Ponto de Vista

#WFH #gyaan Going through my old folders, I found a column I wrote for Mid-Day back in 2013 about working from home. It’s dated but still more or less holds, so I decided to post it. The text is too long for LinkedIn so I was finally motivated to put it on my very neglected web site:

Hed: The case for working at home

Byline: Chhavi Sachdev

Words:  600

Subhed: It’s not about being Zen, it’s about discipline.

By pulling the flush on working from home at Yahoo!, last week Marissa Mayer sparked quite the debate online and off. On twitter, most of the people on my timeline were outraged (but, of course!) Everyone was for working from home.

But when a leading Indian daily published an op/ed positing that only a rare breed with ‘a Zen approach’ could possibly hope to accomplish anything at home, I was incensed (erm, clearly, I don’t have this Zen approach). Does it really take a personality type? I think not. What it does take is discipline and a few good habits.

I belong to a tribe of people who bristle at the implication that working from home means you’re goofing off. The truth – my truth – is that I’m much more productive at home without the constant interruptions that constitute ‘work culture’ here – and anywhere in the world.

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The 860ish year-old Dhakeshwari Temple whose goddess lends her name to the capital city of Bangladesh on the delta of some 700 estuaries. The temple architecture is, of course, not that old — it’s been torn down, rebuilt, repaired many hundred times but it’s famous for two things. (more…)

As part of a solutions story for the BBC World Service, I visited a factory where an incredible scheme has been rolled out to give workers the benefits of health insurance as an add-on to their monthly grocery shopping. Over the course of two days we talked to workers in the ready-made garment export industry and saw for ourselves that the conditions were really good. In 2013 a garment factory collapse killed more than 1,000 people and since then, (more…)

The Ahar cenotaphs. I learned the word “cenotaph” when I was 14. It means a “monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere” — a place holder for veneration, if you will.
I don’t think the folks who put together that dictionary ever dreamed of the way they’re done in Rajasthan, over acres and acres of land. The yellow stone Bada Bagh outside Jaisalmer might be the most famous, but near the old Pratap Nagar railway station in Udaipur is a huge tract of Chhatris in white.

Sadly, the grounds are unkempt and some structures are in disrepair (plus the caretaker is more than happy to take a bribe to break the posted rules.) Still, it’s serene and rather imposing in the early morning and I’m glad to have visited.

#blog #wp #udaipur #History #incredibleIndia #Rajasthan #wecouldberoyals

Latvia was lovely to us and we wished we’d had a little more time. Our Riga apartment couldn’t have been in a better location (though google maps deserves two slaps for bringing us to it the long, long way around) and Sigulda was splendid. We loved walking around Riga and cycling around the tiny, flowery Sigulda with it’s astonishingly good bakery cafe and peach railway station. I don’t know if I’ll be back, but life is long…

Somehow, last night, I forgot the cardinal rule of eggs and microwaves. Given that I exploded one in the shared kitchen back at King College and then repented at leisure while I cleaned the space and the microwave for hours…you’d think I’d know better. It’s done in tabata style – 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. Everyone knows that. It’s fairly easy and I haven’t forgotten it in years.
But last night, I was re-heating a previously boiled egg. I stuck it in the microwave for one minute.
And then, I took it out and placed it on one of these suckers to slice: (more…)

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Udaipur and with a view like this when I visit, how can I stay away?
Okay, that’s a little bit of hyperbole, I admit, but c’mon, the lake is gorgeous — any time of the day, all (more…)

On the walls of the Jami Masjid, Ahmedabad

 

In the Grand Palace, Bangkok, a mysterious edict near the entryway. Whatever could they mean?

P.s. We saw perfectly marked ATM’s everywhere. Is this the rogue machine that calls a spade a spade? Is this the ‘rage against the machine’ machine?

I tried. They tried, too. The MNS volunteers are unfailingly helpful, but despite the news that if you’d voted before, the EC could refer to the master list and allow you to vote with ID, my name wasn’t on any of the lists – old or new, for my current residence nor my previous address. I’ve been deleted.
One of the ladies manning (womanning?) a polling station for my new building sweetly gave me a bilingual paper form to fill out and drop off at HQ ‘since your online form got rejected’ and consoled me by telling me there are vidhan sabha elections in 6 months, I could definitely vote then.
Sigh. Depressed about being disenfranchised.