AMC selling

Annual Maintenance cost (AMC) is one of the way for service providers to earn a lot of money. There will be lot of terms and conditions to avail the service under AMC and more importantly spare parts will not be covered. If there is no service request during the AMC period, obviously they are in profit. Even if there is lot of service request....

Most of the service requires replacement of spare parts and for spare parts we are likely to rely on the same service provider. Though a separate receipt will be given for the spare part expenses, the profit margin on this is unknown to us. In some cases, the spare parts will be replaced without requirement and the replaced part may not be really genuine / new.

Recently, I heard about AMC which will include spare parts as well. This is for a popular washing machine brand. When we encountered some issues with our machine, we called the service provider. The person after examining reported that xxx parts need to be changed which will cost rs 4000 and service cost will be rs 800. Total 4800. Then, he suggested us to take AMC now for rs 2500 and machine can be serviced free of cost after one month since the spare parts are also included in this AMC.

For us, 2500 is definitely cheaper than 4800. But we are not sure if 4800 is really a correct number. Probably the repair work that is going to cost us the least is now converted into AMC :(
During the AMC period, if there is really a big work with spare parts costing more its going to be a rare case and also they will have escape routes with terms and conditions for the AMC.

Our lack of knowledge about technical details of the product is their advantage. Even if we go to another service provider, we will face similar issues or more :(

Note : Numbers are changed for easy understanding.

ATM out of box

What does ATM mean? Many of us would answer "Automatic Teller Machine". My friend too answered the same when he was asked this question in a job interview. He thought it  was the obvious answer like most of us. But the interviewer was expecting him to explain "Asynchronous Transfer Mode" for his question. Then, the interviewer offered him the job and said to him "I liked your out of box thinking about ATM. Though you are from electronics background you could quickly relate ATM to our day to day activities".

That was the time when ATM was not as common as today. Our college got its first ATM few months before this incident. And probably the interviewer has not been used up with Automatic Teller Machine as he has used Asynchronous Transfer Mode.

The interviewer said "You need to think out of box for solving complex problems". Is it so?

What seamed to be more obvious for one person was looking out of box thinking for the other. As everything, out of box thinking also depends on person's perception. So we cannot clearly distinguish out of box thinking.

For a given problem, thinking of all possible ways to solve is the best way. This includes approaches which you might think as a silly approach.

We would have solved 2d maze puzzle in magazines where we need to move from one corner to the other through the maze. Mostly the solution path would go exactly opposite to the destination initially. We might not be required to come closer to the solution for the approach which we take. Just moving away from current position of the problem helps. If the approach doesn't solve the problem, you can restart from the beginning.

One day I saw ATM board over a medical shop. When I went closer it read - "Any Time Medicine"! Do you have any other phrase or have come across any other phrase which has ATM as acronym?

inspiration

A good parenting is very important for a child because he gets most of his attitudes during his childhood by interacting with his parents. Parents do their best for their kids based on the knowledge developed by them and by looking at other parents. i.e., by inspiring from other parents.

Inspiration - I like a dialog in the movie 'Jab we met'. The hero says to the heroine while meeting her after a long time  - "I use to take decisions on every situation by thinking how you would act on that situation." This is a great praising for her, here the hero is truly inspired by the heroine's cool attitude.

To teach others is great, others using the learning is incredible. Likewise, To be inspired is great, to inspire is incredible.

Sometimes we also think of others to find how not to handle the situation. I call it negative inspiration. These negative inspirations are stronger than normal inspiration because we know the consequence of it.

Back to parenting, Inspiration for parenting need not be from other parents only. Inspiration can be transferred from one form to another. Example, Dhoni's approach can be inspirational for someone who is not related to sports at all.

Below I have drafted some of the negative inspirations that comes to my mind at this movement:

* Never become unapproachable for your kids - give them opportunities to ask silly questions. You can ask some silly questions to them if required.
I will be happy every time someone asks me a silly question and they know it as a silly question, because that proves that I am easily approachable :)

* Never make the kid feel that  something he has done is not important especially when your kid has completed it just because you said that to be important.
This may be a tactic to make the next to do item the important one, but after 2-3 incidents everything will become unimportant for him.

* Never fail to praise your kids for small accomplishments. Also never never make the praising to look like artificial for them.

* Never make false promises to your kid such as "this year is very important for you, you need to work hard for this year only and by next year you can be free." Again this can only make them believe nothing is important.

* Never blame your child for your mistakes. Also never pressurize your kid after you making a mistake. Example, just because you ordered more ice creams in a restaurant you cannot ask your kid to eat them fast as it will late for the movie.

* Never forget that your child's failure is your failure.

* Never compete with your child to win him. Rather make him compete with and win you.

* Last but not the least - Never ask your kid to choose one after giving only one choice.

office [story]

I entered my office after eleven days of vacation. Everything seamed to be different in the office. Everyone were sitting in the benches along with table in rows like a class room in school. I searched for known face with whom I can sit so that i will be comfortable.

There, I found Mala sitting at the last row and luckily the place next to her was empty. So I went and sat near her. She saw me and smiled. Everyone were reading something and I remembered that there was an exam scheduled for that week,

I thought that I was right on the starting day of the exam. So, I asked Mala if it was English-I paper examination that day. She raised her eye brow and said that its English-II paper. She then asked me if I had prepared for English-I paper. I told "No". And continued, "Even if I had known the exam schedule, I would not have prepared anything." She smiled.

I asked Mala if she can give me a book to read. She gave me a weekly magazine. I was OK with any book since I didn't have any other. I opened the book and started to write in it as I like to write. When everyone around me in the train are reading something, I am writing this story.

The train announcement voice said that the next station is Thiruvanmiyur. So I closed the laptop and got up to reach the entrance amid the huge crowd. As the train stopped, I got down and walked towards Ascendas International Tech Park Chennai. I had a light breakfast in the Ascendas food court and took the lift to 7th floor.

 [continuation of the story is at the start of this blog]