Setting the priorities right for 2023

2022 is ending and a new year 2023 is going to welcome you. If you are reading this message, you are lucky to have made it so far. So what is your expectation from 2023?

That's a wrong question as new year is going to be same for everyone and time does not make decisions. So right question is what do you expect from yourself to make the best of new year, which comes as a new time slot of opportunities. Have you thought of priorities for the things you need to do? Let me help with some basics in form of three main priorities:

1. SELF - One's main priority shall be self. That's the first rule of safety. If you exist, everything is possible. Your absence is of no use. So take care of your self first. Pay attention to your health, keep yourself fit, keep your limbs functioning, keep your mental balance, keep your mind alert and receptive. Make sure that you take steps which make your body and soul happy.

2. LOVE - Next comes near and dear ones. Keep your relationships full of love, gratitude and affection. Be helpful always, ready to be available when needed. Family is important. A bond of trust between loved ones is necessary. It starts with you. You will get back what you give. Never allow yourself be the reason for hurting to your loved ones. Acknowledgements, Adjustments and Agreements always do the magic. 

3. FOOD and SECURITY - One of the basic needs is to see that you and your loved ones never go hungry. Earnings for catering to basic needs to be continuously taken care of. Build a security system for family and loved ones. Make sure that you earn and save enough for a secure life. 

The above are main three priorities of life. Beyond that are career, aspirations, luxury and competition etc. 

So what are your plans for 2023? Have a good year ahead by setting your priorities right.

Declutter your hard disk

 

Most of you use computers now. The computer uses a hard disk which function as the memory bank. Hard disks comes in various limited capacities. Over the time we keep on adding data to to it in form of softwares, pictures, videos, documents and databases. The hard disk needs to have ample space to function properly as it processes data in form of cache. A computer has many input devices like keyboard, mouse and other data transfer devices like LAN, USB, internet connectivity etc. 

If a hard disk becomes full, the computer is not able to process or store new data and gives errors. Excessive use with errors may even make the hard disk crash. So to keep the hard disk in a healthy state you will need to delete the old obsolete data, run cleaning and run de fragmentation process. In a way you keep only data which you need and scrap the useless data. If you don't do that a time comes when hard disk is full and stops working. A computer hard disk needs constant maintenance to function properly.

Human mind is the the greatest computer with brain controlling the functions. The human input devices are in form of our senses. Eyes that see, touch that feels, ears that hear, nose that smells, mouth that tastes and multiple neurons which provide us sense of pleasure or pain. All ultimately controlled by human mind which is far more superior than any known super computer.

The point is do we ever try to do maintenance of our biological hard disk in brain? Are wrong thoughts or noise make you restless? Do you feel tired? Are you getting angry or irritated easily? These could be signs that your mind hard disks needs maintenance. How to do that?

The data transfer from our senses gets recorded in the brain as memories. It is an automatic biological process. Some memories are short term and some are deep rooted. Your experiences in life through the senses are being constantly being recorded in the mind, even without our knowing. When we try to recall things, the memories crops up from our inner hard disk at our command. Even with closed eyes by recalling a memory you will be able to see vibrant colours of the past experiences.

Then another part of our mind is engaged in imagination and visualizing a future. That's the creative process of mind unique to we human beings. Between experiences and imagination lies the learning. This learning is very important as it decides what has to become our deep rooted memory.

The learning process is outcome of constantly experiencing and thinking about the same thing. Now if you think about good things then the memories stored are good and provides you with pleasure on recall. However, if you think about negative or painful thoughts the mind will recall the painful memories making you sad. Positive memories will give you a positive imagination useful for future and happiness. Negative memories will make you dull and pessimistic.

So like a computer hard disk, you need to constantly de fragment your memories and keep on deleting the clutter. Therefore practice and focus only on thoughts which makes you happy. The best way of doing that is to see and feel situations in a happy manner. Avoid toxic people and places, stop thinking about things which makes you unhappy. Just keep the lesson learnt part of it from a bad incident for future cautions. Forgetting and forgiving are the best ways of deleting the painful memories. If you do not do that, your mind becomes full of useless memories which can make you going in error mode or seriously ill. 

Never try too hard to remember the bad situations. Let it go so that the memories of bad times do not become deep rooted. The negative memories generate bad feelings and affect our future actions. These negative feelings can also make us loose our self confidence serious health issues as the mind also controls our biological organic functions. 

They say "Let your mind be free". What is means? It means that you have to free up the space in your mind by doing away with negative memories and have free spare capacity where you can easily imagine a new future, create happy present and only the blissful memories of past. A free and less cluttered mind is able to take the new situations and tackle the problems faster. 

So de clutter your hard disk of mind. Keep only what is important and delete away the rest. Make more free space in your mind and that's the way to happiness.

Ar. Satyakam Garg

Are you ready? The legal responsibility in time of pandemic.

ARE YOU READY?

Have you safeguarded your self and your business from the legal responsibility arising due to pandemic?

As an IOSH certified safety professional I can tell you that in most cases related to workers safety, the only thing which can protect you in case of an incident is your legal preparedness.

Goverment knows it well and the policies and guidelines which have been issued, transfer this responsibility to the employer.

1. Be careful in making any written correspondance to workers, which can be used later against you.

2. Prepare a safety plan for resuming operations.

3. Prepare checklist for compliances based on safety plan.

4. Keep a record of compliances signed by atleast two authorised persons.

5. Issue NCR if a compliance is deviated. Keep records of Action taken report and NCR closure. NCR means Non conformatory report.

Do the above seriously.

Safety First.

Precautions are necessary as well as proof of it.

Public Transport After Lockdown

There is no expertise avaiable at this moment to ascertain the safety in public transport after lockdown. What will be the operational mode of public transport after the lockdown? That's a question of importance.

Analysis of situation. A tiny unvisible virus is spreading all over the world. An organism with super multiplication power through contact. One thing is sure that this virus is going to exist for a long time as it is practically difficult to test each and every individual. Even if testing is done there is no guarantee that a negative tested person will not get the infection again. Which means we will be unsure till the time total eradication happens and it may take years.

No, I am not a pessimist but believe in solving the situation. As of now isolation is the best protection. But for a small period. The world needs to move, you need supplies, for supplies you need production, for production you need manpower and for that you need to move manpower.

So do we commute after lockdown? Not advisable. Days of work related travel are now going to see many changes and restrictions. But travel and transport for life's essentials is needed. Implementation of digital safety systems may solve this to an extent, but in a country like India it is a huge time consuming task.

So in such a scenario I see buses, vans and mini buses as mode of public transport under restricted operation. Businesses will have to ensure safety guidelines where safe people only travel. Special working zones will be needed and safe corridors planned for movement. Almost similar to movement inside a big airport after you pass the security checks.

For the virus this is a starting age and the whole world has started witnessing its growing damage. We are trying to flatten the curve, but this virus has sort of ripple effect. We will see wave after wave of this. Opening public transport of mass rapid systems is like converting these waves into tsunami of future. Therefore only restricted mode operation of small modes like buses and private cars to be allowed. Non essential sectors must be suspended for the time being or run from the safety of an isolated space. To build the nation more jobs on sanitation, disaster management to be created. Create jobs for these fields as these are needed for a long time now. Corona is a slow disaster unfolding. Fight it as paid professionals and not just as volunteers. This will keep the economy running even if metros are not running. 

I sincerely hope that a cure is found soon, but till that time we have to manage. 

As long as we are not infected we are safe. Must avoid absolutely anything which may get you infected.  It is a game of survival.

Check your resources and plan accordingly. After lockdown is over travel only when safe. Make customised systems to suit your working which may refuce commuting and exposure.

The lost purpose and reverse migration

When India is emerging as a global giant on economic front, the reverse migration which happened during the lockdown has shown another face of the coin.

Indian workforce mainly unorganized sector labourers who migrate to cities have only one purpose. A better earning and a better life. Today everybody has a bank account, adhaar, mobile and govt support. Despite that they chose to flee the cities to their remote villages. Most of them had money with them but non availability of transport made things difficult for them. Why this happened?

I clearly give below three reasons for that lost purpose of them being in the city.

1. There has been no sense of security to them in cities. Private as well as govt companies employing their services on daily wages basis failed to provide them with any security and a purpose for them to stay. Nobody, I say again nobody thought of them. A 21days lockdown announcement was received as an alarm of loss by these companies and worst they passed this fear to labourers.

2. No proper respectful living quarters exist for these labourers on daily wages. Even a labourer has self respect, they live in these hutment conditions only to earn a living. Day to day basis survival. Their hutments could not provide them with a purpose to stay when the work was not available. Had their labour camps been with facilities and security, they would have stayed. At the same time politicians played dirty in Delhi, by spreading the rumours and inciting more fear. They did so to eat away the money meant for arrangements of labourers in time of emergency. 

3. With above two reasons, life of a migrant labourer was deliberately allowed to be made harder without any consideration. Naturally in such times being human, they seeked love and comparative safety of their hometowns and villages.

India has food security now, free education and healthcare to farmost parts. However, their condition in time of emergency has lead to loss of trust and purpose of coming to city. 

What has happened is bad. Hopefully, impacts of this will lead to making stringent rules for facilities for migrant labourers.

Confusion by Design - What next?

Confusion by Design - What next?

Ar. Satyakam Garg

All of a sudden the design community is worried about  sustainable design, pandemic hot topic, after the lockdown scenario etc. 

Another Smart City type situation I will say. We all know how many smart cities we have created since 2012 when discussions started.

To be realistic, failure of cities in current situation for effective containment and secured safety of remote villages without any positive cases brings out the future of design. You will understand this if you study the real world happenings as things are going around. 

Architectural design will not be actually contributing to future as such. So what will it be?

Understand it clearly that in future we will focus upon something which I call *PERIMETER CONTROL*.

Technology already exists for implementation. It will need to be upgraded to counter spread of infections. Mostly biotech based sensors with IT enabled systems will be used. Let us see what these technologies will be:

1. At State / district level RFID based entry exit points will be made smart with additional temperature sensors.

2. Your unique ID will become a smart card. May be like a wearable band in future. 

3. In high rise buildings you will see more secured turnstiles entry with cameras and biosensors. 

4. Attendance biometrics systems will be upgraded with biosensors to detect sick people. 

5. BMS will be modified with bio sensors and infection threat alarms. 

6. HVAC systems will start using magnetic charged HEPA filters to maintain hygienic conditions by capturing and killing infection agents. 

7. Security agencies and security systems will see a massive increase in business participation. That is where training will be in high demand.

8. Level of Service (Fruin) factors will be revised across mass assembly landuses like metros etc. As a result design requirements will change.

9. Companies will need to start providing better residential facilities for workers.

10. Hospitality industry will see changes as additional screening measures wil be needed. 

The above are only certain things which I can think of now. Being a member of NFPA and FM Global, I foresee these on cards. Apart from that BICS may change standards affecting food related industries world wide. 

This is where now designers need to focus. If Indian Architects and industry professionals do not learn from this, there will be again foreign expertise coming to India.

Focus on standards. It is not like getting a liasoning person taking care of submission with BMC.

People are busy right now in fighting the virus, but trust me work is already on upgrade of global standards.

Thank You.

Rebuilding the Pyramid

*Rebuilding the Pyramid*

#Ar. Satyakam Garg#

So we are in middle of a situation never dealt with before. Businesses all around the world are shaken. Video conferences and other communications are being held to assess the situation collectively by capitalist mindsets with a fear of impending losses.

Whatever happens hopefully this phase will pass too. If social sense prevails we may be out if it sooner than expected. We all will witness this as things unfold with time.

Most of the business are already thinking of job cuts, reduced wages to staff, responsibility transfer on legal grounds etc.  Most of the middle level business and firms are under fear of *_economic slowdown_* following the pandemic.

Now what is this *Fear of economic slowdown*

Basically the business owners are worried about loss of revenue and associated profitability due to loss of business and opportunities. So what's the actual way of coming out of this fear?

For this I propose the way out which I have named *Rebuilding the Pyramid*. The proposed method is based on two main understandings. 

1. Realising the actual effect of current situation.

2. Understanding your own potential.

1. A pyramid as we know is a stable structure. Let us assume our stable business as a pyramid.  What the current situation has done to pyramid is that it has shaken the things to verge of collapsing. The situation has affected the bottom most layer of the business. Eg. labourers on sites, workers in factories. Now this type of pandemic situation is unseen till now. We are not sure what will happen next. Bur real issue at hand is to sustain the lives. Now being live is more important than profit or business at this moment. So if business do not help their each layers of pyramid structure specially the lowest layer which I call foundation, the future will not be stable. This situation is to strengthen your foundation not to weaken it. Irony is once you are on top you fail to see below. That's what has happened and now you are feeling the shaking of business pyramid and fear it's collapse. Support each and every building block of your business pyramid and chance of survival are more.

2. Realise your hidden potential. Think of the time when you started making your business pyramid. You were the first foundation stone to setup your business. At that time there was no fear of loss. Future was not certain at that time but your focus was on making your pyramid, block by block. Then why do you fear now? You have same potential. *Just do away with the fear of loss.* Try to keep your building blocks together, increasing your capability for repairs and most importantly to hold on to your lowest layer of foundation.

Businesses are run to help humanity. Exploitation of humans is no good business. This time and opportunity in disguise of Corona is to make you realise that what is more important - human survival or profitability.

Be ready to rebuild the pyramid, keep your building blocks together.

Thank You.

Get involved absolutely

Get Involved in absolute manner

Dependent upon technology of today in era of google search most are loosing the power of involvement. Architectural design is one field where if you loose your power of involvement, no creativity  is going to happen.

What exactly is this power? How do you develop it? How you make it to do things for you?

In simple terms the power of involvement is observation. The more you become observant of things around you, more you increase your involvement. Always try to make mental pictures of what you see and observe. Try giving approx dimensions from a human perspective to your observations. Human eyes are the best camera and human brain the fastest hard disk. Use your senses to observe spaces and record these to your sub conscious mind. Thats like getting involved absolutely. And it works for a great design creativity.

Most Architects in metro jobs work on designs of others. The creative designers use their power of involvement to come out with new concepts. From where they get this energy? From their travels and observations. Their minds are ever ready to record things as case studies where ever they go. They make mental pictures of things which work well and things which do not work.

On an internet search with so much data not every thing is right. Recently I have witnessed cut paste presentations by DDCs with copied graphics from internet. Clients also search from internet to tell their preferences. But when it comes to make it workable, the DDC is unable to produce detail drawings. Because absolute involvement was missing.

To develop the skill, try remembering a place you have visited. For example, let us say your office which you visit everyday. Can you make a rough proportionate sketch of its plan? Can you visualise what is the best aspect of your office and what is the thing gone wrong. Next when you get to design a office, your mental pictures will help you create a new one better.

Try it. It works.

Taking short and simple Notes

The human recalling power is rapidly dropping because we are getting used to gadgets and IT. The mobile version of internet gives a small window to peep into information at an instant but recalling that information is difficult through memory.

As Architects our designs are based upon our ability to recall unless you are copying a design from softcopy. As designing is very personal and creative process, recalling ability helps you to validate with codes and required calculations. Taking simple notes while you study the requirements and refer codes help you in recalling the requisites when you sit for designing. Here are some tips in creating short notes.

1. Write a 4 or 5 words easy title of context.
2. Note down keywords of context.
3. Note down clauses references.
4. Put simple sketch in form of doodles.

All above you shall do in your handwriting and this will boost your recalling power. Try compiling your notes into custom reference document if you feel that in future it will be needed more often. (Remember metro design check list I shared  earlier?)

A perfect design is combination of imagination, vision, creativity and compliance. And notes will help you to recall things at right time. With practice these hand notes become mental notes and results pop up when you recall them.

Trust me your mind itself is much advanced than google. Use it more to process knowledge instead of more search !

Recognising and Nurturing Talent

A good team is what it takes to deliver a good project. As a lead Architect on more than 200 projects in my career so far I recruited a lot of staff. Staff I got to work for me came out of three options.  1) Directly interviewed by me and selected  2) Refrences and pressures from friends and power circles 3) Not interviewed by me and provided by Employer directly through HR.

In option 1 where I got staff from my direct interaction and selection, I looked for that spark of talent based on my own reading of the candidate. All projects with such staff happened beautifully and today each of those persons are very well established in their fields due to sheer personal talent. My idea of nurturing that talent was simple. I gave them problems to tackle by themselves. And since they were originally talented with guidance became real experts.

The option 2 people who came by jack, 50% were fired soon as they were neither talented nor hardworking though by nature I am soft and give multiple chances before taking a decision to fire somebody out of job. Other 30% of them are staying in same jobs from a long time as these were just doing enough to sustain their jobs. Once they loose their jobs they start contacting me again. Only about 20% genuine staff responded to mentoring and did good in their careers.

Worst were the cases directly thrown to me without my screening. Here the fate of project depended upon luck. In times of cost cutting and higher rates for real talent you get staff with fuzzed CVs, no experience and shady background. This happened on 2 projects and both went mediocre or with troubles.

It is hard to digest with todays realities, where selection is not filtered, backgrounds are not checked and talent is not assessed, the projects suffer.

Some of you have lead roles to play and I will advise that use a talent selection filter while you recruit.

Talent has a potential, nurtured properly it is good for candidate and organisation both. At other hand the parasites like staff results only in degradation. Talent makes a career of fulfillment. So always recognise talent first, while recruiting.

Put your heart in it

Contemporary workplaces in form of corporate culture is inducing stresses in people lives. What seems good in the begining starts fading into a stressful scenario where plastic smiles, competition and office politics start taking your energies away, making you just a machinery part. Your life, family, health and freedom is the cost you start paying for your job. Work becomes a burden.

My father, who is an highly active person in his retired life gave a mantra for a balanced life based on his experiences of being  in country's highest stressful jobs as secretary to Prime ministers of India. The mantra is "Put your heart in it or forget it".

So at workplace you work with your heart. Tasks are better handled when you put your heart in it. And learn start saying NO to the things which your heart does not accept. Your body and mind needs your inner permission to perform in harmony. If you work against your inner voice conflicts start within yourself first and then stress happens.

So work with your heart and leave everything else which your inner voice does not want you to do. There is no point in living a life full of hidden emotions, jealousy and stress. Listen to your heart, follow your internal peace and enjoy doing what you want to do.

Missing Engineering

Designs without engineered details is a big malpractice going on in metro projects. With copy paste consultants situations which become unsafe due to non engineered designs are arising. Examples of some of these recently faced by me are given below:
1. Somebody copied railing design from Dubai metro but could not copy the engineering. Structural stability not achieved. No capable engineer tried to do the calculations for safety as per code.

2. Entrance SS steel structure - Somebody copying it on the basis of Delhi bus stops. No engineer again tried calculating the forces and wind loads for structural safety.

3. A glass entrance is designed. GFC shows no structural arrangement of fixing details. Writing detail as per vendor is Moksha for the DDC.

Above examples show how DDCs are cutting corners, not detailing with engineered precision and putting public safety at risk.

To whom these consultants trying to fool? Just not to pay for an engineered work, and push linework as GFC is not going to help the consultants. They often are penalised like in DMRC or shouted at by the client in other metros.

Making Mistakes

Making mistakes

I have always loved making mistakes. And there is a good reason for that - the word MISTAKE itself. Derived from the game of Archery where one takes an aim towards target and misses it, is the origin of the word. Mistake thus means missing the target.

Now why I love mistakes is because before you commit one, there is an element of effort in taking the aim. And mistakes are part of the practice. And practice makes a man perfect.

People I interact with, from their mistakes I come to know whether they have been practicing or not. More than often interaction with people also make me realise my mistakes. And thats the beauty of mistakes, because you will improve when you know your mistakes.

Mistakes are to be acknowledged. It is good for learning. Ofen our false ego does not let us see the mistakes and we get offended when somebody else tells us. But when you are really putting efforts in your practice, mistakes are like things which ask you to make adjustments and correct things.

One more secret - it is not only knowing what is correct is important, more important is to know what can go wrong. That comes from experience - THE EXPERIENCE OF MAKING MISTAKES.

The Sustainability of Neglected Hardship

What kind of sustainable existence we are looking for? Some questions which come to mind will shed light on the real issues. If you are reading this probably you are one of the blessed and lucky ones who are on top of pyramid.
1. Are we sure that the food we eat and waste, gets the growers a comfortable life full of basic needs?
2. Why the poor labourers building our metros and luxury homes have no roof of their own?
3. For every diamond and gold ornament worn by us, there is large scale exploitation of miners who toil hard in heat and dust just to make their ends meet.
4. Every glass of mineral water we consume comes at the cost of safe drinking water unavailable to poors, whose water bodies we are polluting with waste discharges.

We keep on making new roads, new metros and new cities. We keep on increasing our comforts, but somewhere some place somebody is affected for our increased consumerism. Our life has become so fast in pursuit of selfish comforts that it is now snatching basic resourses from others. And at the same pace piles and piles of waste is being generated.

The world will be sustainable by caring and sharing. The tribal existence of ethnic groups from thousands of years have not damaged environment at all, compared to what civilised world has done in short time. This puts a question on its meaning of our approach to sustainability itself.

Think!!

The Engine & Speed breakers

Surprised at the title? No body has seen speed breakers on a rail track. Thank God there are none! But I am writing about corporate Engines and speed breakers today. Metro design offices included.

As we all know a train has an engine and boggies which it pulls. There is a track and there are signals. To climb harder slopes sometimes more than one engine is deployed. Now a team leader has a role to play that is of an engine. It pulls the boggies or staff who carry the work load. Track represents the guidelines and systems to keep things moving streamlined. Signals represent self checks for control and avoiding errors.

The team leader is required to be strong, motivating, able to keep the team moving towards target and to lead from from front. An engine has a limited capacity and cannot pull more than stipulated load. Similarly in corporate offices it is seen when workload increases boggies or staff are increased to share the workload but engines are not increased. In many cases the teamleaders start putting obstacles or speed breakers for deployment of new engines or teamleaders despite increased workload only to retain his/her power. The fears that another engine will take over him result in speedbreaker like situation where the workload is not handled in smooth manner and the teamleader suffers lack of energy to cope with pulling of load alone.

This is situation in most of corporate design offices. And once this happens the profits starts going downhill. A good and effective leader will always respect the talent without fearing it, allow it to take role as another teamleader and workload becomes easier to handle. Ineffective teamleaders are afraid, they keep on adding more junior staff instead of new teamleads. This only results in increasing their own workload.

At workplace motivation, appreciation and rewards  are necessary. If a teamleader wants his own growth, he or she needs to allow growth of the team members. Putting speed breaker in way of team ultimately makes the workplace stressfull and in the end non productive. Companies when realise this after setbacks and complaints from clients have already  lost credibility in market and soon their engines are parked. Talent and merit needs encouragement and empowering so that collective energy is harvested in interest of company.

मेट्रो डिज़ाइन में घुसा डर का भूत

मुझे हंसी आती है जब एक अच्छे खासे मेट्रो स्टेशन के डिज़ाइन को तोड़ मरोड़ दिया जाता है। इनमे से एक बड़ा कारण है - डर का भूत। अक्सर ये भूत उन लोगों पर सवार होता है जो ऐसी ऐसी दलीलें देकर डिज़ाइन खराब करवा देते हैं। कुछ रत्न ढूंढ कर लाया हूँ ऐसे महान वक्तव्यों का - गौर करें----
1. अरे भाई ये इंडिया है - हमारे कांट्रेक्टर ये सब नही बना सकते। (अबे फिर ऐसे कांट्रेक्टर क्यों रखते हो?)
2. पिछली बार स्टेशन में पानी भर गया था, इस बार एक बूंद भी पानी अंदर नही आना चाहिये। (लो कर लो बात, हवा कहां से आएगी )
3. कोर कटिंग कर लेंगे बाद में, पहले GFC इशू कर दो (पहले GFC का मतलब तो समझ ले)
4. वेंडर से शॉप ड्राइंग दिलवा दीजिये तो हम डिज़ाइन ड्राइंग दे देंगे (वेंडर को रात में सपना आएगा कि क्या बनाना है)
5. आर्किटेक्ट को कहो कि साइट पर as built कंडीशन देखकर ड्राइंग इशू कर दे (भाई अब तक का काम कैसे करा था)
6. कोई चीज़ राइटिंग में नही आनी चाहिए इशू बंनाने से फालतू फसेंगे (हो गयी क्वालिटी कंट्रोल की ऐसी की तैसी).
7. ये तो फाल्स सीलिंग से छुपा देंगे (लेकिन ठीक नही करेंगे)

सोच है या शौचालय?

Yes or No of Architecture

Architects are creative and emotional. They have ability to convert feelings into spaces and can design spaces to inspire feelings. People with original creativity are repulsed by rejection as it hurts them. This feeling grows stronger when the rejection comes from another professional. Some feel it is part of the job, some take it as personal attack.

I feel that saying "No" to an Architect is unproductive as it slows down or stops the creative process. A "Yes" on the other hand starts things, put motion into creative thinking and lets the process grow.

The virtues of positive appreciation  combined with suggestive betterments bring a positive energy into design process rather than saying a "No". No as such has negativity associated with it and needs to be used carefully. The word no generates fear and hate while yes is associated with gratitude and appreciation.

The choice is ours how to use No and Yes. We have to decide either we move forward or stop in stubbornness.

Atleast you can say Yes if you agree😌

The Purpose matters

Life is not that simple in this era of ultra fast existence. Metro projects and designers working on it are equally affected by the way things happen. Do you like or dislike what you are doing depends upon your mindset. Most often your heart tells you something and mind tells you to do opposite. A conflicting situation. Made worse by egos. I like this, I dislike that, I dont like doing it and I would have gladly done that are daily moods which we all go through. Does this make you at peace or you feel that happiness is lost in this daily grind.

Replace your likes with a *purpose*. Identify a goal for which you feel happy to work. Subordinate your likes or dislikes to your *sense of purpose*. And you will see the difference.

As an Architect when I work, I try to set a purpose or a goal to be achieved at the end of my assignment. To me it is delivery of a successful metro project. Along the way situations happen, clashes occur, tempers flare and what not. My likes and dislikes in form of situations and people try to push me out of my chosen path. But I am learning or trying to practice that I do not loose my sense of purpose. I try to relook at situations again from the  point of view of my own goals. And adjust my actions and reactions accordingly. Sometimes I fail and sometimes I move ahead. But I keep on sticking to my sense of purpose, my ultimate goal. I have found it is easier and happier to follow my own goals rather than working to goals set by others.

Success is still not guaranteed. If one plan A fails, I change to plan B, C.... but try not to change my purpose or my goal.

I have also learnt that the worst situations and worst people give me a chance to learn the best lessons.

And I just shared this one with you. Have a sense of purpose. This is what matters!!

False Projections and Offers

From Reliable sources.

Atleast 3 companies in field of metro consultancy are now involved in unethical head hunting. I will not name them here, but a cautionary note to Metro Architects. Please check with existing employees of a company before you make a switch. It is a fact that 2 companies are either not paying agreed salary after joining or delaying the payments by months altogether. They promise through their HR people and normally have on their targets candidates with good credentials. These companies are using the CVs to capture projects in times of high competition and once they secure the project then they indulge in lowly tactics.

My advise is that if you work for a company which has a name and good reputation, staff are treated well and the company has shown consistent growth, please dont leave it only for money sake. Workplace satisfaction is more important. Also avoid companies which hire new people at higher rate but do not promote or elevate older staff.

As metro consultancy is now project based, the hiring is done keeping in mind the fixed tenures of employees.

I get a lot if requests from young Architects, who are already working for some good firms but want to leave just because of money.

If a company has spent time and money in your trainings and case study visits, the company is serious about you. Your promotion will depend upon your performance.

It is better to stay with a consistent and growing company rather than falling prey to disreputed firms.

These 3 culprit companies are sadly of  Indian ownership.

Billa First safety next

National safety week almost gone. Over the organisations people adorn "billa" or badges with safety first slogan. Over the years safety implementation on sites have become more of posters and badges, that too limited to some few people. What has been actually going down rapudly is real truthful implementation.

No jokes, on any normal day just have a walk on site and notice. As myself an IOSH  trained safety professional my concerns which need urgent attention on metros are:
1. Proper safety induction of all site staff down to the daily wage labourer.
2. Proper PPE to all workers. A lot of manual labourers on site are denied proper PPE and with wornout and torn safety shoes they are at higher risk.
3. Proper drinking water, toilets and shaded resting places for site workers.
4. Hygenic conditions and proper sanitation with mess, entertainment and washing facilities at labour camps with Baalwadi (Childcare).
5. Adequate first aid and medical facilities.
6. Legal insurances in place.

We all talk proudly about nation building but are indifferent towards the unkown worker who despite working on a mega project like metro lives a life exploited by others.

Contractors pass on the risk to subcons and further to small labour gangs. We wear the badges and they bear the hardship.

Why dont you see for yourself sometimes. Talk to a labourer, visit their labour camp once to see conditions, check arrangements on site and come back to read the conditions for safety provisions to be done. The contrast will not allow your conscience to touch that badge again.

Kadwa hai magar sach hai.