lined by couples in stages of embrace which could put Marine Drive in Mumbai to shame. Street side food is mouth watering. Even though I am no big fan of Bengali sweets, and sweets in general, I found Sandesh — which I tasted for first time — quite nice.

There is no better way to mention the ethos of Calcutta than to narrate little experience I had while being driven from airport to my destination.

At some point along two hour ride, our driver decided to switch to “shot-cut” to avoid potential congestion on the road ahead. To give Murphy a credit, our alternate route was no less congested. While being stuck in a traffic jam for few minutes, our driver had an epiphany: he could use time better. He excused himself almost in hurry before we could protest and said that he’ll back after ‘taking a leak’. To further credit Edward Murphy, jam was cleared within minutes of him departing. Naturally, cars behind us started honking after courtesy wait of one second. Our driver was spotted on far end of road smoking, oblivious of raucous that an unmanned territorial vehicle created in middle of heavy traffic.

I had heard Calcutta is laid back city. I think, those ten minutes in car were perhaps what Calcutta is all about.

Gazillion Pillows

Room I was staying in Holiday Inn in London had to undergo renovation. So I was upgraded — so I was told — to better room. This room was exactly same as the one before, except that now I had eight pillows on my double bed rather than two. When I went to sleep, I just threw down seven of them on the floor. Why would anyone need so many of them was perplexing. I was reminded of this the other day when reading this article:

One might think that beds are made for sleeping in, but they’d be wrong. Apparently, unbeknownst to men everywhere, beds are in fact made to hold as many pillows as possible. Only a fraction of the pillows present are actually functional at any given point in time, while the rest are there for some unstated purpose. Sleeping on the bed requires several minutes of relocating pillows to suitable locations, which of course will be designated by the woman who placed them to begin with.

I can imagine need for second pillow for those who like to cuddle with pillow when sleeping or need an extra prop support when sitting. My creativity runs out when envisaging need for third pillow or more.

On airline safety

Perhaps the most embarrassing part of the job of a flight attendant is safety announcements. If a well draped, polished executive who is about to deliver keynote speech at podium is asked to recite ‘twinkle-twinkle’ before he can begin, that is how he would feel. This awkwardness multiplies because, one, nobody in audience pays attention, and second, they have to do it twice in Hindi and English, both. Their lackadaisical gestures are far too easily noticeable when drained steward or stewardess mechanically goes through the motions. I often dream about final exam of flight attendant’s school necessarily having a question on steps of safety demonstration. From what I’ve observed, stewards are more uninterested than stewardesses in moving their hands more than a foot away from their bodies. So routine this routine has become that process has lost its very purpose — for I believe that first time flyer will find these instructions too fast and too limited. It’s another matter that even after numerous flying miles, I am still not sure if I can find my safety jacket beneath my seat.

This brings me to the second point. Why must these instructions be relayed live? Most airlines, even those who have personal entertainment screen for every seat, conduct these announcements live: narrated by an on-board attendant and demonstrated by other attendants. I would imagine that having a tape recorder with instructions to be played could be simplest thing to have. If inbuilt tape recorder is expensive proposition requiring rewiring of aircraft’s public announcement system, I can imagine a steward playing a pocket tape into the microphone. Of course, alternative thought suggests that once in-flight crew is on board, they might as well do something to keep themselves busy.

Third point on this topic is about requirement of doing so at all. Surely, Government of India guidelines specify wording of instructions and usage of two languages*, but must those be followed to the letter? Could their be an AAI or DGCA official sitting in plainclothes among traveller who’d report the violation? Or perhaps the penalty of violation is large enough to dissuade airlines from taking any chances at all. Then there is something-to-do reasoning, again.

*God bless them for continued Hindi usage, for if left to airline and airport staff only, Hindi would completely disappear as it did from shopping complexes — richness often being irrevocably associated with usage of English and abandonment of National language. Note that any announcement which is not part of required announcement is only relayed in English, chief among them being Captain’s mid-air flight summary.

Brain, Beauty, Availability, etc.

A well know equation describes feminine disposition as:
Beauty X Brain = 0
A more generous version of the same propositions that:
Beauty X Brain X Availability = 0
where ‘beauty’, ‘brain’ and ‘availability’ are binary variables.

This equations implies that a girl cannot be beautiful, brainy and unattached at any point of time simultaneously. Among numerous corollaries of this equation, two complementary ones are common fodder of dismay among young men: all beautiful and intelligent girls are taken and those who are available are n/either beautiful n/or intelligent but not both. I take umbrage at such implication.

First, by definition, it is a fact that those who are unavailable now must be available prior some point in time, for one can make available unavailable and not unavailable unavailable¹. It must, then, necessarily be true that among those who are beautiful and intelligent there must a time, if only a fraction of instant, where above equation fails to hold and when girl is simultaneously available, beautiful and intelligent. One could argue that such infinitesimal point is discontinuity in the function which is valid elsewhere.

If such anomaly is not acceptable, then for equation to be valid it must be true that girl becomes intelligent and/or beautiful as soon as she gets a boyfriend, which, while possibly being true in long term², cannot possibly be true instantaneously. Thus, one must either accept frailty of this equation or believe that equation must hold only on long term average basis. Second of this appears more palatable. This, therefore, suggests that above equation is asymptotically true as population size and time horizon grow longer. Of course, this weakens the case for disappointed men who excuse their inability behind this universal law.

1. Assuming simple case of one boyfriend at a time.
2. Glow of love or diffusion of external wisdom from new person may be reason behind.

Of blogs and bloggers

What more do I say? I’ve run out of things to say. So here is a nice dump!

Penny for your thought

You probably have heard about this joke puzzle:

When it’s a penny for your thoughts and you put two cents in, who gets the other penny?

Having recently incurred substantial cost in exchanging INR to GBP, answer dawned on me suddenly while walking to work today. 2 cents corresponds to about 1.25 pennies. 0.25 penny is simply transaction cost of currency exchange. I feel pretty good now.

Truth about (a) Facebook quiz

There are two types of people on the Facebook^®: those who don’t take those annoying quizzes and those who are stupid morons.

When you are done wiping that smirk/disdain from your face, let me tell you here how the Facebook quizzes work. Or at least one of them does, which seems fair indicator of what goes on with others as well, coming from the person who is behind the design of that particular quiz.

Once you are done answering a random and arbitrary set of questions, don’t expect results to reflect really your potential or personality or any such trait quiz claims to estimate. What you see as result is actually one from few chosen responses designed to look funny and fascinating enough so that you publish them on your profile and thus advertise the application. After all, who would want to publish results of a quiz which fairly stated whatever it was supposed to estimate. And if quiz mentions your rank among number of people who took it, most likely both numbers are randomly generated. In fact, any number is most likely random. Any other option to unsubscribe the application, send in an error message or suggestions are probably landing in a dump email account. As a general rule, whatever be the result of quiz, it probably has nothing to do with your responses and is already pre-set.

Of course, in bigger scheme of things, there are two types of people on Earth: those that are on Facebook and those that have better things do in life.

Double entendre Oxymoron

“Practice makes a man perfect”, so goes the saying. So what makes a woman perfect? Perhaps she already is. Alright, that was lame. But that’s not the point of this post.

Consider the sentence: “No practice makes a man perfect”. Does it mean that not doing any practice makes a man perfect (and practice ruins perfection), or that, no amount of practice will make a man perfect? Is there any grammatical mistake in this sentence or does it convey two contrasting but legitimate meanings? Does this phenomenon has a linguistic definition? What are other examples of such kind?

Humours from the Daisy Row

Now that the placements at the IIMA are long over (this post was to come out in May) and we are out of self-imposed quarantine from media, let me share escapades of the days. This year, as everyone and their uncles know by now, thanks to relentless, and I must say quite tactless as well, coverage by the media, particularly one leading English behemoth, was specially bad for all colleges all over the world, IIMA being no exception. This resulted in more diverse and wide variety of firms coming to campus for placements than there had been in earlier times. Some of these executives were coming for the first time and were probably unfamiliar with process we follow here, which is a very fast paced, jam packed, heavily organized and highly technology controlled one for increasing throughput of the system and maximizing benefit to students and firms.

Few firms backed out at last minute even after pre-placement talks and releasing shortlists for interview. I suspect little of that happened because of change in market condition between acquiescing to come and actually coming, and more because companies wanted to put off pitching calls from placement members till last minute before coping out. Few firms reduced their salary after having made offers, introduced bonds or changed profile after news of dismal first days were out. Such unprofessional conduct was disappointing and shocking for students concerned but also had undertone of dark humour.

A small firm used this opportunity to hire student amass. Only lone interviewer from that firm interviewed over hundred candidates in a day in what has been described by participating students as the most flippant way. He/she was busy playing with his/her blackberry and trading on his/her laptop while he/she pretended to listen to students during their interview. Rather than asking questions to students, he/she kept asking if they had any questions for him/her. In interview process running for two days, he/she displayed his/her inability to select good candidates and just asked coordinating placement team member if he/she could suggest some. There are rumours that he/she made one offer on the way to taxi. In another case, he/she made job offers and then realized that he/she had forgotten to take second round of interviews. Few firms used this opportunities to hoard “IIMA grads” now that they were cheaply available. On the contrary, other companies just participated in placement process to continue their relationship with the institute and just pretended to hire.

A company was so adamant to conduct Group Discussions for its selection that they didn’t even hesitate when only two candidates were left in last panel. How did they manage a GD in 2 is anybody’s guess. Another company declared their salary package of 10 lakh during role description. When two people were selected, surprise followed. Company representative argued that 10 divided by 2 is 5 and hence each should get 5 lakh each. Now we are learning math!

A firm was too precise in its procedure to screen students that it flew its executive to Ahmedabad for very small written test. I am no cost-cutting expert but something sounds amiss. Once forty shortlisted students were interviewed over two days in multiple rounds, firm decided not to hire anyone. I hear that their liquidity is severely limited!

One company decided that best way to introduce prospective candidates to company is to hold an dinner evening with them. About three dozens shortlisted candidates were treated to expensive dinner with company officials. Two days before placement week, they decided that they will release second shortlist and cancel the first. Only half a dozen students, none of them in earlier list, were shortlisted again. Interviews were changed from in-person to phone-interview. They didn’t hire anyone.

Few firms decided that they would use this opportunity to get revenge for all the perceived wrongs done by the institute when things were going good and we didn’t need them. Negotiation to get a preferred slot is the biggest deal breaker. In IIMA, like in other IIMs, placements are conducted during one week rather than as and when firms come. Best and preferred companies come earlier and less preferred companies come later. Wisdom in the street says that relatively better candidates are taken in earlier days and relatively worse candidates remain in applicant pool later. It’s not clear if former leads to later or vice-versa. So, of course, companies want earlier slots. In typical marketing style, days of placement week are not called 1, 2, 3… but are –1, 0, 0.5, 1.5, 2…. First day of placement week is day zero (sounds like “daisy row”) and any offers before that count as day minus one. In strategy not unlike pricing a shoe at 199/-, 0 and 0.5 convey sense of same day and not a second day.

Names have been deliberately omitted, numbers are fudged and language is sanitized to avoid any damage to parties involved, but primarily to me.

Point of contention

I realized something today. It will be bone of contention in my life.

With regret I have come to realize that my mother’s culinary skills are unparalleled, incomparable, beyond par so much so that this is going to be cause domestic feud between me and my potential wife when I am going to say to her that her cooking is nothing like my mom’s.

I’ve been told that this (missing mum's food) happens largely to men and not to women. Is it true?

I had never thought of this before. I must learn to keep my mouth shut. Sigh.

Pakistan

It must have been deep rooted disdain, disgust and hatred — surely and obviously mixed with dry sarcastic humour — for a nation which has unfortunately inextricably linked itself with major share of wounds in India's social, religious and political milieu and has been constant pain in the rear of mother India that the following place has been derisively christened with the sobriquet same as the epithet of aforementioned country. With time though our neighbour has proven itself worthy of her namesake.

(This usage can be occasionally heard in Hindi heartland of our nation and is largely understood, so I understand. I was reminded of this in recent trip to a relative's place and it did bring a smile on my face.)

What were you expecting?

When someone asks a question, I believe it’s because he wants to know the answer except in few situations. There is (my) simple rule when asking question: don’t ask question which can be answered in only one way. That is when context, position and circumstance of answerer puts him in a position that he has only one way to answer posed question then question is wrong question to ask. You will be surprised how often this rule is violated.

If questioner is only interested in pretending to ask question and doesn’t really care for reply then I can understand intentional breach of this simple rule of common sense. However, that is not the case many a times and I have seen people with sincerity on their face with expectations of genuine reply asking questions which has no other answer but obvious one. Such questions and their subsequent answers are futile in sense of not adding any value to discussion or information, except if questioner himself is unaware of obviousness of answer. What are these questions you may ask?

During pre-placement talks by company representatives on the campus in our college, asking these representatives whether their company permits flexibility, independence of decision making and growth opportunity is one such set of questions. As they are on sales pitch trying to sell their company to students, one cannot really expect completely honest answers from them and they will not say anything which will reduce students’ interest in the organization. Everybody loves to project his organization as good place to work even when he don’t think so himself. That’s why idea of company one gets as outsider is at least somewhat different than what one gets as soon as one joins as insider. It’s not their fault really. In a game called placement, companies sell themselves in presentation and students sell themselves in the interview. If students wrote statement of purpose indicating their real intentions in university admission process, will he get admitted?

When a professor asks students about how are they finding his course, can he really expect anything but positive reviews from the students? Even if students hate the course, they will be polite enough not to reply in negation, unless asked in correct context such as anonymously. When you ask me on this public platform whether I support racism, what do you think my answer will be? It’s not to say that my answer will be necessarily incorrect, but because there is no other way I could have answered the question, any answer is not going to provide insight into my real mindset thus making exercise useless. That's why I always end up smiling when someone puts an obvious disclaimer (me too, but it's not that kind of disclaimer). There are so many occurrence of such meaningless questions everyday that once you start noticing, you will find them everywhere. It’s mostly formality and desire to be praised, I understand, but don’t expect your dinner guest what he really thought of your cooking or your spouse about how do you look.

If you really want to know real answer then provide for opportunity where answerer can answer honestly without compromising himself. There is one exception though. An smart observer of human body language and linguistic ability may be able to pick up some signals in the manner answer is phrased despite it not providing any non-obvious information.

Though of course

Warning: Muddled verbiage. Read slowly.

If you have followed my writings on this blog closely then you must have noticed my tendency to use “of course” in abundance. I don’t, though, use so much of it in conversation. “Of course”, of course, stands for “obviously” which suggests that I believe that what follows after “of course” must necessarily follow based on preceding statement and that this fact has been taken into account by astute reader. Yet, my need to mention specifically what must obviously follow for me — and if I am right then for you too — implies either that (1) I don’t trust at least one of you to ascertain that fact automatically, or that (2) I feel need to state the obvious which me as writer and you as reader anyway know.

If it’s former then either (1.1) use of “of course” is not valid completely since it’s not obvious to at least one of you as per my inherent assumption, or (1.2) I must be presumptuous for making that assumption and am indicating limitation in someone’s ability to comprehend written text. If it’s later, though, where I am repeating the obvious, then either (2.1) I am introducing redundancy in the text thus making it verbose and in process consuming more of my time, your time, electricity and internet real estate thus accelerating our way to global warning however marginally, or (2.2) I may have been repeating the text to emphasize point made earlier. Of course, assuming the later automatically implies that (2.2.1) I don’t trust you to understand text when written only once and feel need to elucidate more thus casting doubt on your general intelligence.

Of course, there is third reason as well, (3) which simply means that my written communication is improper and my use is grammatically incorrect. Clearly, there is no way I can get out this mess which my use of “of course” has shoved all of us into, though, of course, I never intended such.

Another thing that I’ve noticed and want to point out here is generous use of “though”, though, again not so much in oral communication. Use of “though” is much simpler to explain because it highlights impending twist in the thought process and indicates that next sentences goes contrary to just stated opinion notwithstanding any fact which just has been mentioned. This could be to (1) point out exceptions to the rule or to (2) rule out generation of possible follow-up thoughts in your mind based on presented statement which I don’t want to imply to concur with. While both are valid uses, I really need to find more synonyms for “though”.

Politically incorrect humour

I am usually not fan of excess political correctness when used against faceless audience. I don’t, of course, want to hurt anybody’s feelings because of his belief or membership. Hence I am considerate to not mention things which can be considered offensive by my listeners when I am addressing them directly. Even then, things that one can take offense to are limitless and I cannot suppress my speech to sound sugary to everyone all the time without seriously handicapping my ability to convey my meaning. As much as is the responsibility of speaker to not to hurt his audiences’ feelings, so is the onus on not getting offended without perspective on audience too. Communication is after all two way process. My relaxation of political correctness drops even further when I am addressing a faceless audience such as on blog or article. While basic political correctness is desired to maintain harmony and to avoid unwanted instigation of ill-will, too much political correctness robs message of all its possible meaning, because one can always take umbrage at practically anything.

In this context, it’s not surprising that I find some of the politically incorrect movies and serials quite funny. In world where aversion to offending others has made all conversations banalities without meaning, these attempts are quite tongue-in-cheek hilarious. I should also mention that my being able to enjoy these doesn’t mean that I support them but that I can forget about being uptight and enjoy fun. Fun, yes, racist, sexist, crass, stereotyped fun. Hence I quite liked the movies Borat and President is Coming and regularly enjoy TV serials such as Simpsons and Family Guy. Fake news source Onion is also my favourite website. While this post gives the impression that political correctness is sweeping the speech everywhere, as long as we have freedom of speech there are many who will hold the light of truth. And I’ll keep on getting my quality fun uninhibited by need to mollycoddle beliefs of all and sundry.

Primary purpose of this post, though, is to explore my this taste. Firstly, does it make me appear as bad person if I enjoy politically incorrect humour? I know that laughing at sexist jokes doesn’t make me woman-hater. I think that it’s possible to separate both parts of brain that such contradictions coexist. I can have fun at seeing someone slip (on screen) and yet be there first to help if it so happens in real life. Can I have fun seeing someone slip in real life? Can I laugh at racist joke in real life? Well, that depends on the company. As I’ve mentioned in the beginning I differentiate when I am capable of hurting known people than when I inadvertently hurt unknown people. If my company or person who is laughed at finds these offensive then it’s my duty to avoid such sense of humour. I know that such things don’t make me bad person — but does my audience know that too? Would you feel contempt towards me if you found out this fact, as you did just now? At some level, I cannot blame you if you do so, because you will form opinion based on what you see and not based on what you think what I think. Yet, it also depends on how easy you can comprehend the presence of such contradiction in my mind.

Secondly, do I really enjoy all politically incorrect humour equally? Can I laugh at myself when stereotyped? I think I can, most of the time. Sometimes I can’t but I don’t know if that’s because episode is inherently unfunny to me or because I get offended. Is it subconscious sign of something? If yes then does that make me bad person? Do you enjoy politically incorrect humour? What if directed at yourself?

Bathroom singing

Bathroom singing refers to amateur singing and in that way almost everybody has sung or sings in bathroom. What is so special in bathrooms that it has been inducing people to sing for centuries and warrants special phrase “bathroom singing”?

Could it be solitary private confine? But then one would be singing in car or elevator when opportunity presents. It couldn’t be effect of morning because one doesn’t sing in morning if not taking bath. Could it be boredom of act of bath which is tried to be eliminated with melodious ululations? Or could it have to do something with water on the body? Does one sing in swimming pool, even if in private? Does bathroom singing occurs more proportionately in morning baths than bath at any other time of the day? Can moisture in the ambience induce one to hum? Does it has to do something with optimism for the next day, as person who takes bath unhappily typically doesn’t sing? Do people burst into song whenever they are happy?

Answer to all of the above questions will be ‘yes’ sometime but what is so different in bathroom singing that holds all the time? Is it a learned behaviour where child learns to sing hearing his parents or peers singing in bathroom? Do aboriginal tribes sing when taking bath or is it mere modern phenomenon after invention of bathrooms? Does presence of another person singing in bathroom nearby hinders or enhances chances of you singing? Would that depend on whether you know the person or not? Does bathroom singing depend on how cold the water is compared to desirable temperature? Does one sing more when taking bath in freezing cold compared to scalding hot or comfortably warm? What is volume of singing function of? Level of happiness, cold, amount of soap on body? At what age does the bathroom singing starts, and stops? Is there any cultural implications or differences? What types of songs are more amenable to bathroom mouthing? Soft or upbeat?

So many questions and no answer. How little we understand about even small things in daily life. Need a researcher for Ph.D. in Bathroom Singing pronto!