Back2School@45

Being alone often means longing for someone. Even if you are smiling you aren’t happy. There is always this hollowness that emptiness even if you are in perhaps the most beautiful place on Earth. It can be stressful. But then you meet someone and things change. Forever. This blog is where I am coming out open about things that have remained with me for sometime now. Its time you know. Even after a few months in New Zealand, I had had only 2 types of breakfast. Oats or something called Wheetbix (an extremely boring cereal that I would make interesting by adding dried rasp berries or fresh strawberries or some other fruit). Heat Oats and 2.5 times milk in a pan in slow flame. I improvised by adding some honey, walnuts, dates and raisins on top. And in the bowl I chopped bananas on which I poured the hot oats. Tasty and healthy. The way I make Oats filled that emptiness I mentioned above. Life was great until I met cold oats. Here is how I do them.   I put toasted oats with nu...

A few weeks into work back from the holidays, Spark makes an offer. It is unexpected as I was told earlier that there is a hiring freeze. The offer is good but of course subject to me finishing my course successfully and getting a work visa. Spark, into telecom, is one of the largest companies in New Zealand and my designation is Business Analytics Specialist. Essentially, I am the bridge between the data scientists and data engineers and the business heads. I am supposed to translate a business problem into a data problem and to validate the feasibility of the data solution and translate it back  to a business solution. I had long known the gap between data departments and business teams. So this makes sense. The job will also help me get a foothold in the NZ work market which is difficult to penetrate. It will help build a good base to apply for permanent residency. So, it is good news. And not. We had initially planned that since the borders are not likely to open anytim...

After the wonderful trip to Northland, I was looking forward to the next one where I was wooffing at a farm near Fielding, a small town two hours from Wellington. This was a solo trip and I landed at Susan and Vivian place by early evening, after a six-hour drive. On the way I stopped at Blue Springs (one of the purest forms of natural water) and was stopped by hail storms while passing through a mountain pass. Their house was situated in rural area on a gravel dirt road with the nearest grocery store 20kms away! Vivian, 65 I would guess, was reading a book as thick as a Webster’s dictionary.   Kindle could have never given me this range about him. Thick or thin, Kindle takes away the charm of the book, its title and its cover. It takes away a plausible conversation starter. Kindle lacks character. A book on the other hand is just like a child – very happy, very sad and but rarely balanced. When you start to read one, its heavy towards the right and then after a few hundred pages i...

Most of NZ goes for a two to three week break during Christmas. While the offices close a day or two before Christmas, people are in celebratory mood all December. On the last working day of the year at Spark office, champagnes were out at 10 in the morning and whiskeys by noon. There was no one working on that day of course. And by mid-day we were ready to take on the three week break.  Nitish and I had planned a small vacation to the Northland just after the Christmas. In the hurry or excitement to buy this 18 year old car, I forgot to notice that it did not have an aux or a USB -all it had was radio, CD and yes of all things a cassette player! So I spent two days getting the music in place. On Trademe, I got someone who was selling a 10 pack CD set for $6. Imagine who uses CDs (me) and who buys them (me again) and the icing was the seller located 3kms away! I used Grant’s desk top computer to burn the disks into new, mid and old songs. The whole exercise was anything but prude...

I got introduced to Spark through one of my college mates. One thing led to another and I got an internship offer. Spark is the largest telecom operator of NZ.  During my first few days I noticed too many Indians at Spark, specially in my team. Oh sorry, it is called chapter here. Spark follows the Agile way of working which essentially aims to replace traditional hierarchical team structure and control to cross functional and self-managing teams. Agile at Spark comprises of “Squads”, “Tribes” and “Chapters”. A squad is a cross-functional group of specialists who work together every day. They have all necessary skills, tools and authority to independently develop a usable product. Tribe is a group of related Squads, formed around a given product/business goal and responsible for the outcomes of a business segment or functional area. Chapter is a group of specialists in one area (e.g., I belonged to the Data and Automation chapter) responsible for building expertise, maintaining a ...