The Rat Race

Funny Corporate Tales

Sarcasm involves saying one thing and meaning the opposite. Adapted from Reader's digest: Very few companies require any physical-fitness program. Everybody gets enough exercise 'jumping' to the conclusion, 'running' late to the meetings, 'dodging' the responsibilities, 'flexing' their muscle to prove their superiority, 'beating' around the bush, 'walking' around the policies, 'fudging' the data, 'painting' the grim picture of the situation and 'fighting' like fools!

Who will Bell the Cat? This is a story about four people named 'Everybody', 'Somebody', 'Anybody' and 'Nobody'. There was an important job to be done and 'Everybody' was asked to do it. 'Everybody' was sure 'Somebody' would do it. 'Anybody' could have done it, but 'Nobody' did it. 'Somebody' got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. 'Everybody' thought 'Anybody' could do it but 'Nobody' realized that 'Everybody' wouldn't do it. It ended up that 'Everybody' blamed 'Somebody' when 'Nobody' did what 'Anybody' could have done.

HERD MENTALITY: There are many versions of the tale. One version describes it Birbal's way to set the expectations right when Akbar was boasting about his supreme authority and absolute compliance he enjoyed from the public (subject, प्रजा) he ruled. Another version is based on the thought process of humans. Now Akabar-Birbal story: Once Akbar heard that every man thinks differently. He asked Birbal whether it is true or not? Birbal said, "No, Your Majesty! In fact, wise men think alike." Akbar was interested to know more about and said, "Birbal, You will have to prove your saying." The next day, Birbal asked all the attendants of the palace to empty the royal pond. Then he announced to the people in the city to pour a glass of milk in the pond during the night. He also informed Akbar on his act (and what Birbal expected in the pond the next day). The next day morning, Akbar and Birbal went to the pond to see the pond was filled with water. Akbar was surprised and asked Birbal, "Why this pond is filled with water instead of milk?" Birbal politely said, "Your Majesty! Everybody has deliberately poured a glass of water in the pond yesterday night. Because they think all others will pour milk and no one could find that they pour water in the pond." That is why it is said that "Wise men think alike".

Knowledge vs Skill vs Expertize

When someone comments about you that you get angry easily or there is behavioural instability: the harcore criminals, rapist, dacoits... are mentally strong and extremely stable. Are they good human beings? Why do you think you tend to distribute roses or sweets all the time? Statements starting with following words are sheer example of deceipts: Honestly speaking, In my frank opinion, Correct me if I am wrong,

Reference CAE Inc: These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements about our vision, strategies, plans, market trends and outlook, future revenues, capital spending, expansions and new initiatives, financial obligations, and expected sales. Forward-looking statements normally contain words like believe, expect, plan, intend, continue, estimate, may, will, should, strategy, future and other similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as aim, anticipate, believe, could, expect, intend, may, plan, seek, should, strive and will.

A statement is forward-looking when it uses what we know and expect today to make a statement about the future. By their nature, forward-looking statements require us to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties associated with our business which may cause actual results in future periods to differ materially from results indicated in forwardlooking statements. Products and services applicable for Simulation and CAE category are similar in many aspects and help companies of all sizes solve their business problems such as reducing product development time. However, pricing setup, and installation differ for businesses of different sizes.

How to Prepare a Business Case

A business case can be justification for any investment or it can an estimate of profit and loss of any new area of oppportunity. The main intent is to seek approval from the project sponsors and other interested parties.

1. Meshing Error: Insufficient memory available to complete mesh generation
2. As per various software vendors, it requires 1.5 ~ 2.5 GB RAM per million cells

Starting a new activity

Step-1: What is the primary purpose? For example, [1]Make information available in a searchable webpage [2]Let others learn from your mistakes [3]Make is a passive source of income [4]Earning for a living i.e. primary source of incom ...

Step-2: Why do you want to do it? For example, [1]To get recognition among general public [2]To contribute to environment and social causes [3]To counter the myths and false narrative ...

As you can see, the statements listed in Step-1 and Step-2 overlap and can be interchanged. Hence, to define the objective, you need to ask yourself, "Why do I want to spend time on such things?".

Similarly, if you want to start a mechanical engineering blog, you need to understand the size (number) of unique visitors. As per news published in India, approximately 15 lakh engineers graduated in 2021. Out of that, around a lakh would be mechanical engineers. Hence, the maximum potential users for your blog would be four lakhs = 4 [duration of course] x 1 lakh [number of students enrolled for mechanical engineering]. This is too small a number to get any meaningful hits to your website and blogs - excluding similar portals already in active existence. However, the number may easily rise to 50 times if you are dealing with topics on Machine Learning. Not only students from many disciplines but also working professionals make up the potential visitors.

Delegation of work

There is limit to multi-tasking and some routine tasks needs to be delegated to subordinates. A clear-cut desription of tasks and instructions are pre-requisite to make the delegation effective. Some examples of delegation are:

A sample team structure can be as described below.

Commmon steps to outsource engineering activities: RFQ: Request for Quotation, SOW: Statement of Work

Reference: Computer-aided engineering (CAE) on AWS empowers engineers to innovate: Today, computer-aided engineering (CAE) is standard in any industry that uses design software to develop new products or to create new features for existing products. CAE allows engineers to perform simulations of a product’s physical properties quickly by eliminating the need to build a physical prototype. Virtually all industries are using CAE in product development processes, including: automotive, aerospace, plant engineering, electronics, energy, and consumer goods.

Realistically simulating a product’s complex geometries and testing those in all conditions requires an immense amount of computing power. CAE simulations require storing and processing large amounts of data. Modern simulation tools, software as a service (SaaS) solvers, and cloud computing, have removed barriers to streamlining the difficult endeavor of CAE. Engineers can now leverage the power and speed of high performance computing (HPC) in the cloud to speed up the standard CAE workflow and significantly reduce the cost and time required for each design iteration cycle.

Reference: ANSYS White Papte: In areas of product engineering, digital transformation is already highly embedded – for example, CAE, CAD and CAM are now "must haves" for every manufacturing enterprise.

Boss in a meeting: "WE WANT CHANGE". The participants starts putting coins on the table... ha ha ha :)

Boss: How can we keep the office clean? Me: By staying at home.

HR: What’s your biggest weakness?, Me: Interviews, HR: And besides that?, Me: Follow up questions.

Boss: Just go to hell! Me: So, should I stay or leave? I’m confused.

If you ever feel useless, just remember that US took 4 Presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 20 years to replace Taliban with Taliban..

THE SIX PHASES OF A PROJECT

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honor for the non-participants

Self-deprecation

Business Jokes and One-liners

• Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go! कुछ लोग जहां भी जाते हैं खुशी का कारण बनते हैं। दूसरे जब भी चले जाते हैं!
• I do not take you seriously any way! मैं आपको गम्भिरता से वैसे भी नहीं लेता!
• Doubting duck is better than quick dimbit
• A crisis is when you cannot say "let's just forget the whole thing"
• If an argument lasts more than 10 minutes, probably both sides are wrong! यदि कोई तर्क 10 मिनट से अधिक समय तक चलता है, तो शायद दोनों पक्ष गलत हैं!
• There is nothing called "work-life balance", there are mostly "work-life choices"! "कार्य-जीवन संतुलन" नामक कुछ भी नहीं है, ज्यादातर "कार्य-जीवन विकल्प" हैं!
• "सही समय" कभी नहीं होता है। यदि आप भविष्य की भविष्यवाणी नहीं कर सकते, तो आप सही समय की भविष्यवाणी नहीं कर सकते। There is never a "right time". If you cannot predict the future, you cannot predict the right time.
• If love and care would produce high performers, more than 80% of families in the world would have one! अगर प्यार और देखभाल से उच्च प्रदर्शन करने वाला बनते हैं, तो दुनिया के 80% से अधिक परिवारों के पास एक होता!
• If you dread Monday, your in the wrong place!
• A 'consensus' means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually - Abba Eban. एक 'सर्वसम्मति' का अर्थ है कि हर कोई सामूहिक रूप से यह कहने के लिए सहमत है कि कोई भी व्यक्तिगत रूप से क्या विश्वास नहीं करता है
• It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them - Mark Twain
• Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent!
• Your colleagues ego is inversely proportional to his knowledge and intellect.
• Poor by thoughts or poor by means? Constipation of ideas and diarrhea of words!
• Opposite of love is not hate, hate is not phobia! Differentiation is not discrimination.
• Who said bad memory is bad. The people live in deep distress who remember everything.
• Is there a sane definition of success?
• Essential for some, useful for all!
• Be emphatic, be caring, be forgiving but do not be a fool! प्रभावी बनो, परवाह करो, क्षमाशील बनो लेकिन मूर्ख मत बनो!
• अच्छे बनो लेकिन शोषित मत बनो! Be nice but do not get exploited!
• Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools talk because they have to say something!
• Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted
• You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard
• Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested in, and say nothing about the other.
• When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves
• Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous"
• Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour
• Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing
• Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail
• The last person that quit or was fired will be the one held responsible for everything that goes wrong - until the next person quits or is fired
• There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over. इसे पहली बार सही करने के लिए कभी भी पर्याप्त समय नहीं होता है, लेकिन इसे फिर से करने के लिए हमेशा पर्याप्त समय होता है
• If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it!
• You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk
• अगर आपको नहीं पता कि क्या करना है, तेजी से चलें और चिंतित दिखें When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried
• You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like
• No one gets sick on Wednesdays
• The longer the title is, the less important the job
• Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse
• Success is just a matter of luck, just ask any failure
• Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. ---James Baldwin
• If you face dilemma to chose between finance and fiance, take a pragmatic approach and check which is easier to replace!
• Some people are clouds, when they disappear - the day becomes beautiful!
• Making mistakes is better than faking perfection - like some religions claim!
• Sometimes it is not the person who change, only the masks come out! कभी-कभी इंसान नहीं बदलता, सिर्फ मुखौटे निकलते हैं!
• Fake people and fake religions have an image to maintain. Real people and real religions just do not care!
• यह कितनी हास्यास्पद बात है कि जो लोग आपके बारे में कम से कम जानते हैं वही सबसे अधिक बोलते हैं! How funny it is that the people who know the least about you have the most the say!
• If people talk about you behind your back, that means you are in front and stay on your course!
• एक बुद्धिमान व्यक्ति कभी भी सब कुछ नहीं जानता, केवल मूर्ख ही सब कुछ जानते हैं! A wise man never know all, only fools know everything!
• You cannot force a person to respect you, but you can refuse to be disrespected! आप किसी व्यक्ति को आपका सम्मान करने के लिए मजबूर नहीं कर सकते, लेकिन आप अनादर से इंकार कर सकते हैं!
• Who gossips with you will gossip about you! जो तुम्हारे साथ गपशप करेगा वह तुम्हारे बारे में गपशप करेगा!
• जो लोग लगातार दूसरों को नियंत्रित करने की कोशिश करते हैं उनका खुद पर नियंत्रण नहीं होता है! People who continuously try to control others do not have control over themselves!

Correct Interpretation of Employee Traits

With experience, our knowledge may or may not increase in proportion but our value and capability to serve a particular role increase. While the definition of "most relevant experience" for a job is debatable and varies from person to person, experience and capabilities are two complementary traits to assess a person for "fitness to a role". To a certain extent, a person who has been successful in one domain and gained experience in a particular area of work, it is highly likely that he will succeed another area of work not vastly different from the previous one. For example, a person teaching only algebra for last five years and rated as good tutor is very likely to succeed and be equally effective teacher in calculus or trigonometry if certain minimum qualification criteria are met. Hence, a 'relevant' experience indicates a person's ability to be productive right away similar to "ready-to-serve" food, a person's knowledge and capability defines the slope of time curve which will take him to be ready to deliver expected output.

1. Do you mind if someone quote you later what you said in past?
2. What switched you off that is what you dislike most about yourself and others?
3. Do you like to be monitored and to what extent?
4. If you are asked to implement an unpopular move, what will you do?
5. What makes you not trust your manager?

Sample Training Plan

This can serve a starting point for a short and simple template to record progress of a self-paced training program.

Value addition and Service Offerings

1. Fulfill a Need
2. Help with non-core applications
3. Augment skilled resource
4. Meet short-term requirement such as peak load or one-off case
5. Create round-the-clock operation
6. Vendor consolidation

Job Requirement

1. Domain Skils: Automotive (OEM and Tier-1 suppliers dealing with ....), Industrial Products (pumps, valves, comsumer proucts...), Electronic cooling (PCB, MOSFET, Chip, Controllers Cooling simulations and Heat Sink design)
2. Physics: Conjugate heat transfer (natural convection and forced convection with thermal radiation), porous-media, moving mesh, multiphase flow, acoustics... review result and reports, awareness about quality assurance and error prevention
3. Tool Skills: ANSYS FLUENT, Ensight and CFD-Post, SpaceClaim, ANSA, ICEM CFD, CFX, OpenFOAM, ParaView, STAR-CCM+
4. Documentation: Hands-on with advance features of MS PowerPoint and Excel, experience in preparing techno-commercial proposals
5. Inter-personal: Ability to coach younger engineers, helps less experienced engineers in troubleshooting simulation related issues
6. Location: India
7. Duration: Permanent / Contract (6 months)
8. Bill rate and Pay Rate: Bill rate (INR 800/hour, INR 1.28 lakh/month), Pay rate (INR 80,000 per month)

Job Requirement (example statements): Drive and engage in investigations and studies related to validation of New Product Developments in (a)Chemical Industry such as Mixing Tanks (b)Thermal management system, its vision and its evolution... Collaborate with multi-functional team in the early-stage studies, pre-studies and advanced engineering initiatives to secure system and concept maturity. Develop and maintain good harmony and quality culture within and interface functions. A typical job requirement in mechanical engineering and a Team Lead can be as described below. This can be also interpreted as Roles and Responsibilities of the applicable person.

1. Carry out flow and thermal simulation and maintain utilization (billable work) for the self ≥ 75% - some billable effor may come from mentoring/review efforts
2. Review the tasks performed by colleagues and ensure timely delivery as well as First Time Right solutions to customers - plan review time at the start itself
3. Plan a work pipeline for the team and monitor/update as new information flows in - clearly distinguish between the task performer and responsible person
4. Project monthly revenue for the team (including self) and confirm that they are realized at the end of the month
5. Identify skill gap (for the self) as well as the team and prepare development plan to improve the overall competency within the team
6. Conduct and participate in interviews, weekly meetings and circulate regular project status update to all internal and external stakeholder
7. Develop ability to handle short (near) term uncertainties and communicate affected parties quickly with different options - learn how to prioritize ongoing and pipelined tasks
8. Get to know the persons and teams responsible for running the operations inside the company: IT, Hiring, Allowances, Procurement, Travel, Vendors...

A 'negative' list (things to avoid or not do) is equally important to improve clarity about roles and responsibilities

1. Provide your insight and act tactfully: do not take other's task on your head. Know the escalation ladder and convey the issues discretely and timely manner
2. Do not expect all the answers from your reporting manager - you can ask for opinions and approvals
3. Do not commit a task without checking software, hardware and manpower resources - explore alternatives before saying 'No'
4. Do not get carried away by weakness of a team member - allocate work/task as per his/her strengths and plan for multi-skilling
5. Do not rely on your memory alone: take notes, maintain log, send minutes of meetings, develop a tracker sheet
6. Do not take the person you are working with (such as subject matter expert or single point of contact) as substitue to your reporting manager.

Networking and Team Management applicable for Department Heads:

• Cultivates personal networks in and outside of the organization and effectively uses relevant contacts to achieve results
• Leverages internal/external interactions as networking opportunities to strategically exapnd businesses and parternership
• Brings in innovative thinking to enhance existing business practices leading to rapid growth
• Ensure the team is building successful channels for attracting, assessing and selecting the highest quality candidates in the most efficient manner
• Develop creative approaches for identifying and recruiting high quality candidates, including implementing strategies that broaden the diversity and talent pool. This includes identification and implementation of strategies for recruiting both active and passive candidates across the team.
• Budgeting for existing and future requirements

Process Improvemnt Ideas - PII

Traits of Strong Teams

Fallacies

Fallacy = mistaken belief - an unsound questionable logic without factual evidence to support it. These are (a)defects that weaken the argument, (b)tend to be quite persausive, (c)Difficult to classify an argument as fallacies. Claims with sweeping words like All (सभी), None (कोइ नहीं), Every (प्रत्येक), Always (सदैव, सर्वदा, हमेशा), Never (कभी नहीं), Everyone (हर कोई, सब लोग) tend to contain some elements of fallacies. These are not inherently and/or necessarily bad arguments - they are deceptively false beliefs and half-truths!

Also known as cognitive distortions, there are inherent weaknesses in human thought-process as well as decision making. Not all decisions we make in our daily life are based on logical evaluation of pros and cons or use of checklists. While crossing the road, we do not try to guess the vehicle speed and time taken to cross the road. Most of the decision makings are based on intuition and heuristics. For example, we tend to 'believe' a good looking person or lady! As a climate is combination of weathers, biases are like 'climate', influenced by personal experiences, conditioning, training, upbringings, social circumstances, education...

1. Ad Hominem (Argument to the Man): A common form is an attack on sincerity. For example, "How can you argue for vegetarianism when you wear leather shoes?"
2. Needling: simply attempting to make the other person angry, without trying to address the argument at hand. Sometimes this is a delaying tactic.
3. Straw Man (Fallacy of Extension): For example, the claim that "evolution means a dog giving birth to a cat."
4. Burden of Proof: the claim that whatever has not yet been proved false must be true (or vice versa). Essentially the arguer claims that he should win by default if his opponent can't make a strong enough case.
5. Slippery Slope Fallacy (Camel's Nose): there is an old saying about how if you allow a camel to poke his nose into the tent, soon the whole camel will follow. "If I make an exception for you then I shall have to make an exception for everyone."

Universal List of Career Options - Work in Progress

Government: Defence, Bureaucracy | Administrative, Engineering, Finance, Procurement, Education, Information Technology