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March 27, 2007
Late
It was perfectly fine on Friday. However, when I came to office same time on Monday, I was late by 1 hour.
Posted by Vasanth at 02:59 PM | Comments (2)
March 19, 2007
Dead Mail
How would you feel when you get an out of office auto-reply like this?
Hi,
Thanks for your e-mail.
I am dead with no access to mails. I would reply to you in my next birth. If there is anything urgent, please pray to god and hopefully he will pass on the message to me in Heaven.
I regret the inconvenience caused, if any. Have a wonderful day.
Posted by Vasanth at 10:08 PM | Comments (2)
March 13, 2007
Standard of Living in Tamil Nadu
There were two Americans, one haling from New York on the east coast and another from Los Angles on the west coast. Both of them had a desire to study and understand Indian culture, especially Tamil Nadu’s. Besides many other things, they specifically wanted to study the standard of living in Tamil Nadu.
Both of them chose television as the media through which they would study the standard of living in Tamil Nadu. They learnt Tamil for 3 years and both of them started watching Tamil TV in late 80’s for period of 20 years.
Upon completion of their study, both of them came up with the conclusion that standard of living in Tamil Nadu reaches two extremes. Out of 20 years, they have been studying, for 2 alternate five years, the standard of living was quite high and people are generally happy about everything but for the other alternate 5 years, the standard of living was really poor and people were complaining about everything.
However, when I looked at the conclusion in detail, to my amazement, I saw that both the findings were not compatible. One American had concluded that the standard of living for the first 5 years was quite high but it was low in the second 5 years and so on. The second American has concluded that the standard of living for the first 5 years was very low but it was high in the second 5 years and so on.
I was quite intrigued by these findings and wanted to know how both of them having come to the same conclusion could get it wrong on the years. Also how the two extremes could be happening at the same time period at the same place.
To get answers for all these questions, I went back to these 2 Americans and asked them which Tamil TV both of them watched for the past 20 years to arrive at these conclusions.
There came the answers to all my questions. One said Sun TV and another said Jaya TV. The same period, DMK and AIADMK were in power for alternate 5 years.
Posted by Vasanth at 07:46 PM | Comments (3)
March 09, 2007
Do it Right
I was walking towards it and there it was again. A large contingent of people was waiting for their chance to get on it through the right side. The left side, as usual, was almost empty and yet no one seemed to bother taking that side. I effortlessly walked through the left side and was on it immediately. Had I waited to get on it through the left side, I would have had to wait for at least 5 minutes.
Isn’t this an irony? People are prepared to wait for a few minutes for the right side while they could have immediately stepped on it through the left side. Have these people mistakenly taken “Do it Right”, literally?
The catch is you can stand on the right but have to walk on the left.
For those souls who haven’t figured out what I am talking about, it is of course, the escalator/s in the tube stations.
Posted by Vasanth at 08:29 PM | Comments (3)
March 02, 2007
Is this pain in the a**?
You have to give it to these guys. Last evening, someone rang the door bell and when I opened the door, there were these 2 guys. They introduced themselves as marketing executives for British Gas and asked for some name which I had no clue of. I told them there is no one of that name living in this house and they said its fine, we want to talk to me.
The conversation went like this:
BG: Which company bill you for gas and electricity for the house?
Me: Southern Energy.
BG: Do you pay any standing charges for gas and electricity?
Me: I might but I am not sure.
BG: Can you show us the latest bill, we can see if you pay any charges?
Me: Bills are somewhere in the attic and it will take some time for me to trace it out
BG: We will wait no problems.
Me: Can I know what exactly do you want?
BG: Actually, we (BG) have withdrawn standing charges and it should not be charged and also reduced the tariff for gas and electricity.
Me: I am not with your company, so how does that matter?
BG: If you switch over to BG now, we will give you £40 credit, reduced tariff is frozen and no standing charges for 2 years. If you give us the bill, we can tell you how much saving you will make.
Me: I know that BG has slashed tariffs, so does other companies and I am sure SE would also follow suit, so I don’t intent to switch over now.
BG: How does it matter who bills you, the supplier for all houses is national grid. Switching is very easy and you stand to gain a lot.
Me: I need to think it over and I can’t make any decisions now. Leave me with your contact details, I will contact you once I made up my mind.
This went on for another 15 minutes and finally I got really fed up and told the guys that I am not interested and they can leave. They didn’t leave any contact details with me and I was wondering whether these guys are genuine marketing guys from BG.
After about an hour, some one again rang the door bell and when I opened it, the same guys stood in front of the door. I was about to scream at them, probably sensing my mood, one guy said they have finished off for the day and asked if they could have a glass of water?
Did I mention both the guys were South Asians?
Posted by Vasanth at 07:23 PM | Comments (5)