On the little things

The last few months have seen big changes - a new job, a new city, a trip home. It sometimes all still feels a little unreal. And while I could, and should, write an entire post on those changes, it's a little easier to, right now, write about the little things** - because, let's face it, the little things is what I spend most of my time choosing to obsess about anyway.

I broke my nail last week, while moving cubes. On the thumb of my right hand, which, as it turns out, I use a lot more than I had realised. More than anything else, I use it a gazillion times a day to do a fingerprint unlock of my phone. So on top of being utterly painful, when I bandaged it for a day to stop the nail from straight up peeling off, I had to keep remembering to use my left hand to unlock my phone - always fun when you're carrying half a dozen things and walking and trying to do everything at the same time.

Can I tell you the best thing about the new laptop they gave me at work? It has this functionality where, if I have it set to mute, it automatically turns the volume back on if I plug in earphones, or connect a bluetooth headset. And then when I disconnect or unplug those, it automatically goes back on mute. As someone who usually has Coke Studio playing on YouTube, this is amazing. Also as someone who previously had a work laptop that was possessed by ghosts, and would on any given day throw a temper tantrum and decide whether or not it wanted to connect to the Internet while either docked or undocked (but never both), this is a level of technology at work that is blowing my mind.

The new workplace also has a furniture surplus room - you can go look at what they have, select whatever is unclaimed, and they'll bring it to your cube. When I was finally given a new cube two weeks ago, I went to see if they had the same kind of tall cabinet a coworker had, because it has plenty of drawers, and even a coat hanging cupboard. They did not have it at the time, so I just picked something else. I went back there yesterday, accompanying a coworker who needed to go, and as we walked in, they were unloading a cabinet exactly like the one I wanted. I claimed it immediately, and they came and swapped out cabinets for me this morning.

I'm telling y'all, it's the little things.

**NOT the web series that has become a Netflix show, even though I'm told I should watch it because it's cute, so at some point I probably should, especially since I am a huge fan of What the Folks, that was made by the same people.

"You have smartphone, no?"

I was at the doctor's office a few weeks ago, sitting in the waiting area, and watching in fascination whatever home improvement related reality show they had on that day.

The gentleman next to me, who was at least 60, if not older, suddenly turned to me and said, "you're not very good at this waiting thing, are you? Don't you know you're supposed to be on your phone?"

I went for an Indian play this past weekend. The gentleman next to me, not that much older perhaps, but least a decade older than me, struck up a conversation with the opening words, so did you grow up around here? No? What visa are you on?

And having established that I was in fact on a visa, he told me all about the immigration reform advocacy group he is a part of. "You have smartphone, no? Open Facebook - I will tell you what to type and you can find our page."

I always rue the fact that too many of my relatives from the older generation know a little too much technology for my liking - not enough to be completely self-sufficient, but just enough to be dangerous. But what is with random strangers telling me how to use technology, yaar?

On the new phone, and things that are needed

This dependence on technology is a funny thing. I didn't own a tablet till I finally gifted myself one on my birthday this year, after two years of chickening out. And barely six months later, I forgot to take it with me on one of my weekend trips, and didn't know what to do with myself on the flight.


I'm a bit of a late adopter when it comes to technology. I didn't buy my own laptop till I was two years into my first job, unlike most of my peers who had one in college. And I *refused* to get a smartphone, or even data on my phone, till four years ago. I was a Nokia loyalist (except for a brief affair with Motorola when they came out with this really cheap flip phone - *not* the Moto-Razr that everyone in college had). My last year in India, my former boss gave me her Nokia E71 when she got a smartphone, and that phone was just perfect.

Then I moved to Amreeka, and got me a BlackBerry because that's what all the gal pals back home had. And wouldn't you know it, just as I got that, everyone else moved on to iPhones and Androids. I finally moved to Android after graduation from b-school, and two months ago, upgraded from my S4 to my latest phone, an S6.

When I got the S6, I deliberately didn't download all the apps I had on my previous phone. I wanted to see what I needed and what I could live without. Turns out, I can't do without Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, and the Kindle app. Facebook came a day or two later. Skype, Saavn and Pocket followed soon after. Out of Milk was downloaded on my first trip to the grocery store after getting the phone; I still haven't got the Kroger app, which I should, because I'm losing out on coupons that I normally remember to load up as I'm shopping.

I resisted adding my work email to the phone initially, mainly because it wanted to encrypt things that I didn't understand and so didn't want to get into. But while I can do without my email, not having my calendar readily available was driving me crazy, so I gave in within a couple of weeks.

In the months since, I've downloaded a bunch of the travel apps I use regularly (including Uber and Lyft), Evernote, OpenTable, Cricinfo, Google News, OvuView, Mint, Amazon, and Unit Converter (I'm amazed myself at how often I need this app). And in the last couple of weeks, a bunch of fitness/health related apps because they have been needed to start tracking things. Of course, this isn't counting any of the preloaded apps like Gmail etc.

And while this seems like a fairly long list, it's actually much shorter than what I had on my previous phone. No games, for one. I've resisted getting Candy Crush Saga and seem to be getting along just fine without it for now (it’s on the tablet, so I’m still playing it, yes). I don't have all the bank or loyalty program apps I had previously. And I haven't got feedly yet - which I suspect won't last very long, but let's see.

And to think I used almost none of this a short four years ago.

So I'm curious - what are the must-have apps y'all need?

And since we're on the subject, does it drive anyone else crazy that the S6 won't let you swipe from the last screen to the home screen, but makes to swipe all the way back one by one? AND that you can't choose which screen you want to go to by just pressing the corresponding dots?

Nuggets from here and there

I'm in my last semester at business school (wow, time flies), and taking two classes this semester, both of which vary between being fascinating and putting-you-to-sleep boring, all within the space of two hours.

The professor in my first class today showed this video, from Louis CK's appearance on Conan O'Brien's show a few years ago. The entire conversation is funny, but the segment between 2:15 and 6:05, which we saw in class, is brilliant. Watch:

"Everything is amazing and nobody is happy" by Meowbay

True, isn't it? We take technology and all offers us so much for granted, we forget that when we were born, or even as growing up, we didn't have any of this. @_GoneNative wrote this post a while back that had a line I absolutely fallen in love with and shared here:

"My generation has had to say a lot of goodbyes in quick succession to the things we built our lives around. I have a feeling the next lot will find it easier to use & throw."

That's true, in a way, but also so sad.

And then, in my second class today, we were talking about price discrimination, for possibly the gazillionth time since school began (and I still suck at it. go figure.), and our professor shared this passage, which I think is the most beautiful description of price discrimination that I have seen in a very long time.

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriage or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches… What the company is trying to do is prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich… And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to the third-class passengers and mean to the second-class ones, become lavish in dealing with first-class customers. Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous.

 ~ Jules Dupuit (1849), On Tolls and Transport

It's a good day, when your classes make you see or hear something that strikes a chord, that makes you think, that makes you want to share it with everyone else.

Where the...?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of upgrading software is to get new features, not lose out on the ones I already have and like.

Everywhere I turn, however, just the opposite seems to be happening. Adobe Reader 8 took away the Insert Bookmarks option, the latest version of Windows Media Player doesn't seem to have auto playlists, Gmail won't let me use Page Up and Page Down while applying labels anymore, and for the life of me, I can't find the Set Language option in the latest version of Microsoft Word.

Sheesh.