Reachout Blogs: October 2009

Letter to the Boss

A Boss looking through his Mail Box was astonished to see a mail from an Employee who was supposed to be busy working at Client side on a critical project. It had the subject - "TaTa - Bye Bye". With the worst premonition he opened the mail and read the content with trembling hands:-

Dear Sir,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you, but I'm leaving the job. The offer was too lucritive and attractive for me to turn down. I had to abscond because I wanted to avoid a scene with the HR and you. I am sorry but I had no choice.

The project is working fine. There are only 108 issues pending, out of which only 38% issues are High Priority. Hence I am sure there is no need to worry about. The next Phase of major enhancements I have been working upon, have been completed halfway. I am sure the new person who would replace me would not understand what all I had done so far. Hence, for his and your convenience, I have taken care to remove all the work that I had been doing this far for nearly 3 months now. I am sure you will appreciate my insight and "big heart".

I am ofcourse retaining the Originals that I had retrieved for the purpose of Passport verification with me, considering it as a parting gift from you. Ofcourse, I will not pay the bond amount that I owe the compnay (since I am breaking the bond). But I will consider this as a parting gift from our Dear company. I moving out of town since the new company is situated in another City.

Also, I have changed my contact number. So you will not be able to get in touch with me, to congratulate me. But I know your blessings are always with me. Last but not the least. I also have the 7000 Rs entrusted to me by our company's cultural events group, for the upcoming movie event. I am sure you would have wanted me to keep it with myself as an added bonus from our company. I respect you very much, hence your wish is my command.

I thank you for that in advance, and assure you that I will surely invest them wisely (but not in your company's stocks of course).

Don't worry sir. I am 2 years experienced now, learning so much from your company. So I will surely use this knowledge to write better programs for the new company.

Someday I'm sure we will meet sometime in the future. If you wish, I will surely be glad to give my employee reference for you to apply for a job in the new company which I am joining.

Your faithful employee,

S. W. Engineer

At the bottom of the page were the letters "PS". Hands still trembling, the Boss read:

PS: Dearest Boss, none of the above is true. I'm am still busy working at client side. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my "Request to reconsider my Salary Appraisal" attached with this mail. Please approve it and call when it is safe for me to come to our Office to discuss this. My respect and Best Regards to you!

Contributed by: ajithkumar.m @ in.bosch.com

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Deafness

Conductive hearing loss occurs when sound vibrations don't go from the air around a person to the moving bones of the inner ear as well as they should. If something is blocking the ear canal, like ear wax, there is a conductive hearing loss. If there is fluid inside the inner ear where the bones are, like the fluid from an inner ear infection, there is a conductive hearing loss. If the bones of the ear get a buildup of calcium, from a disease perhaps, and they can't move as freely as they need to, there is a conductive hearing loss. Generally, conductive hearing loss doesn't cause a total inability to hear, but it does cause a loss of loudness and a loss of clarity. In other words, sounds are heard, but they are weak, muffled, and distorted.

Neural hearing loss (Nerve deafness) occurs when the auditory nerve, which goes from the inner ear to the brain, fails to carry the sound information to the brain. Neural hearing loss can cause a loss of loudness or a loss of clarity in sounds.

Mixed hearingloss is a combination of conductive and neural hearing losses.

Causes of Deafness:

Heredity. Some people are born deaf. Usually the cause is unknown. Sometimes people will say it's because of something that happened to the mother during her pregnancy, but this is often just guessing. Although deafness does sometimes "run in families," deaf parents often have hearing children and hearing parents often have deaf children.

Diseases of the Ear

Ear infections are diseases which can cause fluid or mucus to build up inside the ear. If pressure builds up inside the ear, the eardrum is less flexible than it should be. As the ear heals, the fluids drain out of the ear or are absorbed into the body. Some hearing may be lost during the infection; it may or may not return when the infection is healed.

Otosclerosis is a common cause of hearing loss. Although in the past people have thought that it was caused by diseases such as scarlet fever, measles, and ear infections, in fact these have nothing to do with its development. It is a hereditary disease in which portions of the middle ear or inner ear develop growths like bony sponges. The disease can be in the middle ear, the inner ear, or both places. When it spreads to the inner ear a sensorineural hearing impairment may develop. Once this develops, it is permanent. If it is in the stapes bone, in the middle ear, it can cause a conductive hearing loss. The amount of hearing loss depends on the amount of otosclerosis in the area.

Meningitis is an inflammation of the membrane(called the meninges) that surrounds the brain and the spinal column. Meningitis itself doesn't cause deafness, but since the brain is so close to the ears, sometimes the inflammation of the meninges can cause the inner ear to become inflamed also, and this can result in deafness.

Injuries of the Ear

Punctures of the Eardrum. Hearing loss can be the result of a hole in the eardrum, which could be caused by either injury or disease. The eardrum is the thin membrane that separates the ear canal and the middle ear. The middle ear is connected to the throat by the eustachian tube, which relieves the pressure in the middle ear. So a hole in the eardrum causes a loss of hearing and sometimes fluids can drain from the ear. Luckily the eardrum usually heals itself, although it can take a few weeks or months. While the eardrum is healing, it must be protected from water and from further injuries. If the eardrum doesn't heal by itself, it may need surgery. The amount of hearing that is lost depends on the size of the hole in the eardrum and a lot of other things.

Injuries which can perforate the eardrum include:

· Foreign objects, such as Q-tips or hairpins, which are pushed too far into the ear canal.

· Explosions, which cause an abrupt and very big change in the air pressure, which can cause an eardrum to tear.

· Car wrecks, fights, and sporting injuries.

Nerve Damage. Damage to the auditory nerve can also be the result of an injury or a disease. Injuries can happen in auto accidents or falls. The result of nerve damage is that the electrical signals of sounds do not get transmitted from the ear to the brain.

Loud Noises. A very common cause of deafness is repeated or long-term exposure to loud noises. This is why heavy equipment operators, firefighters, factory workers, and especially rock musicians suffer hearing losses after years of their work. Usually a single incident of exposure to loud noises will not cause deafness, but a repeated exposure to loud noises over a period of time will often cause moderate to severe hearing loss.

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Thirteen Email Rules which we should follow

Here are some Email Rules which we should follow in our day-to-day email communications; office or personal. We call them 'Email Etiquettes'.

1. Indent: Keep your mail in Left Indent format. This is the American style and currently being followed. Alignment: Keep as 'Justified'.

2. Recipients: If you are sending a message to more than one person, it is advisable to keep the recipients in 'Bcc' instead of 'To'. Also in such case, address the recipients by 'Hi', 'Hello', 'Greetings', etc.

If the recipient is a female, address as 'Ms. X' (this is irrespective of the female being married or single). Same applies to a male recipient.

Do NOT use 'Good Morning' and alike, since you never know at what time of the day the recipient may read your message.

3. Font style, Font size: Most preferred font style and size is 'Verdana 10 pt'. If you wish to have give a colour, it should not be anything else than black, blue.

4. Spell Check: Please use the Spell check facility in your mailbox without fail. Every email service provides this useful facility.

5. Length of a paragraph: Avoid extending one paragraph above 5 lines.

6. Avoid using 'Smileys' unnecessarily, especially in official communications.

7. Apply your brains while 'Replying to All'. If not necessary, avoid 'Reply All' function.

8. Signatures (for official purpose only): It is advisable to keep a pre-designed signature for your outgoing mails. When composing a mail at first place, it is advisable to use the full signature details. While replying to mails, reduce your signature details by half.

Signature should have: Your name (first and last only), Designation, Department Name, Organisation Name & Address, Contact details(direct or reception or cell).

9. Avoid sending mails on official email addresses if you have the recipients personal email address. Many corporates consider 'sending to and receiving of mails from external media as Risk issue'.

10. If you have said 'Please find attached', ensure that you attach and re-check the attached document, before sending.

11. Hitting the 'SEND' button should be the last task. Do not hurry in sending the communication, since once sent, it's gone for forever.

12. Avoid being unnecessarily 'informal in formal communications' and 'vice-versa'.

13. Do not write a mail when you are in a hurry. If you are not able to reply in detail, just reply as "Will get back to you soon".

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A Job versus A Career

As the title of this article suggests, are these two – Career & Job – different? This article tries to analyze the concept of and the need to understand 'Career' and 'Job'.

I have observed that many people still have a traditional & a typical mindset. As soon they complete their education, majority of them hunt for a job based on the parameters like good earning potential, growth in terms of promotion, type & potential of the industry, etc. Once they bag a job which satisfies all those parameters, the next most important aspiration they have is to get promotion or more money (salary rise) in the same organisation or with another. I could also hear someone say that, career growth can be attained only by two ways – one, by changing jobs after a certain period and second, by promotion in the current organisation. This is very much true in a way. And these two ways are somewhat also seen as a definite path to great & successful careers.

But is this really so and so simple? If this was the case, then everybody would and could have managed to have highly successful careers in their life.

I, as an education consultant, get to see that almost all consider 'career' and 'job' as same and use those two terms, inter-changeably. But that is not the same and it should not be done that way. It is fact that we all should accept that having done a wonderful job may not necessarily mean that the person has been having a wonderful career, however a person having a wonderful career may also or may not mean that the person has been having a wonderful job.

Career and Job are two different things, where a Career is wholistic and a Job is narrow in nature.

Career growth cannot be depicted through a graph showing a person's qualitative movement, whereas job growth can be depicted through a graph showing a person's quantitative movement like salary figures, upward change of designation in organisation, tenure of service, etc. We need to understand that a job is a step towards reaching the goal and that goal is nothing but, 'Career'.

We should aim to have a successful career and not just a successful job. It's like making our life count and not just years count.

So what can be done to reach this goal called 'Career'?

Firstly, we need to understand & identify one's own potential & strengths. SWOT analysis will help in this. The gaps which we will then identify can be filled up, may be by doing some relevant training programmes / courses, some bit of self grooming, confidence building, attitude correction, etc. which will help us get equipped with the required skill-sets to launch ourselves into the career of our choice.

Secondly, we need to understand and accept the reality that being employable is different and having qualifications for an employment is different. It may happen that having excellent qualifications may not land us in a job and there may be cases, that without much qualification, we may bag a great job. Having relevant qualifications with required skill-sets is most important factor for being employable in the industry. Skill-sets not only include technical skills but also inter-personal skills, behavioral skills, leadership, being team player skill, people management skills, learning skills and the most important, attitude.

Thirdly, construct our own definition of 'Success' not dominated or based upon worlds', since that will give you a direction to your career.

All these factors are vital for making a successful career, much more than a successful job.

To close upon I would like to quote the Management Thinker Peter Drucker. He once said that "Indian working women are the best managers in the world".

I would like to propose that a housewife can also have a wonderful & successful career since doing a job of a 'housewife' has both – qualitative as well as quantitative growth projectory. A housewife's job is no lesser than a normal job, since it has scope to apply and implement almost all management strategies in the world and may be doing that can give the housewife the satisfaction of having a successful career.

Written By :Anand Wadadekar, M.A Economics, MBA Finance & Banking, AMFI, DIT, GCIPR

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