The Infernal Diurnal Journal

The first letter that I typed today- after exactly 6 months of being underground, was met with hostility. The letter appeared in Arabic script. After fiddling around with several buttons, I see I have now managed to bring back the alphabet. But it is difficult, nevertheless, to start writing. I was chugging along, not that smoothly, when we last connected. But in early June- I think it was a Monday- on the fourth of June to be exact, I was called in to the standing CEO's office. He had the blinds in his office pulled in so no one could see what was going on inside. Whence I entered, I noticed our man from HR seated next to the CEO- a sight that immediately told me what this was going to be about. Funnily, I had to do something like this to a colleague with an HR manager seated next to me- this was way back in 2003 I think- in Fort Wayne. The lady I had to let go was in her late forties, very pleasant to work with, however she had to go because of cost cutting. It was really awkward...

A lot of time has passed since I made an entry. My writing trajectory is veerting towards an off-ramp similar to the previous year. I am not sure why I had stopped writing this time around. There was no dearth of things to write about. There still isnt. In chronological order, I guess it is important to consider a number of events. The first is my health, which seems to be holding up well, but I have not had my check up for a long time, nor a blood test. So my bloodsugar situation is still an unknown- although I don’t feel anything off in particular. My exercise regimen is stable but at a lower level. I have had a bout of  cold towards the end of April, attributable to the sudden temperature dip for a few days. Fortunately, the cold was shortlived and so was the nice weather. Nice weather increasing seems to cause more pain than hot weather, healthwise. The scalding 50 degree heat makes for no outings, but atleast you can feel healthy while indoors. The use of the Ayurvedic tonic, ...

    I remember this day every year. It happens to be Tata Founder's Day- and it reminds me of my roots in a very direct way. Often, I reflect as to which place I call home. And while I have lived in different places right through childhood and subsequently adulthood, the town I call my own is Jamshedpur. My folks live there still and so I get to visit often enough. The lack of an airport makes it a trek, but it's all good. When I am home, I am home. Of course, living as I do in Dubai, the desire to visit India is not nearly as strong as when I lived, say, in the US. Not only is it not far to India from here, but culturally Dubai has all the trappings of India- and then some. Jamshedpur, for me, is not just India though. And today is the day when it was formed. There is a delicate fondness and a funny feeling when I think about going there. There really is nothing much to do- in any case, every waking hour is spent online anymore. Each location has little to offer that is so co...

 It is just as well that the year did not even really start so far, particularly at work. I was wondering what was going on because clearly something was up. Many members of the executive team were missing and there had been no formal meetings for two months into the new year. Well, now it is becoming clear. There seems to have been an investigation on some of the senior executives in the company and the outcome of this is now playing out. It is also opportune, as all of this had to be dealt with prior to the onset of Ramadan- which happens to be today. There were some cryptic emails sent yesterday by the boss regarding a couple of executives going on leave and a naming of the substitutes. Why they are going on leave is not clear. What is clear is that their IT credentials do not exist as of yesterday. We can make of that what we will for now. For my own part, I still don't know what will be the end game here and whether I will be impacted as well. But for the moment, I have receiv...

  I don't know what it is about February, but I end up not writing much. It seems as if there are things that weigh on me during this period, right after the new year has started with some gusto. Last year, I was ill for most of this month. This year, I have felt a flu coming on a number of times, but did not really get palpably sick. So one would I expect that I wrote regularly this month. I didn't. One of the reasons is that I cannot get the Electric Utilities installed in my new premises. DEWA- the utilities monopoly in the UAE is usually a remarkably efficient outfit. However, if you make a small mistake in how you apply for a new connection, I am learning that there is pain. Much pain. And this is true for almost all things in the UAE. Resilience, Plan Bs and alternatives- are a weakness. Consider what happens when you miss an exit on any highway. You can be delayed by up to an hour- which seems ridiculous, but it is patently true. Highways are not designed for you to make...

There is information misalignment and assymetry everywhere. I hear from every SaaS provider that they are going to create "one source of truth". Really. Even with all our data eventually being housed in SAP, we have the balance sheet reflecting something about inventory which is different from what is on the ground. The issue is not usually an IT system. Sure it helps to put something from paper into a computer but this hardly solves the information alignment issue. Many memes in Supply Chain make this point eloquently, so I am not saying anything new. But it is an important point to make far more elaborately than throwing a few soundbites. Let us first try and understand if everyone in an eco-system actually wants or desires to have one source of truth. An organisation is a power-oriented hierarchy and information is power. There is information that is not for everyone's knowledge. There is also information that can be claimed to be proprietary and that is somehow "...

  A few things are occupying my mind at the moment. The return of my boss from his vacation is at the forefront of it all. As expected, we had a board room meeting immediately upon his return to discuss something about Succession Planning. And as I have now come to expect, these meetings very quickly become confusing, circumlocutory brawls where it is best to stay silent and get it over with. There will be much more of this in the new year, this much is clear. I felt somewhat sorry for the two new additions to our team, an American of Korean origin and a Brazilian who was formerly a resident of Chile. The two looked rather hapless as the somewhat argumentative meeting went rambling on. I am sure I had a similar expression in the first few months when I started. Aside of work, I happened to serendipitously bump into a group of eclectic musicians from India who happen to be a well-established International Touring Band, based in Delhi. They call themselves Peter Cat Recording Co., ...