Stick to what you have, as what you want is not there!

I came across this good article on itthing.com which discusses the strangest jobs in history. But among these jobs I found the best as well as the worst job profiles. I promise by the end of this post people who feel they have the worst job will fall in love with their current profile! And the ones who feel they already have the best job will have to eat their words! So let’s begin. First profile that we will discuss today is that of a Stercorarius. They were found in ancient Rome at a place where people were living on hills, had no money for plumbing so practically no way to treat their poop! And some were against the sewer system due to its association with foul smell. So the job of a Stercorarius was to travel door to door collecting human waste matter and sell it off to farmers who would use it for their crops. Now there is one question that crops up in my mind: were any of those people (who would give poop to Stercorarius) not farmers? As it is hard to think of any other work they would be doing considering the fact that they were living in rural area and farming was the best occupation in ancient Rome. And if they were farmers themselves then was there a need to give it to someone else! Now let us come to the best profile in the world. It is that of an Orgy planner! (Please don’t confuse it by comparing it with event management!). His job was to plan, of course, an Orgy for the rich. Need I say what all activities it involved and how satisfying this job must be. I am sure many of you would agree to work without pay if you had that choice!
So the moral of the story is if you are not enjoying what your doing currently just think of a Stercorarius and feel happy and if you actually enjoy what you are doing currently (rarest specie in the world) then think of an Orgy planner and feel sad!!

Third 'C' of Selling

My friend asked me once "how does one sell?" and I was at a loss for words. Then I told him there are only two ways in which one can sell: either you convince the customer or you confuse him. Okay I agree we all studied this so there is nothing new to it. But there is something that we didn't study and still it is being used more often than not by people to sell things nowadays. It is the third 'C' of selling apart from the other two i.e. convince and confuse. The third and the most important 'C' nowadays is 'C' for corrupt! We always knew this but it is just that it was never put into theory (for obvious reasons!).
Let us understand this with one example: We have more news channels than news viewers in India today. How do you differentiate and how do you position yourself in the market as any new news channel would realize that all the possible positions have already been taken in the market (double-meaning not intended!). But still you have got to do something to address this issue and the channels (especially business news channels) have actually found a way out i.e. corrupt the audience. They do this by having the most beautiful set of news readers. I am not trying to say that they are there on those channels purely because of their looks; they are of course beauty with more brains than men have. But the channels are capitalizing on their looks because if there is a choice between two channels: one having a male reader and other having a beautiful female reader (other things remaining equal), it goes without saying which channel one will prefer. Again some might say that one needs to be presentable to appear on news channels and I agree with that notion. But I fail to understand how in the recent past these ‘presentable’ news readers invariably turn out to be the most beautiful women on television! And only news channels have to be blamed for this.
Adding weight to my argument is one of the headlines on one political news site (www.politicususa.com) which says “Fox news combines sex with tax”. This headlines comes in the wake of fact that one Fox newsreader (they say Fox cheerleader!) was wearing such a revealing dress that it was practically impossible for anyone to not notice it. And the topic of discussion was “Obama and Tax Cuts” (so it explains the logic behind headline as well as the dress!)

Picture perfect

Of late we have seen how a picture of Jimmy Wales appears on Wikipedia requesting people to donate money for site. But it certainly came as a surprise to me when one Chinese newspaper had a huge picture of the wikipedia founder appealing to the readers on behalf of Maurice Lacroix (A Swiss watch brand) to contribute and that is when I realized that the need was so desperate, though they regularly have these fund raising seasons. The reason why they need money so desperately is, of course, the fact that it is free for all. But we need to consider the fact that operating costs for the year 2010-11 are expected to be somewhere in the range of $20 million!! And from what I have read recently they need $16 million at this stage to remain free.
We have become so used to getting information for free on the net that we have never really given a thought to the fact that someone else is paying for it. What if suddenly from tomorrow wikipedia becomes a paid site? (Thank god I am done with all my college assignments!). But it was nice to hear that last year it did garner donations worth $8 million and hopefully it will continue to do so.
This reminds me of one news that I read recently about a gang in Delhi who are using a picture of Jimmy Wales to extract money from people!! We have seen how beggars show gods’ images and ask for money and we in the name of god tend to give some. But now these same beggars are using Jimmy Wales's picture to earn money. One MBA student in Delhi was feeling proud when she donated Rs.50 to a beggar thinking that it will lessen her guilt for having used wikipedia for all her academic work without ever paying a single penny. But obviously she got the shock of her life when she found out that the nine year old kid at the traffic signal wasn’t on the payroll of Wikipedia! As far as the beggars are concerned they are having a great time as someone who would just give Re.1 on seeing a beggar with a god's image in his hand, is now giving Rs.50 in the name of Jimmy Wales!! Talk about increase in revenue overnight, this gang of beggars beats any corporate hands down!! The funniest part about this whole episode is the fact that police says it won’t be able to take any action on this matter unless there is a written complaint from Jimmy Wales!! I have no idea how much money would have been raised by thee beggars as of now that will certainly not find its way to the Wikimedia Foundation. Jimmy Wales must be wishing he had not used his picture for this!