Expectations

It really makes me wonder why in this world is there always a mismatch of expectations between two people. Your expectations out of your job is different from the one your boss has from you, your expectations from your partner / friends is different from what they have from you , finally the stock markets run on the premise of expectations mismatch . No matter how best one tries to make the communication transperant, there is always this mismatch between two people. It sounds irritating and uncomfortable listening from your superiors and telling your subordinates that you have ' met expectations', 'exceeded expectations', 'above / below expectations'....and the list goes on. This reminds me of a famous quotes :
"Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations" - Edward De Bono
It is quite surprising to realise the fact that there is only a small portion in this whole world where expectations expected are matched ( that's a rarity). Is it correct to not to expect anything after having slogged to complete a work or is it correct to expect more than you deserve or more than you can get from some person or something over a period of time ( can be short or long) ? It always continues to confuse me!

'Citi' full of woes!

The sub prime crisis has started showing its impact not only on the world's largest financial services companies' bottom line but also started creeping to the board rooms and top management. Merrill Lynch's Stan O'Neal was the first victim last week and this week we hear Citi's Prince quitting after the company's expected write offs to the tune of whooping $11 billion before taxes. With Bear Stearns and UBS also announcing a major rejig at the top management levels after their share of credit losses, it looks like this would be a weekly phenomenon with more CEO's coming in the 'firing' line. Added to this, the oil prices expected to reach $100 a barrel, traders are now betting on $125 and Fed trying its level best to avoid a recession in US through rate cuts. We need to wait and see what more the Wall Street has to offer.

Rajdhani

After an early break from office on a friday evening, Me, K and S decided to do something to kick off our weekend. We ended up at Barista and played Scrabble sipping our coffees. Later A joined us and we headed towards Rajdhani, newly opened restaurant at Big Bazaar @ Ameerpet( this was my second visit) . It was one of the best meals we had in the recent times and we had our bellies bursting out at the end of our meal. With a competive price of Rs 125/- per thali ( unlimited) , this joint is a must visit for all veggie lovers (especially for a family outing). While me, A and S had our share of fun @ meal, K was busy trying to dial in to a conference call.. The guys on the other side of the call might have got a good sense of the food we were having!!!

All said it was a pleasant outing to start with...

The Retail Boom!!!!

Just when me and a good friend of mine were discussing about our foray into the great Indian Retail market by setting up an Idli shop, we realised that there are different innovative concepts already in the market. Two such things are Arogya and Corn'Bytes started by Dr. Reddy's foundation. Targeted at ppl with low income and with the punch line that reads "Aarogya - Safe Food , Safe Water" , Aarogya is a mobile chain of chat bandis providing chat, tiffins using mineral water and thereby developing health and hygiene.
The other thing i read this morning was about Dabur's large scale foray into quick service food retail business with its Rapps brand - a wrap based sandwich roll targeting shopping malls, office complexes, high way locations . Check the links, good info......

Work from home!!

Today morning read an interesting article about virtual office where people hardly have any physical location to work for and most of the times work from home. Its good in many ways, firstly avoiding the travel time and travel stress, not getting attached to the little pieces of real estate located somewhere, saving cost, more efficiency, more time for oneself etc etc..... Ya, it has its share of drawbacks too... missing the coffee gossip, smoke with friends etc etc. Overall, atleast in my case its a good model to work, am guessing it becomesa a reality soon!!!!

Check this link:
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/life/2007/11/02/stories/2007110250020100.htm

Life is a game

Bored by the string of lousy telugu and hindi movies, we decided to try something different last week. We ended up buying a lot of indoor games... snakes and ladders ( indian version), chinese checkers, monopoloy etc.. We started off with monopoly.. i was keen to try my luck at least in the game and get myself a house in some of the cities, but to my surprise real estate prices even there were too high!!.... well.life was nt so easy even there and i ended up in a huge debt and with no house, very much close to my reality.... after all life is also a game

Should I buy a car?

Just like the Lynch Law, whenever i make progress / try to make progress in my life, the opposite happens to the market or the people i am associated with. I joined UBS ( a progress in my life) but the company reported a loss for the first time in 9 years with close to $ 4 billion in losses. Now, last month finally i zeroed on gifting myself a car, then guess what, oil prices started increasing touching all time highs. With oil prices touching $93 a barrel and with every possibility of touching $100, i wonder how the world looks like if i actually buy car. Hope i dont end up buying a car and keep it at home as a decorative item... only time will tel .. ...:-)

Are the hedge funds trying to do another Hong Kong

Found an interesting article on the hedge fund strategy in India.. are they going to do another Hong Kong.. nicely written about games hedge funds play, now that reminds me of the paper on hedge funds by Barry Eichengreen, Donald Mathieson - Hedge Funds: What Do We Really Know? . check this link below.
http://www.livemint.com/Articles/2007/10/30231039/Games-hedge-funds-play.html