Loan Waiver -A bad precedent?

The Budget- 2008 has been termed as a “Farmers Budget” by many. Even before the entire budget speech was concluded, crowds thronged before , 10 Janpath street celebrating and revelling at Chidambaram’s promised Rs 60,000 Crore of agricultural loan waiver to farmers by 30th June 2008.

(also see http://kplogs.blogspot.com/2008/02/autopsy-of-chidamabrams-briefcase.html).

Meanhile Sonia Gandhi flashes a victorious smile before the camera and declares “…this has been a revolutionary budget …for the farmers in particular..” Quite a revolutionary budget one must say. Given the fact that it is still not clear what kind of financial instruments the Government will resort to ease the writing off of Rs 60,000 Crores in loan, it is indeed a ‘wait and watch’ situation.

Now, with Chidambaram’s inimitable style of setting himself a deadline for a task such as this, one can only expect to see one of the two possible outcomes

1. The UPA Government fails in meeting the deadline or calls for election before that date and passes on the new found burden to the next Government.
2. The Government actually manages to find finances to fund the whopping waive off.

If the outcome happens to be number 1, then its a furthur ‘wait and watch’ situation. But my concern in this blog is what if the outcome happens to be number 2.!!

Whether policies like Loan Waive off or Reservations are populistic political measures employed by Governements in power , I am not sure. But I cant help wondering what repurcussions do such measures have in an economic sense!

If the Government actually manages to waive off the loans, wont it be sending a message to every farmer in the country that ” If you take a loan and repay it, You are a fool!”? Wont these measures act as incentives to loan defaulters to continue to default, because sooner or later , any Government in power will have to follow Chidambaram’s precedent and waive it off.

Won’t these measures act as deterrents for banks from actually handing loans over to farmers for agricultural developments? Won’t these throw our agricultural economy to dwindle furthur from want of funds? In the name of a ” Farmer’s Budget” are we compromising on the farmer’s competance to produce efficiently and make a profit enough to repay a loan? Are we throwing the agricultural sector into the dark ages?

Why can’t we on the contrast penalise farmers for defaulting? Why cant we force the agricultural sector into becoming more efficient? This probably leads to the most disheartening and dangerous truth of a democracy like that of ours. That populist Governments no matter how well they mean, cant overlook the pressures of the majority vote!

An Autopsy of Chidambaram’s Briefcase – Budget 2008

For many a farmer, the FM has proven to be more than just a Finance Minister, he has been the Santa Claus in the white robes. Within hours of the Budget-08 being announced celebrations ensued outside 10, Janpath street. While it surely is the farmer’s time to heave a sigh of relief over the 60,000 crore loan waiver, here’s my take on what this budget might mean to the common man.

Proposal: Five year tax holiday for setting up hospitals in tier II and tier III regions for providing healthcare in rural areas from April 1, 2008.

Dont be surprised if many very good hospitals run by some of the most efficient corporates shift house to TIER II and III. My take : Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Chandigargh, Mysore , Madurai, Jalandhar, Patna, Baroda and similar places will breed new medical conglomerates, making healthcare easily accessible to the common man. International medical companies,will eye theone billion population, majority of who are outside the Metros and provide for better facilities , in the countryside.

Proposal: Five year tax holiday for promoting cultural tourism.

I should expect more phone calls from the Country Club or Golden Palms telemarketing agency, offering a dirt cheap package for 2 ppl for 3 nights at Hampi or Thanjavur instead of the regular Goa or Shimla package. Interesting to know whether cab drivers dropping people from thier hotels to Meenakshi temple at Madurai can be classified as promoting cultural tourism.

My take: I think this is a loop hole for brats in the business to make some quick money. So much for cultural tourism.

Proposal: For women, the income tax limit goes up from Rs 1.45 lakh to Rs 1.80 lakh. In case of senior women citizens, it increases from Rs 1.95 lakh to Rs 2.25 lakh.

The annual after tax income of many wives will soon exceed their husbands’ in the urban areas.

With cities like Bangalore , Pune and Noida clamouring female employees into their IT folds just as much as men, this could mean that it could be cheaper for the urban family to have the wife go to work and let the husband do the household chores. In rural India though, it might actually prompt an increase in the working population of women. My take: Unmarried guys in metros fill find it more difficult to impress their prospective brides with the paycheck!!

Proposal: New tax slabs will be: 10 per cent for Rs 1,50,000 to Rs 3,00,000, 20 per cent for Rs 3,00,000 to Rs 5,00,000 and 30 per cent above Rs 5,00,000.

The Income tax payer can now invest more and will have a considerable savings in the kitty after each year. My take: A good move for the regular guy who hasn’t read “Rich Dad Poor Dad.”

Proposal: Excise duty on small cars reduced to 12 per cent from 16 per cent and hybrid cars to 14 per cent.

Ok, now you can have that imported small car that you always dreamed of. And the Japanese hybrid cars will be more affordable. My take: Lesser traffic congestions and a clean environment!

Proposal: Cigarettes to be taxed more.

With the ever increasing rate of taxes on cigarettes, one might hope that active smokers will have to be content with passive smoking alone. My take: Will have no effect on smokers.Since when has the tax been able to change habits?

With debates ranging far and wide as to whether this was an “Aam Admi’s Budget” or a Communally driven one (LK Advani actually thinks so!), this budget has surely created a sufficient stir. Whether this is merely a play of vote bank politics or not, will depend on whether Chidambaram can continue to stage a consistent GDP growth even in 2008, even after having made the common man, the “Aam Admi” happy!

Its LEAP year Again!!

Its February 29th again!! You get to see it only once in four years. One of those million things that seemed to puzzle me as a kid!It is interesting how as kids, certain things otherwise accepted (by adults) as obvious can seem utterly incomprehensible, and uselessly confusing!

I am sure anybody’s childhood will have been strewn with several of these doubts, which remain still unanswered, but remain locked up in some compartment inside the brain and is prevented from surfacing itself in an adult world!

Here are some glimpses:

1. Why should the Febraury of a Leap year have 29 days?

If you thought that was a stupid question, think again (chances are that you are too old to admit it!) . Yes! the year is not exactly 365 days , but approximately 365.25 days and we compensate for the 0.25 days accumulated over 4 years, and gift the leap year one extra day! Fine so far. However that only poses furthur questions. Like

2. Why does a year have 365.25 days and not 365?,

I mean , is it not purely because each day is 24 hours and not 27 hours , or even better, cant we call 75 minutes as 1 hour instead of 60? thereby offsetting the 0.25 days error accumulating over four years period of time, in every hour. Interesting eh?

3. Why cant all months have equal number of days?

6th standard science would teach , that the Earth performs an elliptical motion around the sun, and not a perfectly circular motion. The velocity of motion being slower around the corners and faster when the distance to the sun is the closest. If that were true, the months that should be longer when the velocity of the earth were the slowest. But since that is not the case, and since convinience supercedes accuracy in all such cases (Probably in every single case!) , why cant we make it perfectly convinient and make a year having 12 months of 30 days each a total of 360 days, and furthur accomodate another 5 days by making each hour equal to 90 minutes instead of 75!

Just picture this , 1 hour = 90 minutes, 1 day =24 hours!,1 month = 30 days and 1 year =12 months. No leap years and no trouble with forgetting whether March has 31 days or 30!!

4. Why does the rainbow have 7 colors?

I mean , the rainbow has (with scientific certainity) all colors of the visible spectrum. Why then do we chose the 7 previliged colors alone? There is a color between Violet and Indigo and between Indigo and Green, why omit them and chose only 7 colors, more inconvinient with 7 being a prime number and our forefathers choosing 7 as the number of days in a week.Why cant we say the rainbow has 10 colors, Violet , VIndigo, Indigo, Ireen, Green ,blue, Blellow, Yellow , Orange and Red?That way our forefathers would have made 10 days a week and 3 weeks a month.

Wouldnt that be lovely? We could still have weekends 3 days long!! and still work for 21 days, as against the current 20!! 1 extra day of work and 1 extra day on a week end!!

Well! that wasn’t to be!! we still live in a world with Leap years, 2 day week ends, and 20 days of work. Besides some months like February we get lesser weekends and lesser days to work. Funny Isn’t it?

Fallen Face on floor- still no dust on the chin!!

Amusingly, Harbajan reacting to the Hayden Radio controversy, concludes that the Australians are sledging a lot more because of Indian Cricket team’s performance on feild. The Australians are now beginning to feel the heat!!

What is interesting is that , the pride of the Indian is restored by this remark that sounds too good to be true!! What on earth are we claiming to be proud about??

India Lost the Test series to Australia
India was shattered to defeat in the 20-20 series
India is way behind Australia, in the One day series

And still, we think we are doing too well!! So well that we have provoked Australia to resort to mind games and sledging to get back their lost glory!!

Lets take a different perspective. We all know that Harbhajan did actually abuse Symonds (or rather his mother!) in the infamous Sydney test. Thanks to the support of his team and BCCIs intervening, he got scot free!! Take 2: take a look at what Cricket Australia did to Hayden for having called Harbajan “an obnoxious weed” in an external radio interveiw. He was reprimanded and has been fined for it. Surprisingly Harbajan is already a hero back home! Instead of strongly punishing him for having behaved in a denigrating fashion BCCI has made him the crusader of Indian value system. Surely leaves a bad taste!

Sadly though, instead of trying to put things into order, the Indian is proud of his new found energy to fall out of line and defend himself by calling it the meek standing up against agression.
Symonds was bidded for 1.35MUSD in the IPL bidding, Bhajji himself raked up a lot of Cash. Anil Kumble the leading spinner for India barely manages to get half the amount of a bid! The message , however is extremely distrubing. “ Controversy is Cash”. The sad truth is that the common Indian kid watching all this , is bound to idolise Bhajji’s fight , Srisanth’s agression and Ishant’s retort to Symonds and fail to admire Kumble’s 500 wickets.

The new India must m need to learn to get mature, and know what to feel proud about! We desperately need to make sure that our phony pride will not bring us to a nasty fall! Whether it is a distaste to yellow journalism, or media sensationalisation we need to develop an outlook that is closer to the truth.

After all, falling face on the ground is not bad . As long as we can get up and dust the chin off. Surely far better than walking with dust on the chin, and pretending we didn’t fall at all!

Inside the Cubicle but Outside the box

Cubicles in my opinion are the biggest deterants to constructive innovation in a company. Cubicles represent boxes and as long as one is to stay in his box, i guess there is very little chance that he can go out and think outside the box, go out and innovate!

The challenge however is to stick within the confines of ones cubicle (read as framework) and still manage to innovate. To be able to innovate has been,is now and will be absolutely necessary to remain on top. If one does not innovate, one needs to remember that the competition, trying to get on top all the time is sure to learn to do right things the new way!

The big question is how to strike a right balance to foster an environment that allows both pure innovation and experienced execution. While experience of the past teaches us how to do things rightly it becomes equally important to change things of experience regularly and consistently simply because the environment is ever changing consistently!

Some ideas one may use while inside his cubicle to allow innovation to co-exist within the framework.

1. Promote an environment of questioning.

Allow questions to lash out freely. Give peers and juniors the freedom to question seniors. Invent schemes to reward the questioning attitude. Promote a methodology of monthly feedback questionaires to circulate in the team. Questioning existing practices, will either help in reinforcing the confidence anybody might have on the practice, or discover new unanswered questions that can only be answered by a new innovation.

2. Reward Success and Failure equally, penalise inaction

Success is sometimes so sweet that it can easily blind the merits of a failure that may be an outcome of an innovative experiment. All good actions need not succeed. But not rewarding the failures will result in killing good ideas all together. Inaction on the other front needs to be penalised for it is not only highly unproductive , but is also moves you one step backward.

3. Avoid democracy in decision making

Not all “Good Ideas” are necessarily “most popular” . Allowing too much of democratic decision making can result in chipping off the odd but out of the way idea. Having a board room voting in making decisions may keep the voters happy, but innovation would just have been crushed.

Finally, ” Innovation and art are not like boiled eggs. You can’t have them made to order”. One cannot fix a framework and system to mechanise and manufacture innovation. One cannot fix a target for the amount of innovation one can have in a company. The only thing that can be targetted is to allow to fix up an environment that can foster innovation. The rest shall still have to stick within the cubicle.

Bangalore on Cloud Nine.

The first flight from the much much awaited Bengaluru International Airport – Devanahalli will take off at 01:00 hrs on March 29th 2008. Probably one of the most busiest cities in South Asia, Bangalore- The Silicon Valley of India, will now have an airport, befitting its largely cosmopolitan status and status as a business hub of emerging India.

The Airport has drawn big names and carries a long history, envisaged in 1991, this airport will finally be a reality and has cost a whopping 19 Billion Indian Rupees as against an estimated 13 Billion Indian Rupees.

Finally passengers to or from Bangalore can heave a sigh of releif after having to go through a nearly tortuorous ordeal at the current airport at the HAL premises. While the current airport has been serving the ever growing number of passengers and aircrafts, it has by all means reached a brink of a serious collapse. Just about the right time the new airport at Devanahalli will cater to the largely corporate tinge of flyers.

With 2 runways, a fully airconditioned terminal, with seperate levels for arrivals and departure spread over a sprawling 4000 odd acres of land, the passengers will have little to complain.

The big question that however remains to be answered is whether Bangalore can hasten to attend to the infrastructure demand that will emerge to cater to passengers to travel 30kms from the city centre, whether by the much spoken about High speed trains to the airport,or better road facilities .

The Dusk of the "Fidel Castro" Era

‘At the eve of the stepping down of a leader ,most revered and most hated, most idolised and most controversial, a leader of strong words and powerful actions, a leader immersed in a myriad marmalede of mystery and enigma, a leader of hearts and swords, after having led the minds of Cubans and other Latin Americans for 49 long years, the cubans are still wondering “after Castro what next“‘.

Fidel Castro , President of Cuba from 1959 to 2008 ,49 long years of unquestioned leadership ,deciding to step down this Febraury 19th , will leave behind an era of powerful socialistic politics. The era of the Cold War has come to an end!

Fidel will be remembered for his agression. This excerpt of his letter to US president Roosevelt while he was barely 12 years of age will point to this fact.

“If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American, because never, I have not seen a ten dollar bill,” signing the letter, “Thank you very much. Good by . Your friend, Fidel Castro.”

Undoubtedly being the strongest perpetuator of the Cuban revolution, and being the mastermind who crafted the fall of President Batista through a political coup , speaks from a prison a little before the actual coup, he doesn’t mince words addressing Batista

“I warn you, I am just beginning! If there is in your hearts a vestige of love for your country, love for humanity, love for justice, listen carefully… I know that the regime will try to suppress the truth by all possible means; I know that there will be a conspiracy to bury me in oblivion. But my voice will not be stifled – it will rise from my breast even when I feel most alone, and my heart will give it all the fire that callous cowards deny it… Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”

Fidel has been internationally been a headline grabber, whether be his dictaorial figure or his intense distaste for capitalism as shown in this speech he makes to the Cubans in 1961.

“The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin America than the revolutionary government. … If Mr. Kennedy does not like Socialism, we do not like imperialism. We do not like capitalism.”

Castro has also been internationally the most targetted figure for assasination. The CIA in particularly has made several schemes to terminate the most popular figure of Latin America. Most of these have been documented in the book “638 ways to kill Castro” . Castro in him inimitable style once quips,

“If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.”

Cuba ,however now needs a leader, (after Castro’s stepping down) a leader who can cleverly steer Cuba through a planned economic reformation process. By all indications this leader will be his younger brother Raul Castro. Being the Latin American country with the strongest Communist ideology, this will be a real challenge for Raul.

But for as of now, a sigh of releif for the US and the CIA, and a goodbye to Fidel Castro.

Every "NRI" has his day

Febraury 23rd will be celebrated by every NRI, in the US , for it having been the day , Senator Barack Obama lashed out a very PRO-INDIAN (read PRO- NRI) message in an interview by rediff for the “India Abroad”.

read the complete message at:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/feb/23uspoll.htm

His message however needs to be closely examined to understand the dynamics that undercurrent it. While a large school of thought presumes that this may be a tactical move by Obama to woo the “Indian” sentiment, one cannot also help observing that this move stands contradictory to his otherwise ‘ not-so-pro’ attitude ,especially with issues like that of outsourcing to India and the VISA Retrogression issues.

Going through http://www.nrilinks.com/usa/indians/default.htm might reveal certain statistical inputs worth a thought in the given context .(I agree the statistics is slightly old, but I hope is sufficiently representative).

1. A whopping 1% of the population of Ilinois is of Indian Origin

Barack apparently knows his state well! Being a native of Hawai himself , he seems to appreciate the sentiments of an immigrant in USA , He says”As President, I will reach out to encourage the active engagement and partnership of the vibrant Indian American community in making the change we seek” A sure moral booster to the NRI.

2. Only 40% of the Indians in America have a US citizenship

This points out that less than 4 out of 10 Indians in USA will actually be able to vote, or have a say. Considering this one could regard Obama’s statements a little misplaced if we were to go by the school which might assume the interveiw as a tactical move.

3. The Average Annual household income of an Average American: 51000 USD.

The Average Annual household income of an Average NRI in the USA: 88000 USD.

The Indian in USA is atleast 72% more affluent than the American in USA. Barack is talking to people with the money. The people who should keep spending (off savings- and not credit!) to keep the economy ticking, wise ploy I must say!

So, although the Indian back home is sulking with the rising popularity of democrats in the US presidential polls, (due to plans like withdrawal of tax subsidies to companies outsourcing to India etc..) the average NRI has reasons to cheer and stick to the US,even when recession is looming close.

Cheer Up NRI’s ! its your day!

A Fat Man’s Song

You can take me this way or just leave me out,

Not much I can do about it anyways

I tried everything that I possibly could

But I am still growing sideways

And When I was young,and handsome and slim

I thought, forever I would stay that way

So I laughed at the fat,the wobbly and round

I realise how wrong I was that day

Now I just have a tummy as big as a baloon

and I look like a nice teddy doll!

So nice to cuddle and so nice to hug

and feels nice to laugh at me , when I fall!

I tried out the skip rope,and I tried the gym

I tried out jogging every dawn

But nothing did change,and I wore out my shoes

and destroyed every grass on the Lawn!!

When I sit in a car , the tyres just go flat

and the elevators just wont move up!

And the chairs that I sit on, crumble like cookies

I think its about time, that I gave up!

I’m just a fat fat man now

and as fat as a pink pumpkin

and mothers of kids keep telling their children

keep fit, or you’ll grow like him.

Service is GOD

If SERVICE is GODLINESS, common wisdom may extrapolate that to say,
“SERVICE ENGINEER is GOD”
There are several things in common between the two, including that both are sought after fervently in times of distress and pain but remain forgotten otherwise.

Two years as a SERVICE engineer is all that is needed to realize this truth. This is a BIBLE that I have concocted for people in the noble profession of being a SERVICE ENGINEER.

10 commandments:.
1. Use the word Flux several times in your sentence.
2. If you don’t know whom to blame. Blame Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
3. Start complaining about bad network conditions as soon as you enter customer site.
4. If you don’t know what to say…Say SYSTEM INERTIA
5. Every SERVICE call is the most urgent call.
6. Always keep your return tickets OPEN.
7. Nobody reads Minutes of Meetings.
8. Always make sure to land at home on a Friday evening.
9. If nothing else works restart the system.
10.Always complain that the system environment is the most dusty that you have seen.

1. Use the word Flux several times in your sentence.

FLUX is a word invented by spiritually motivated scientists for the benefit of clueless SERVICE engineers who could not clear their GRE due to poor vocabulary. FLUX can be used with anything that you see at site. FLUX with motors, with TRANSFORMER, the INDUCTOR and so on ..Never fall into explaining to anybody what this golden word means. If you ever were to meet somebody villainous enough to ask you what it means, just wince your eyes and give him a look that says “YOU DONT KNOW WHAT FLUX MEANS?”…”GOD SAVE HIM”.
You can use FLUX as many times that you want. And make sure you hold your face straight when you use FLUX in your sentences. Any technical wizard at the customer’s place will fall at your feet when you start using FLUX. FLUX is a single key for customers who are snobbish, stubborn, confused or intelligent.

2. If you don’t know whom to blame..Blame Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
If you cant blame the customer, the system environment, or anything concrete for your system failure. Step back, take a deep breath and look around for the nearest electronic device capable of emitting radiations. Let me clarify that the device need not actually emit any radiations. It should only be capable of doing so. And voila…you have the culprit ready ….E M I ..Electromagnetic Interference. You can get away with anything ..Just about anything with EMI, erroneous values read, poor feedback systems, bad output, blowing fuses, blowing PCBs, burning resistors ..just anything…Blame it on the EMI.
Make sure to find a remote evidence however before you blame. If you cannot find any electromagnetic emitting device , you can still rely on unscreened cables . If your screen cables are grounded ask the customer to get it ungrounded, and if it is not grounded, make sure the customer gets it grounded. “Poor earthing” is the only close competitor to EMI. Both these can be used at times of crisis. But trust me nothing can beat the EMI..Nothing at all.

3. Start complaining about bad network conditions as soon as you enter customer site.
This is a very safe and very important thing to do as you enter a customer site. This will come to your help later in the day when you are stuck with a problem that you cannot solve.
Just wince, shake your head and say the network here is real bad. No customer in his right senses will ask you to justify your statement, for he was always suspecting that his network was very bad. Besides he will be glad that somebody as knowledgeable as yourself feels the same about his network. Just speak a couple of lines on how poor the distribution system is in his particular state. Trust me nobody on earth likes his state distribution network.

4. If you dont know what to say…Say SYSTEM INERTIA
When you are stuck dumb by a customer query, and when you have lost all words of wisdom that you have to pour out…Just smile and say..”The answer is simple.. SYSTEM INERTIA”.
This has two advantages.Firstly it gives you a lot of time to cook up some reserves of wisdom from inside..because the moment you say SYSTEM INERTIA, the customer loses focus and tries to regain himself from a quiverfull of arrows of wisdom. Secondly SYSTEM INERTIA by itself does not mean anything at all. It is the context that gives this phrase any meaning. That gives you ample freedom to eventually build up a context around your argument to suit your victory over the customer.

5. Every SERVICE call is the most urgent call.
If you ever receive a SERVICE call don’t commit the mistake of asking the customer whether you are needed urgently. Such a question does not serve any purpose because; there is no call, which is not the most urgent one. This applies to all calls including smelly resistors, oily surface of controllers, noisy inductors, chattering contactors, broken pen cases, missing parameters…and every other GOD forbidden event. They are all most urgent, and need your immediate attention. If you were hit by a comet, burned in a furnace and were struggling out of a deep state of COMA, the customer would still want you at his site to figure out why his white shoelaces were all turning brown. Don’t be beguiled by the most sorrowful voices requesting you to the site that very evening. Just go there if his guesthouse has a good swimming pool, 24 hours bar and a hundred topless female waitresses.

6. Always keep your return tickets OPEN.
The golden rule is “Never book a waitlisted forward flight ticket, and always keep your return tickets OPEN”. Every visit that should take 2 days will at least last 20 days long. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to work for all the 20 days at site. You may need to work for 3 minutes and 20 seconds in total. But the customer loves the smell of your socks and wants you to stay with him for the rest of the time. The customer calls these waiting periods by several names like “Observation time”, “Performance test”, “Load trials” etc.
Waiting may also be caused by several unforeseen events that may have been perfectly foreseen by you. This may include “Waiting for components from factory”, “Waiting for engineers from a different company”, “Waiting for erection completion”,”Waiting for cabling completion”,” Waiting for meggering”, “Waiting for cable testing”, “Waiting for earthing” “Waiting for clearance from the other department” “Waiting for invention of the transformer”,” Waiting for Alexander Graham Bell”. If your return tickets are not OPEN you had better cancel them immediately or you stand losing all your money for a no show. If your tickets are OPEN, the day you reach the check-in counter to fly back home, you will find that your position will be waitlisted at 22. But then that’s ok, just propose to the lady in the counter and promise to take her to HAWAI for a honeymoon, and …presto…you have seats in the business class available for you to fly back home.

7. Nobody reads Minutes of Meetings.
The MOM is the only document next to the “VEDAS” that is to be written with the utmost care, but will never be read. Several precious tiring hours of your life will go in coining the 2 page MOM that will later remain in some unnoticed file in the dusty archives. Emotion, valour, Guts and a lot of debating will go into this document that you will prepare till late in the night before the day you will leave the site. Remember to include “WE WILL REVERT BACK” in almost every point in the MOM. Never imagine that signing a Minutes that says “System found satisfactorily working” will ensure that you bid goodbye to that site. Something will fail in the next 10 hours and you will find yourself at the same place wondering what happened to all that in the MOM. Make sure that your return flight is not more than 2 hours of signing the minutes. If it is any longer …chances are that you will remain there for the next 4 weekends.

8. Always make sure to land at home on a Friday evening.
Make sure that you land home on a Friday night. This way you can switch off your phone and stay away from office for 2 whole days. Never inform your boss about your return till Monday morning. This will ensure that your weekends will not be spent listening to the dull droning of failed machinery. If possible go to office on Monday morning, at least two hours late. This will give your colleagues the impression that you have come down to office directly from site and that you are committed enough to put in a day’s hard work right away. If you are unfortunate enough to be at office on a Friday afternoon, i suggest you remain unnoticed by any human in the office. Stay hidden at the library or the canteen. If you are near a ringing telephone, never pick it up. Remember it could be another customer, with just another most urgent call!

9. If nothing else works restart the system.
This applies to all electrical or electronic gadgets that you are expected to fix or commission .All computers, drives, PLCs, MMIs, Display systems, Control systems and other gadgets are designed to not function as per their description in the manual. The normal behavior can be resumed only after you have restarted the system at least 4 -5 times in succession. Systems that behave funny need a restart. If you have complicated matters so much that your system wont even restart, don’t panic. Just go upstream and switch of the nearest mains power supply, and restart after 10 seconds. Systems have a memory powered by electricity, so when you switch them off they lose their memory. When restarted they wont remember to misbehave.

10.Always complain that the system environment is the most dusty that you have seen.
If it smells. Say, “This smells dangerous”. If it looks colored …Say, “This looks burnt”. Use carbon dust, metal dust, fiber dust, and cotton dust, all to your advantage. Anything small enough to be called as dust can damage your system. If your system has exploded blame it on moisture. If the room where you have to work is warm ask the customer to install an air conditioner immediately, as warmth can damage your system. If it already has an air conditioner ask for a humidity controller system. Moisture can lead to failure. If he has everything and the place looks spick and span, just climb up to the top of your panel, and wipe the top with your fingers and show the customer the black stuff on your skin. Most people don’t clean the top of their panels, as this is very difficult to do. Explain to the customer how important cleanliness is for your system. Give him examples of imaginary customers who keep their systems clean. This will hurt his conscience and hence he will prefer to not talk much to you afterwards. All the better…What more can a SERVICE engineer ask for, than some workplace privacy..Ha!