Another Day at Office

What a boring day it has been? At least till now. Coming early to office I hoped to find some worked assigned to me so that I don’t suffer from guilt and bore pangs along with other hazards like dozing off on my chair or being caught by my boss watching videos on YouTube. I haven’t been caught yet but this morning has been nothing but boring. To prevent feeling guilty for not doing anything while my teammates are busy doing their analysis, I had this great idea of reading the Approach Docs and the Functional Specification Docs. At the time of writing I have gone through them twice without adding much to my knowledge repository. But the most tragic part is that it hardly took an hour, leaving me with an eternity to spend. Next ? I sought refuge to some epaper sites, hoping to catch up with the latest news (Bob Woolmer’s murder?, Sri Lanka’s Victory, some Mexican having fun on a plane and landing in jail for it etc ). Since I had read the TOI this morning (why?), I couldn’t send much time here too.

That set the stage for a virtual rampage ….The Cog video on YouTube , its making video, mailing both to all the contacts in my mailbox, watching the 1984 apple ad spoof featuring Hillary Clinton, the original, some research on Mahjong(it’s a Chinese game similar to cards but like all things Chinese much more complicated), Tangram(again a Chinese puzzle), water torture etc. I’m done with all that and its time for lunch now. Since I cant leave office before 6.30 (against my principles(sic)) I will have more than 4 hrs to spend at my seat in a very sleepy state, doing something so that my boss thinks I’m working. I have no idea what I will be doing next but I’m sure I will find something. If anyone thinks I get paid for doing nothing, just go through this post again and tell me what you think now. Add to it thinking about innovative ways of pretending. Isn’t that tough work?? Comments welcome.

Outsourcing "War"

It didnot take much provocation for US and it allies to launch a full scale war on its perceived enemies.The provocation came in the form of the WTC attack which resulted in the death of a few thousand american residents.Although this not a small figure by any comparision, many other countries around the world have been facing terrorism
since decades with casualtie far outnumbering those of 9/11 by many times.But no country apart from Israel (to a limited extent )has gone on a "crusade" to eliminate its enemies and to establish its own world order. The most glaring examples are too recent to ignore : Afghanistan and Iraq. Although Afghanistan is slowly limping towards a semblance of normalcy ,a long road is still ahead of them, Iraq can at beast be called,by even the most sympathetic american supporter, a disaster.
And imagine who is paying for this? if you guessed George W Bush in the next elections...think again 'cos he cant be elected for another term in office according to american law.If u thought the american taxpayer...you are partly right as he is paying his taxes and part of it is being used to fund the war on terror .But dint the american public call for a "war" in the first place ? So whats wrong if they are paying for it?....even after receiving tax cuts from the bush Government. The people bearing most of the brunt are the soldiers and Im not talking about american soldiers alone. Its soldiers from all over the world fighting a war for america...young and dreamy
men from different regions of the world - nepal , india , many countries in africa and hold your breath FIJI. Yes these are some the places where the US gets its soldiers from. I happened to read this article on the BBC's website which detailed the process , pros and cons of recruitment happening in Fiji. Hundreds of men are the fatigues for america for money as little as $60 per month , the amount a typical "middle class fat ass american" spends on BigMacs a month. After BPO and Animation this is a new form of american outsourcing. But contrary to the former ones
the goings not so rosy for the workers here. Come to think of it....a soldier recruited by a private company supplying men to american army goes to Iraq to fight a war(having no idea about the intent) and dies doing his duty. His family gets a compensation of about $5000 if they are lucky enough. The news goes unnoticed in the american media. No one even gets to know some soldier was killed fighting for a foriegn cause in a foriegn land. The company which recruited him doesnt inform many about the incident as it hampers the recruitment scenario in its region. the greiving parents are paid and told to shut up. Ocasionally the national media picks up the news and even then it is seen as a sacrifice by many. As if we are born with an obligation to serve Uncle Sam. George W Bush is spared of criticism americans do know and dont care about anything happening outside their own land.
Who paid for the great vision of Don Rumsfield and Mr. Bush? Only the poor soldier and his family.

But the risk doesnt deter other aspirants from queing up .After all the lure of the greenback is hard to gloss over.Hopefully this outsourcing trend will not gain momentum as its other cousins have.If world peace is too much to wish for at present let me pray for Americans fight their wars themselves.Amen

The BBC Story