How to Get Along With Your Colleagues

Your relationships with your colleagues are important. Good workplace relationships can help you do your job better. They can make going to work everyday enjoyable. Bad relationships with colleagues can distract you and can turn a so-so job into a nightmare. These resources will help you have good relationships with your colleagues.
Respect Your Colleagues
Respect is the foundation of all good relationships, including those you have with your colleagues. Do your best to avoid offending those with whom you work. Of course there will be the occasional prickly co-worker who is easily offended. There's little you can do about that.

HOW TO GET READY FOR A PARTY

1. First, get clean by showering (use soap!), washing your hair, and shaving.
2. Use deodorant and moisturize; just after you've showered spread cream over your face and leave it for a few seconds; then rub off. Make sure you put lotion on, too.
3. Get dressed. Wear clothes that are "in", but have some different style to your wardrobe.
4. Do your hair. Don't leave the house with a wet head. You can put in some dry gel, and do some cool hair styles like twists, ponytails or pigtails with a bump, or just leave it down.
5. Grab a hand bag that isn't too big, but can fit a couple things in it.
6. Get your handbag and other things you will want with you at the party
7. Don't drink too much beer beforehand or you'll end up the village idiot, you want to keep it cool, depending on body weight, it is recommended no more than two 500ml cans or the equivalent in units.
8. Get some nice loud music on the go (Whatever floats your boat)
9. Have a shower and clean all necessary areas, you need to get ready in advance as to feel comfortable in what your wearing and to ensure you don't forget anything.
10. Make a general checklist of things you will need, it might sound a bit sad but it is better than getting thirty miles away only to find that you haven't got your wallet, mobile and underpants.
11. Wear some suitable shoes for the occasion, and then go out and have an awesome night.
12. Try and drink water regularly especially if you are taking any recreational drugs as these can dehydrate you. Limit yourself to about a pint of water an hour, and when you need to chill... just chill. You're not a loser for partying yourself out, the vast majority of accidents happen when people exert themselves physically and keep on going just to look "cool" to their mates.
WARNING
• Make a sign which says, please turn down the music in case the music at the party is so loud that you have to scream to make yourself heard by the person standing next to you. You can show this sign to the DJ or the musicians
• Ask around to see who's going. If you don't have a couple of your friends going, the party might not be as fun for you.
• Getting ready earlier than usual helps you because you'll be more prepared and you won't have to blow dry your hair as it is hard on your hair.
• Bring some money in coins and paper, just in case
If things get out of hand at the party, just tell the host(ess) your problem and leave or go to a separate room (with permission).
If you are underage and get asked to try drugs or drink, just say "nah, I'm right"

why teacher leave the colleges...

Recent study in new delhi :: One out of four people teaching in India’s higher education institutions (HEIs) quit within a year for better compensation and job security, says a survey conducted by an organization involved in education initiatives led by former space scientist K. Kasturirangan.

The survey, conducted by survey firm MARCH for Emerging Directions in Global Education, pegs the average attrition rate in academic institutes at 25% per annum while finding it at its lowest in medical colleges.

The number of people quitting engineering and management institutes was higher in a year, as per the survey that was held in 160 HEIs in eight states in February.

According to students interviewed in the survey, 60% of the teachers who quit, did so during the academic year, especially in private-run institutions, which adversely affects the academic programmes.


The Delhi University Teachers’ Association has said major demand of teachers for higher pay scale to lecturers so as to attract talent to the university system has not been accepted.

“The demand for introduction of professorship/professor’s grade in all colleges to retain talent has not been considered by the committee headed by Prof G K Chadha,” it said.

DUTA representatives on Monday met UGC Chairman Sukhadeo Thorat to air their grievances, its president Aditya Narayan Mishra said.

Democratic Teachers’ Front, a teachers’ organisation in Delhi University, said the recommendations of the Pay Review Committee with regard to pay scales and service conditions failed to reflect its objective of making the teaching profession more attractive.

It said the UGC had earlier suggested 25 per cent higher entry pay for teachers in comparison to the Group A services and three promotions for all teachers so that teachers could have parity with Group A services in terms of career earnings.

The college teachers have been explicitly downgraded by the recommendations which denied them promotion till professor’s grade, it claimed. The DTF demanded a review of the report.

Delhi University Principal’s Association, which had asked for senior principals’ scale for those principals who have already completed eight to 10 years of service, said the committee has remained silent on the issue.

The Committee has recommended “Sabatical Leave” for college teachers but has not mentioned about “principals” categorically, it said.

Professors’ posts have been created in colleges having post-graduate teaching in respective subjects. Similar provisions should be made for colleges offering honours programmes, its president S K Garg said.

Indian National Teacher Congress has said teachers have been denied the third promotion in colleges in the form of professorship/professor’s grade as demanded since the last 20 years.

The committee’s chairperson Rashmi Bhardwaj will meet HRD Minister Arjun Singh to apprise him the anomalies in the pay structure.

Meanwhile, the UGC members on Tuesday started a two-day meeting to discuss the recommendations. UGC will submit the report to the government by Thursday after its consideration.

The UGC-Pay Review Committee, which submitted its report to the UGC on Friday, has recommended a whopping over 70 per cent pay hike with additional allowances and new positions to academicians.

As per the recommendations, at the entry level, a faculty member will join as an assistant professor, not as a lecturer as earlier, and his new pay band will be between Rs 15,600 to Rs 39,100. The teacher at the entry level will be entitled for a grade pay of Rs 6,600. At present, a lecturer’spay scale is between Rs 8,000 to Rs 13,500.

A teacher will be entitled for annual increment of three per cent of the basic salary with compounding effect. Certain teachers with good performance record can get four per cent annual increment.

Similarly, the committee has recommended a new band pay between Rs 37,400 to Rs 67,000 for professor against the existing scale of Rs 16,400 to Rs 22,400.

Facebook to get rid of India network

The world’s largest social networking site, Facebook, has decided to rid itself of regional networks like India and China in a bid to tighten its privacy policy. Following this move, thousands of Facebook users from India, who had opted for the “India” network when joining the social networking site, will have to revise their settings.

Every Indian who joins Facebook has an option to choose the “India” network. India has nearly 12 million Facebook users, and the number is growing steadily. And there are numerous “India networks” — the largest have around 13,198 members. Compared to this, Orkut (owned by Google) has around 16 million users, but the numbers are declining.

Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks Facebook will ask its users to review and update their privacy settings. Users will see a message that will explain the changes and take them to a page where they can update their settings. When they’re finished, it will show a confirmation page so that one can make sure one has chosen the right settings. As always, once the task is done, users will still be able to change the settings whenever they want.

Facebook has its reasons. Almost 50 per cent of all the 350 million-odd Facebook’s active users are members of regional networks, “so this is an important issue for us”, said Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg in an open letter to users.

As Facebook has grown, regional networks like India and China have millions of members and “we’ve concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have more control of their information,” said Zuckerberg.

“The positive side is that users will be better able to protect their privacy. On the negative side, users like me who have hundreds of contacts who have added me as friends, would now have to sift through those lists and decide who should see what. This is going to be very painful. It will need a software to manage these third-party contacts,” rues Mahesh Murthy, founder and cheif executive officer of search engine marketing firm, Pinstorm.

“This was waiting to happen. The regional networks were not adding any value as such,” says Kiruba Shankar, co-founder of F5ive Technologies and founder CEO of Business Blogging. He adds, though, that Facebook probably did this since the regional networks were a drain on resources without adding any value in terms of advertising. “When it comes to advertising, Facebook can’t hold a candle to Google,” he says.

Another Facebook user, Moksh Juneja, concurs: “It won’t make any difference to the users except the fact that the India networks held an emotional appeal. It gave, perhaps, a sense of belonging so some users may protest.”

Murthy, on his part, believes that the move also “throws up some very important and sensitive questions”. For instance, what happens to large networks? “Is this a precursor to charging for large networks?” asks Murthy. Instances of that are the “Starbucks” network which has over 4.5 fans and the “Coca-Cola” network with nearly 3.6 million fans. “Will Facebook start charging for networks of this size?”

Murthy adds it will also be difficult to rally people around causes that matter — for instance, the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. “I recall that with the help of Facebook and Twitter, we managed to mobilise nearly 220,000 people from all around the city to protest against the attacks, and pressurise the government to take action,” he says.

Incidentally, the first version of Facebook was launched five years ago. Its current privacy model revolves around “networks” — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense for a student to share content with their fellow students. Over time, networks were added for companies and regions as well. Today, Facebook has networks for entire countries, like India and China.

However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members.

Hence, Facebook will now “remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone. We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings”, said Zuckerberg, noting that Facebook “began discussing this plan back in July 2008”.

Experts like Murthy counter that Facebook has used regional networks to grow its presence. “Why should Facebook care now? It has enough users in India. The social networking site — which is now the fourth largest country in terms of population, albeit online, after China, India and the US — is acting like a Big Brother. While protecting privacy is indeed a welcome idea, it should not end up making it harder for people to connect,” concludes Murthy.

How to be a good manager

In every large organization, there's a hierarchy of management that keeps the whole operation running smoothly. Whether you're a senior (upper level) manager, middle manager, or supervisor, you're responsible for directing people so that the organization's goal are accomplished. A good manager can motivate people, learn from previous mistakes, and gain respect from a team. This article focuses on managers in a large organization rather than in a small business or working on specific projects.

Motivate people: Why are the employees there? What keeps them with your organization and stops them from going somewhere else? What makes the good days good? What makes them stick with the organization after a bad day or a bad week? Don't assume it's money--most people aren't that one-dimensional. Ask the employees how they're liking their job on a regular basis. Encourage them to be honest with you. Be a good listener Then take action based upon what they tell you. If health is important to them, give them time to go to the gym and work out. If their family is important, respect the time they may need to send their kids off to school in the morning or pick them up in the afternoon. Remember, our values are what makes us "tick". If you manage by respecting your team's values, they will give you 110% of their effort.

Delegate:You're a manager because you're good at what you do, but that doesn't mean you're supposed to do it ALL. Your job as a manager is to teach other people how do good job. If you're uncomfortable with delegating, however, this can be a huge leap of faith for you. One way to overcome this is to start small. Give people tasks that, if performed incorrectly, can be fixed. Take the opportunity to teach and empower your employees. Then gradually give them tasks with greater responsibility as you come to understand their strengths and weaknesses and learn how to anticipate any problems they might have so you can coach them properly before they begin.

Keep the door open: Always remind people that if they have any questions or concerns, you're ready and willing to listen. Don't be one of those managers who inadvertently makes an employee feel like they're "bothering" you when they bring up a question or concern. Instead of seeing it as another crisis to manage, look at it as an opportunity to show your employee how much you want this organization to be a fulfilling place to work. Never minimize or dismiss their concerns, and always make sure that you've answered their questions completely.

Let people make mistakes. As a manager, you take responsibility for other people's actions, so the last thing you want to do is be responsible for someone else's mistakes. In an attempt to be proactive and prevent mistakes, you might give careful instructions and create clear, strict standards. But are you making people afraid of mistakes? Do they always check with you about every little thing, reluctant to make their own decisions because they might not do it correctly? That ends up making the employees more dependent on you, which makes them less effective and unnecessarily drains a significant portion of your time. In order for people to think for, they need to learn, and in order to learn, sometimes we need to make mistakes. Trust them, and give them a fair margin of error.

Learn from your mistake: When things don't turn out the way you expected, recognize what you could've done differently and verbalize this realization to your employees. This shows them that you make mistakes, too, and it also shows them how they should handle their own mistakes. Whenever you're doing something correctly after having done it incorrectly in the past, let whoever is watching know. E.g. "The reason I know to press this button is because this happened to me when I first started out, and I made the mistake of pressing the blue button, thinking 'This will shut down the system, which should resolve the issue' and I found out--the hard way--that it makes the issue even worse!"

Treat everyone equally. Most of us aren't as egalitarian as we'd like to be. Many times, favoritism happens on a subconscious level. The tendency is to give more positive recognization to the people who remind us of ourselves somehow and who actually like us, rather than to the people who make the biggest contributions to the organization. In the long run, it's people in the latter group who will make the most progress in achieving the organization's goals, so monitor your own behavior carefully and make sure you're not accidentally short-changing them, even if they give you the impression that your positive regard doesn't affect them. Some people shy away from positive feedback but appreciate it nonetheless.

Inflation at the Breakfast table

rst it was our lunch and dinner. Now inflation has hit our breakfast. Eggs are selling for four bucks a piece. A glass of milk, dab of butter and a slice of toast already cost 10% more and moving up. Muesli prices are set to rise within days. What kind of world do we wake up to each morning these days? And how did we get here?

The answer lies in two simple words: conversion cost. What we pay depends crucially on how much it cost to make. If the amount of raw material you need increases or if the cost of these inputs spikes, the price of the final product rises too.

Take eggs. To get eggs with the right combination of shell thickness, weight and taste, hens on poultry farms are fed a mix of protein and starch, which come mainly from corn and soyameal. A hen needs to eat 130 gm of this mix to lay an egg. So when the cost of feed rises, eggs become expensive too. The drought has impacted supply of corn and soyameal, raising their prices over 30%.

So the new maths is simple. An egg now costs a farmer Rs 2- 2.25. He sells it for Rs 2.90. The wholesaler sells it for Rs 3. The grocer, the guy actually raking it in, sells it to us for Rs 4.

Milk is the same story. Cows and buffaloes are fed on grain, hay and oil meals. The erratic rains decimated supplies, pushing up feed costs. “Bhoosa (hay) used to cost Rs 3 per kilo. Now it costs Rs 6. There is hardly any green grass. If feed crop supply doesn’t improve over the next few months, milk prices will rise another 3-4%. But the overall increase in milk prices is still below 14% food inflation,’’ says an official at cooperative dairy Amul. That is hardly any consolation.

Bread prices have shot up from Rs 18 per loaf to Rs 20, and manufacturers are now talking of Rs 22. Why? Every 800-gm loaf has 65% wheat flour. Flour prices have increased almost Rs 4 per kilo in the last two months, mainly because private traders don’t have much grain. The government-owned Food Corporation of India is the monopoly seller in the market and its higher prices set the benchmark. The other ingredients in a loaf – sugar, milk, oil, salt, soya flour – are all much dearer too. Add higher freight and packaging costs and you know the final outcome. Old food budgets in crumbs.

The same crisis in wheat is hitting breakfast cereals too. Muesli, a favourite amongst the sugar and cholesterol watchers, uses flakes from high-protein varieties such as Madhya Pradesh’s sharbati, which is in short supply. Wheat flake prices have risen from Rs 37/kg to Rs 47/kg and suppliers want new contracts signed at Rs 51/kg, an almost 40% jump. Muesli also uses invert syrup, a pharma-grade sugar syrup, which is now 28% more expensive. “We will have to increase MRP by 5% to Rs 310-15 per kilo in PET jar,” says Shyam Bagri, who owns popular breajfast cereal brand Bagrry’s.

In a nutshell, our crazy breakfast bill is the trickle-down result of the beating Indian crops took at the hands of a terrible summer. Will things improve? In a seasonal business like farming, they usually do.

But that is not the real take away. What is really gobsmacking is that we are still eating omelettes and smoothies. Even at these prices. That is the real story.

Not one eggs, milk or bread wholesaler is complaining of a decline in demand yet. If anything, the shortage has worsened. India produces about 17 crore eggs daily. There is demand for 19 crore eggs. “There is a 15% shortfall in egg supply over last year, which becomes worse in winter. We are not seeing any decline in demand at these prices,” says an official from the industry-owned National Egg Coordination Committee.

Milk and butter prices may be at record highs but customers aren’t holding back. The bread market too continues to grow unabated at 15% per annum. At Rs 25 per kilo, bread is still one of the cheapest things you can eat right now. Ditto in a choice between eggs and vegetables.

We are getting used to price levels unheard of earlier. That is a good sign because high prices are the cure for high prices. Producers crippled by rising input and labour costs realize to their amazement they still have a market. The record egg prices will help re-open poultry farms shut due to losses. There has been no capacity expansion there in the last three years. Similarly, farmers will plant more sugarcane, hay and grains.

Even so, bread, milk and eggs are foods that we choose to eat. They are not as critical for our health and survival as dal, roti and subzi. Or so we thought. Not anymore. The Indian consumer remains willing and able to buy them directly or consume them through processed foods without much outcry. Sure, a few families will cut back. But not so you would notice. Our new food choices are here to stay.

The crazy price of our breakfast is today’s headline. The fact that now we can’t do without it is tomorrow’s big story. As India becomes wealthier and more nutrition-conscious, our farms will have to work harder to keep pace. That is a huge worry as well as huge opportunity. Did you know milk generates more value than wheat, rice and sugarcane? And five out of every 100 Indians own a cow or raise hens. More will eventually get into the act. Meanwhile, like Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, start your day with champagne. It will help you believe you are breakfasting like a king.

New computer worm virus may affect documents

China's anti-virus authorities on Sunday warned computer users to guard against new mutation of worm virus, which could infect various documents in their system.

The virus, Worm_Piloyd.B, could infect documents like exe, html and asp and prevent the system from restoring the affected documents, according to the Tianjin-based National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre.

The virus could force the system to download other viruses from designated websites, the centre warned.

Experts suggested computer users update their anti-virus software and use the real-time computer virus monitoring function whenever they surf the Internet, Xinhua news agency reported.