Monday, April 28, 2008

Status Messages on Gtalk

What does your status on gtalk say? While some of us do try to be inventive an original, it is quite interesting to see what people from the same industry have to say about themselves.

To begin with, folks from the world of media seem to be all over the place. One media marketer claims that ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. So does he mean that a product sells itself? Tell that to the ad agency fellows buddy. And a journalist says ‘Confusion, confusion, confusion’. I hope this doesn’t reflect in her writing. Imagine what would happen. ‘Harbhajan deserves to be banned for slapping Sreeshanth’. And the next day, ‘No it was just a handshake gone wrong’. Oops. Not good for one’s credibility. So while the journalists are running around with lack of clarity, it turns out that the heads of major newspapers have something to cheer about. So one of them says, ‘Who Hu Hoo’. I guess when one climbs to the top of the mountain, everything becomes clear. In any case, whatever the quality (or lack of it) of the news there is to offer, ‘The show must go on’. Probably why we have breaking news flashes that Amitabh Bachan felt cold on a particular day or Rakhee Sawant didn’t like her boyfriend’s valentine gift. Ho hum.

But what about the world of high finance? Surely those number crunchers must be obsessed with regressions and financial models. Right? No, wrong. All my fin buddies seem to be closet poets. Why else would a venture capitalist say, ’Golden brown texture like sun, Lays me down with my mind she runs’. Maybe he’s talking about his soon to be fiancĂ©e. How sweet. Higher up the pecking order, an I-Banker feels that ‘Hazaaron khwahishein aisi, ki’ . Yes.. ? aisi ki? No wonder there is so much ambiguity in the world of finance. Come on guys, back to those spread sheets please. Or maybe it is just a passing phase and as a retail banker says ‘Nothing lasts forever’. Yup, booms-busts-booms. It’s all a cycle.

So while the finance dudes are looking at clouds in the sky, let’s check what their arch enemies - the consultants(at least at B-Schools during placement time) are up to. After preaching so much about the Seven Step Process, one of them talks about ‘an ode to a simple(r) life’. Maybe all those 2 X 2 matrices finally get to you. Hmm. Still, some of them continue to give us deep insights into the world of business. What else does ‘No King can win a war when a huge army charges against him’ mean? The lady in question is probably looking glumly at some militant labour union problem.

Moving on to IT and project management, one project manager asks you to ‘Wait a minute’. He probably just discovered a show stopping bug. Which is why a web designer owns up that ‘I am d culprit’. And did you know that ‘The fact is that as you read the web the web reads you’? Ooh scary, talk about big brother watching you. Business Analysts, are poor souls who go where ‘Angels fear to tread’. And at the same time, web designers seem to be ‘Sending out mixed signals’.

All in all, as an MBA student says these are all just ‘Things that make you go … hmmm’. Cheerio.

P.S. - Probably the funniest status message I saw was from a wealth manager. He quotes John Nelson, “More and more these days I find myself pondering how to reconcile my net income with my gross habits”.

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