Manage Your Annoying Roommate with a Submissive Destructive Letter

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In this season of summer internship, where most budding managers from the top B-schools step into enterprises to get a brief taste of their lives after college, they also spend a considerable amount of time and energy looking for PGs, flats and roommates. Thus begins a strange experience wherein they have to share their food, bills, living space, etc. They soon realize there is no spoon away from the comfort zone of friends and family. They make new friends. And after the first few rosy days, they get to see unwashed plates in the sink, stinking socks and unhygienic washroom manners to name a few. In a week they feel like going back to the same life… the same sleepless nights, the night mess coffee and the drowsy classes. Good manners, fear of losing roommates, fear of bills and rising price or merely having to spend two months anyhow and leave help them maintain such brevity.

(Source: www.wikihow.com)

Almost everyone has told us that the fact that you made it to particular b-school itself proves that you are on par with anyone else. We might find math-based subjects easy, marketing frameworks on our finger tips and corporate bond concepts simple… but in real life could one year in a b-school make us good managers? It is testing time for us… how well we can handle the trivial things in our daily life. Here’s my experience. One of my roommates have this terrible habit of leaving unwashed dishes near the sink (God knows for whom).

(Source: www.wikihow.com)

I used my writing skills to make that straight. So here’s my passive aggressive/ submissive destructive letter writing technique for those who want to revolt*

*at their own risk

 

(Source: www.izifunny.com)

Steps:

1. Type a letter

2. Address the intended recipient as if you have no clue who they might be

3. Use anthropomorphism – (Anthropomorphism is a form of creative writing which involves the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object)

4. State the obvious

5. Suggest highly improbable consequences

6. Suggest a solution to a problem in a way that patronizes a reader

7. Deflect your thoughts to a secondary source

8. Use overly dramatic punctuation

9. Place note in a completely inappropriate place

(Source: www.wikihow.com)

And cheers to what I wrote.

Sub: “To whoever is leaving tuna encrusted plates in the sink”

 The plates may not have told me that they hate it when they stink. You may, however, not be aware that dishes do not have automatic self cleaning function in order to effectively clean and sanitize a plate as well as a gang of stray cats overrunning the house. Try this method as described on ehowwhatwhen.com. I found it amazing.

1.      Take the dish.

2.      Take the scrubber (a green colour scrubbing pad kept near the kitchen window)

3.      Pour some liquid soap on the scrubber

4.      Use water and rub the scrubber on the dish (it takes a little effort, I understand. But you know how life is unfair!)

5.      Wash the dish

Thanks

We are running short of dish soap and it is your turn to buy the next bottle

Being a little ironical never hurts. You continue to be the thoughtfully gullible, the willingly clumsy, the skillfully frenetic, woeful survivors on milk and cornflakes, an unbelievable combination of always-in-a-hurry nerds and unpredictable times. But in the midst of all the bad things life offers… this is like a splendid endeavor you’ll do for the society at large. Do try this out in case it applies and of course, let us know.

And just as I’m about to finish writing this, I realize that this is enough dose of faking news for one article.

(Source: www.scoop.it)

Rabindrasangeet and MBA – A Surprising Correlation

The other day when we were taught some practical applications for probability theory in our finance class, my background in music came in surprisingly handy. I am obviously indebted to my lessons from early childhood in music, sitar and guitar that have added a special flavor to my CV. But it’s obviously not just this. My knowledge in music gives me much more than just a diploma certificate and I am stunned at the kind of correlation I have lately discovered between music and MBA.

In probability theory, a stochastic process, or sometimes random process is a collection of random variables; this is often used to represent the evolution of some random value, or system, over time. It’s something we talk a lot about in QAM and finance classes. I realized that I knew the concept already, not because of an engineering background, but because of my early music classes. The point is that I had a very different association when we were learning how to value an European call option on a bond.

On the first day to Marketing Management-I Prof. Debashish Dasgupta (DDG) mentioned, “The first rule for being an awesome marketer is Sabse Bura Rog, Kya Kahenge Log”. How close DDG’s words lookedto what I grew up learning! In the words of the song by Tagore:

(Topic : Prakriti / Sharat, Taal : Dadra, Raag : Behag-Kirtan, Written on : 1921)

“Tomra Ja bolo tai bolo

Amar lage na mone”

(I don’t bother whatever you may say.

I enjoy, time pass by, all in vein, wasted.)

Basanti Utsob on the occasion of Holi in Shantiniketan

Apart from marketing management, I’ve found a very strong link in one of the Rabindrasangeets to the HR concept of leadership and motivation.

(Topic : Swadesh, Taal : Dadra, Raag : Baul, Written on : 1905
Notes : In support to the movement against the partition of Bengal)

“Jodi tor daak shuna keu na ashe

Tobe ekla cholo re”

(If they answer not to thy call, walk alone.

If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall.)

And more so in the following song

(Topic : Bichitro, Taal : Kaharwa, Raag : Iman, Written On : 1929)

“Nai bhoy nai bhoy nai re

Thak pore thak bhoy baire”

(There’s no fear… let fear stay outside)

The Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs (anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, West Bengal, India, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family

And another (Topic : Bichitro, Taal : Kaharwa, Raag : Bhairavi, Written On : 1926)

“Nai nai bhoy

Hobe hobe joy

Khule jabe ei dwaar”

(Fear not, for thou shalt conquer,

Thy doors will open, thy bonds break.

Often thou loseth thyself in sleep,

And yet must find back thy world

Again and again.)

Not just these, I feel Rabindrasangeets prepare you for the difficult roads and choices ahead of us. For instance,

(Topic : Puja, Taal : Dadra, Raag : Baul, Written on : 1929)

“Amar pothe pothe pathor chorano

Tai to tomar bani baje jhorna jhorano”

And whenever I feel pressure of strict deadlines, tough schedule, morning classes, quizzes… sometimes when less marks make it seem that nothing is left, everything is out of my hands, I sing to myself

(Topic : Puja, Taal : Kaharwa, Raag : Mishra-Khambaj, Written on : 1914)

“Shesh nahi je shesh kotha ke bolbe

Aaghat hoye dekha dilo, aagun hoye jolbe”

(There’s no end to anything… clouds end and form rains… snow ends and begins a river… all that ends, ends only in our eyes, which crosses the barriers of darkness to meet with the light.)

Music offers me an opportunity to develop my management skills. Is it because the two are linked? I don’t know. Certainly there is some overlap between the two.