Shifts Time Owing And Leave: Fill & Download for Free

Not a limit as such, but a natural progression to an inevitable end: once you absorb everything about physicality that you’ve been coming here to learn, your perception of it all shifts, I think, so that you see your time attending the School of Earth as completed, outgrown, and it’s time to leave it behind for good (while taking all that you’ve learned with you, for purposes I can only guess at from here).Since the whole education is tailored by you for your own needs and interests, and then there’s the unpredictable intrusion of accidents (a volcano goes off and blows your prize-winning winery on its slopes to hell and gone, or you fall off a stepladder and need two years of operations and rehab to get going again, etc.) and of other people’s decisions making a hash of your plans. And Karma, of course; a lifetime here, a lifetime there, devoted to settling old debts, owed and owing, and if that goes wrong, more than one lifetime.So, no telling. There’s undoubtedly an (always shifting) average number; but there are no exams, no term endings at this school, so . . . it takes as long as it takes, and the final arbiter of when it’s time to go is — you.That’s how I’ve come to see it.

Gentlemen, there is a myth I think we all need to learn. It's something that society and entertainment media has failed to teach us time and time again.A woman doesn't owe you anything just because you asked her out.Nothing. Not a thing.Frankly, she should be able to ignore you and you should get the hint. A woman isn't playing “hard to get.” If she isn't saying yes, she is saying, and means, no.If at first you don't succeed, quit.Don't harass her, and don't keep asking her or badgering her. Don't work to “wear her down.” You probably won't “grow on her.” Just stop. The romantic comedies and the hero movies where the guy just has to try again or try harder is lying to you. It's called harassment.Many women go through life genuinely terrified of men for no other reason than they probably should.I'll give you a scenario. I'm 6′2″ tall. I'm over 250lbs with 52″ shoulders and a 50″ chest. I'm intimidating. I don't try to be. I have a goofy looking smile on my face when I remember, but when I don't, I have a bit of the thousand yard stare. I'm aware I make other men uncomfortable. As a blacksmith, I regularly carry and shift my 200lbs anvil and the tree stump I've chained it to.Here's some of what I've learned to do. I cross the street away from a woman walking alone at night. I intentionally try and sit when I'm speaking with a woman who's seated so that I'm not towering over her. I don't try to extend a conversation with a woman at a register or a waitress because I think she's “cute.” I don't make an excuse to reach out and engage in contact with a woman. I don't talk over a woman, and I certainly don't assume I have to explain things to one. All of these things are means of making myself less threatening, less seemingly interested in them, because many women have learned that's a warning sign. Frankly, it is.I'm not aware of all the privilege I have as a man, but I'm aware that I have a lot. I don't worry about someone following me in the parking lot. I don't worry about having to wait to unlock my car door until the last moment to prevent someone from knowing which car is mine or from getting into my car. I don't think twice about taking the trash out to the end of my driveway at night, or going to meet someone to pick up an item from Craigslist or Facebook sales. Mostly, I don't worry about a woman not taking no for an answer. Let's look at why this might be different for women. Remember my height and size.Now, image you're a woman who's over a hundred pounds lighter than me, and a head shorter. Now imaging you are walking home after a night out with friends. You may even be walking home with one of them, and I'm walking down the street in the mostly poorly lit city towards them, and I'm looking less than the goofy nice guy I really try to be. How would you feel? Do you feel safe in numbers since there are two of you? Do you feel comfortable because you haven't been attacked before, despite hearing of the near constant cases of attacks occurring around the world? As men, this may still be hard to grasp, so let's put it another way…You and one of your friends are walking home from a get together late at night. You may have had a beer or two, but you made sure not to get drunk because something out there is killing people. Specifically men. Suddenly, you see a 600lbs Bengal tiger, appear out of the gloom, stalking down the sidewalk towards you. This could be what's killing people. I mean, you hear about them developing tastes for human flesh and all, but you've never been attacked by one before, so you'd feel just fine, right?Some of you are thinking, that's not the same, that tiger might kill us, and we're nice guys who wouldn't ever hurt a woman…. Except it really isn't. It really isn't too much different except the predator in my scenario is another species…Guys, I don't care how scared of women you are. I don't care how much effort you had to put into going up and asking a woman you like out. She could tell you to go to hell, and that might be rude, but you should damn well walk away and leave her alone, because she said no, and that's the end of it.TL:DR. Grow up. You need to learn a woman doesn't even owe you the time of day, let alone a polite nice let down.

IT industry is booming in India. Owing to abundance of cheap labor here, most IT giants have been shifting their base to India post liberalization. Be it IBM, TCS, Accenture, Cognizant or Capgemini- all boast of majority of workforce stationed in India. Given the volume of employment these IT companies generate, chances are fair that you might land up in an IT firm. IT industry looks too glamorous till you get to see it inside out. It might seem too lucrative to refuse, but before you join, you must check if you fit the bill.Long Working Hours:Post-recession, IT companies expect their employees to work for atleast 45 hours a week; this would normally exclude your lunch and off-work hours. Your normal shift timings can be from 8:00am to 6:00pm or 10:00am to 8:00pm. Essentially after spending 10 hours in office, you hardly have time or energy left to do anything else, leave alone spending quality time with your family.ShiftsMostly IT industry supports European clients or clients based on remote locations. Hence working on a client project, you should be available during the client working hours. Hence don’t be surprised if you are expected to work in morning shift for a week or two and then switch to night shift for the next two in the early stage of your career. If you were ever taught about biological clock that your body follows, forget it!!!PS: Working beyond normal timing can get you few extra bucks. In my last organization, working overnight could get you Rs 500 and working beyond normal shift could get you Rs 200 each day as the shift allowance.Work-Life BalanceEven if you escape the shift schedule as you grow in experience, long working hours and odd timings are here to stay. You can expect late night conference calls and early morning meetings. You might have the liberty to attend these from the comfort of your home but these come over and above your normal working hours. Higher you grow in your career level, more would be such overheads.WeekendWeekend is all yours. Sleep, party, Drink!!!Not here. If you land up into a support or deployment team, major chunk of your work will happen on weekends. You will get compensatory off in lieu of this, but that can hardly compensate for your loss. While your friends would party around, their Facebook snaps would mock at you when you cool off on Weekdays.BenchYes this is the best thing that can happen to you in your career. It essentially means that the company has no work for you for a while. So you are a free soul. But it comes with a rider as well. Essentially if you have a substantial variable pay, it all comes down to nothing if you have been on bench for a long time. These companies have a complex formula to calculate your chargeability. Lesser the chargeability, lesser your pay.CrowdYes this is labor intensive industry. Right from jam packed shuttles to chaotic cafeteria to busy bay; you will find swarms of people around you all the time. It is said that if you randomly hurl a stone anywhere in Bangalore, it will either hit a street dog or an IT professional. This might be an exaggeration but it’s not very untrue.PoliticsWith crowd comes politics. There are so many employees that you can’t expect your manager to keep a track of all of you. Visibility is limited, which itself is a double-edged sword. If you are a shirker, you can still fool around for a while. Real problem is, even if you are a high performer or you are putting in extra hours, your work might not be appreciated for a while. For promotion and increment you must be in your manager’s good book. And for that to happen, you must be in his camp. If you land onto other side, you are screwed….big time!!!Changing TeamIf you are not happy with your team or leadership, don’t worry. You keep moving from one project to another like nomads. New project means new team. Your stay in a team may vary from few months to years. On the flip side, even if you have great rapport with your team and manger, it wouldn’t last forever. You have to start afresh.Excel-Mail-Conference Call-PowerPointYes this is the new mantra for your life. If you are a developer, you end up debugging endless lines of code written by a smartass from the west. If you end up in a different profile, say consultant, researcher, analyst or no matter what they call you, Excel-Mail-Conference Call-PowerPoint is what you are supposed to do.You will create excel-sheets crunching data that nobody cares. You will love your work until truth dawns upon you that your job is just a glorified data entry job. You will shootout e-mails that no one cares about. You will be in conference calls where no one cares about your existence. You will create powerpoints that would go straight into dustbins. You might also present some which no one would pay heed to. The focus would always be on how you do it than what you do. You might be pulled up for wrong format, while a blunder in the substance might go unnoticed.Disclaimer: If IT industry suddenly appears moribund, morbid and melancholy, I have successfully scared you. But this industry has its own perks. If fat paycheck and glamorous lifestyle fascinates you, you are made for this industry. Come, join me!!