Day 1 of CoronaVirus Lockdown (will be called CVL from now on)

Long long ago, once upon a time, I used to write here. Life gave me so much more opportunities (aka lemons) that I had to take a hiatus from here. Now life has given me some more lemons, oops, opportunities that I am back here. Today is 21st March, 2020. Funny day right?! Those who know what I mean, know what I mean and those who don’t, don’t have to know.

I have been working form home for a week. Kids’ school closed as of yesterday. Although it is just the weekend, I am stating it as day 1.

Day 1 – Hoping to give a different flavour of life now that we have opportunities to show them how to life differently. First rule, once you are awake, get out of the bed. No reading books or lazing about until someone shouts about getting late for school. Noone is going to shout about that for a while, but one needs to have a habit.

It is all about habit, rituals and connecting with nature and people (without physical contact, of course).

Hoping to achieve by the end of today:

Activities:

For kids – Kids will take lead in running the street community group.

For the grown ups – 1) clear the small shed 2) do some work for work so that Monday sets a promising tone.

Habit – Morning habits for the entire household. Compartmentalising and stepping away from one area to another to see clear difference in activities and satisfaction of what we are doing – for the grown ups.

 

Update at the end of the day:

Didn’t really do much about anyone’s habit except a small baby step about mine.

Activities:

Distributed more cards in the neighbourhood for community support.

Had socially distanced picnic with neighbours which was half pass and half fail

Kids are tired and I am tired (I am sure Balan is as well). So no energy left in me to do any setting up with the community database thing.

Didn’t go anywhere near the small shed.

Didn’t do anything to do with work.

Overall feeling – it was good seeing and chatting with neighbours.

The world is full of men, only.

Search for “formal” keyword in M&S, it brings up two categories: “men formal shirt”, “men formal trousers”. Forcefully add “Women formal” the dynamic suggestions “No results found”. Yet, you force the enter, you do get the results. Four dresses. 

When pokemon released male and female versions, in its next update it showed in the pokedex if we have got male version only or male and female versions. But if we had just the female version, it showed neither.

A note to those who are coding and those who are approving – ughh.

Recruiting

When you watch the Homeland the word recruiting is used in a completely different meaning. The approach though is interesting. Carrie Mathison would spend time with the potential assets in order to convince them that they are going to be part of a bigger picture and for a greater good they turn willing to do anything.

Reality check:

I am profiled by the front-liners. For a quite long time it would upset me. Then I took inspiration from “The Good Wife“. I quote Alicia Florrick, “If they are using you, let them use you”. Yesterday there was a call. We spent 15 minutes of playing “you tell the rate, no, you tell the rate, no no, you tell the rate” game only to for me to give up telling him a number only for him to give up the number he had all along. One could have saved the 15 minutes of frustration. Isn’t keeping the nice feeling in a conversation an essential in ice-breaker?

I knew what to expect from the tone of the conversation. The person on the other side asked questions in such a way that the answers can only in the format, “yes sir”. After gruelling 1 hour of such “yes sir” answers, he said that he will need at least two sentences of explaining why I am suitable for every, I repeat, every bullet point in the job-spec, for both “Essential skills & experience” and “Nice to have skills & Experience”. He explained his cleverness behind this that only that person who really wants this job will be able to complete this task. Blimey. And the question went, “Are you that person”? Remember I was supposed to say, “yes sir”, and I did. I was self talking to myself that “this is all just the front-line. I need to swallow this and get to the next level to finally get the job. Just keep repeating ‘yes sir’ and it is all going to be done”, while wondering and imagining the how the bullet points would look like:

• Daily stand up

my answer – I have experience of running this  shit for the last shitx years.

• Sprint planning

my answer – I have experience of running this shit for the last shitx years.

• Burn down charts

my answer – I have experience of  running (oops) reporting this shit for the last shitx years.

and so on.

Then the next question went, “So, when can I expect the CV back from you?”

I woke up. “Hu”?

“When can you send me back the answers?”

“Please send me the jobspec and without knowing how many bullet points we are talking here, I honestly cannot give you an answer now”.

“Can you send me back today? I want the answers today.”

“Please send me the jobspec. I will see what I can do”.

I had to leave to pick up the kids and chauffeur them around for the clubs. I had 15mins in between to feed them. The boy has been blaming me for not feeding him the right amount of food to get him move to the grading level in Tae Kwon Do. Apparently he has been tired due to lack of energy.  I shoved ravioli on their plates. Their nose went up. I told them in stern voice that no alternative facts foods can be cooked now. Eat it or go hungry. I started checking mail to see whether I have got the jobspec in my inbox. There it was.  I couldn’t miss noticing that not a single ravioli has been consumed yet. Two of them have been pierced and picked by forks and are being examined by very suspicious eyes. I offered them my homemade pasta sauce. “Mummy, Indian sauce won’t work with it” – the girl offered her expertise. A look in her direction got me the following answer, “ok, ok, I will have the pasta sauce”. After giving the pasta sauce, I am back checking the jobspec. The first bullet point was:

• xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I could not imagine what on earth they could possibly think of putting in the next bullet point as everything under the sun is already covered in the first one. Nope, my wits are being tested. There are 25 more bullet points. Obviously I haven’t yet read them all.

anbuLLa ammaavukku,

This is a letter from your daughter. I have never written a letter to you, well not specifically addressing you anyway. You cannot read or write. I was your scribe, whenever you needed to write to my father, while you dictated. It is not that your limitation of reading or writing that has limited me from writing to you. There are people who can act as your scribes. You were always overshadowed by your sister ever since she took over your family. You were the invisible person. You took it fine. All for the children you said. I have confided as a cry for help that it is not the same. I would never be able to shout at her with the same honesty and same cry for help in the way I was comfortable with you, I did explain. I was always made to feel obliged to her and rightly so. But that for me, came with a little bit of distance from her. She was not you. She can never be you. You will tell me off for saying this. You gave away your position, yet you did all the sacrifice you were conditioned to believe that you should do. It all looks as if that I am a monster for not having you in my life at all now. You are pretty much absent in my life now, yet you are still alive in the part of the world that is dear to me. It is not that you don’t know the reason. I am sure I have told you only a million times. I have always been vocal. Never hid my feelings. I didn’t feel the love of a mother from you. I felt as if I was treated like your equal adult. May be because you were merely 21 when I was born. By the time you were as old as I am now, I am sure I was your equal adult. You never liked my arrogance. I never liked your love for your son. They still remain the same.

That doesn’t take away the fact that you are my mother and I am your first born. You do not know how many times I talk about you and my time with you when you worked in the farms. Every time I smell the earth, every time I feel the rain, you are in my head. Every time I make fire in the garden as an indulgent family time, I am in your kitchen cooking with you. I rejoice the world that spreads out transporting me to the gullies of the mountains fetching fuel wood to keep the kitchen alive or the peanut farms for some family indulgent snack time of roasted peanuts, or our coconut farm, the only time we had the hopes to have comfortable food on the table (could we still use the word table, as we never had one?) or the scorching sunny seenithai aachi’s kaadu or even our grandfather’s estate. Some bring the same pain, while some bring immense indulgent pleasures. I am sure my memories of me being a toddler left with your neighbour when you worked in our grandfather’s estate (he didn’t own it, I know) could not have been my own, sure. Yet I do have a vivid memory of myself in that unfitting grandfather’s vest with runny nose and mud all over me and you coming back with all your love to take me back from the neighbours babysitting me. Exactly how you described. I felt the same love when you told me not to go on my own when you saw how lonely the countryside roads in England are. A child’s need for the mother never stops no matter how old we get. I don’t have any such feeling for my father. I couldn’t care less whether he existed or not. His loss. He doesn’t exist anymore. The only times I feel the loss is when my children do things that he would have talked with so much pride. He would have loved how my children are growing up. Not sure how you would be on that front. You have your son’s children, perhaps you adore them. I can’t have you around my daughter. I can’t have you telling my daughter that she is dark compared to your adorable son’s daughter. I cannot have you feeling and showing jealousy that every time my daughter does something nice. I saw you doing it to her when she sang nursery rhymes. After all, you treated your brother’s daughter with so much importance than anything I got from you. Sure, I look like my father. That is not the reason. I know now.

It is both our loss. I still wish to share my time with you when I dig in my allotment. I would love to share my time with you when I pick the chillies in my greenhouse for cooking. I will believe you would love that too. I am here if you decide to be here with me. I won’t bother pushing you to be with me. I don’t have space for more hurt. When you are finally tired of the abuse, please come here. You had enough. Not sure you have grown to accept the abuse. You shouldn’t. If my genes are from you, we don’t accept, ever. I will be here. Always. Living in hope that one day you will knock the door.

Thank you for all the masal podi you send over regularly that my every day food is still cooked by you.

Could you be a Devil, Could you be an Angel

I saw a missed call from a local number. There was a voicemail from older kid’s school. I love my kids’ school staff that they make sure that there is nothing to be alarmed off as a first prompt and then they get to the point of their call. The voicemail explained that nothing to be alarmed off, it was just that during this weekend they would like us to get our kid practice the song for the school performance that will be on Monday. What performance? Monday?! How did I not keep track of such a big event at school? Agreed that I am not in the loop of so many activities that are happening in the school and around the kids’ lives. I went to ask the kid, whom I found was so absorbed into her screen with her brother watching from the side – the usual scene. When asked about this, she explained that she is signing a song in the performance on Monday. Fine, I get that. It was there in the voice mail. So, I geared up to put in my last minute effort and I asked the girl to move away from whatever she was doing that we need to practice the song first. Both kids immediately told me that she is fine with the song, yet, the girl was interested in singing that song one more time as she seemed to like it. So, she googled for her song, which kind of started to puzzle me. She brought up a song in karaoke style on Youtube and started singing. First thing I noticed was that she was pretty relaxed and merely reading the lyrics. She usually sings very well. I was going to talk to her about singing it like singing, but then I noticed that the song was a bit odd, em, not like something one would expect an eight year old singing. The kids clarified for me that it is Katy Perry’s song, at which point my brain began to get sharp. I sat down and asked the girl to explain about the event, the song and her involvement a bit more. She said that she is going to sing as a solo singer and this is the song she has chosen for herself. It is Katy Perry’s song and apparently she has been practicing. Her brother confirmed that she has indeed been practicing it. I looked up for the lyrics and wanted to listen to the song before I can approve of it, that is, if I had a say at all in this matter. I brought up her old favourite from Frozen movie, which she used to sing really very well. Her face lit up a little, smiled fondly remembering the song, but then she looked at me and said, “No”! She went back to practicing the song of her current choice. I tried a few times but then I moved away. My only worry was other kids bullying her. I remember last time when she sang the Frozen song, a girl bullied her saying that she was shouting (for singing in high pitch), which made Avni stop singing that song. It was  another reason that I wanted her to sing the same song to bring her confidence back.

Here is Avni singing Frozen song!

She seemed to have moved on to the likes of Katy Perry! I didn’t do much research on the song of her current choice, as I was sure that there may be many things that may not fit in with my liking. I remembered that it is all about her choice and making her feel that. Hence decided not to intervene any further. The school event got moved to another day, Avni didn’t practice hard using the extra days gained, but I wasn’t particularly concerned about her performance. There were “kiss me” kind of words I heard. When I listened a little bit more, there were “wanna be a victim, ready for abduction” kind of lyrics that began to make me feel uncomfortable. The more I listened, there were even, “stun me with your laser” kind of words. I decided that it is good for me to completely stay away from it, which I did.

On the day of the event, I went to school hall straight from work. Missed her singing just by a few minutes. Got to see the video recording. I was informed that the crowd loved her.

Here is her singing!

As all my focus was about her confidence, not getting bullied and her not getting upset if it didn’t go well, I was very pleased with the result. She was sitting there quite calm, pleased with her performance and happy. I was happy. When I listened to the recording, I was happy to see her confidence, her singing and the crowd liking her. Balan was all teary about his little girl up on the stage singing to a crowd so lovely. She did do well.

I was interested in listening to the original song or wanted to look up on the lyrics, which I did later. See below for the lyrics:

---

KATY PERRY LYRICS

“E.T.”

You’re so hypnotizing
Could you be the devil?
Could you be an angel?

Your touch magnetizing
Feels like I am floating
Leaves my body glowing

They say, be afraid
You’re not like the others
Futuristic lover
Different DNA
They don’t understand you

[Pre-Chorus]
You’re from a whole ‘nother world
A different dimension
You open my eyes
And I’m ready to go
Lead me into the light

Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

Boy, you’re an alien
Your touch so foreign
It’s supernatural
Extraterrestrial

[Verse 2]
You’re so supersonic
Wanna feel your powers
Stun me with your lasers
Your kiss is cosmic
Every move is magic

[Pre-Chorus]
You’re from a whole ‘nother world
A different dimension
You open my eyes
And I’m ready to go
Lead me into the light

[Chorus]
Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

Boy, you’re an alien
Your touch so foreign
It’s supernatural
Extraterrestrial

[Bridge]
This is transcendental
On another level
Boy, you’re my lucky star

I wanna walk on your wave length
And be there when you vibrate
For you I’ll risk it all
All

[Chorus]
Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

Boy, you’re an alien
Your touch so foreign
It’s supernatural
Extraterrestrial

Extraterrestrial
Extraterrestrial

Boy, you’re an alien
Your touch so foreign
It’s supernatural
Extraterrestrial

---

See, what I mean? There, the feminist mom falling flat on the ground and covered in mud all over her face!  I am still proud that I didn’t intervene.

I another context, one day both the kids came home from holiday club chuckling about how they embarrassed a boy, by calling him with a feminine version of his name! I was horrified. I immediately assumed it must have been my boy learning from other boys that calling a boy with a girlie name considering that to be an insult to him. No, it was my darling little girl, who called the boy with a girlie name and considered that to be embarrassing him. I asked her would she consider an insult if she was referred by a boyish name? She said, “no”. I asked her to explain. She said it is just the way it is different for boys and different for girls. I sat down with her and talked a little more about this.

My boy is more advocative of respecting both genders equally than giving in to what they hear and learn from the noise in the playground. The girl takes in more from the outside world than from home. Long way to go.

Whosoever wrote that lyrics above – disgusting!

What do you see?

I was recently asked a question in one of the interviews, “how do you deal with things in a men dominated profession, as there aren’t many women scrum masters I have seen. You are the second woman scrum master I have come across. I am asking you the same question I asked her”.

The later part was to cover one’s back, claiming that “I am asking the same question I asked another person”. I smiled. It did catch me off-guard, as I was gobsmacked to say the least. I pondered over in my head, while I was filling the gaps with a few words, carefully. One question that stayed in my head was that what question did you ask your male scrum masters about this “issue” you are facing? Why do *I* have to explain? What do male scrum masters explain?

Another issue the scrum master role suffers is that “developer/scrum master” or “technical background scrum master”. Typically managers have promoted developers to act as scrum masters as after all it only requires running the daily stand up and then preparing some reports. It is also helpful if they can “get” what the impediments are as after all it is the “scrum master’s job” to resolve the impediments. There are several branching issues I can dwell on in this. For the sake of focus, let us focus on who gets picked for that “promotion”. How many times a woman developer gets picked to act as a scrum master, unless the manager sees this as a “stationary maintainer” role? There gets defined when a woman becomes a scrum master – stationary maintainer, food organiser, and more importantly meeting room organiser. (There was an advert I saw for a technical scrum master with technical skills listed in bullet points with the top point being “knows how to book meeting rooms”!).

There was a guy who came to me and asked me how do I feel about working in a techy place, which is quite unusual for women, he said! I told him this is such a boring place compared to the rocket science place I used to work before. He must have thought that I was referring to my special manicure place! (I don’t do manicure. Hope my manager doesn’t send me back home for not keeping up with the standards!)

In meetings I see I get constantly talked over. Either I talk along too and then eventually it would be me who has to shut the mouth and then earn the label of being “aggressive” or shut up as someone starts talking over and then earn the label of being “lack of confidence”.

In one occasion we were in a scrum masters’ meeting. A newly recruited scrum master  and the scrum master who was involved in the hiring process were discussing about another ongoing hire. I was never included in the loop of the process nor in the discussions. I got to overhear sometimes like this. What I gathered from their discussion was that the person they wanted to hire is now declining this offer over another offer at another place. In the interest of joining in (leaning in) the conversation and to feed my curiosity, I asked whether they could find out the reason why the candidate is deciding so. The newly joined scrum master, who has not even bothered to know my name or anything about me, (obviously I must be a scrum master to be sitting in that room, unless he assumed that I was there to take “minutes of the meeting”) turned towards me and started explaining, “delivery manager role is one level up (gesturing with his hand above his head). Delivery managers usually do this.. that…..”. I am sometimes shockingly sharp in understanding where he is coming from, yet, politely smiled at him and said, “is that the role offered to him in the other place?”. The icing on this cake was that he is new to the scrum mastery himself, poor chap. May be he is finding out himself what a delivery manager role is and he is being kind to explain that to me? May be he thought that I am new to the scrum mastery as well as him, hence explaining the org structure to me?  I self-talk to myself that it is not my job to fix holes in the heads.

In the interest of equality and inclusion: It came up in my linkedin newsfeed when a woman professional was advising girls to take it as a compliment when men message the girls about how pretty they are. There have also been advises to these girls on how to behave professionally on linkedin kind of professional sites such as not to bring up such issues. I don’t see any advise being handed out to those men on how to behave professionally and not to message girls in the first place. I don’t see this person advising men on when there is a NO, it is NO. It is beyond my comprehension how it is even any of her business!

I was not going to post any of it, as I fear, as I already have so many factors stocked up against me in getting a job, remaining successfully in jobs and successfully influencing the strategies to make Agile work… I fear for my survival. I do. Just wait and see how my “hireability” goes down once people find out how *I* “feel” about this “issue”. I silence myself. I keep going. I do my job. Yet it is what they see (me as) in their visible spectrum  is what bothers them. I continue to do my job. I keep my focus.

Then I come across some well meaning folks trying to speak for the under representation of women in this profession. A picture is worth thousand words they say!

A link to a linkedin post that addresses some relevant issues:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-one-silicon-valley-engineer-benefitted-from-tacit-faye-keegan?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like

When the work culture is not defined by those who do not have a life outside work or by those who have someone at home taking care of it, then there may be a hope that things may begin to change. When the brocutlre begins to change as family-friendly one, may be, things might begin to look better.  Albeit so many family-friendly policies sported by the companies and the HR, unfortunately they do not often extend their helping hands when “soft” things happen, such as when marking women as “under-performing” as apparently someone has to be marked in that category and that someone randomly chosen happened to be women! Not to mention some elaborate rumour-spreadings about women being “emotional” in order to kill someone’s career just because that someone rejected some advances!

Can you please stop defining me by my gender? I will let you know when my biological composition becomes an issue, such as when I have forgotten to bring the needful things on my period day that I may have to hit the shops immediately, no matter how back-to-back meetings booked in my calendar.

There!

Thank you.

Dear Daughter

The world would have you believe that it is a better place now, far better than how it was before. Especially with the letter from one of the richest and the most powerful men in the world to his daughter, who is in team with the LeanIn lady  both of whom promise to make the world even better, especially for the girls. Apologies for not being able to take it with all the hopes it offers.  All I want to tell you is that, keep some cynical side hidden somewhere inside you so that you don’t feel betrayed when the reality hits you in your face. Believe me, it will.

I wrote you a letter myself sometime ago after reading a letter from a mother, whose life was vastly different from her growing daughter’s. Ours too are very different lives, slightly different from the differences noted in the other letter that I was inspired to put down a letter to you on my blog. You might comment that it was mostly about me rather than anything to do with you. True. You were small at that time, in my defence. You still are, in my opinion. Yet you recently disagreed with me on the subject of theology and our takes on it, demanding that you be regarded as a separate individual  who is capable of holding own theological views! Goodness me, I thought. You are growing. There are no two ways about it. You will hold your own views and opinions. There are no two ways about it either. Just would like to share some thoughts from my own learning so that you are informed to watch out for realities.

You don’t have to be all that cynic either as you know from your mother’s life that anything is possible. Some may come with some hardship, but then that will shape you up too. The world is ruled by those who are privileged. The men at the very apex of that privilege heap of all the categories and differences that one can come up with. You will soon see how your brother’s life will have more advantages, the ones you wish for yourself are easily handed to him while you have to constantly prove yourself to get anywhere near those. Your mother had a taste of it at her own home, which perhaps prepared her in line with the real world outside. Your mother did have a better life than her own mother at her own  home. You, now, have a better life in your own home. Sure. Yet the bottom line was the same in the world outside. It is still the same.  It will be the same too when you step out into the real world to make a life of your own, sadly. There are some well meaning leaders like those I have mentioned at the very top of this letter. Yet, it is a complex issue to address. It is not an easy one to solve. Well, not completely, and I do not see it happening in your life time anyway.

You are clever. Yet you will be questioned if you said anything “technical” that you have to prove yourself every time. You do not like the competition mindset. You will be labelled as “not competent enough”. You don’t necessarily dominate in a crowd. You will be labelled as “lack of confidence”. Yet boys around you can happily become “architects” for their ability to work “on their own”. Boys who bully will be called as great leaders. You and your girl friends will be called bossy if you said anything other than “thank you”, “sorry” and “please” as after all you are expected to be polite, nice, and never to disagree!

You will be paid less. You will be promoted less. You will not always get the good roles. You will not always get the roles for the right reasons. You have to have plenty of experience of doing the same job for years to be hired at the junior level. You might think that doesn’t make sense. How do you get the experience then, and why can’t you be given a senior role if you have experience, you might wonder. You cannot ask those questions yet. You will be called political, if you did. You will get even less opportunities when you talked about it.  While men with “potential” will tell you “how it is done”.

If you showed any interest in progressing further, by default you will be assumed of offering sexual advances to the boss. Your boss may mark you “underperforming” if you don’t allow the sexual advances. In his defence, it was your fault. HR will ask for evidences, dates, times and witnesses. Even if you are able to get all those, yet it will be your words against his. You must know, his words will weigh higher. If you are lucky enough to be asked to tell your side of the story, that is.  Most of the time no one will ask your side of the story.  Most women will just go silently. You will watch it in dismay.

The team members will not accept you, if you joined in a lead role and they will look for a male counterpart to report to. They will call the male manager a good manager. They will look down on you for coming to work, while the children, according to them, are not eating cooked food at home. They will make a point to defy everything you try / say just so that they can prove that you are not fit to be in that lead role. You will watch it in dismay.

You will be forever some sort of administrator/secretary, no matter how high the role is. You will be the “bitch” of your boss, if you know how to fix things. Yet, a man in the same role will be a decision maker and will be called that he knows how to run the company at enterprise level, “end to end”. He can deliver, they will say, if he fixed things. And many more. You will watch the world in dismay.

You are pretty. You will be expected to display it. You will be considered a misfit, if you don’t. You will be expected to improve it. You may ask why. Good question, is all I can say. You will be constantly told that there are mistakes and areas that need improving in your appearance. There are products that can dramatically improve you. For every inch, for every shade, there are confusing number of products that promise to make you look “better”. You will also be reminded that you “still” look “beautiful”. You will wonder at the irony of it all. You will be constantly told how you are not good enough in so many ways. You will be constantly told to work on your self esteem “despite” the “shortcomings” of you both physically and intellectually. You will be expected to look for mistakes in you and you will be a constant apologiser. Don’t.

You will be expected to be the house maintainer. You will be expected to apologise for the “mess” in the house. You will be expected to organise your fridge and the events in your life, which includes your husband’s and your children’s. Your husband will have his own life with his mates. You will be expected to organise your life, which actually means his life btw, around his life. You will be confused about the irony. You will be expected to apologise for everything about you. You will be expected to keep the man of the house at a respectable place in the society. You will be expected to apologise for the mess in the house. Don’t.

Don’t ever apologise. Don’t ever explain. Just stare. Grow some arrogance. You may be labelled rude. You will be labelled something or the other. Chose the label that you are comfortable with. All you can do is, choose the labels. You cannot avoid them. You brother can. You will be angry. You will be called you are taking it personal. You may be baffled how can it not be personal when they are hitting you personally. Men will say they can stay not taking things personal. How can they take things personal when nothing has happened to them, you may ask. I have no answer for that. Learn this. It is about them. Men at work place and both men and women at social surroundings. They will constantly question you, label you, expect you to explain, expect you to follow what they insist that you should do. Just stare at them. It is about them. They are talking about them. Walk away. Men don’t know this skill. They will never have to come across this skill. There were you will have an edge over them. You can walkway now and truly take on the world. Your world. The world you choose for yourself.

The art of choosing is guided by what is around you. Sheena says it in her lovely talk what it is all about. Yet you choose. It is your choice. It is your decision. Not anybody else’s. No one can force their decision on you. No one can imagine they can be allowed to put their choice on you. Not that lovely friend who appears to have the best interest or the fierce mother of yours who appears to be taking away your freedom. You decide. Your choice.  You will be peace with it. Just be aware that there will be things that are beyond your choice and yet you have to make peace with it.  That is the world waiting for you. Toughen up. Your brother may not need to. Being brown, he will have to too.  Your friends might choose to stay out of the working life believing that they can avoid having to face the tough world. a) They have the luxury. b) They will realise that there is no escape. The “socialsing” will bring it all that back to them. They may master the art of surviving in that environment. You will master the art of surviving in your environment. Don’t just survive. Live. To live, you need to face the reality and learn to blur it out.  Your brother’s life may be different. He may need different set of tough skills. Yours will be different. That is the bottom line.

Just another day

So I pull up near the kerb and it’s not right to stick out into someone’s driveway. I spot that the person in the other car is still sitting, and the car is parked halfway in two spaces making it not possible for anyone to be park without sticking out into the driveway. I bring up some courage and go to the lady and ask her if she could move a couple of inches forward, which will enable me to park my car. She gets angry and tells me, “you squeeze up close to my bumper and I cannot take my car out when I come back”.

“Emm, just two inches forward would really be enough”, I still try.
“What time are you coming back?”
“4 O’ clock, wait, I reach here by 6pm”.
“Oh, ok then, you would have gone by the time I come back. I will only be back by 7pm”.
She moves her car. I move closer. She gets out and checks.
“I just don’t want them to complain”, I point to the house.
“Don’t worry, you are not even in their driveway”, she assures me.
I get out and check. I neatly lost my breath as my car was really squeezed up against her bumper leaving just less than a half an inch. Started collecting my stuff. Another man walks by and smiles at me. “It is just parking space”, I utter with a shy smile. He smiles, “you usually squeeze up over there, don’t you?”, pointing to the other end of the road. Although I have noticed some regulars and I understand others might have noticed me too, I still go surprised that how much we know about each other. “I usually come for the earlier one”, he tries to take away the uneasiness. “Earlier than this?”, I am even more surprised. “Yes, I usually come for the minute past 6 one.” We walk together towards the station platform. “I take the minute past 6 one, change at Cambridge, walk fast to change platform and take the 6:15 one to Kings Lynn”, he takes me through his routine. “Kings Lynn?”, I ask with confused eyes. “Oh, bonkers. Kings Cross. It is just I am still sleepy”. He is not happy with himself coming across like this. “They both are ‘Kings’, aren’t they? It is confusing”, I smile trying to ease the conversation. We get separated when crossing the road.
I nearly missed to leave work by 4pm. Ran ran and ran and caught the usual train. My mind was all occupied with eating food and rewinding about the day. Got out of the train and walked to the car. I noticed the lady was coming behind me and I realised that I was supposed come before her. I thanked my luck in getting my usual train when I had totally forgotten about our parking situation.

I smiled at her, “you are early”.

She smiled back, “yeah, I was feeling tired and wanted go home. I got off the train and I saw you. We both are here now. It doesn’t matter now. What’s with this weather, it cannot decide what it want to be. A minute it is hot and suddenly cold and then windy….”
We both casually chat about the weather and walk towards our cars!

—–x—–x——x—–x—-
Always wanted to write up little stories about my commute. Today I had a lovely reason to start that!

Linkedin pulse posts

I have been posting on linkedin pulse.

I need some help with proof reading / editing. Please message me if you can help. The most recent ones badly need that help. Most recent at the top. Ta.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/de-jargoning-agile—customer-premalatha-5948171108355174400

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/de-jargoning-agile—customer-premalatha

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141113100339-15671125-de-jargoning-agile-user-story-take-2

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141108092703-15671125-de-jargoning-agile-a-small-attempt-user-story

On Balancing it

One of the topics I often come across in the discussion about a working woman is how she balances it. More importantly, her contribution towards running the family is weighed more than anything she does at work. Women like Indra Nooyi endorsing that makes it even more painful for those who are climbing up the ladder of life with hope. Then there are Junkets! Voices like Jennifer Garner giving us the hope back.

I often get asked – with all their good intentions – whether I miss my children when I work away from them? Of course I do. I am sure a man who works away from home will miss his children too. Yet, the society has accepted men travelling all over the country and working, or should we say, working hard to earn a crust for the family. Yet, the eyebrows rise to new heights when they hear my story – I just smile. A friend recently asked me how the children manage without me around. I had to remind her that it is illegal to leave them on their own – hence there is an adult, indeed their very own parent, who is actually managing the situation. This makes it no different to any other contractor’s household. She nodded and said, “yes, one of us has to compromise. It is alright if he is staying at home”. I wasn’t going to waste any more words on her, explaining that he is working too and not staying at home.

Our nanny who is helping us out with our “situation” has a child too. She has got some other arrangement with her child while she looks after ours. As my son is of the same age as her daughter, I often wonder how she is ok with doing homework with my children, while she can’t do so with hers. I don’t know how she ‘balances it’. I wonder if she will end up withdrawing from the current arrangements or continue with things as they are. Despite the undeniable fact that it is a curious topic for me, I refrain myself from asking her as a) she teaches my children better than I would have, b) my daughter listens to her and changes some of her habits – this doesn’t tend to happen when I am in the scene and c) I do not want to make her feel the same way that other make me feel by asking the question.

In an Indian scene the “good girl” quotient is so high that it is suffocatingly difficult to maintain a poker face and stick to the “I will not defend, and I will not explain” mantra. However, I am pleased to note that there is some hope there too. It is not easy for Indian women to break the mould and think beyond the conditioning the society has been subjected to for centuries and centuries.

Applying some of the tricks I have learnt through the experience of being a Scrum Master is the best therapy I can ever get in these situations. A friend asked, “Do you have to go all the way to Scotland to find a job? Would no one local hire you?”. I smiled in response and thought in my head that may be she doesn’t know people who do weekend commutes. “Do you have to go all the way to Southampton, for a contract?”, another asked. Again I smiled but thought in my head, may be he doesn’t know any contractors. “Do you miss your kids?”, many ask. “Hail Skype” is my standard answer. An ex colleague of mine who is also a contractor told me that he has been contracting ever since he can remember working and he has been all over the country. He has four children. He has only ever been a weekend visitor to his home. He mentioned that no one has asked him such questions, when we exchanged our notes of our Junkets! Another friend of mine works away from home a lot, travelling all over the world, he has only been referred as a ‘high profile’ man. I have not seen anyone asking him how his children are doing or how he ‘balances it’. I am sure he is exhausted too.

I do not know what the mom who slowed down by famously quitting her job in a big pond is doing now, as she has stopped updating on her blog. I used to follow her blog religiously. This was her first month in her having the life she wanted. No disrespect to her sentiments, but I am trying to show the confusions women from all different socio-economic background go through. Gaby’s quitting it all generated a few reactions from her circle and they were all good reads -a good sample of the real society out there for us.

I love being a Scrum Master. It is a passion I have discovered in myself and I am impressed to see it working every time.  I enjoy the different challenges the contractor life gives me – the way it takes me through a steep learning curve in every new situation, – makes me feel alive. A friend of mine took to running and other related challenges to take away the frustrations she faced – stemming from the conflicts between having to stay at home and her appetite to remain the ‘intellectual someone’ she wanted to be. In her blog about one of her such adventures, she called herself feeling “alive”.

The act of balancing “it” applies to me, to my husband and to our nanny despite all of us having very different daily routines. The things we miss are similar, and different, if we drill down to the detail. Life, as it is, is such a ‘balancing act’. Looking at women through a special microscope is not doing anyone any good. Everyone should be able to have the freedom to breathe and carry on with whatever the juggle they are in, without having to explain, defend and face the additional pressure from the society. Freedom is women’s right too. That is the balancing act everyone should learn to do and aim to do.

Published on linkedin: On Balancing it!