Friday, February 27, 2009

Welcome or Farewell?

We all know how it is these days; ya I mean IT too.
Bankruptcies, closures, layoffs, salary cuts, delayed call letters and all that.

Yet, every company makes an effort to retain employees. They put them into a different stream, train them for that and what not.

Mine too, has always been committed in keeping the good ones. Recently, in order to bring out the 'best of the employees' innate potential they are to launch a programme shortly, which is called U-Turn. As I write this blog, the total structure of the programme is not known fully, but it concentrate on areas like leadership, etiquette (oh yes, that's needed), public speaking etc.

We hadn't a clue about this thing until a few days back. Till then, it was only posters everywhere saying "U-Turn (with a u-shaped arrow) X days to go" and such things. They were even put up at the main entrance. That was pretty confusing for a lot; and scary too! Just imagine, with the situation in the IT industry, a sign that says "u-turn" is read "stop. turn around. go back home"!
Today morning for instance, it was all the more pronounced, with the ominous symbol amidst a lot of balloons, festive garlands etc. I was like, "are they welcoming me, or giving a farewell?!".
Quite an ambiguous sign, I must say!

But then the charming smile from the receptionist was quite a welcome sign :D

Cheers!
~LVS

15 comments:

VSR said...

All the writing u did was to capture the "Smile" of the receptionist somewhere in your blog I guess?

Janani Rajagopalan said...

not bad at all...all firms are determined at kicking out people..(if it hasnt been done as yet)so what are you going to be doing to tap "hidden potentials"?

Anonymous said...

Awestruck perception of things buddy; especially this thought of yours - "Just imagine, with the situation in the IT industry, a sign that says 'u-turn' is read 'stop. turn around. go back home!'". Well, who knows that might be the real message that the mgmt is trying to convey. ;-)

Anonymous said...

??

LVS said...

@VSR
am not very good at camouflage am i? :)

@janani
i guess they might try to identify potential 'managers' and apply the Dilbert principle

@sunith
i'm awestruck by your usage of 'awestruck'!

@rukmani
!!

VSR said...

@ sunith
Now u r dumbstruck? :P

@LVS
Gud set of replies... meaning- the replies were better than the blog..

Anonymous said...

"charming smile from the receptionist...."
-Sure that was not a sarcastic one?

LVS said...

@VSR
try to write one often.
and i mean a blog!

@anuradha
that is left to the reader! :D

Unknown said...

What if 'the charming smile of the receptionist' meant "so, you're going back..finally..Yayy!!!" :|

LVS said...

@ambika
jale pe namak!! :(

Kavya said...

The last line is probably the reason u wrote the blog - kinda like the silver lining in a cloud?

LVS said...

@kavya
no. kinda like i buy an elephant because i own a mahout

Anonymous said...

@LVS
Nice one..
PS: For the sake of it! :P

@Sunith
I'm going to take a english tution class after talking to u..

@VSR..
For once you don't have STUPID criticisms to make :P

Kunal
All are welcome :P

Anonymous said...

Did u notice the words in the balloon "happy birthday G.B" ?? . I guess, they got these balloons somewhere from birthday party..(cost cutting??)..i really appreciate them for having such (OC)ballons rathan than giving farewell party to you...

LVS said...

@mathi
yes, but then I thought it was birthday for Giga Byte! :P