Fear of being Fired.

I am working for a client called **** in a division called International Banking Group. Due to some big AML Compliance issues, where in they had to spend lot of money (I have to say that my company was a big benefitter from this) to be able to even come close to those compliance related stuff. Finally 4 brains inside the boardroom decided that they had to get out of this business itself to get out this mess. And so they sold this group to another bank called Wachovia. 50 ppl around me and 450 more suddenly got to learnt that they will be out of their jobs pretty soon. Anytime soon. Must be traumatizing I know but I dont think I can relate to this in the same way. But I guess I can feel it a part of it. First reaction is world's over! There is nothing more left! Period.

Most devastating feeling I guess for me! I guess this has been going on here for quite some time here. But this is my first hand experience to have a look at all those employees like this. Mind you in this case its not happening because of 'B' letter word. Any which ways I guess u guys dont think that I am against it. There is no way I can be.
It was just a feeling which occurred to me when I saw bunch of ppl around me in a very despondent mood. Ppl with whom I was working with in last 12 months. Sad to know something like this.

All of us know that this is not the first time when something like this happening here. In fact I spoke to few of them and they told me that they had faced this earlier upto 7 times. Staggering number. So basically what I inferred is this can happen anytime without any appointment. Does that mean all these employees in US are living with some sort of fear? Fear of being fired. Imagine a place where you go out to work daily with this fear that u may not visit the same place again tomorrow. Fear of loosing everything. Fear of not able to give the mortgage. Fear of not able to live happily. Fear of THE END.

How is it possible then most of the companies in fortune list are American companies with American employees. How do these employees with perpetual fear produce such astounding results to make their company best in the world. Does fear breeds motivation? Does fear in person bring the best out of somebody?

Life...

This is one thing which has been coming and knocking at my doorstep as a question mark every now and then more frequently of late. So though why not talk abt it. Jus a lil bit.

What do we do our whole life? More often than not curse our present, look for future and praise our past. Isnt it? When you are in school, you want to be in college, when you are in college, you want to get out and be working and think about your school days. when you are working, you curse that and think about your college. So we are in continous search of something which we are leaving behind today. So when we cant see things what we think we want do we really want those things. I mean do we really know what we want? Do we really understand what we desire? Ya its kinda confusing. I know. But I just cant help but think, why is that we are always looking for something, we get one and then we look for another. May be my answer to life lies in this itself. This is life...Strange but True!

My immediate tendency here is to divulege from the topic here slightly and talk abt Satisfaction and Aspirations(dreams) but somehow I'll restrain myself from doing that. Thats one big topic and I think I'll write about it some other time.

Continuing on my previous line of thought. There are so many questions which are running in head waiting for an opening thru which they can come out. All at the same time.

Why does one has to keep proving himself/herself always. Is it more to himself or others? Why does he always has to seek for challenges. Isnt this a weaknes in itself. Looking for challenges so that he can prove it to others that he is good enough. Or is it more of himself to show that he is capable enough. I dont know and I dont think even the most honest of thoughts can confirm that. Is this because of weakness in himself/herself compelling him/her to look for challenges so that he/she can prove otherwise.

"I dont know", is may be the most difficult line for anybody to utter seriously. Its so diffcult to say this when some serious topic is being discussed. Even if we are not aware of something, we will chip in with a thing or two not knowing ourselves whether what we said did make some sense or not. I guess its human nature. But the thing I am not sure of is who are we trying to fool. Ppl around us or US. Again whom are we trying to prove a point to?

Most often than not what we think is always governed by others. Its never governed by us, What we want to think. We think what others want us to think, thinking what will they think.Most often its biased. Its never independent think. There is no freedom in even thinking.
I am not looking for an ans for all these. I dont think its practically possible to even do some of these things mentioned here. All of us go with the flow and may be this is life!


PS: This post has been written in the span of 3 days due to some conspicuous work reasons. Please ignore any irregularities and sudden blips. Wanted to write more but then decided some other time:-)

Game...

Since the day I have landed in this part of fancy, mesmerizing and rich country I have tried to tried even those things which I dont like just for the sake of experience. Some of them have been Driving crazily for 10 hours, Starbucks coffee, going out and partying whole night which includes boozing and girls etc etc. The last one was yesterday "watching baseball game". Which I neither understand and nor do I like. But then you see I did want to be left behind when ppl back in India talk about baseball and I am just sitting there and nodding my head smiling at them. U know what I mean :-) Anyways first of all let me tell you this simple fact that if you think this is the most original game from Americans. Then sorry. This game has its root in a game called Rounders which is played in UK.

Each team has some 10 innings to play and 8 out of 10 times no team scores. Isnt that boring. U dont get to see any runs being scored. But guess what one good thing was the ground. Astonishingly lush green with 40k people for a very ordinary game. I gathered from there that they (Giants-San Francisco team) has one very special player named Berry Bonds who has just returned after a long injury. People come there to have fun. Hardly anybody watches the game. People were doing everything eating, boozing, talking playing but watching. They shouted when they were asked to shout,they cheered when they were asked to cheered and they kissed when the camera was on them. 2 Seconds fame. Huh...

Does it matter if I write who won? Who cares right. Not me! I kept longing for that one Home run. Bloddy it never came...Never got a chance to shout even once. I guess in 3 hours of game I could count some 25 times when the ball touched the bat ;-)Funny...This one was Damp Squib for me or shall was say fiasco. Anyways. I did not find anything interesting in it and only if somebody is giving me free tickets I will go again to watch the game.

Let me take this chance to blurt out about one more game which I seriously dislike. This one is another major game for them. Ya i know u guessed it right Rugby oops I m sorry Football. And the fuuniest part is there is hardly any foot involved in this game which is not played with balls but some rubber thing of oval shape. Ya i know its rugby in English world. That is one another game in which out of 2 hours players are doing nothing just sitting on their knees waiting for somebody to blow whistle n then bang. 1 second of game every 5 minutes. Some guys may say this is my lack of knowledge. I know this is my lack of knowledge of the game. But who cares. The game sucks anyways.