Playschool Blues!

Playschool blues that haunt the little minds are much, much stronger than the Monday blues I have known as an adult. And they last through a whole week, frequently more, each day of the week (and I am hoping this is at the initial stage only)! It is hard, hard, hard to see the tiny gem of your life feel taken away, cry behind the school gates and pine for you. Cruel! I Hope the blues get repainted with other joyous colors of childhood, quickly!

When you are a Cost To Company

Maybe it is not as bad as it sounds, or maybe it is. Depends on how you look at it I guess. I once had this awesome colleague Mike, who has an uber-sense of humor. He wasn’t really crazy about the work culture in that company then (and he was not alone). And of course everything that transpired in there was mocked to no end. To quote M, he had termed all of us employees as “paycheck stealers”, because that’s how we were made to feel for a while, under a certain management team. Things worked out for the better there, so we were no longer paycheck stealers and transformed to ummm…well, valuable employees!

Anyway, in the Indian corporate world lingo, you are a cost to company, or CTC when you join them. That’s the esoteric term for your compensation if you hadn’t guessed already. When you join a company here, your compensation is quoted in total CTC. That includes your base comp plus various other whatevers.

Just sounds so weird, no? Just to make it even, maybe we should introduce a CTPL, Cost To Personal Life, to be estimated and put in black and white for every employee. Values could range from angry spouse, stressed out spouse, in some cases not being able to find a spouse (!), kids turning weirdos, estranged family, premature health issues, divorce, to all of the above plus some more. This world is supposedly a two way street, ain’t it?

Now, let’s take a stab at drawing the connection between CTC and CTPL. I think they should be directly proportional to each other; the higher you Cost To Company, higher is the Cost To your Personal Life as well. Fair deal in a mad, mad, mad world!

What’s your take on the term CTC?

So, we are finally here!

After nearly a decade of being away, we are finally back to Bengalooru! It feels great to be back and we are slowly still settling down. Maybe that should read slowly settling back down. Yeah, that sounds better. There are essentials to be bought, a car to be purchased (like there aren't enough of them on the road already), cell phones to be connected and blah, blah, blah. The list never ends.

But, in the first month or so of being here, and working, I guess I already have plenty of material to write about. So, stay tuned and join me on this wild, but fun ride of life, in full blast Bangalore style!

Till then, adios!