Paul the Octopus

There were so many times in my life when I have thought, if only i were someone else. Sometimes it can be a CEO, sometimes it is a sportsman and sometimes it is even a Film Hero. But never in my life I thought I would feel like this about an Octopus!! An octopus which is small enough to be confined to an aquarium. :)

Why would I not feel like this? He has his own wikipedia page, created by others in his honour, he has come in TV shows, and he even has 2.9 Million search results for himself in Google as of date and the number is growing by the second. He is famous, he is a brand today and he even has enemies!!! Looks like he is gathering fame through all his eight tentacles. I am utterly disadvantaged with only two hands to gather mine.

Imagine, when Spain won the football, the first thought that crossed millions of minds is 'Hey! Paul was right'. There were millions of facebook messages, millions of smses and a number of phonecalls just to say this. No one in my colleagues remembered that I also predicted the same. Forget me, most people across the world predicted the same, and yet these remain unsung heros, while Paul has gathered fame along with the molluscs.

And when I heard about the age of Paul, it is depressing. At a little more than 1/10th of my age, his fame is 1 million times more, only compounding my misery by another factor of 10. That lead me to the (soul?) searching question everyone is asking now a days "what exactly is an octopus capable of anyway?"

i was thinking, since its head does not seem to have any shape, he has obviously no brain, a prized possession which is protected by a hard skull in human. To my amazement I found that octopus is very intelligent sea creature. What more, his limbs have their independant brain as well. I was happy to note this, since I unconsciously became a fan of him, more like I do for many famous people. But, a colleague of mine walked to my desk and said, "Oh, then citibank can employ these Octopuses".

That is when the realization struck me how serious a competition this could be. With eight tentacles he can handle four times what I handle and would be very ambidextrous. All they would need is water proof keyboards which can float in aquariums. What more, if psychic is more natural state for them, then they can predict markets, consumer choices better than me. They can manage 'people' better because they know what the other person is thinking, though the 'people' itself may be redefined as Octopuses. I can imagine all the glass cabins at citi replaced with Glass aquariums.

Cost cutting! People will never cut employees anymore. All they need is a feed of mollusc on daily basis. Yes, training cost will increase given their short lifespan, but then there is no HRA, no family allowance, no life insurance and labour laws.

It is time to go with this idea to my bossess, No! directly to the CEO, because all these people would be replaced anyway. See you guys!!

Green World Ideas...

One idea which occurred to me.. Can Government incentivise people living closer to their offices. This will reduce the distance one has to travel and also traffic congestion which is an important reason for increased vehicular pollution.

Like tax incentive if you prove that you live less than 5 KM from your office. Ofcourse lots of bogus proofs will be there. But some level of genunity will atleast contribute to an extent....

At last, I am free to blog. I have been trying to write "something" since I came to Bahrain one year ago, but my blogger was refusing cooperation. Since I am in middle east, every time, I try to open blogger, the welcome page and all the pages appear in Arabic. I did not know how to change it back to English and I tried everything from blogger help to browser settings. Changed browser too..

Finally, today I was tweaking with the Arabic welcome page and was clicking on every button when I found that all I have to do is click on the Listbox on the left (may be right in English version) and change the language... What a relief?

Choice & Attitude

Last month I was busy applying for B Schools in US. While applying I worked very hard and was tensed about the work. Once I completed the applications I am very relaxed and not worried about the result. I figured I have nothing to loose. If I get through, it will be a great career, else, I still have a good career and a chance to apply again.

I have a friend who was also applying along with me. Both of us applied only to top few B Schools. Yesterday when we were chatting, she was worried about the result of admission. Her worry goes lik this, "If I get admission I will be separated from my spouse, except for weekends and if I don't get admission, I would be bored to death at home."

My Conclusion:
A positive thinker has two choices in life. To be happy with the Status Quo or to choose a better status that will enhance the happiness. His only issue is to put in hard-work into the choice.

A negative thinker has two choices too. To worry about the status quo or to move to an unknown status which will enhance the worry. And additionally his worry is how to choose.

Choosing to be a positive thinker is indirectly following Gita because one is not worried about the result, one just works hard.

Paw Prints

Many of NRI customers who walk in to my branch have accounts with too many banks. They invest too many places that they tend to forget where all their money lies.

Six years back when I started my career, I started using net so much that I had created accounts with a number of websites. Today, when I thought I will start blogging and tried to create a user id on this site. I found that my favourite user name was already taken. Before I decided that I should be disappointed, I wanted to check if I left my paw prints in this site already. Surprise!!!!!!!! That user id was taken by me.. God knows when.