corporate-culture on S Anand

Things I Learned - 31 Mar 2024

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This week, I learned:

sqlite-schema-diagram generates schemas for SQLite databases using Graphviz
TechEmpower web server benchmarks place Rust servers on top
browser.new is a good example of a browser agent. It slowly but independently does a good job of achieving the result. Example: What crew is common in Ingrid Bergman - Cary Grant films?
twinny is an open source VC Code Copilot alternative.
typesense supports embeddings natively.
Binary embeddings are good enough. Cohere releases binary embeddings.
Extract.langchain.com is a poor early interface to featurize unstructured.io
Hume.ai offers voice emotion API and emotion-based conversational responses. An empathic AI.
Rust is non-trivial. Inspired by We are under DDoS attack and we do nothing, I “wrote” a small binary that serves a parquet file as JSON. It failed and I couldn’t fix it.
spleeter is a better alternative to demucs. Splits audio into
pyannote-audio does speaker diarization
uvicorn is faster than hypercorn but hypercorn supports HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. FastAPI with uvicorn is reasonably fast.
Representational engineering lets you control LLM output based on preference on the fly.
When I set up a training:
- On inviting for DuckDB workshop on Sun evening, Gramener starts accepting immediately, Straive doesn’t.
- Straive has high spread of joining time. When joining Gitlab Pipelines Workshop, Straive starts meeting (e.g. Premlal) many minutes early. Gramener floods in (due to alert). Straive streams in slowly.
- Gitlab Pipelines Workshop acceptances: Gramener 47, Straive 100

You are in prison

Fri, 21 May 2010 10:58:18 +0000

(I had intended to write this post sarcastically, a bit like my web freedom survey. But sarcasm’s confusing to read. So I’ll just be straight and mild.)

If you’re a well-paid professional in an Indian IT services firm, your freedom is limited.
(This holds if you’re a student, too.)

You clock-in and clock-out.
You’re searched on your way in and out.
You need your boss’s permission to leave.
You work on what you’ve been told to work on.
You cannot be trusted to freely access the Internet.

The last bit worries me the most. Perhaps because in all the other cases, there are humans I can put to shame or fight, face-to-face. Or because I am a Net addict. Don’t know why.

Anyway, here’s the result of my survey (after de-duplicating and eliminating results where the company or geography was not clear).

Some day, I will follow-this up with a post on “Surviving in Prison”, detailing out my experiences with the system, and beating it.

Comments

Kalidas 22 May 2010 3:06 am: Good to see your posts again ! Seems like a long hibernation. Great post but pls let me know the suriving tactics !! Not able to access yahoo/gmail from office is a real pain
Saravanan 23 May 2010 1:12 am: Searching on the way out was the most demeaning thing I ever have to face while working at an Indian IT company. Other idiotic rule I had to endure was inability to change Wallpaper. I like nice wallpapers in my PCs and change them every few days. To make things worse, one day they put wallpaper with company’s mission and vision statement across all PCs in the company. grrr.. There may be genuine case for blocking mail and docs site due to confidentiality and security purposes. But blocking social sites or blogs is meaning less. If employees wasting their time browsing instead of working, then they should be made responsible for their actions. Blocking sites won’t work. If IT companies are worried about productivity, then they should start looking into tea breaks first :) Harman, You sound like Jackie chan, who told free society is not good for Chinese and they need to be controlled. You are from an elite group, so you don’t need anyone to oversee or control you. Lower class people who work in Indian IT firms need some rules, because they can’t be trusted. WTF.. If a company is going to treat their employees like kids, then expect them to behave like kids. Treat them as adults. If somebody abuses their freedom, then make responsible for their actions. Making stupid polices won’t help.
wanderlust 29 May 2010 11:53 pm: these strict rules apply mainly in the services sector, where there are people from different levels of enthu for job, different levels of education… basically more diversity than some r&d lab where everyone is mostly focussed, are in the job because they want this line of work, and hence are less inclined to be unproductive because of their internet addiction and/or are less likely to occupy a lot of bandwidth by downloading music and movies, and are more aware of the security risks of pornsites (which spread viruses, trojans, etc). basically these non-services firms take in mostly people for whom internet addiction is not a roadblock in the way of productivity. which is not completely true of the general population. as are a lot of other things. like for example, my previous employer was one of those where everyone’s phone number was public for everyone else to see, and yet we did not face situations like those faced by my friends in infy where during the freshers training, girls had to contend with guys getting their number from the employee database and harassing them.
Siva 21 May 2010 5:00 pm: Excellent!!!!!
Raj 21 May 2010 10:55 pm: waiting for it eagerly….on how to survive in prison… Its so ridiculous sometimes that the bossess think that any free minute you get should be spent in thinking for the company. They should know that we are mature enough to put our mind to work when it is needed and take rest at teh same time. This attitude especially makes it sick for us to show loyalty to the company.
Harman 22 May 2010 2:03 am: Sometimes people are treated as kids or prisoners because they are not ready for freedom. There are companies in India which don’t have any of the above, and guess what, they pay far more and choose their employees far more carefully. Most of the “end-to-end solution providers” such as Infy, Wipro, TCS, Satyam, Accenture, CSC hire so many people and so many of them are freshers, that a blanket attitude of “respect the employee” is counter-productive. White-collar employees in India are evolving in their work-ethic and professionalism. In my old company, there were routine thefts of mice and keyboard and headphones. People were choking the internet bandwidth by downloading porn and mp3 songs. Many were unable to concentrate because of constant messaging on public IM networks. I am with you that this is a sorry state of affairs, but merely leaving it to the employees to improve themselves may not always work. In the longer run, it requires ethical training and better role models at work, which are sometimes sadly missing. Start treating your work with respect if you want to be treated with respect. It’s that simple. I will be the first to say that white-collar IT jobs in India are mostly at the low end of software industry, and as such, it is hard to “love” one’s work and see it as anything more than a road to money and privilege, but still, you were not forced into this work, it pays mighty well, and there are reasonable perks, so don’t whine and try to “get back” at your company for not respecting you “enough” by giving you all you want. As for clocking time, that may be a requirement driven by daily billing concerns of “clients”. And it would be ignorance to say that an average IT workers works any more than 3-4 hours a day (if even that), no matter how much time he is physically in office. IT jobs are privileged jobs in a poor country like India. These are sometimes the first private sector jobs for many families. Have some perspective. :-) Of course IITians and suchlike will feel insulted in such an atmosphere, not the least because of the quality of one’s colleagues, but very few IITians have these companies as their first or second choice anyway.
Kalpesh 23 May 2010 7:31 pm: 2 things. Lack of trust & Blanket rules to cover it (from companies point of view). Makes me think what do ceo/vp do, if they are not booked for meetings? Please note, I am not saying that a job of a ceo/vp is low tech. I am curious to understand what do they do, in absence of internet connectivity? work on excel/word?
Thejesh GN 24 May 2010 5:48 am: “Some day, I will follow-this up with a post on “Surviving in Prison”, detailing out my experiences with the system, and beating it.” I would like to contribute to that.
Sasidhar 24 May 2010 12:06 pm: Wanna come work for Google?
Thomas 24 Jun 2010 3:35 pm: The most recent attack on freedom. My machine should only have software approved by big momma… It’s a strict no-no to about 5 of my inseparable productivity tools, 10 of my preferred tools and file viewers and 10 of the lovely bits of software which I can live without - but makes work and time at office dull and sadder by a wide margin! They have a tool which will monitor the installed software - and any exceptions need to be approved by the top honchos up there… Atleast a USB is not blocked - nor are admin rights. So it’s time to go portable ! thank God for registry hacks which should help me beat the system for now !
Thomas 24 Jun 2010 3:52 pm: Also, anand, can u pls share the name of the IT firms which blocked google ?!!!!
TJ 21 Jul 2010 11:49 am: What do you do as a manager if your employees are abusing the freedom? Have been struggling with this for months now, though I agree that policing is not a solution. In my experience there is a clear impact on productivity and quality of work of my employees due to time spent on and distraction due to frequent/continuous surfing.
Rahul 8 Nov 2010 6:11 am: Yes its true that companies do block some websites in a hope to increase productivity. Harman correctly identified some examples where employees waste company’s resources. In my view blocking /policing the internet is not the solution for increase the productivity… the root cause for this attitude needs to be resolved. The root cause is our, individual’s sense of responsibility. Our education system, our society does not teach ourselves to be responsible… we learn to be selfish, we learn to do ‘our’ thing even if it infringes ‘others’ freedom. Hence the reflection of internet-policing in Indian IT firms… where someone higher up there need to tell the ‘children’ what to do and what not to. Of course they do not know what is good and what is not for them… someone need to tell them.

Web freedom survey

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:01:48 +0000

There was a time when workers were searched when they left, to make sure they weren’t stealing. They were paid by their hour, and had to clock in/clock out. They had supervisors to ensure that they didn’t slack off. They weren’t allowed to make calls at work. After all, people were lazy and thieving in those days.

Nowadays, we’re enlightened. We respect and trust our employees. Like a family. We don’t micromanage their activities. We don’t tap their phone calls.

We don’t restrict or monitor their web usage.

Now, your company is enlightened, of course. Surely you can access these sites I believe essential for work? (If you work out of different offices, you should fill one for each office.)

So, please tell me: which sites can YOU access?

Download the results

Comments

Rockey Nebhwani 31 Mar 2010 11:01 pm: I think you need another option in dropdown ‘available on request’
GK 1 Apr 2010 5:48 am: After being 10+ years in US, and now in India for the past few months, the restrictions on web access in indian IT companies is truly surprising (for the lack of a better word). Sucks!! It is primarily cause of folks who work here and have misused the freedom.
Veera 22 Apr 2010 4:45 am: there are no restrictions on web usage at my work location. The reason my HR said was that the company believe its employees won’t be doing any bad thing with web and they gave full access to all employees.
Thejesh GN 6 Apr 2010 6:59 pm: Presently where I work, all the above sites are allowed :)
You are in prison | s-anand.net 21 May 2010 12:00 pm (pingback): […] 2010 Business realities S Anand (I had intended to write this post sarcastically, a bit like my web freedom survey. But sarcasm’s confusing to read. So I’ll just be straight and […]
nikhil 24 Jul 2010 7:33 am: Currently where I am working there is proxy which prevents downloading exe files but rest all is open. I guess in today’s world you should not restrict users on using web power. It can be uge source of knowledge

Less is more

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:00:00 +0000

The hours in consulting are pretty long. 65 hours a week used to be my norm, and that’s ignoring the travel time to and from work. So there wasn’t too much life outside of work. (I’ve come to realise, though, that what you do outside of work doesn’t change that much with more free time. What does change is that you just enjoy it more – both in and out of work.)

We have a day, once every month or two, where you take time off from whatever project and head back to the office. One such featured a session with the managers telling the consultants how to succeed. Pretty good advice, actually… but that’s not what I’m going to talk about. It’s something about the nature of that advice.

The advice had a lot of TO-DOs and suggestions. Do this. Do that. Focus more on this. Focus a lot on that. Great. Now we know what to do more of.

My question, towards the middle of the session, was: OK, so what do we do less of, then?

You can’t do more of something unless you do less of something else. In most places, it’s easy to answer this with: “Oh, you need to be more efficient.” or “Cut the idle gossip”. For us, none of these were applicable.

The question pretty much remained unanswered. And with good reason. It’s a tough question.

Later, I got involved with a proposal. I wrote a few bits of it. (One page, actually.) Others wrote a few bits of it. And then some standard appendices were added to it. Finally, it ended up as a 180-page document.

The interesting thing is, I can bet no human ever read those 180 pages end-to-end.

I know no one at our end did, because we turned it around in 1 week, and I was the last to assemble the document before sending it out.

I’m guessing no one at the client end did, because they’d have gotten 5 such documents, and had a week to shortlist down to 3.

So if we didn’t read it and they didn’t read it, why did we put it in?

I think I know why. In my IBM days, I had to make a presentation to the management on productivity. I knew nothing of management or productivity. So I put in a report that had a lot of high-sounding words (you know… value-add, leverage, etc.) that looked reasonably impressive and had no basis in fact.

I did that mostly because I was scared. Of seeming to know less. Of being wrong. You know.

(Funnily enough, the presentation was pretty well received. I don’t know if it was because they were polite or had become numb to bullshit.)

This fear is pretty common. I know how that 180-page document ended up as a 180-page document, and I’m sure you’ve seen this happening before. First, here’s a sample conversation at the client end, when they’re writing up a request for information.

Martin: So, what do I put in the RFI?

Clive: Here’s a template we used. You can use some of that. Ask Nick for the one he used last month, and Natalie for hers. Maybe you should get something from our procurement team and information security group to be on the safe side.

Martin: And how do I make the RFI out of this? (BTW, this is a “bold” question that’s rarely asked.)

Clive: Well, make sure you cover everything from all of these documents.

So the RFI asks asks:

if any of your 80,000 employees are a member of any one of the following 340 organisations that are considered disruptive,
how many employees you have in each geography, function and vertical – where the break-down provided is as per their definitions (we cook up numbers which, if you add up, totals to over 200,000)
how much you spent on paper-clips last fortnight, and other such intimate corporate P&L secrets

And we answer these. The answers to the above 3 questions were “No”, a table of numbers, and “We are not at liberty to divulge this information…”

Now, looking at the answers above, it still doesn’t add up to 180 pages. It’s hardly half a page. But you’ve got to take the following conversation at our end into account.

Steve: You know, we’ve got to put in some details about our methodologies in this section.

Me: I have.

Steve: Yeah, but maybe we should add more, you know, like supply chain methodologies and change management.

Me: But they’re irrelevant!

Steve: Well, can’t say that. Change management is always relevant. SCM… well, no harm putting it in. They can skip it if they don’t want to read about it.

That’s it, isn’t it? There’s no harm in doing more. I’ll just toss it in. If you don’t want to read it, skip it. I’ll just ask you to do more of these. If you can’t, skip the useless stuff.

An innocuous sounding statement: do more. I tremble whenever anyone suggests it. There’s no defence.

There’s a fundamental belief at work here. That more is better.

This is fueled by a lack of confidence. Put in high-sounding words. They look impressive. What’s missed is that experts use jargon because they understand what it means, and it conveys a lot in few words. Others follow a cargo cult science.

What we lose, though, is subtle.

Firstly, it wastes time. It wastes my time. It wastes your time. But hey, time is not all that important. (I’m not saying this sarcastically. I believe that wasting time is quite OK, really, and it’s not such a big deal.)

What’s more important is that it destroys focus. Some things in the document are important. Most others are not. In a 180-page document, I can’t find the important stuff! It actually does harm to put it in if it’s irrelevant.

That’s the tough tradeoff, really. A tangible incremental value against an intangible loss of focus. The value looks attractive when you’re less confident. The document seems completely unfocused anyway.

So what the heck, put it in.

Do more of this. And that too.

So what can you do? Quite a bit, surprisingly.

Firstly, you’ve got to believe that less is more. The response to “What’s the harm in adding…?” is “It dilutes the message”. There’s two things here. Believing it. And having the courage to say it. Trust me, you really believe it only when you say it.

Next, you’ve got to understand – really understand – before you write or speak. That requires not fooling yourself. And it requires a lot of practice. I’ve had nearly 20 years of training in fooling myself, so it’s an uphill task. Many people are worse off, never having tasted true understanding.

Third, you’ve got to be brave enough to shut up, or say “I don’t know”. Initially, this was tough for me, but I learnt from a friend. I always thought him not-so-smart, but honest. He’d ask, “But why?” and when I’d explain, he’d say, “I don’t understand it.” After two hours of trying to get him to understand, I’d realise that I was the one who never got it in the first place. After a while, I got into the habit of being very prepared before I explained anything to him.

Saying “I don’t know” doesn’t make people think less of you, I’ve found. I know a lot of people disagree with me. One of the most consistent feedbacks I’ve received in the first half of any project or firm I’ve been in is, “He should speak up.” Dammit, I don’t have anything to say! If I know something, I’ll say it. If not, I’ll shut up. Now, despite this feedback, no one’s quite objected to me. And in the second half, they’re always amazed at how much I’ve improved based on the feedback.

The feedback had nothing to do with it, of course. I just happen to know more in the second half of a project.

There’s a reason why your boss wants you to talk. It makes you appear knowledgable. In the short term, that’s good. You talk about “value” and “leverage” and people nod wisely.

In the long term, it makes you less able to say “I don’t know.” (What? This brilliant chap who knew all about value and leverage doesn’t understand our way of calculating ROI?)

It makes you less likely to ask questions.

It makes you learn less.

It makes you dumb.

On the other hand, I’ve learnt to plead ignorance up front. “Do you understand ROI?” “No.” Not even an excuse for it. Frankly, it saves time.

Sometimes, a meeting’s running late, I’m hungry, and I just nod at whatever’s said, and you lose the window of opportunity to ask. Except, I’ve learnt, there’s no such thing as a window of opportunity. If you don’t get it, ask. If they’ve said it thrice, and you still don’t get it, ask. More likely they’re not clear about it.

Postscript: This morning, I had to convert a document into a standard template. My document was 3 pages long. The template (just the headings) was 14 pages long.

Why? Because someone wants all documents in that format. Does it help them? Maybe not. But it has to be done. Standards.

Sometimes, it’s easier to give up. The smart thing is to minimise the effort on pointless work. I took 15 minutes. Beyond a point, I protect myself rather than the poor reader.

Comments

Arun 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Great post! So much there that I can relate to! Aside, I haven’t said this before, but your music search totally totally rocks! Far better than anything out there!
Chandoo 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: really well written, I could relate to almost everyword in the post. I think this behavior is becoming more visible in consulting space, somewhere between adopting to processes, sticking to standards and working across global teams entire junta have lost focus on what is actually needed. and that thing with 3 page doc going into 14 pages template.. well I couldnt help but laughout loud coz that is exactly what I was doing yesterday evening…
Ravi 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: So… how could you have made that post shorter? ;) I have a related question: what in the background of a consultant (or product manager, or any entry level MBA position) enables them to make recommendations about an industry they don’t really understand well? For that matter, how much of decision making in most organizations is done on the basis of a wink and a nod, rather than any of the reports that aren’t read? Most long reports exist just to justify decisions that are already made, and as such it is imperative that the “important” information be buried.
Sanjeev Sujan 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Great post. I can’t say how many times I have done that myself (fitting a 2 pager into 15 slides). Standardizing is something that is now ingrained in all probably because most people really don’t know what they are doing and just want to play it safe (as you mentioned).
ND 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Nice post. The person compiling the proposal has a very important job. Ensuring that there are no references to other clients in the “cut-paste” process! Usually there is some statutory requirement or other that requires canned questions on domains that may have little bearing on the immediate decision making. I sometimes feel these questions can be asked once or twice a year to vendors, instead of making it a part of every proposal. Saves time and the environment. I can visualize your proposal starting on a meandering journey before being safely ensconced in the cozy confines of an archives room!
ritesh kini 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: :) Totally identify with all of it…Agree, less is…perhaps sometimes..adequate..
Deepak Mittal 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Sorry, but I still don’t understand, what to do less or not do at all.
Deepa Mohan 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Excellent post ! I have often wondered about those reports-that-no-one-reads-fully…but this was so much more articulate. Thanks.
Aman 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Takes me back to my RFI/RFP response days when the measure of a good document was its weight - very rarely have i come across managers prescribing a less is more approach btw, how are you doing.?.dropped you a mail.
Samir Desai 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Excellent post and very very well written! I guess it applies to almost any sort of service firm. Standards, templates, checklists, processes, books of knowledge, and what not …sigh! :)
Chitra 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: You hit the nail on the head! But is there a ‘diplomatic’ way to get around this :-)?
Madhu 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Pretty good:) There shud be a law that shud make anything more than 10 slides/10 pages illegal:)
priya 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Excellent piece. Can save time and brings in more clarity.
jake 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: hey, good post. perceptive.
Prashanth 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Your post is a perfect mirror! But in this labyrinth of standards, policies and global marks, many corporate “parrots” have lost the real motive behind these. And instigating “More or/is less” people like you to write such a long long long article:) So u wasted my time and even ur time,So u r effective at last! Nice article Maaaaaaaaan
Ankush Garg 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Dear Anand, You have captured what I have sometimes always felt about consulting world. I have referred to your post on my blog - www.ankushgarg.com (and shared some extracts) and added some of my thoughts to it. Our firm is based on partnering model, where in our client engagement we are partners, not consultants. When you go with that mindset, you are the part of the client, there is no you and no client, there is only We. And We learn together and We execute together. p.s : let me know if you do not appreciate my pasting extracts from your post on my blog. I shall remove them
ContentConcepts 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Hi Anand, You hit it on the nail. I ve been doing this all my life. Yes, am an Editor. I was chucked out of a consulting company for evangelizing less-is-more writing. Result? Am an entrepreneur now. We provide no-nonsense content. www.contentconcepts.in
Kalidas 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: Brilliant one !Why such a long post to drive home the point :-) ??
me 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: and that’s why consulting is short for con and insult? http://tinyurl.com/yedrju
Moody 14 Jan 2008 12:00 pm: I was searching for a song and it hit your site - can you email me the below given song coz ur link to the song is not working Aa bataa dein ki kaise jiya jaata hai - Dost
karthikeyan 16 Jan 2009 10:18 pm: Excellent Article. But I guess you covered the points you wanted to convey may in the first 25% of the section. So, Telling more to convey less is more (Just kidding).. May be i should stop here :-)

The view from my office

Sat, 30 Sep 2006 12:00:00 +0000

The view from my office is pretty good.

Comments

Anonymous 30 Sep 2006 7:35 pm: Neat. Is it your office or your current client’s office? Have you guys broken even? Or is it still lifeline from the parent?
S Anand 30 Sep 2006 9:20 pm: Thanks! This is the Infosys office, not a client’s. As for breakeven, yeah, we actually have!

Ray Ozzie

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 12:00:00 +0000

An article on NYT about Ray Ozzie: can this man reprogram Microsoft?

How Company Employees Use The Web

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 12:00:00 +0000

How Company Employees Use The Web.

Southwest Airlines tries to be humourous

Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:00:00 +0000

Southwest Airline’s effort to be humourous.

Southwest … have [my business] because of low fares, and force-marching their employees through comic routines will do little to affect my choice of carrier. They are, however, wasting their “research” dollars and undoubtedly humiliating their employees. I suggest they stop.

While the phrases themselves were well-crafted specimens of humor, delivered with carefully practiced inflection of the voice, the eyes of the pressganged comedians were cold and dead.

A Nike ID story

Thu, 19 Dec 2002 12:00:00 +0000

A Nike ID story. An e-mail correspondence between Jonah and Nike about creating a personalised ID called “sweatshop”.

Microsoft vs IBM

Sun, 17 Nov 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Microsoft (2002) vs IBM (1982). An article on whether Microsoft will go the IBM Way.

Microsoft’s ability to adapt and prosper hinges on meeting a third main challenge: creating trust.

Rant on HP customer service

Thu, 12 Sep 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Rant on HP’s customer service. Long, but interesting. I read it end-to-end. It’s curious, how impersonal a big company can get. via Metafilter

Enrons voice mail

Wed, 20 Feb 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Enron’s voice mail. No, that’s not true, but it’s pretty similar to Enron’s real voice mail at 1-703-853-6161. (And funnier, too).

Strange ways of firing employees

Fri, 26 Jan 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Salon’s article explains how silly people can get when firing employees.

Strategy and Business

Sat, 22 Jul 2000 12:00:00 +0000

I found some interesting articles on Strategy & Business magazine. How Novell manages their reseller channel, how brick-and-mortar companies can brand on the Internet and corporate culture on the Internet.