Grim Truth of Salaried Class !

Today, I was speaking to my uncle on phone for quite some time vis-a-vis on the upcoming IPOs and which one were good to invest or not. It was a general talk with little or no brain.

In between, my uncle mentioned that he had read a book (couldn't re-collect the name) which said a salaried class person couldn't become rich due to inflation, de-valuation and tax.

After the phone conversation, I gave a thought on the said conversation.

Inflation : If I stick to a single company my salary will rise by about 10% on average yearly given a scenario that the company is not doing re-structure of salary, the current average inflation is around 5-6% (the price of the cabbage flower is Rs 60 per Kg and Tur dal is Rs 100 per Kg for you information right now) so a part of the salary goes to balance out that inflation.

De-Valuation : Secondly, the investment which I did with the hard earned is de-valuated to the depreciation of money. So, the return on the hard-money investment is less than expected value even though they look and appear to be same. A 10 rupee note in hand today has more value than t’row.

Tax : Third and most important, the Income Tax department is always around to levy tax as much as possible. Because of TDS (Tax Deduction at Source) for salaried class nothing can be hidden from their eyes. For, every 100 rise, I ended up paying 30 bucks in returns. Moreover, there is indirect tax on everything which I buy. With the already taxed money, I'm again giving tax through indirect tax. It’s tax on tax. But, the most painful part comes when you have to pay when your investment from hard-earned money gets matured at the same rate after such a long and painful wait.

So, at the end whatever the rise is nullified. Rich and Salaried Class goes go together seldom.

No wonder many of the salaried class ended up in small flat (or a large flat in faraway places) and a small car by the time of retirement which they manage with the entire EPF and gratuity fund.

This is the price every salaried class is paying at the end. This is the reality of being salaried class.

PS : I’m also a ‘salaried class’.

Watching Movies : New Found Habit

It was reading when I was in college. I indulged in lot reading. It was part of my habit. Even during exams I would read some novels to de-stress myself from tensions and pressures. I would travel for more than hours to buy 'cheap' second hand novel and also exchanged the already read ones. In a go, I would buy atleast 3-4 novels and would try to finish them in least than a fortnight. The conversation with my friends / colleagues were "Have read that one? It's fabulous."

But, after I started working and specially after buying the computer with almost 24-hours connected to net, I'm finding it more and more difficult to keep on reading. Not because I don't have time but, because I have lost interest in reading. Even the recommended from my friend about a novel goes to my deaf ear. At best, I would read few pages and finally, dumped it.

It's been almost a year or more that I had almost gave up reading. My new found habit is watching movies (in home). I started watching movies of all the generations. I have a collection of more than 300GB in movies. More than 200 GB yet to be watched. I watched all sort of movies from Korean to French to Germans to Russians, I have few close knit friends with whom I keep on exchanging movies. Watching with subtitle (even for english movies) makes things more understandable of the movie as their is some difference in the ascent.It's true that movie doesn't that kind of feel that a novel gives but, somehow movie has taken over reading for me atleast.

First thing, I go to wikipedia and read something like plot / summary about the movie to find out whether the movie is of my taste or not. (Many times my likings are slightly different from my friends). My favorites are movies based on WWII or any cartoon movies.

The current rate is "one movie per day or 2".

Being Ethical !

Some months back we had a week dedicated to the ethics in workplace. That week was like a normal week where the message regarding the work ethics is renewed, re-vowed and refreshed to all the employees. It was something very normal in my many years of working experience. But, as part of the opening the ‘ethic week’, the MD made an opening speech on the same topic. He quoted one example and that example is still lingering in my sub-conscious thoughts.

The example – “One employee of the company does online shopping from office for few hours during office hours. Legally, he is being unethical in the workplace. But, his justification is that – ‘what’s the harm in spending a few minutes to do online shopping from office as by the time I reach home the shops are already closed and has to take leave from office to do same shopping which mean more loss to the office’. He is wrong and right at the same time. It is very difficult to draw the line of ethics to each employee so it is the conscience of the employee to decide what is ethical and unethical. But, being ethical is line laksman-rekha. Once you crossed, it’s hard / impossible to come back.”

The above example from our MD which I still remember vividly makes me feel guilty many times. Guilty because I do check mails which is not related to office and reply to them many times spending quite some time to do the same. Here, I’m not talking of the forward-chain mails but, mails which need my reply / attention to a large extent.

I’m doing introspect from that day. I realized myself I’m spending a quite some time on such mails. Such mails are sometimes take lot of emotion to write. And, after writing such mails, it becomes really hard to come back to the reality of office which eventually affects my productivity and creativity.

Even though I wished / wanted to stop from that moment but, the prior commitments to the group which I’m actively involved doesn’t allow me. But, slowly I started disassociating from such things during the office hours. Finally, after much efforts and self-convincing I almost stop such things.

Terminator Salvation : The Ugly Duckling

The new terminator edition has failed to live up to its legacy. You can't find any heart stopping actions or layers of stories. The story is quite confusing. It looks like a disjoint movie compare to the previous stories of legacy.

Arnold (animated or real ?) which featured for less than a minute trying to link this edition to those legacy which had Arnold as main role is redundant and completely unnecessary.

Watch it for the actions and Christian Bale (looks more of supporting role) and you'll love this movie.

If you watch (which I did) for the sake of terminator legacy than this is completely disappointing movie.

I will rate it 1 on a scale of 5.