Are you grateful for being on the right side of the door?

It’s winter here in Lahore, Pakistan. Not cold enough to snow, still the temperatures can fall well below 10 Degree Celsius. A week ago, not too happy with the dinner menu at home, I decided to order fast food. The expected time was 45 minutes as told by the fast food chain call center operator which was okay. We were hungry, 45 minutes passed. Then another 15, we got hungrier, and another 15. Still no sign of the food. Finally I got a call from the person who was supposed to deliver the food. He had no clue at all what the location was and asked me for direction. I was quite frustrated to hear this. I gave him the directions and hung up. I’m not giving him any tip I said to myself !

Finally after a total of 2 hours, 15 minutes the door bell rang. I went down to pick the food. It was really cold ! The guy was there on a motorcycle, riding it for an hour before he found my place. With an embarrassed smile, he said “Sorry sir, it took so long.” I told him to leave it and hand me the bill and the food, which he did. I gave the money, with a tip much lower than I usually give since I was not too happy. I told him to keep the change. He didn’t understand, and tried to return the change. I told him again. He still didn’t get it. I then explained to him the bill is x, I gave you y and you can keep the remaining amount, it’s for you. He was quite happy and said “Thank you very much sir.” I had tipped him so less yet he was so humble and thankful, I was surprised. I quickly closed the door and stepped back in to the house.

The moment I came back in I realized, it was not entirely his fault. The food chain might have weak processes, where there is variation in order processing time. May be they don’t follow standards, may be they are understaffed, may be this was an anomaly, whatever the reason, it is not this guy’s fault. I then wondered how come he had to be the one who rode his bike in this cold, dark winter night while I was the one who was sitting in his warm house to waiting to enjoy the food which this guy brought with such difficulty. May be he did not take his education seriously when he should have. May be he spent time wandering the streets when he should have focused on his future. Or may it was not like that at all. May be the conditions in his family forced him to take a job instead of studying. Then again, may be the guy had some intellectual disability since he had a hard time finding the way and understanding that I was giving him a tip. Who was I to judge him I came to realize. I had been fortunate enough to have all the luxuries and he was not. “I am so blessed” I thought. Yet what do I do, instead of being grateful for what I have, I worry about what more I want and how I can get it. The next raise, the next promotion, the next car, the next house?

I was and still am so lucky to be on this side of the door, the side leading to the comfort and luxuries of my house, my family, my great job. So are most of us! All of us, who can read this through our computers, laptops, cell phones, all of us are better than billions of others who can’t even afford to eat a single cold meal everyday ! Who don’t know whether there will be a next meal for their children or not. Let’s be grateful for what we have! Let’s start 2015 with a vow to be happy and enjoy with what we have achieved in our career, and share this happiness and success with others!

Wish you a very happy, successful and blessed new year… !

Warm Regards,

Rashid

 

 

I have become an Engineer – I’m ready to conquer the world ! Or am I?

Help me ! I need your advice. I live in Pakistan, and I want to buy a car, something not too fancy but say around 1600CC or close, give or take 300 CCs, which car should I buy? Honda City? Toyota Corolla GLi? Why do these names come to mind? Everybody’s talking about them? The value for money? The features? The quality? Can I some it up in one word, “brand” ? You wouldn’t experiment with some local/Chinese car, would you? Consider yourself a brand also, why would most people want to choose you if you have nothing special to offer? Sure someone might, but it may not be what YOU wanted. Although what you can do, how much your expertise is an important factor, but more importantly the game is about your perceived expertise. How others see you.

Mechanical Engineers, like most other engineers, pride themselves in having an engineering degree, after all why shouldn’t we? We spent 16 years studying our ass off (more or less). This long marathon, fueled by our desire to be “rich”, “to build”, “to go places”, “to make our parents proud”, “to drive THAT car”, “to buy a beautiful house”, the even harder years from grade 9 till 12, in school and college, the four years in university, we have done our part, there’s nothing more to do now, we will hunt jobs, party and see how it goes. I belt we will kick-ass in the interview. We are as good as we can be, after all we can solve 4 page long numericals of Thermodynamics, or we can design a heat exchanger like no one else, we have given our best and learnt as much as we can. I suppose we wouldn’t be wrong to think like that, we know what we went through to get here. But how many more of us have reached HERE? What is the population of this town, called HERE. There are limited vacancies, but the candidates are so many. Are you better than other? How do you know? Oh, so you have a GPA of 4.0, great ! Guess what, there are many others with 4.0. What about 3.5, 3.0 2.5, 2.0, etc? You can imagine your rank now. So what do you have which is different from others? Why is your brand worth the company’s hiring team’s time. Why should they invite you for an interview an listen your side of the story?

For some jobs, there may be thousands of applications, what can you do to improve your perceived value? How can you try to get shortlisted for that interview among all others, and later how can you perform well in that interview, we will talk about that in this blog, and get expert opinion from successful engineers and learn from their experience. Post job opportunities. Try to help one another, find jobs, get them and excel at them by developing ourselves !

Click here to visit Mechanical Career Care !

My shades :)

Shades !

My shades 🙂

Experimenting with my cam 🙂

Google – Helping procrastinators graduate!

Google – Helping Procrastinators graduate !

For more, like us on our facebook page!

The good & the bad paradigm shifts of today!

In organizations where a new concept or new initiative has to be implemented, a concept of leading change management is often discussed. During the change management often the term “Paradigm shift” is thrown around. The other day we were discussing the topic of paradigm shifting, examples were quoted how smart phones changed the paradigm, once Nokia was the biggest player in the market, and then how the smart touch phones, iphone, samsung galaxy etc came into the market and nearly drove the previous market giant back into the dark woods. Anyhow, this is a good paradigm shift.

But I think another example that we can all relate to is how we measure our “business” these days. There was a time when people used to say I’m too busy to exercise, to play sports, even to watch tv, too busy to “go hang out with friends!” But the other day a friend of mine told me in a sad voice, “I am so busy these days, I can’t even find the time to log once into facebook!”. There you have it, facebook is the perfect example of paradigm shift, not to mention a perfect example of a start-up business. There were other social network before facebook too, like Orkut, but the popularity gained by facebook is unmatched and it has no doubt become a very important part of our social lifestyle. Today whether we were able to sign in on facebook or not, and the time we spent on facebook really determines how busy we are, it is the criteria of our Business. As facebook means Going out, without having to go out! If we can’t spend time with our friends on facebook today, we are “really” very busy!

The purpose is to remind us all, that no matter how busy we are, what ever little time we can find, try to get out of your homes and spend some quality time hanging out with family and friends ! This is one paradigm that should never shift!

On that note, we would like to invite you to join us on our facebook page also, https://www.facebook.com/Sneakpeek2013 🙂

A walk in the park, after the rainfall…

 

Today it rained here in Lahore, Pakistan. We went for a walk in the park, the weather was still awesome, giving relief from the 50 degree celcius heat of the summer. I took some pictures … 🙂

I should do this every morning, I am sure jogging here will not only increase my physical fitness but mental as well !

The Royal Shoes !

Shoes are an important part of one’s personality, one that can often reveal your true style. I say true style, as often people pay attention to clothes, hats, ties, jackets but ignore the shoes !

You must have seen a thousand different kinds of shoes in your life, sneekers, joggers, fleets, dress shoes, high heels, medium heels, low heels, cold shoes, leather shoes, sandals, chappals and what not, but how often have you come across these shoes? These are very often used in Pakistan in important events, such as Weddings, but are used in other important events too.

Friends’ of ours make similar shoes, if you are interested in such royal shoes, do let us know. 🙂

Cool Cotton Facts

Cotton Flower – Pakistan

This is the picture of a cotton flower (Or “Kapaas” as we say it in Pakistan) that I took during visit to my village. The cotton is planted in May, and is fully developed in six months time. This crop requires special care, it has to be given fertilizers, pesticides, water once a week, favorable in dry season. Since this has to be hand plucked by farmers, one by one from so many cotton flowers, the harvesting takes around two months.  It is then sent to the factories for processing, dying, finishing & stitching. So whether it’s a handkerchief or a stylish formal dress shirt, so much effort is put into manufacturing cotton.

Beautiful Cotton Flowers

Pakistan has been one of the finest producers of cotton clothing, producing 100% pure cotton. For your information, adding even 1% silk to cotton may double the quantity of the cloth produced, but still to maintain quality, Pakistan’s textile industries like Burewala Textile mills produced 100% cotton, because they did not want to compromise on quality, as this cloth was exported to other countries.

Pakistan is world’s 4th largest cotton producing country, in 2011, it produced 10.3 Million bales of cotton. China being the largest, produced 33 Million Bales. (One bale is 480 pounds or 218 Kilograms).

By: Rashid Ali

High Time ( A Tribute to all Oldies )

Flowing through the oceans

Climbing up the mountains

Sinking in the sea

Up in the trees

Down on the streets!

Getting all the view

Holding all the news

There’s a call round the corner

A call to get free!

Just throw up all the worries

Clean your hands with furry

Take deeper breathes

Listen to the beatings

Hear the sweet callings

Get in the world of dreams!

Time to get rewarded

Angel’s waiting to greet

This Life is ending soon

Your moment to get a feast!

By : Dania.Rashid

Top 10 Ways to make your day before 10 am !

Mornings aren’t for everyone, but a great start to a day can lead to greater things ahead. So i pondered,noticed,experienced and concluded some points for great mornings which i am about share with you people. Here you go !

 1) Hit the Road : Exercise doesn’t have to be an after-work activity. Try getting an early and active start to your day with brisk walk or run. You’ll give your metabolism the jolt it needs to kick into higher gear and help  you burn up your extra calories thorough out the day.

2)Check–in : Take some time to find out what’s happening on your social media networks and wish your friends a great start to the day Frantic work emails can wait until you’re at office.

3) Smarten Up : Looking great and feeling great go hand in hand. Take a few extra minutes in the morning to look your very best. You will find yourself heading out the door with extra confidence as you start your day.

4) Eat it : Start your day off with a warm and satisfying breakfast, since having breakfast helps to help burn extra calories throughout the day, you will be glad you did.

5) Reconnect : Pick up the phone to check in with a loved one and say good morning. Special friends and family members can offer the boost you need to get your day off to a splendid start.

6) Switch it up : Creature of habit? Try replacing one of element of your morning routine with something different. An adjustment to your regular schedule might offer you the inspiration you need to make more changes in your day to day life.

7)Talk it out: Spend some memorable moments talking to your family about what they have planned for the day. Make work off limits in the morning- you have the whole day to talk about your job.

8) Plan for it: Taking a couple of minutes to get organized for a busy day ahead will give you an extra boost of self-assurance and help you identify your priorities.

9) Mellow Out : Find a calm moment every moment to sit down and enjoy fresh, hot cup of coffee or tea.

10) Keep your balance: Take the good with he bad ; if you see something negative sneaking in on your day, balance it our by focusing on something good, like a family or loved one.

Happy Morning Everyone !

                                                                                                              By : Dania.Rashid