Globetrotting with CCS : Updates

Session 13: Places visited

Home sweet home. Went nowhere.

Session 14: Places visited

USA, Paris (The Luxury Management Programme), South Africa, Kenya (Kenya Power Corporation)

Globetrotting with CCS

You might have been led to believe from our casemat that CCS stands for Costing and Control Systems. Ha! You could not be more wrong. Thanks to some investigative journalism (which included paying some serious attention in the CCS class) we have figured out the real CCS. Apparently, when the course was initially started CCS stood for "Countries, Capitals and Such". It was intended to be a primer in geography that enabled the future globe-trotting manager to book his/her plane tickets properly. As an added bonus, the successful completion of this course also ensured complete Ownage in "Name-Place-Animal-Thing" contests usually held at management development programs in Hong Kong.

In due course of time CCS evolved to include some random costing fundae. But the essence of the course still remains in the form of extensive "place-dropping" by the instructor. Instructors for this course have usually worked as guides in "Lonely Planet" and have around 350 accurately booked plane tickets to their credit. So, don't be surprised if the instructors mention random exotic locations and go on to feature themselves in their anecdotes during lectures. As always, it is AM's delight to bring you the global route taken thus far in our deceptively named course - CCS.

Session 11: Places visited

Saudi Arabia, Mumbai

Session 12: Places visited

Pittsburgh Memorial Hospital, France and Columbus, Indiana (not to be confused with the Columbus, Ohio of Buckeye national bank fame)

So, pay attention in the next class! CCS - The world in a casemat.

Bon Voyage!

Note to the enterprising traveller: Places visited during slot 3 will be covered in future posts.

Movie Review: The Pig-Ma-Lion Effect

OK. So LS has ended. An integral part of this course has been the movies to which we have been subjected. Although the learnings regarding leadership have been thoroughly extracted from these movies, we at AM feel that the cinematic aspects of these motion pictures have gone unnoticed. As part-time art critics, AM considers it its duty to bring to light the successes and failings of these works of cinema.

The Pig-Ma-Lion Effect: The tale of two tails

Genre: Mother sentiment

Director: Steven Swineberg

Cast: Brad Pigg, Singh and Motherjane.

Storyline: How a self fulfilling prophecy transforms a shy pig into a bold lion and a bold lion into a shy pig.

Bottomline: Must watch for all aspiring leaders.

Story:

The Pig-Ma-Lion Effect is an inspiring tale about a pig that rises from rank obscurity to a position of leadership . The story starts in a humble, rustic, agrarian society where Ma resides in a pasture with her animal kids Pig and Lion. Pig is a shy animal with no intentions of becoming a leader. He grows with feelings of inferiority and insecurity. Lion, the pig's brother, runs away from the pasture as a cub into the forest and joins a pride of lions. Meanwhile, Pig continues to lead a life of mediocrity. Now Bees saal baad, the Lion returns. The confrontation between the Pig and the Lion involves the all so predictable dialogue "Mere paas Ma hai". At this point in the movie, Ma is revealed to be a PGP from the Well known institute of Management in Western Pastures of India. She brings out her LS casemat and this coincides with the interval.

Post interval, the audience is treated numerous inspirational monologues by Ma in which she reads out popular cases like Coach Knight, Bob Knowlton and Everest. During melodious song sequences Ma also plays various leadership games like "Squares, Triangles and Circles" with the Pig. How this, coupled with Self Fulfilling Prophecies, transforms a meek pig into a roaring leader forms the remainder of the story.

Actors:

Brad Pigg, as Pig, has come up with a stellar performance getting under the skin (rather smelly skin) of the character. It is said that Mr. Pigg spent around two months in a sty, talking to numerous actual pigs and learning the nuances of grunting. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Mr.Singh whose performance as Lion leaves much to be desired. Ma, played by Motherjane, excels in the casemat-reading scenes and conveys the effect of self fulfilling prophecies quite convincingly. A sore point in the movie is the unnecessary grotesque skin show by item number specialist Ms. Python who literally sheds her skin on screen.

This movie is heavily tipped to scoop all the major awards and be incorporated in future LS casemats. All in all, a great learning and entertaining experience. A must watch for all aspiring leaders.

Rating: 3.23/5

*No pigs, lions or mothers were harmed during the making of this movie. Except for one night of indiscriminate feasting during which around 20 kg of ham and pork were consumed. Burp.

A word a day

"Wish Absinthe Minded would come up with "A word a day" feature.. sigh." - Fin muggu experiencing withdrawal symptoms after the discontinuation of Beta's feature.

Chill dude. We are here. Presenting AM's A Word a Day! This feature will regularly cover new words hitherto unknown to the English speaking world that were coined during CP moments in class.

Boundation (noun): The state of being bound. English purists, however, believe that the word is a portmanteau of the word Bound and Nation and hence argue that the definition should be -

Boundation (noun): The nation of being bound (not the state).

We will use both the meanings interchangeably.

Usage: Rwanda is a boundation.

Wrong usage: The building had a really weak boundation.

Still wronger* usage: Isaac Asimov wrote "The Boundation" series.

That will be your new word for today. So, junta, what are you waiting for! Unleash the creativity within you and break the boundations of CP!

Leave Letter

Dear Aandhi,

As we were suffering from summer internship and other related ailments we were not able to blog during the period 20.9.2009 to 22.11.2009. Kindly grant us leave for the aforementioned period. Thanking you for this kind act.

Yours sincerely

Absinthe Minded.

Deferred Laughter

Q: Why did Macaulay Culkin have a pre-pay option?
A :Because he was Home (a)Loan.

Q: Why did I ill-treat the guy who gave me the building on lease?
A: He was a "lessor" mortal.

Q: What did Mr.AM say when he was undecided about whether to keep or return the leased property?
A: "Lessee" (Let's see)

Q: Why would a wallet be most handy during slot 3?
A: Because slot 3 takes its toll.

Q: Why did Clint Eastwood invest in the Stock Exchange?

A: For a few dollars more.

Since "mandatory" seems to be the buzzword of the week, laughing at these jokes has also been made mandatory. Fine?

Movie of the week

Releasing at stock exchanges near you!

The term that was

Prof. Gandhi responding to a CP on the depreciation of assets:

SG: "The man has died and is on his way to the mortuary and you want to give him a birthday gift?"

Prof. Dutta on a suggestion that we should call people to collect data on AIDS:

GD: "So, how will that be? (mock tone) Hello! I am calling from the Indian Insitute of Management, Ahmedabad. Are you infected with AIDS?"

Prof. Subhashini Kaul on "Hum"

DamRu: Ma'am we decided that....

SK: Who is 'we' ?

DamRu: Ma'am we as in our group..

SK: Oh. I thought it was the royal "WE".

Prof. Subhashini Kaul on the section's improvement.

SK: Sigh. After all this analysis and stuff you guys have not reached home. Yes, some of you have reached home but have jumped in through the window.

Prof. Sarin: So, what would you give your girlfriend - cash or gift?

Student: As an economist, I would give her cash.

AS: No wonder you have an ex!

(Apologizes and then explains the concept)

AS:...which is why as an economist, you should give her a gift instead of cash. It pays to know your girl's indifference curves. (Giggles all around)

AS: No no. I mean, you should know where her optimum point lies. Let me clear that up before Deepak starts smiling again!

But, this blog would like to give the "Best cold-call response award" to Deepak Iyer.

Prof. Madhavan: So, Deepak! What do we mean by 'understanding'?

Deepak (in all earnest): Sir...., Bihari Lal's quote?

As "Jyo Jyo doobe shyam rang" plays out in your mind, the first term at WIMWI comes to a close. All the best for the endterms!

(P.S: All of you can stand up and clap now, if you feel like it.)

AM's guide to Class Participation (CP)

We here at AM are always concerned about improving your lives in simple and small steps. This is one of those small steps. All of you would have noticed the sudden surge in number of debutants entering the sacred practice of professional CP putting, and when such a thing happens, errors abound. This feature, "AM's guide to Class Participation", will take you through certain categories, or buckets if you will, of CPs in which you can comfortably slot yourself and improve upon. Today, we will explore the art of PCP putting(Parasitic CP).

Parasitic CP: Inspired by viruses, this type of CP thrives on others' CP.

Requirements: No creativity or analysis required. Listening to others helps.

Procedure:

Step1: Attack the gap between someone else's CP and the professor's response.

Step2: Start with "Sir, what he/she means to say is....."

Step3: Use excessive passive voice and synonyms to spice your PCP.

Step4: Shaking your head vigorously and making wild gesticulations might help in confounding the professors into believing that you are saying something original.

Step5: Finish off with a confident air, slowing the bobbing of your head or leave the sentence halfway through so that one of your co-PCP members can 'leverage' on it.

Step6: @Next PCP putter: Repeat Step1.

So, what we are trying to say is.....

Captain Obvious strikes!

Captain Obvious claims one during Marketing Class!

"We don't use Nokia connection. We use Airtel connection."

Seven habits of highly effective managerial programmers

Some words of wisdom culled from our thoroughly enjoyable MC classes. Thank you Prof. Rao!

1. Be anti-Kabir in your approach towards excel programming. (For the unitiated, anti-Kabir is a philosophical position which goes against the much revered time management teachings of Kabir (Kal karai so aaj kar..blah blah). Anti-Kabir, as you might have guessed, is "Don't do today what you can do tomorrow and don't do tomorrow what you can do the day after".)

2. When in doubt, right-click.

3. Subject the screen to a "Stare Test". Most often the thing that you are looking for is somewhere there.

4. Things as simple as conditional formatting can give your non-MC friends (read: non-wimwi) an inferiority complex.

5. Take coffee breaks. Often. Like right now.

6. Be careful about the code you develop, as Microsoft might be lurking around to steal your ideas. They stole our =AVERAGEIF()

7. Money works, in life and in excel. When you want your cell references to behave, give them the $$ they want.

Our favourite Raoism is , "=INDEX(range, 1,0) is like Hanuman bringing the entire mountain when he did not know where Sanjivani was." All managerial programmers worth their code can laugh now.

Top-up, ChuKaPu

Hypothetical Laughter

Top-up, ChuKaPu

AbsintheMinded

Section A ka tempo

1.What is the objective?

To chronicle anything and everything associated with section A 2011.

2.What in the case makes you say that?
Too many random CPs and other funny incidents going unchronicled.

3.Have we (the royal we) performed the segmentation analysis?

Yes.

4.Is this an accounting problem?

No. But we need praaaaaactice.

5.So can you give me an example?

Okay... So , this is.. sort of... the blog.. like.. ummm.. see... sort of.. this blog.. ummm.. Ok.

6.Will I get the jokes on the blog?

Yes, you will when you understand this quote from Mr.Lal, Bihar. "Jo jo doobe shyam rang.."

Stay tuned.

Top-up and ChuKaPu

AbsintheMinded