Technology Vs Human brain comprehending ability - 2

On the advice of a colleague and to show that I'm not Ms. Perfect as perceived by the world around me, the below mentioned situation shows off my goofiness to an extent that it surpasses the minimum threshold set by the Guinness book of world records!

7 months back when I was recruited into my current organization, it had been 2 years since my previous stint at the IT industry. So needless to say, my familiarity with technology was a big zilch! I had to re-build on whatever basics I had picked up at my previous organization. So my goofiness was at its all time high. (I have been very famous for my goofiness right through my life. I've built a minimum threshold level among friends with which they compare other goofiness and so far nobody has been able to beat my record on it! :p) Just so that I do not screw up my first impression at the workplace, I had to curb on my goofiness and it was becoming very difficult for me to control it.

The first week was when I got familiar with the place, with people around me, people in my team (Training), and people from HR. It was also the time when I got my computer connection, got my outlook configured and got access to the printer. I was asked to give a test print of a page by the person from the Helpdesk to check on the access. Being new to the team, I dint know where the printer was located. Now this is where my goofiness acted up and I became the laughing stock of the team. I being my regular pompous self was too snobbish to ask my team mates where it was located. So I thought of finding it out on my own. Finally after searching nearby, I found something that looked like a printer. I gave a test print and when to collect it, but I couldn't find it in the printer. So I gave another one just to be sure and again went to collect it. Yet again I dint find it. Now I was really confused! Coz the person from helpdesk was saying that my computer was connected to the printer, but I was not finding any prints coming out from the printer. So I let go of my snobbish attitude and finally asked a colleague where the printer was located. She counter questioned me on where I was trying to retrieve my print outs. I pointed out to her on what I thought was the printer. She was quite for some time with a big grin on her face. She couldn't control anymore and she burst out laughing. Finally when she was able control on her laughter, she pointed out to what I thought was the printer and told that it wasn't a printer, but actually was a 'Scanner'! I went red in the face and didn't know what to reply. I was silent for a few minutes and then I too joined her in laughing at my goofiness.

That situation not just broke the ice, but made me famous for my 'goofy' attitude at work! :)

I have a poster on my desk that reads: Warning! I have an attitude and know how to use it! People, who know me quite well by now, know that the word 'goofy' needs to be added in the sentence. So it should read as: Warning! I have a 'goofy' attitude and know how to use it!

Statutory Warning: This incident may or may not depict my IQ level. You can take a call on it. I'm not giving any hints! :)

Technology Vs Human Brain’s comprehending ability

The incident I'm going to be narrating is a classic example of how technology diminishes the comprehending ability of human brains.

We have a college intern who recently joined our team to do a project as a part of her course requirement. First look of her – She's smart. She carries herself well, is able to communicate well, is able to understand when we explain the concepts to her and at the end of the day delivers what is needed of her.

Being in HR, most of our job gets done over MS Excel. So obviously anybody who joins us would be expected to have a decent knowledge of it. This intern (let's call her V) was given a large chunk of data (obviously in Excel) and was asked to make some sort of sense from it. (Poor gal!) She was shuttling between multiple excel files simultaneously. She was lost amidst the huge chunk of data given to her and the multiple excel files. She looked like a walking zombie who needed a serious break from the computer table. After some time there was a groan of frustration from her end. When enquired by a colleague, she said that she had put in all the data required into the Excel sheet, but now all of a sudden the keyboard was not working and she couldn't work any further. Another colleague tried to pitch in & help her. Both of them tried innumerable things checked all the connections. Everything was working fine, but still her keyboard was not working.

Now I being a true Libran, I believe in bringing harmony at my work place, I thought I could pitch-in with my indigenous brains and find a solution to this problem. So I opened a word file and keyed in some random alphabets and it worked fine. When I showed the same to Miss V, she was kinda confused. How could it work in a word file & not in an excel file??? So I asked her to open the particular excel file in which she was finding it difficult to type. When I saw the file, I couldn't control my laughter. I burst out laughing. (I'm famous for being extremely loud on the floor)

Actually she had taken a screen-shot of the excel file and had copy-pasted the image in an outlook file. Now a person who is a little tech –savvy would have understood by now that, one cannot type on an image. Poor gal, she had been staring at the excel files for such a long time that she was not able to differentiate between an actual excel file and the screen shot image of it!

Statutory warning: This incident does not depict the IQ level of Miss V. Rather it depicts on what prolonged usage of MS Excel can do to a person's comprehending skills!. She is a fellow blogger like me and u can find her blog here

3 days - 3 burns

This has just been the 3^rd day since my mom's been out and I already have 3 burns on my skin.

The day my mom told me that she would be off to a 15 day yoga camp, I was ecstatic, obviously after feeling sad that I wouldn't be seeing her for the next 15 days. I was ecstatic for the very fact that I would be the king  ( err….. more like the queen, but who cares!) of my world …….. my home and most importantly the kitchen. I was very enthusiastic on the verity that I could do anything I wish, experiment new dishes and my poor dad would have to bear the brunt of my cooking!

I must tell u here that I'm an absolute spoilt brat at home. I would never dare to step anywhere remotely close to the kitchen when my mum's around. My mom's tried innumerable excuses on trying to get me interested in 'horror' termed as cooking and I've happily stayed away from it. In spite of comparison with friends, cousins and others of the same age or much below my age, it has not affected my happy-go-lucky character on skipping from entering the kitchen every time I pass through it. And just for that, she was paranoid of leaving my dad in my clutches, lest he be left starved!

Image Source

So this time when she made the announcement, I decided that come what may I will enter the lion's den and deal with the monster termed 'cooking'. So I thought I'll begin with the basics:

Day 1 – I tried boiling water and I got burnt

Day 2 – I tried boiling milk and I got yet another burn.

But still my interest towards mastering cooking didn't die. I wanted to conquer the monster!

Day 3 – I tried heating oil and I got another burn

Ohh what the hell! Gimme me the directory, what's the number of Pizza hut???

Whoever said cooking is a woman's art?!!

The March of Daffodils

The month of March is here. It's the month of colours (Holi), the month of Woman's day and how can I forget……. It's the month of exams.

I remember slogging my *** off in school during the month of March. Coz that was the month when I finally woke up, realized the enormous amount of lessons I had to study, panic on whether I would be able to finish them before the exams begun, set into an absolutely biologically impossible rhythm trying to finish off the enormous portions in an absolutely limited time frame and finally bow down to the powers of almighty to have me scrap through the exams with a decent percentage which would give me the courage to stand before my teachers & parents when I went to collect my marks card.

High School was particularly difficult for me for the simple reason that I choose to have my first language as English when compared to the horror of having to choose Sanskrit. I prefer to be bred as a decent English lady than being bred as a Sanskrit pundit wherein I wouldn't be using the language for any other reason than to get good grades during the 3 years of my high school.

So obviously the language of English was accompanied by its entire clan of phonetics, sentence formation, correct usage of words and dissecting the sentences into simple & complex sentences. Not to mention that the Subject itself was split up into Literature, grammar & poetry. How did I manage to get through those 3 years of absolute drudgery??? I still wonder about it sometimes!

As much as I hated doing all the boring work in the subject, what particularly interested me was the part of poetry. I loved 'The Daffodils' by William Wordsworth.