Wall Street Responds

The man in Wall Street will never take the streets in protest of all the demonstrations witnessed just outside his work place. What he may take however is your job. Here's a mail doing the rounds, written by a Wall Streeter who is clearly agitated by what he's seen -

We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.

Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.

The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.

We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?

Why I Stopped Tweeting

Best expressed in a tune made famous by the man who never grew up -

It's close to midnight, 140 characters lurking on your screen
Under the moonlight, you see a tweet that almost makes you scream
You want to tweet but another tweet appears before you make it
You start to retweet, as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed

'Cause this is Twitter, Twitter site
And no one's gonna save you from the Twit about strike
You know its Twitter, Twitter site
You're losing a good life inside the killer Twitter site

You follow dumb blonds, and geeks who don’t really have a life
You slowly realise, that tweeting won’t really get you a wife,
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination,
Back on your screen, more tweets upload and add to grime
You're out of time

'Cause this is Twitter, Twitter site
And no one's gonna save you from the Twit about strike
You know its Twitter, Twitter site
You're losing a good life inside the killer Twitter site

Homecoming of an Engineer

Dear Parent,

On behalf of the Bokissam Ananthapadmanathan Institute of Technology and Science (B.A.I.T.S), we congratulate you on the acquisition of your very own in-house Engineer. We know it’s a labour of a few years’ sacrifice on your part, and a few lakhs of rupees which were duly invested during the maturing phase of your Engineer, which included buying everything from Study books, Macbooks, and Smartphones with Facebook. But now, after the graduation ceremony, you can take home your very own Engineer for a few months of happy returns – a privilege enjoyed only by parents of a bonafide Engineering Graduate.

You’ll notice the New & Improved bits the minute he steps in. When he deftly slips out of those priceless sneakers without even removing the laces. We know it’ll shock you, and send you into fits of rage, but then we must implore you to take a deep breath and remind yourself that while you may be done paying for your kid’s education, you are still left to pay up for your banker’s kid’s college. And you’ll also admit to the fact that you cannot just ignore that act of nonchalance from your Engineer. It’s a skill they pick up at college, and a skill that’ll hold them in good stead when they start working for the IT Company, which will send them the employment offer letters precisely 8 months and 17 days from today.

In another two days, you may notice that your Engineer is hardly noticed. He is fast asleep when you leave for work. He is never at home when you return. After dinner is served, he quietly heads to the study, to catch the latest episode of the documentary called the ‘Big Bang Theory’. And he quietly polishes off the leftover food in the refrigerator every night. You may find it odd, but it’s a habit that's been inculcated during the four relentless years in a hostel.

A week later, you may find that your Engineer is also given to mood swings. After studying the trends among the three batches of graduates from B.A.I.T.S, we can attribute such behavioural patterns to the following reasons:
Being asked about his MBA preparation
Being asked about when he’ll start earning
Being asked about what he studies online every night
Being asked to help around the house
Facing rejection for a friend request he sent to a girl on Facebook

A month later, you may find that he’s even more moody than ever before. Again, there are some new considerations:
Does your Engineer get enough of pocket money to catch a new movie at IMAX every Friday?
Does your Engineer get enough pocket money to go out drinking with his buddies every Saturday?
Does your Engineer get enough pocket money to pay his previous month’s phonebill?
Does your Engineer get enough pocket money?

Finally, nine months later, when he does get posted to a new city for his job, he may probably indulge in tantrums every time you call him. But are you surprised? Your Engineer is setting foot on the real world for the first time in his life. He can’t meet his needs by sulking alone. Imagine having to spend your own money for four to five bottles of beer every night, barely a month after you’ve started earning? And besides, that would eventually solve the problem of over-consumption, which may have been one of your earlier concerns.

It’s surprising isn’t it? After having endured him for those 259 days from the time he was done with college till the time he got a job, you may still be surprised how he figured it all out within a month at the work place. Well, that’s how your Graduate has been engineered. His life falls in place, normally at the very last minute for your Engineer.

Resignation letter in Rhyme

Found this online. And I must say, the employers of this creative employee must be very proud of themselves if they could inspire an employee to write this:

The name is good, the brand is big,
But the work I do is that of a pig.
The work or the brand; what is my way?
I don’t know if I should stay.

To work, they have set their own way,
Nobody will care to hear what I say,
My will be NULL, they wont change their way,
I don’t know if I should stay.

The project is in a critical stage
But to do good work, this is the age
This dilemma is killing me day by day
I don’t know if I should stay.

The money is good, the place is great,
But the development is at a very small rate,
Should I go for the work, or wait for pay,
I don’t know if I should stay!

The managers don’t know what they talk,
The team doesn’t know where they walk,
That’s a bad situation, what say?
I don’t know if I should stay.

I can go to any other place,
But what if I get the same disgrace,
I can’t keep switching day by day,
I don’t know if I should stay.

The negatives are more, the positives are less
Then why have this unnecessary mess,
No more will I walk their way,
It’s all done, I won’t stay.