Corporate Rules that you should know.

1. Take ownership. There is no blame game in corporate. If it succeeds, its everyone’s effort. If it fails, its your fault. Its not a school to push the blame on someone. Your seniors will respect you for integrity.
2. Be always smarter than your manager. If you are, then your job is secure and he will respect you. If you aren’t, be ready to listen to his taunts and degradation.
3. If it needs to be done, it has to be done. A mail pops in just before you have to leave after a 10 hour day. And it says urgent. Either you can ignore it or sit for another half hour to complete it. Your decision decides your promotion.
4. Don’t take a day off unless needed. Your hangover doesn’t count as a reason. If its a reason, stop drinking. Stop everything that makes you tired next day to miss office.
5. Be cheerful with everyone from security guard to VP. It will give you 2 benefits: 1. You would be presented as a positive and cheerful employee (and it matters) 2. You can get things does easily.
6. When in office, do office work. Its ok to file IT returns or check quick social media but don’t start making business plans for your startup or start editing photos for your candid photography page. 6–8 hours of solid office work everyday will take you long way.
7. Know your process, know your peers, know about every (most) work getting done in your building. Don’t be a stalker or a nagger. Be a curious candidate who knows what he and his peers are doing. Will help you solve any problems you face in work sometime.
8. Know your company well. Sounds childish? Trust me, most of us do not know what your company does fully. What are the product segments, who are its competitors, where is the headquarter and who is the CEO.
9. Know the current affairs. While this doesn’t directly affect your work, there are moments when you would get a chance to interact with top management and the topics leapfrog from politics to macro economic factors. You shouldn’t be a sitting duck. Your small talk can have a very large impact.
10. Focus on big picture. You are just an ordinary s/w engineer or a junior analyst? Doesn’t matter. Look at your process like your lead or manager sees. Focus on the big picture. See like a bird and work like a worm.
11. Sometimes its donkey work. Do it. I work with senior directors of billion dollar companies who make their own slides. And many times they have to spend time on adjusting the logos or changing the fonts! Part of the job. They have secretaries but on a tight schedule, you are your boss.
12. Never blame your company. Never. if you feel you are excellent worker and your current company is not supporting you, then you are free to take a walk outside. Search for a better company. And if you can’t find a job, well then, its your mistake. You are not competent enough.
13. There is always growth. You have to be ready for it. Every company has a CEO and he/she was once a junior like you. The CEO worked his way up by hardwork, talent and beating all the competition. You can also be that CEO if you put 10–12 hours a day for 10 years in a row. There ain’t any shortcut.
14. Never expect a pat on the back. If you want to go up the ladder, do not strive for pat on backs or acknowledgements for short term projects. To quote Tywin Lannister “Jugglers and singers require applause”. Rise above the competition.

Ownership - The Corporate World

All those who work in corporate industry know what its like when the manager comes to you and asks about a problem, now if you whine about it, its not a good idea. You need to take ownership in the job you do. If you are assigned to do a job then all the headache is yours, the issues you will face, the solutions, everything. You are supposed to get the job done no matter what issues you face, if you have a problem then do not speak until you have a solution to it. If you take a good look at all the successful people out there you will find that, all of them know their job, they take their time, they get the job done.

I am writing about ownership because I come across many people who do not take responsibility in their actions, and I just don't get it, when it comes to appreciation everyone is like *me* but when it comes to criticism they are like *he*. Its not good morally and socially too, you will lose respect.
When you take ownership, you might be taking responsibility for many people's mistake but that makes the difference, Ownership takes you to the next level, eventually you will realize the management notices your work and people respect you more. You will soon be one of those guys who makes the decision. But all this will happen if you follow some basic rules
-I get paid by the company I should be loyal to it.
-I should respect the company because I get respect because of it.
-I am assigned to work on this project and I will give my best.

Always remember, you will get the best if you give the best. Don't think you work gets unnoticed, never ever, everything you do, all your actions are noticed, so make sure you leave a good impression.
The theory of survival of the fittest fits at all scenarios.
Take ownership and you will see the difference.


Vivek Choudhary
Senior Practitioner
Project Management System

Understanding Hypocrisy in Office, College, School.

Before I start writing, I would like to thank my friend AK for giving me the idea for this one.

Why people are hypocrite ?

Answer is simple, people who fake it are the one who can't make it.
Well that's not entirely true. Me and AK have been faking it since many years.
And we definitely, can make it.

To understand this lets go back a few years. The school time. Now in school either you are the bully or you get bullied, you may be thinking oh I was not bullied, neither did I bully someone. But I am here to tell you if you were not bullied, then Yes you were a bully. Remember when you were laughing at that kid who fell down? or You made fun of that kid who did not speak much, did not have any friends, secretly loved a beautiful girl but never had balls to talk to her. Cut this short you made fun of everyone who was weird or polite or gullible or WEAK.

Then it all starts, the who's being bullied learns a lesson, a lessons that teaches him that straight trees are the first to touch the ground. So he decides to do things that look real but ain't real. In simple words he learns how to deal with a hypocrite.

Me and AK often discuss this person was talking shit about me behind my back what we ought to do about this ? We ignore shit unless it starts hurting our prestige. Once the shit reaches an alarming stage we definitely have to stop it somehow.

First start talking to that person, find out why he is shitting all over about you rather than minding his own business. It takes great communication skills to do such sort of thing. Also you ought to be a real smart ass. But what about the loners, the hermits ? The main reason they can't accomplish this task is because they are shy, they don't know how to be social. I am one of them. In that case the best way is to become a hypocrite. Start faking it and keep calm. Once you master the art, you will realize that people are realizing that rumors ain't affecting you. They will eventually stop. But you gotta have a lot of patience. We live in world where half of the people are somehow some sort of sadist. They enjoy watching you hurt, when you react outrageously. Stop losing your cool for their entertainment. For instance, my colleagues were discussing some shit I don't give a rats ass about, somehow they were on a topic climbing a mountain and out of nowhere they pointed at me with a comment "Choudhary wouldn't even climb 200 meters". You know what I did? Nothing, because I know how many mountain I've been on, I belong to mountains (Himachal Pradesh), I'm a chain smoker and I completed a 10 fucking kilometers marathon couple of months ago. But I didn't say anything. I kept my cool and as usual their discussion about how shitty their lives are continued. Now if only I had boasted about my stamina we would've gotten into an argument and who knows but things get worse when I argue. So that comment of his went null, void, flop, no harm done to me. That's how we save ourselves from stupid arguments.

Other example, people see you going out with somebody of opposite sex. Be it office, college, school, you're the news my friend. If you had a fight with somebody then if the person is mature he'll get over it, otherwise he will start thinking of ways to bring you down. In both the example you don't know who's with you or who's against you. So first start believing in your instinct. Stay careful about what you discuss and do not discuss any personal stuff you never know if that information would be used as a weapon against you and you will sit and think "fuck, I gave him the Kalashnikov he's firing at me" this will be like insulting your injury.

The one rule you should remember at such places - Take with a grain of salt.

It's simple fellas if you start taking shit seriously, your life will become a shit sooner or later. So make time for important things. Do not make a lot of friends, but make trustworthy, meaningful friends. Be smart, always learn something. This will make you more productive.

Vivek Choudhary

A day and night full of terror + horror

All contents of this post are based on real events that happened to me on 12th February 2015.

Let's cut the chase to 2:30PM, it's time when I leave home for the office. I've to cross the border and enter Gurgaon so I prefer public transport to avoid traffic. I took a bus to the Kapashera border then as usual a shared cab for the cyber city. The cab covers the whole of udyog vihar then comes cyber city. So as the journey started we saw people rushing in our direction in bulk. I better mention that on a normal day no one gives a shit and no one talks to anyone. In about 2 minutes we saw a huge number of people rushing or you can say running in our direction, we saw blood on some people's faces and clothes. Everyone was wondering what happened is it a riot or something. We tried asking people but they wouldn't talk just told us to turn around they were beating people ahead. A returning driver told our driver to take another route from Ram Chowk but our driver was kinda brave or stupid I'm still confused. He didn't back off. Meanwhile, people were still running. I better mention udyog vihar is an industrial area with a huge number of laborers working there. Finally, we turned around since the road was blocked. We took the Ram Chowk route there were Police in one street blocking the way but then later I first time witnessed Public Outrage, a factory or building I don't know it's next to the NIIT building was in terrible condition. I'll describe it but inside the cab, one supercool dude with his fancy SkullCandy headphones was scared to hell continuously asking the driver to drop him. And everyone was talking to everyone like best friends.

This is what Human nature is, fear brings them together. So at the speed of walking pedestrians, we crossed that trouble-making building, actually, a worker died there so all the other workers were destroying the building, an Omni van and a truck were destroyed already. I saw people beating other people as we crossed. You wouldn't know the feeling anytime a stone could break our window but thanks to god we successfully crossed it. Later we saw some police vans coming. It was a relief that it'll come to an end soon.

On 13th February I'd learn that " The quiet boulevards of Udyog Vihar, the manufacturing hub in Gurgaon, resembled a war zone on Thursday as nearly 1,000 industrial workers went on a vandalism spree from factory to factory, damaging machinery, burning cars and bikes and smashing furniture. Eleven factory buildings had suffered various degrees of damage and at least 100 cars were targeted, some of them upended and set on fire along with bikes in the middle of the road, resulting in losses worth crores. Several policemen and factory workers were among the injured." As quoted by Times Of India.

That was a real happening event but in the office, I went through some horrific episodes. It's more like a myth or something. But the 5th floor where I work is said to be a haunting place. 90% of staff leaves at 6 pm which leaves an empty floor. I didn't even notice it was scary until someone mentioned it. So it's like lights out you're all alone going to the washroom. Everything is pretty huge and window curtains sound, that electric sounds from machinery, doors closing after a while you open them, the reflection in glass walls, empty seats. It all was suddenly in my mind and a few stories were told to me like the sound of anklets, toilet flushing even doors open, and the eye of a girl in a picture(A picture that said don't waste food with a girl looking at you with a plate in her hand). I was still in shock from the afternoon's incident and this scary shit was on my mind. I'm talking 12:20am it's actually scary. I felt it tonight, all other days when I used to roam around these empty corridors fearlessly were gone. I was scared and that scene from Annabel when during the kitchen fire the lady is pulled back was on my mind out of nowhere still at lightning speed I made it back to my department.

Now the office cab dropped me home at 1:05AM, it's a farmhouse with lots of trees and on the left side there's agricultural land the farmhouse. I entered the farmhouse the guards closed the gates behind me. I started walking, and I heard an anklet sound, I stopped that very moment, and looked back I was at a distance of about 100 meters from the gate. The guards asked what happened sir I said nothing. The same thing happened again I wanted to turn around and ask one of the guards to escort me home but due to my ego, I didn't. I walked in that terrifying sound for 200 meters approximately only to discover it was the sound of two coins in my pocket. I was relieved, I had to walk 800 meters to reach home once I enter the farmhouse so I increased my speed and reached the checkpoint, the guards had their bonfires going on. The last thing, I swear to god there was a cat on our door I almost got a heart attack but she ran away.

Here I am safe and sound at home. it's 2 AM, and the conclusion is, your thoughts become reality. The more you think about something the more it bothers you.

Vivek Choudhary