So how many times you are fooled today? This myth of fooling others were created when New year's Day was shifted to January 1st instead of April's 1st basically the creation of English calendar. People who celebrated New Year's in April was considered a fool!!
Why is april fool's day not a national holiday? Atleast it will rid me off the pain of eccentric mails sent by people again and again to outsmart the others. These e-mails were doing the rounds from last month:
Specimen 1: IT Companies Salary
Hi All, All IT companies need to give minimum of 10% salary increment to all employees every six months as per latest bill passed. Hurriah!!!!!
Finance minister P. Chidambaram has approved and it comes to immediate effect from 1st April 2008, which is after the financial period March month.
This comes as a relief to petitioners appealing against the growing work hours in the Indian IT industry without a proper system to check overtime.
The bill also mentions that all IT employees be provided 20 days of casual leave every year.
Attached is the document for details regarding this bill.
AS SOON AS YOU OPEN THE WORD DOC, YOU WILL GET A BABY'S PIC SAYING 'HAPPY ADVANCED APRIL FOOL'S DAY'!! What a prank, but it does have an irony in it!
Specimen 2: April!! 101 ways to fool others!
April 1st
Be aware ....Someone can fool you. Read the attached document not to get fooled by any one.... Enjoy Reading !!!! The last one is Ultimate. ;)
When you open the attached WORD doc you get 2 see "THIS IS ONE OF THEM, REMAINING 100 i WILL MAIL YOU LATER''!! Gosh I can never believe this!! This trick is so predictable. Good for the gullible souls though!
Specimen 3: Sarah Jacob
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 (Chicago)
In a strange development, a number of cities in the US, including Chicago and Phoenix, are in the middle of a major power outage.
Reports coming in say that the power outage occurred seconds after an unidentified flying object (UFO) was seen hovering in the sky.
Unconfirmed reports also say that a strange green light was seen around the flying object.
Another report says that the flying object fired a shot of what looked like a blue beam of light seconds before the lights went out.
One witness described the flying object as a thin, circular plate, which looked somewhat like a frisbee, only it was much higher than a frisbee would go.
Scroll Down and you get "Strangely such things happen only on April fool's day! :)"
Specimen 4: A ppt of Deepika Padukone's new collection and Miss India 2008 opens a psychotic laughter of a baby showing its tongue and two grinning baby monkeys.
Specimen 5: A mind blowing pic of Ash, you scroll down and u get a 'handful of real ash ' pic!!
Specimen 6: Hi ,
I have a very sincere request to all of you. Please don't send files that are contaminated with virus to me or anyone. One of you (don't know who) had sent a virus file to me and damaged my mouse drivers very seriously. I have attached the details of what has happened (please scroll down). Hopefully, you'll be careful next time. All you see is a CARCASS OF A MOUSE!!!
Specimen 7 says, The 1st of April is the day we remember what we are , the other 364 days of the year. Have an intellectual day ahead!!
Some food for thought on Specimen 7.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Approaching Appraisals
This article was published in our office mag portal 'GLIMPSES' authored by me!
Approaching Appraisals
It is appraisal time and you are on tenterhooks as how to impress your boss and get a significant hike in your paycheck. Another scenario is of having a bad appraisal last time and you want to avert the damage before the company completely writes you off.
Considering that most performance appraisals are conducted once or twice a year, how you can use the evaluation period as a chance to demonstrate your role in the organization? In anticipation of your next appraisal, what should you do in order to obtain a good review? Well guys, you have to think out of the box in the first step, the following steps will help you:
Step1: Defining your important accomplishments -
Scratch from the surface and dig deep into your specific accomplishments during this appraisal period?
Try to know the critical abilities that your job requires? Ask yourself to what extent do you fulfill them?
Ask yourself about teamwork. What value you have added to your department or team?
See what went bad in the last appraisal, why it went bad, what is
lacking, and what are the blocks (if any).
Step2: Defining your personal growth -
Try to find out what have you done from the period of your last to prepare yourself for more responsibility?
Don't just stick to what you are supposed to do. Acquire new skills that can add value to your work
What new skills you have worked on and have helped others to gain?
See your future perspective as what you want to do five years from now? How are you preparing yourself for it?
Identify your weak areas and work on them.
Identify your strengths and make them stronger.
Make sure that you do not repeat your mistakes.
Step 3: Defining obstacles you encountered –
Ask yourself is there anything that you do that hinders your effectiveness?
What knowledge, skills, or abilities you lack to perform your job?
Does your present job make the best use of your capabilities?
Do you need more experience or training in any aspect of your current job?
Is there anything that the organization or your supervisor does that hinders your effectiveness?
How could your supervisor help you to do a better job?
Step 4: Describing areas that need attention and plans for improvement -
Which goals or standards you lack and could not achieve?
How could you become more productive and helpful?
How can more experience or training be accomplished?
What changes can you make to improve your performance or to prepare for more responsibility?
Share any new knowledge gained with your peers
Go an extra mile and think of ways in which you can benefit your
Team/organization through your work.
The above points are tips to work towards a better appraisal. It cannot be the yardstick to measure an employee’s performance though but nonetheless can help prepare and face the tough time of appraisals. Hoping each one will get an expected hike, I sign off! Good Luck!!
Approaching Appraisals
It is appraisal time and you are on tenterhooks as how to impress your boss and get a significant hike in your paycheck. Another scenario is of having a bad appraisal last time and you want to avert the damage before the company completely writes you off.
Considering that most performance appraisals are conducted once or twice a year, how you can use the evaluation period as a chance to demonstrate your role in the organization? In anticipation of your next appraisal, what should you do in order to obtain a good review? Well guys, you have to think out of the box in the first step, the following steps will help you:
Step1: Defining your important accomplishments -
Scratch from the surface and dig deep into your specific accomplishments during this appraisal period?
Try to know the critical abilities that your job requires? Ask yourself to what extent do you fulfill them?
Ask yourself about teamwork. What value you have added to your department or team?
See what went bad in the last appraisal, why it went bad, what is
lacking, and what are the blocks (if any).
Step2: Defining your personal growth -
Try to find out what have you done from the period of your last to prepare yourself for more responsibility?
Don't just stick to what you are supposed to do. Acquire new skills that can add value to your work
What new skills you have worked on and have helped others to gain?
See your future perspective as what you want to do five years from now? How are you preparing yourself for it?
Identify your weak areas and work on them.
Identify your strengths and make them stronger.
Make sure that you do not repeat your mistakes.
Step 3: Defining obstacles you encountered –
Ask yourself is there anything that you do that hinders your effectiveness?
What knowledge, skills, or abilities you lack to perform your job?
Does your present job make the best use of your capabilities?
Do you need more experience or training in any aspect of your current job?
Is there anything that the organization or your supervisor does that hinders your effectiveness?
How could your supervisor help you to do a better job?
Step 4: Describing areas that need attention and plans for improvement -
Which goals or standards you lack and could not achieve?
How could you become more productive and helpful?
How can more experience or training be accomplished?
What changes can you make to improve your performance or to prepare for more responsibility?
Share any new knowledge gained with your peers
Go an extra mile and think of ways in which you can benefit your
Team/organization through your work.
The above points are tips to work towards a better appraisal. It cannot be the yardstick to measure an employee’s performance though but nonetheless can help prepare and face the tough time of appraisals. Hoping each one will get an expected hike, I sign off! Good Luck!!
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