This offsite has really sucked my energy and I have one more day to go. Last night I slept off at 9:30pm – I was barely able to keep my eyes open. The information overload has been exhausting but I also think this was the best way to get started in the new team – met all the key players, got updates on all the projects going on and within 2 days I have a decent understanding of the landscape I am dealing with and I can now choose to deep dive into a few important items first!
stupendousblog
Daru DC was disappointing. Was expecting a lot more from this restaurant considering its reputation. The food was ok, but the drinks were great. However the location of this restaurant is in such a unsafe area I would never come here with my family.
Day 1 in my new team and I am happy to report the entire team is an anti Trump libs club. Unlike my last team where my immediate manager was a trumpkin – the “freedom” was refreshing. And yes my manager is also one of those so relieffffffff.
In other news my Netflix account was hacked. We restarted Netflix for a month or two to catch up on Adolscene and other series we may have missed. Yesterday I couldnt login at all. Check my email and I have a email from Netflix that said I had changed my email on account and I cannot use my primary email anymore. After 30 mins on their chat line I was able to recover my account.
At yesterdays holi festival it felt like white people outnumbered Indians by 5x easily. I guess white people really like Holi eh? I can’t wait for an American to try and trademark holi like someone tried to do so for Yoga few years ago hehe. That said, happy to be in an area that’s still diverse and multicultural. I hope these whites are laughing with us at those whites who are sitting at home chanting their lords name and owning us while we still manage to smile and have fun.
Busy weekend. We attended a Holi festival nearby yesterday which was a lot of fun. Today the weather has been splendid so I did lawn mowing as well as weeding and killing all spam in the backyard. Then did the regular roborock maintenance. I also got in a weekend workout yesterday, and the lawn mowing today basically made me ultra sore. All in all nice weekend. Tomorrow I start my first day in a different team, and immediately starting with an offsite for 3 days in DC. I am looking forward to though our offsite dinner at Indian restaurant named Daru.
Yesterday I gave two interviews at a big bank outside of our company for a leadership role in product, even after initially telling the recruiter I am not a good fit and relaying the same to the hiring manager. After the interviews I am still scratching my head about what role are they actually trying to fill (the role is for VP of product overseeing quite a sizeable team). In my first round I was asked solve math equations and come up with percentages, and then using that to make some decision on resource investment. The second interview as all about “tell me a time when you did….” about all the tech choices I’ve made. I left the interviews more confused than ever. If this is a leadership role, I am not solving math equations on the fly! I work with finance person specifically for this purpose so he can help me make a decision. At my management level, I am not doing financial analysis, but instead taking their input to inform my future strategy. At my level I am more about empowering the people under me to do their jobs well, than to recommend a “tech” choice; I ask my team to give me the recommendation not the other way around. So I was not quite sure what they were actually looking for? Somebody who could come in and manage a team and set the strategy/direction, or an individual contributor who took ownership of an end-to-end product and drove it. Weird. I am tempted to cancel the remaining interviews and ask them not waste my time if this is not a good fit to begin with.
Superboys of Malegaon (2025) – ★★★★☆
Beautifully shot and acted movie. The last 5 mins were so achingly beautiful and superbly photographed.
The results of TJHSST are out and as expected like everything that happens to the kid, she got “waitlisted” 
. This is literally story of her life – haath ko aaya mooh na laga. Anyway I am super proud of her accomplishment! She barely prepped for this exam unlike a lot of kids we know went to specific institutes to train for this exam, so it’s a great indicator of her aptitude. It was highly unlikely we would have opted for the school anyway, but what we wanted was her to feel the confidence that she is smart! Goal accomplished all in all!
My doggo is turning almost 4 this year so I decided to a full blood/metabolic panel test, just because. Turns out his bloodwork and markers they test for is exactly the same things as they test for humans. It makes complete sense, but I kept thinking they check something else. He is doing good, but little high on cholesterol it seems. Lazy buns needs to be more active!