Waste - Can we afford to waste it ?

An interesting thought. And this was the title of a presentation by Dr. Francin Pinto, at a meeting I attended.

The basic premise is very simple. Waste, if sensibly handled can be an asset instead of a liability. And this becomes even more critical in large urban cities, where waste takes on a form all of its own.

I broadly agree with most of the views of Dr. Pinto’s presentation. However, my thoughts or on an unrelated issue. And that is of handling waste in the home and workplace. Whilst this is much more of a micro level issue, I believe that bringing in discipline in this aspect of our life could help in reducing the problem of a dirty city. 

Currently our city (Mumbai), is probably in contention for 1 of the world’s dirtiest city. And the problem begins with us. A very common scene when you’re driving around the city is a car ahead, rolling down the windows and throwing out some garbage. In the middle of the road. And whilst you would expect this to be a taxi or a driver, on most occasions its a big fancy car and a group or family of extremely well dressed people. So obviously they may have got a college degree, but no education.

And then these very same people will be talking at parties and other forums about how dirty the city is. Walk down Mumbai city at 6 or 7 in the morning and you’ll find that its nice and clean. You can see the cleaning workers sweep the roads and the pavements. By 9, the road is back to square 1. We just don’t seem to care about our city or its cleanliness.

The government came up with an original and wonderful idea of having private agencies police cleanliness. They were supposed to become the “Clean Mumbai” police and had the authority to fine citizens who were littering. Unfortunately this does not seem to have made an impact. And the only time I’ve seen them is negotiating a bribe with a roadside vendor who had littered.

I guess educating people and having some kind of a monitoring and implementing mechanism, things will go from bad to worse. One of the ways to improve compliance is using technology. Use cameras to capture people littering and have an automatic fining mechanism. Just having 1000’s of cameras in various places would help not only in reducing littering, but also in various other aspects of policing such as traffic violations, petty crimes and maybe even major crimes.

All it needs is political will. Our politicians have a major challenge in going with what is convenient for the majority since the majority don’t want change. And since they are the ones that vote, what option do they have. Until enough of us want the change and become the change. 

So the next time you see someone littering, pick up the litter and hand it back to them, with a smile, saying “It’s my city and you can’t dirty it.”

Mumbai's unaffordable housing

Recently, we decided to go apartment shopping. We were looking for a 3 bedroom in the suburbs. It started by checking out the various websites. We now have several websites that provide housing ads and information online. The 3 we checked were www.makaan.com, www.magicbricks.com and www.99acres.com.

And this in when we got our first shock Housing prices seemed to have gone through the roof. Even in suburban areas which were in the middle of nowhere and not very convenient. In most places the rates were upwards of Rs. 10,000 per square foot. And the housing market was not happy with just that. This was per square foot of what they creatively called “Sell-able Area”. And this was in most cases 50% higher than the actual carpet area. What this meant is if you were getting 1000 square feet of carpet or usable area, the sell-able area would be depending on the builders between 1500 and 1700. And then you would be expected to pay an additional Rs. 500,000 – 800,000 per parking. A small 3 bed room apartment ended up by costing more than Rs. 20 million (US$ 450,000). And this was even before you started doing it up.

What is strange is that the prices are not only not reducing, they seem to be on an upward trend. What I find difficult to understand, is who exactly can afford these apartments. All of these are middle class neighborhood. And the current salary structure of middle class India, just does not seem to allow for affordability of any of these places. So it begs the question, Who exactly are purchasing these apartments ? And where does all this money come from. It definitely cannot be the ubiquitous Indian middle class.

However, the rental market is extremely affordable. You could get a Rs. 20 million apartment for rent at as little as Rs. 30,000 per month. These houses have an outgoing or monthly maintenance fees upwards of Rs. 5000. This means that the realizations is just Rs. 300,000 annually or 1.5%. So the only way it makes sense to purchase a house is if you expect the asset value to significantly appreciate. Else, renting wins.

However, the biggest issue with renting is emotional. Most people, especially Indians love assets. It gives us a sense of security. That’s why Indians are the largest consumers of Gold and now I guess, real estate.

Now that I had concluded that unless I win a lottery, I wasn’t going to be able to afford a house in Mumbai, I decided to look elsewhere. 

And guess what. I’ve realized that I can afford not only an apartment but even a nice house, with its own garage and basement and garden. Close to the station and buses. A couple of blocks from shopping malls, great schools. 15 – 20 minutes travel from the city. Great neighborhood. Great parks, awesome area, and everything phenomenal.

Just 1 small problem. The city, New York.

Are developed countries more honest than the developing countries ?

Its assumed by most people on bot sides, the developed and the developing that normal people are more honest in the advanced countries. The question is how true is this ?

The rationale used is that in all of these countries, everyone honestly purchases tickets on public transport, don’t break traffic laws, and so on.  They don’t litter, pedestrians wait for the lights to change and all in all are much more disciplined.

I agreed with the fact that all of this was true and visibly so, in all developed countries, such as in US, Canada, Singapore, Europe and several others. The part I was not sure about was the honesty or more disciplined bit. How could human beings in 1 part of the world be so different from another part. Could it be genetic ?

So I decided to check out in whatever small way I could whether this could be validated 1 way or another. Since the US and Singapore were 2 places I visited frequently, I decided to use these to check out the perception. And I came across a few very interesting facts.

In the US, all travel is 100% checked and monitored. What this means is that you pay and enter, or a ticket inspector will check the ticket of each person. Hence the question of honesty or dishonesty does not arise. In India, the commuter has a choice. Since limited checking is done, a person could travel and take a chance at not being caught. Law of averages, some will get caught, sometimes.

The 2nd check was traffic violations. Yet another interesting fact got thrown up. The fines and associated point system were extremely expensive. An average of $ 150 which is more than 3% of the earnings of an average driver. And additional impact of having points docked, additional insurance premium and even having to do social service. In India, its Rs. 100, which is less than 0.4% of the earnings of an average driver. And no additional impact. Also the number of police and associated technology used to regulate offenders is huge. Once again, a question of not being able to break the law.

And finally, lets evaluate littering and discipline. The fines for littering are huge. $1000 and enforced. In Singapore, which is got an extremely strict disciplinary government, they were unable to stop gum from being thrown everywhere. So much so, that gum is banned in the country. So once again it seems like the system has been designed to encourage compliance and severely penalize non compliance.

Based on all of this, ts my belief that people have similar attitudes and behavior across. However what differentiates their behavior as socially friendly and positive or socially negative is based on the system design, and of course implementation.

In other words if we would like to see India as honest, clean and disciplined all we need to do is make it unaffordable to be non-compliant. And hopefully, this will happen in the very near future.

Resume Writing !

On Saturdays we held interviews for software trainees. Around 35 people showed up. Our process includes a MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions) set of 3, IQ, Aptitude and Technical. Those who clear this are given a short subjective paper of a couple of questions on simple coding. And those who make it go through a personal interview.

It is during the personal interview that the interviewee, peruses the candidates resume. I went through 20 resumes. And just as I went through each and thought that it couldn’t get worse, I was proven wrong.  It seems very strange that potential candidates will spend hours reaching the interview, but will not spend any time on doing up their own resume.

Believe it or not, a resume without a typo is a rarity. Some even misspell their own names. The fonts are all over the place, there is no structure, no beginning and no end. Its said that the most important is the first impression, since that makes a lasting impression. It would seem to me that a resume is what makes the 0^th impression. And that is probably as important if not more critical than the first impression, which is when you meet the interviewer. On many occasions, it may even decide whether or not you’ll get an interview.

It's actually quite simple to make a good resume. That's because since most people don’t care about their resumes, even a slightly above average resume will stand out. Here are 10 Tips to create an impressionable resume.

1. Make sure that you have no typos. Spell-check isn’t enough. Read and check. Then recheck.
2. Have a first page that is a summary. Summarize in 1 or 2 paras what makes you special.
3. In your work experience, for each job, talk a little about your role and anything interesting you did.
4. Use color. Laser printouts are affordable (Rs. 10 per page).
5. Don’t have a signature column, and a “Its true” declaration. If you’re selected the company forms will take care of that.
6. If practical, have a formal photograph.
7. Put basic information last. Your date of birth or address is not likely to be what the interviewer is looking for. 
8. Don’t use a standard line about how you want a professional organization that offers challenging opportunities. Instead state what you’re really looking for, such as “An opportunity to work at a product development company”.
9. Customize your resume to fit the company you’re applying to. Mention the company’s name.
10. Make it unique and interesting.