Top 10 reasons why employees hate their boss

Bangalore: Bosses! Can't work with them, can't work without them. Everything seems to be fine when you join the job but if you are one of those fortunate ones, sooner or later your boss starts smirking in your nightmares.

A chat with employees working under tough projects and small teams who usually face tremendous work pressure will give us interesting insights about the bad bosses they have. Even in a company sans work pressure employees regularly bump into bad bosses. And their experiences are real bad [pardon me of your boss is really good] which they only share once they are in a new job. Good bosses are hard to find and employees hate their bad bosses for very many reasons. We at SiliconIndia did a survey to know why employees hate their boss. Listing the Top

10 reasons below:

1) Incompetent and unacknowledging - Employees hate bosses who doesn't have the essential competitive skills but still scorns the work they do. Whether or not the boss is competitive, the employee really longs for his good work to be acknowledged and not to be treated as a 'piece of crap'.

2) Privacy Invasion - 'He always keep guard about what I do, constantly checks out on the office phone about what I am busy at (an indirect way to know whether I am on a call with any acquaintance) and one day even peeped through the door to see what I am doing. Now I even doubt whether he is watching me once I reach home' says Anamika (name changed to protect identity). Now that's a real bad boss.

3) The narcissist boss - Employees hate bosses who acts as the 'know it all', who thinks they are second to none, hears nothing until it directly benefits him and so self obsessed to be called in the informal way 'a narcissist glory monger'.

4) Personal Insults - Bosses who torture employees with personal insults rather than choosing to reproach on the basis of their work quickly gets in the hate list. Many employees have long stories to say about bosses who frequently torture them with comments about their attitude and discriminate them deliberately.

5) The angry 'yelling' boss - You are the boss, thumbs up. But how on earth could you yell at me like that. Employees at some point or other meet the unfortunate fate of being victim to their boss' wrath. Justifiable the reason may be, but you are in my hate list boss.

6) The 'opportunist' boss - Employees obviously develops a dislike to their boss who refuses to mind them. But one day the same boss who never acknowledged your presence comes to you, smiles at you and the next thing you know, you are on an extra shift with heavy workload. Dislikes turn to hate for such opportunist bosses.

7) The 'tensed' boss - Employees tend to hate bosses who are always tensed and want them to finish of the work in a hurry. "He is so tensed and rushes things as if his head is on fire. His tension is so contagious that even we get tensed in his presence" Rahul, a software employee.

8) Stealing credits - Employees feel cheated and hate their boss when he or she steals the credit of their work but never forgets to blame them if something goes wrong.

9) Lack of clarity and feedback - Employees hate bosses who don't brief them properly and keep the employees ignorant with any real feedback on their work. And worse, employees are blamed for something which in turn would be the result of void feedback.

10) Lack of rapport - Employees hate bosses who lacks mutual respect and always play bossy without any real interest in befriending the employees.

Common wealth games ended successfully

 

NEW DELHI: The headlines across the world have changed and how. Ten days ago they read: "Games are running on empty" and "What's wrong with the Games today?" But now after the successful staging of the Delhi Commonwealth Games, topped off by a glitzglam closing ceremony on Thursday, an overwhelming majority of the foreign media is singing praises - some fulsome, a few grudging - about the way the Games were overall conducted.

The latest headlines are: Delhi's Commonwealth showing a winner, after all (Vancouver Sun) and CWG 2010: India has every right to be proud after torrid build-up (Daily Telegraph), Games 2010 finish with India triumphant (Guardian) and Delhi bellyachers the losers as Games overcome hurdles in strong finish (Sydney Morning Herald).

Sydney Morning Herald even carried an online poll; the question being, Would you rate the Delhi Games a success? 81% said yes. The Toronto Star says that for the host nation "the greatest legacy of the Games" is "not the medal total, but the potential launching of a sports culture in India."

Randy Starkman of Toronto Star, writes, "Just as Canada is dominated by hockey and everything else is a distant second, the same applies to India and cricket. But at these Games so many new heroes were born for India, such as the women's 4x400-metre relay team.

"Sport in general hasn't been promoted in this nation, but women's sport has been a total afterthought. These Games have the potential to create a shift in that. Already, there is talk of India going after an Olympics. That would have been laughed off before the Games started, and rightly so. But they've likely put themselves back in the running by pulling this off in good fashion.

"Obviously, they're going to have to ramp up their organizational resources and improve their preparation and planning to have any shot at it. But Rio's got the 2016 Olympics and it could be argued these Games were more impressive than the 2007 Pan Ams staged in Brazil."

John Mackinnon also writes in the Vancouver Sun, "Having covered the Pan American Games in Rio, which that equally problematic city leveraged into a successful Olympic bid, it seems fair to say that Delhi's organizational effort was in many ways superior to Rio's."

At least for a section of the foreign press, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit endures as the hero of the Games. "It was Dikshit, at the collective urging of countries such as Canada, Scotland, England, Wales and New Zealand, who applied the necessary discipline and organizational muscle to tidy up the Village and avert more embarrassment than Delhi had already suffered," says the same newspaper.

Interestingly, the Canadian athletes are nearly unanimous in lauding Delhi's Games. "Our buses were always on time, the competitions always started on time," said Canadian flag-bearer Tara Whitten, winner of one gold and three bronze in cycling. "On the track, that's actually unheard of, to be as on time as we were."

Jessica Halloran writes in the Australian newspaper Courier Mail, "In the end we all were in love with India - they were gracious hosts - but we never fell for the Games' organising committee. Ask any Delhiite and they would speak about the shame this bungling, bumbling and self-serving committee had brought upon them. But the people of India, their goodwill and their kindness, triumphed over the OC's chaos and corruption in the end. Somehow it all came together."

She also points out that "during the Games a tuk-tuk or Embassy cab was far more reliable than the transport the OC provided."

London-based newspaper Daily Telegraph was one of the most vicious critics of the Games. Jacquelin Magnay writes in the same newspaper, "Such was the low expectations of a struggling and ineffectual organising committee, fuelled by the betel-nut stains on lavatory bowls, piles of rubble and unfinished construction at the athletes' village two weeks before the opening ceremony, the Games were going to be a success if they started, and a huge success if they finished."

Nonetheless, the newspaper also admits, "The Indians have a right to feel warm about their justified claims that the Games were happy and reasonably well run, amid the country's bigger social and economic struggles."

It also quotes Kelly Holmes, president of Commonwealth Games England, as saying that athletes who withdrew before the Games might well be regretting their decision.

Peter Hanlon in Sydney Morning Herald writes, "Here's something you probably haven't read outside India this past fortnight: the people of Delhi have done a terrific job, and are entitled to be proud of their Games."

Amidst such fulsome praise, there is the odd discordant note too. New York Times carried an article headlined, "India declares Commonwealth Games a success". The article says, "To many analysts and critics, the self-congratulations were misplaced, and opposite lessons should be drawn, as the Commonwealth Games demonstrated the inability of India's bureaucracy to efficiently deliver, even on a project intended as a show piece to the world.

1,000 cyber attacks on Games, most from China

Six cyber networks of the Delhi Commonwealth Games faced at least 1,000 “potential” attacks in the 12 days of the event that concluded last night — that is, more than three attacks every hour.

Roughly three-fourths of these attempts to breach and paralyse the Games networks originated from China, experts in the Cyber Crisis Management Group (CMG), which was monitoring the networks round the clock, told The Indian Express.

A clutch of attacks — between October 3 and October 5 — originated in Pakistan. Some attempts to penetrate CWG circuits were made from Mumbai as well, top sources in the CMG said.

“In all, our systems detected around 5,000 incidents, about 20 per cent of which could be described as potential attacks. Many were ‘denial-of-service’ attacks, which, if successful, would jam entire networks. But none of these attempts succeeded in penetrating even the first of the three layers of cyber security systems that we had installed,” said a member of the CMG. 

The CMG, which operated from an out-of-bounds Cyber Command Centre set up on the seventh floor of the Games Organising Committee (OC) headquarters, included cyber experts from the intelligence agencies, Delhi Police and the Government of India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).

The cyber security infrastructure which successfully detected, identified and neutralized the attacks was set up in only two months after Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar authorized the cyber CMG headed by CERT-In chief Gulshan Rai, who was empowered to disable sections of the CWG computer networks in case of a serious cyber attack

India, second spam generating country

Mumbai: India is now the second among the list of spam generating nations, accounting for nearly seven percent of all junk mails send across the world, according to IT security and control firm Sophos. The list is topped by U.S., accounting for almost 19 percent of global spam, making the country responsible for nearly one in five junk emails. In the list India is followed by Brazil (5.7 percent), France (5.4 percent), and UK (5 percent).

Sophos' latest report, "Dirty Dozen" shows that almost all spam comes from botnets, Sophos found. In Microsoft-s latest Security Intelligence Report, the company reported that the U.S. was home to some 2.2 million PCs infected with botnet malware - roughly four times as many as Brazil, the country with the next highest amount.

"Spam isn't just a nuisance, it's used by cybercriminals as a means of growing their operations," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos, in a statement. "You should never even be tempted to open a spam message out of curiosity, as it can only take a second to effectively hand over control of your computer to the spammers. If your computer does become part of a botnet, you're also inviting further malware infections, which may compromise your personal or banking details."

Sophos also notes a rise in social networking spam during the year's third quarter, such as the 'onMouseOver' exploit on Twitter and numerous Facebook scams used by spammers to generate money from survey Websites.

"What's interesting about the Facebook scams is that they exploit human weaknesses to spread - tricking users into filling in a questionnaire if they want to see a shocking picture or video that may not even exist," Cluley said. "Unfortunately, these scams continue to proliferate, with new ones springing up every day, and Facebook seemingly unable to kill them off permanently."

The best way for computer users to reduce the risk of being compromised is to run anti-spam and anti-malware protections, behave sensibly when online, and ensure systems are up-to-date with security patches.

Sophos recommends that companies automatically update their corporate virus protection, and run a consolidated solution at their email and web gateways to defend against spam and viruses.

CWG corruption: Over 20 officers under scanner, endgame for Kalmadi & Co?

New Delhi:  The closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games ended with rainbow-coloured splatter that lit up the night sky. The fireworks may, in fact, just be beginning.

A panel has been set up by the government to look into the corruption charges in the Games. Headed by former Comptroller and Auditor General, VK Shunglu, the panel will submit its report within three months to the Prime Minister.  It has the mandate to review every transaction, if needed.

NDTV has also learnt that the government has drawn up a list of over 20 officials whose role in "organising and conducting" the games will be probed.

They include the Suresh Kalmadi, Chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee; Delhi's Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna as the head of the DDA, responsible for the athletes' village; former Urban Development secretary Ramachandran; and the finance committee of the OC, headed by GC Chaturvedi, an Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

Sources have also told NDTV that the government is unhappy over the role of the sports ministry. Rahul Bhatnagar, the Joint Secretary in charge of the International Sports division, is also under the scanner.

The Organizing Committee for the Games was headed by Suresh Kalmadi, who was snubbed by the Prime minister on Friday and not invited to attend a reception for the Indian athletes and medal-winners at the Commonwealth Games

India to take up outsourcing issue with Obama

Bangalore: During the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama here, India will raise concerns expressed by its IT industry over the U.S. curbs on outsourcing. There are some serious reservations being expressed about India's IT industry about outsourcing and the tightening of visa rules. These are the kind of issues that will be discussed said S.M. Krishna, Minister of External Affairs.

He was replying to a question on the areas on which India expected to see positive improvement during Obama's visit.

Krishna, however, stressed that the commonalities between India and the US are so strong that the problems in perception on some issues will not mar the relationship.

Obama is expected to arrive on his maiden visit to India on Nov.5. In view of India's sensitivity over the outsourcing issue, Obama will not go to Bangalore during his four-day visit to India.

U.S. recently hiked H-1B and L1 visa fees for foreign companies, particularly outsourcing giants from India, a controversial step that could cost India's IT industry $200 million a year.

In August this year, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland of the Democratic Party banned outsourcing, saying this undermined economic development and had unacceptable business consequences for his state.

Cybercriminals in India creating botnets to capture PCs

New Delhi: Cybercriminals in India are increasingly looking at creating botnets, network of computers aimed at attacking and 'capturing' PCs to spread viruses through them to other systems, according to Microsoft report.

India ranks 25th in terms of bot infections detected and removed in the quarter ended June 2010, according to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report version 9. The report covered 200 countries and territories.

The country had 38,954 computers with bots cleaned in Q2 this year compared to 37,895 computers in the previous quarter.

A Botnet is a network of computers, controlled by one computer (bot herder), which attacks another PC and makes it a part of its network. The main drivers for botnets are for recognition and financial gains.

The larger the botnet, the more recognition the herder can claim to have among the cybercriminal community.

The bot herder can also offer services of the botnet to third parties, usually for sending spam messages. Due to the large numbers of machines within the botnet, huge volumes of such mails can be generated.

"It is clear that the controllers work hard to sustain, maintain and grow them for financial gain. If it is a consumer the data and financial loss may not amount to a huge amount, but the loss is more severe if we talk about organsiations or at a government level," Microsoft India Chief Security Officer Sanjay Bahl told PTI.

Microsoft estimates that $780 million was lost globally in 2008-09 to spam mails. "It's clear that the evolution of the botnet is a major concern. As well as the prominent rise in infections on a global scale, data from this year's report has also shown that cybercriminals are now using more sophisticated techniques like botnets to further their reach of potential victims," Ovum Analyst Graham Titterington said.

Over the past few years, volumes of spam originating from a single computer has dropped in order to thwart spam detection. The trend is moving towards using a larger number of compromised hosts for sending smaller amount of messages. This helps evade detection by anti-spam techniques.

Though the numbers in India might seem small, but such attacks are increasing. "Cybercriminals play with vulnerabilities. For example, in a developing country like Brazil, people are engaging in online payments, so the cyber criminal will try and attack through spam mails promising lottery and bank payments," Bahl said

Operational Capability: Success mantra for software firms

Bangalore: Proving wrong the hypothesize that R&D and marketing caliber underlines the success of a software firm, higher operational capabilities revealed to be the success formula for software firms by a group of researchers led by Shanling Li of McGill University.

The study stressed that firms which persist and survive over the long term in the dynamic software industry are able to capitalize on their competitive actions because of their greater capabilities, and particularly OP capabilities. The insights given by the study will prove vital for the volatile software industry where success and failure depends on a single action adopted by them. Firms with a greater emphasis on innovation-related than resource-related competitive actions have a greater livelihood for survival and will be encouraging for firms having higher MK and OP capabilities since they will have a higher chance for survival.

 

A wider breakdown study of sub sectors within the software industry reveal that firms producing visual applications like graphical and video game software have the highest marketing capability but the lowest OP and RD capabilities and make twice as many innovation-related as resource-related moves. Though these firms have the highest market values, they are at a high risk for failure, and indeed the firms in this sector fail at a greater rate than expected. But this will be a contrast in capability to the different competitive moves made by firms producing traditional decision-support applications and infrastructure software.

The study emphasized that companies with high levels of innovation-related competitive actions but low operating capability were 466 percent more likely to fail than the average. The study which examined a cross-sectional, time series panel of 5,827 observations on 870 software companies from 1995 to 2007 used methodologies like Cox proportional hazard regression technique and stochastic frontier production function to measure the capability for each software firm in each time period.

CWG: India at the second spot with 29 gold medals

Bangalore: India got 5 gold medals, 5 silver medals and 5 bronze medals, a total of 15 medals on Sunday, which made India, gain the second spot at the Common Wealth Games 2010.

The hosts raked up gold, silver and medals from wrestling, archery, shooting, athletics and tennis on another very fruitful day of competitions.

Ranchi-born teenage shooter Deepika Kumari set the tone with a gold in the women''s individual recurve at the archery range.

Fellow-archer Rahul Banerjee (men's individual recurve), Harpreet Singh (men's 25m centre fire pistol) and world freestyle wrestling champion Sushil Kumar (66kg) followed suit before Somdev Devvarman lived up to his billing as the top seed by winning the men's singles gold. The silverware provided earlier in the day by Vijay Kumar (centre fire pistol) and freestyle grapplers Anuj Kumar (84kg) and Joginder Kumar (120kg) was boosted in the evening by field athletes Vikas Gowda (men's discus) and Malliakal Prajusha (women's long jump).

The 15 medals increased the country's haul to an impressive 29-22-22.

England tallied 25-45-30 while Australia are lying far ahead in the top spot by grabbing 61 gold, 35 silver and 36 bronze. The day commenced in splendid fashion with 17-year-old Deepika Kumari stunning 2004 Athens Olympics bronze medallist Alison James Williamson 6-0, by showing amazing precision and steady nerves in windy conditions to win her second recurve gold of the Games

Now! Cars can drive themselves

Bangalore: Google has been quietly building self-driving robotic car technology, based on the work of Google engineer and Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun, who co-invented Google's Street View mapping service. It has already been testing cars that drive themselves should be met by warm feelings in many of one's more imaginative nerve-endings.

Google is intending that these cars, manned as they are by vast arrays of excellent soft- and hardware, will avoid crashes and allow for fuel savings and more cars on the road. They will also allow drivers to get drunk to skunk levels, given that no self-respecting Google car would actually let the drivers take the wheel, even when they're sober.

While the project is being looked at as an example of just how far outside of its core business Google has been reaching, the prospect of self-driving, computerized cars is compelling because they could make driving more sustainable.

Now, Google lets you to make video calls from your TV

Bangalore: Google TV has got something exciting in its store. While partnerships with Pandora and Napster excite the media consumer in U.S., the real killer application will be video calling using devices like Logitech's Google TV box, the Revue. Although not mentioned on the site, it is clear that the Revue will work with Logtiech HD cameras like the C910. While we've been able to make Skype video calls on PCs, mobile phones, and laptops for years, imagine if you could do it from the comfort of your couch, reports John Biggs from The Crunch Gear.

There is an entire generation of users who couldn't give the steam o' their piss about Ooyala integration but they would stand in line to see the grandkids in living HD on a big screen. Video calling will be as simple to use as Facetime. Skype is easy but anything beyond contact management and pressing a single button marked Call may be too much for the intended audience. To those naysayers who think video calling isn't important: Logitech and Cisco aren't making their money on selling to dorks who love Google. They make money by selling cool hardware to the world. And to the worlds' parents.

To be able to choose a contact and have a picture-in-picture conversation with that person, even if you're not broadcasting video, will also change the perception of the home phone. While the vast majority of Americans have seen and used VOIP systems, to see a VOIP on a TV screen will be a revelation for many. All of the other Google TV 'apps' are going to be swell. But the real application will be the one that helps you stay in touch