After yesterday’s ‘war on technology’ session, I’ve had a re-think. Apparently my greycells are knocking me over, telling me that, I’m being a big hypocrite by using technology to write a critique about itself. & whatever happens I ain’t letting my conscience get pricked. It’s the dearest thing to me in the whole universe. So here is the second attempt.
The cell-phone. It may have invaded every moment of our lives, but who why can’t we work around it? There are many ways. For e.g. ‘Reject’ the call, put the ‘Network Selection’ on manual and select the wrong network or the ultimate, switch off the phone. But seriously all this methods would only hurt your conscience and so cannot be adopted. So the verdict is ‘cell-phone is a bane not a boon’.
Next is email. Once again, isn’t it our reckless attitude of typing a few lines and sending it to all and sundry, which causes all the havoc and pain? Just a bit of thought into what goes into an email and addressing it to the correct list of people would be perfect. But then we don’t live in a perfect world do we…and some bloke would definitely reply with questions to the perfectly crafted email. So here again, the verdict is snail mail scores over email.
One big +ve on the side of technology is that things that were accomplished in days earlier are now completed in hours, if not minutes. But if we take a holistic view, aren’t we stepping on a treadmill and running faster and faster, thereby making it more difficult to stop, when we want to.
So my re-think proves to me that, technology definitely does not help us in the long run. Challenge me!!!!!
Bathroom Thought for the day: If shampoo can clean my hair, why not my body.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
Does technology help?
Read an interesting article in The Sunday Telegraph's Stella magazine. Apparently it seems, it is the in-thing for women to comment to each other that they are not having sex with their husband. Strange. One can never understand women. I'm convinced!!!
Neways, this blog is not about analyzing the behaviour of the female of our species. That would need an entire WWW (web 3.0 perhaps). This one is about two sentences in the article. & I quote verbatim 'The modern professional workday is far more demanding than its predecessors. It last much longer, and the various technologies that were supposed to liberate workers from the office have in fact made the whole world an office.' Unquote.
Isn't the above statement (especially the bold red part) absolutely true for most of us? Day in and day out, a new technology is unveiled, which is supposed to make our life easier and our waking hours more efficient. But the end result is exactly the opposite.
The cell-phone is the biggest culprit (especially the company provided one). Though you may not be on 24x7 support, many a times you do get a call/message at unusual hours. Sometimes the timing is so cruel as to kill the whole occasion itself. If the cell-phone is bad then the Blackberry is devil personified. You get whole emails on the move and ppl expect you to respond. No respite on long distance trains also...:(
Next comes email. The ultimate killer app for the Internet now seems to be killing us. Not a week passes without us hearing about a new virus /dangerous spam mail doing the rounds. Billions are spent on buying and maintaining anti-virus, anti-spy, script disabling, cookie disabling softwares. About productivity, the less said the better. For a single issue to be resolved, you get caught up in an endless merry-go-round of mails. The ultimate kill is when you need to finally send an email about arranging a meeting to solve the issue. I thought, at least we were saving paper by communicating electronically. But think about this. Hasn’t the frequency of communication increased exponentially these days, what with flat management structures and other paradigms being applied. So what would have been achieved by a single memo OR meeting in the good old days of our parents is now achieved with the help of 10 emails AND a meeting. And to top it, we have productivity improvement as one of our KRAs!!!!
The above are just two examples. I could rant on and on. But would like to hear from you on this. Your take plsss..
Bathroom Thought for the day: My clothes don't fit me any more. Need to go easy on chips.
Neways, this blog is not about analyzing the behaviour of the female of our species. That would need an entire WWW (web 3.0 perhaps). This one is about two sentences in the article. & I quote verbatim 'The modern professional workday is far more demanding than its predecessors. It last much longer, and the various technologies that were supposed to liberate workers from the office have in fact made the whole world an office.' Unquote.
Isn't the above statement (especially the bold red part) absolutely true for most of us? Day in and day out, a new technology is unveiled, which is supposed to make our life easier and our waking hours more efficient. But the end result is exactly the opposite.
The cell-phone is the biggest culprit (especially the company provided one). Though you may not be on 24x7 support, many a times you do get a call/message at unusual hours. Sometimes the timing is so cruel as to kill the whole occasion itself. If the cell-phone is bad then the Blackberry is devil personified. You get whole emails on the move and ppl expect you to respond. No respite on long distance trains also...:(
Next comes email. The ultimate killer app for the Internet now seems to be killing us. Not a week passes without us hearing about a new virus /dangerous spam mail doing the rounds. Billions are spent on buying and maintaining anti-virus, anti-spy, script disabling, cookie disabling softwares. About productivity, the less said the better. For a single issue to be resolved, you get caught up in an endless merry-go-round of mails. The ultimate kill is when you need to finally send an email about arranging a meeting to solve the issue. I thought, at least we were saving paper by communicating electronically. But think about this. Hasn’t the frequency of communication increased exponentially these days, what with flat management structures and other paradigms being applied. So what would have been achieved by a single memo OR meeting in the good old days of our parents is now achieved with the help of 10 emails AND a meeting. And to top it, we have productivity improvement as one of our KRAs!!!!
The above are just two examples. I could rant on and on. But would like to hear from you on this. Your take plsss..
Bathroom Thought for the day: My clothes don't fit me any more. Need to go easy on chips.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
A New Beginning
Hmm..Finally done with my massive housekeeping. Deleted all my previous posts. Never knew, how I'd accumulated such a load of personal crap (rantings) over here. Now that everything's been sent where it belongs to, I'm happy.
That Sinking feeling
I think we all have been through this one. Its Sunday evening, arnd 7:00 PM. The weekend is slowly grinding to a halt. A whole week now lies ahead. A week full of manic work, frustrations, achievements, action, but more importantly a strange uneasiness (of waiting for the coming weekend). & its hell, if you even log in to check ur office mail. Inadvertently ur Boss/colleagues would have mailed you reminding you of the next days commitments, reports reqd. etc etc. You think to urself, don't these people ever have a life. Constantly bothering you. Pests indeed!!!
Today is one such day and now is the time. Its been a fun weekend. Parents and uncle are here on a short trip. On sat. we've been to London (to meet the queen and then to the wax statues at Madam Tussauds). I can still feel the touch of Marilyn Monroe's skirt. Ohhh.
Sunday was also eventful.We go to the MK car boot sale in the morning, where I buy a pair of steel hand-cuffs, which leaves my family members dumbfounded. Now, how can I xplain the real reason to them. I tell them, its just for the heck of it. After all, you don't get to buy hand-cuffs at every other store. The xplanation is accepted ;). Afternoon is spent taking the family to my office, where Ganeshotsav is being celebrated. I'm not too religious, but somehow Ganeshotsav is special to me. Probably coz it reminds me of my childhood; of the neighbourhood celebrations and queuing up for the tasty prasad and the grand Lunch at home followed by payasam.Thats it then. Immediately things start going downhill.
In a flash, its evening and my mood plunges southwards, faster than the BSE sensex. Probably I was not sincere in my devotion to the elephant god. I love my work, its challenging, but I dunno why, every Sunday evening I get the same sinking feeling (except if its a long weekend, wherein I get it on Monday evening). The thought keeps nagging me. Any answers any one... Neways I'll keep thinking abt it. Now I better go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day.
Bathroom Thought for the day: I need to eliminate procrastination from my dictionary.
Today is one such day and now is the time. Its been a fun weekend. Parents and uncle are here on a short trip. On sat. we've been to London (to meet the queen and then to the wax statues at Madam Tussauds). I can still feel the touch of Marilyn Monroe's skirt. Ohhh.
Sunday was also eventful.We go to the MK car boot sale in the morning, where I buy a pair of steel hand-cuffs, which leaves my family members dumbfounded. Now, how can I xplain the real reason to them. I tell them, its just for the heck of it. After all, you don't get to buy hand-cuffs at every other store. The xplanation is accepted ;). Afternoon is spent taking the family to my office, where Ganeshotsav is being celebrated. I'm not too religious, but somehow Ganeshotsav is special to me. Probably coz it reminds me of my childhood; of the neighbourhood celebrations and queuing up for the tasty prasad and the grand Lunch at home followed by payasam.Thats it then. Immediately things start going downhill.
In a flash, its evening and my mood plunges southwards, faster than the BSE sensex. Probably I was not sincere in my devotion to the elephant god. I love my work, its challenging, but I dunno why, every Sunday evening I get the same sinking feeling (except if its a long weekend, wherein I get it on Monday evening). The thought keeps nagging me. Any answers any one... Neways I'll keep thinking abt it. Now I better go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day.
Bathroom Thought for the day: I need to eliminate procrastination from my dictionary.
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