Is it time for me to Own a car?

This is my perspective and of course all your rants can be expressed as comments.
I remember those child hood days where some one who owns a car should be filthy rich or have serious necessary needs for commutation.

Usually it is business class people who end up buying cars. Here is my case which I present

1. A business man travels an average of 40KMS a day for his business needs
2. Commutes by Bus, train, taxi.

Let us understand his expenses on an average for his commutation purpose.
Taxi – 10 INR/ KM (minimum package usually cost 340 INR for 30 KMS and for 5 hrs and Extra 5 INR for additional KM)
Bus – 2 INR/ KM (ends up making loss because he has to wait to catch up one, travel and waste time because of frequent stops)
Train – 3 INR/ KM (ends up making loss because he has to wait to catch up one, travel and waste time because of frequent stops)

Kindly note: all rates are approx or closest to the actuals, you could calculate with your travel agency or taxi driver and have a better bargain
forced to travel by Taxi – 10 INR X 40 KMS = 400 INR
a) so monthly 400INR for 26 days considering he doesn’t commute on Sundays is 10400 INR.

A car cost 2.45 Lakhs INR a entry level like Maruthi 800 with AC (air conditioner)

Monthly petrol Bill:
considering if the mileage is 15KMS/ liter and the cost of petrol is 50 INRappox/liter and the business man commutes 40 KMS a day that is equivalent to 3 liters of petrol a day
1) 3 liters X 26 days X 50 INR = 3900

Maintenance charge quarterly
2) 4000 INR /4 = 1000 INR / month

Car EMI
3) Your car EMI is 2545 INR for the next 5 years if you paid upfront of 1.2 lakh INR

Loss on investment
4) Interest for 1.2 Lakh INR at 6% is 7200 INR/12 months = 600 INR

Now to the calculation
b) 3900(1) +1000(2) + 2545(3) + 600″(4) which is considered as loss of investment” = 8045 INR/ month

So what is the gain (a) – (b) = 10400 – 8045 = 2355 INR/month.

Apart from all of this, maintaining a car is not that easy.
Cleaning up your car daily, It takes minimum of 1 hr to do water wash at your residence if you are one who is going to clean
if you have some to clean it up a minimum of 150 INR as additional expenditure

Periodic water wash with wax polish helps the car to look good. You can do this every 3 months for about 450 INR

Well about the interiors, you need air refreshers like Ambi pur car or equivalent which adds to another 90 INR for every month.
upholstery – I leave the choice to you.

Insurance
c) Insure your car properly, well you need to pay for this annually depending on the car you own

After buying your cars you may have different ideas of car stereos, mods etc that could put a hole in your pocket.

Do consider these things in to account.
If you car doesn’t run that min 40KMS/day you end up making a loss. (Your loss of investment)
You could save more money by converting your car running on petrol to gas (or rather I should say 50% as saving on fuel)

Things which a common man falls for buying a car

1. Car gives you better shelter during rains
2. Car helps to mobilize more people usually 4 people at a time
3. It helps my old parents to visit hospitals.
4. It helps my wife to do shopping and drop/pickup at school for my kids.
5. Car is a status symbol (Status symbol – you would have heard about Germans loving his car than his wife)
6. EMI’s as low as 100/day

There are few more pitfalls
Owning a second hand car – unless or untill you strike a better deal.
Car from manufacturer – there are certain cars in the market where the resale value is less.
 
Don’t just by advertisements, go by friend referrals, usually Advertisers make the day.

The above are the usual pitfalls. I have given you a rough calculation for you to do your own math
If your (a) – (b) – (c) gives you profit, you can go for a car. And do remember having your car in the garage doesn’t help you in saving money.

Technorati Tags: car, experience, buying, selling, advertisement, advertiser, insurance, profit, loss, petrol, gas, second hand, market, prestige, status symbol

Why does RRB need the best of the best?

It might be late for me to make a post of RRB (Railway recruitment Board) Exams. I had already missed couple of bright Youngsters when I was doing my 10th Standard. My dad was a Government Employee working for I.C.F (Integral Coach Factory)  Chennai – 38 and he had little exposure to the outside world, showed me an option for a Ticket collector Job with Railways. Where I could the youngest guy making little money. 

Atleast for some years to come these young guys will the wealthiest among their peers.
Time will prove that their financial status and their personal habits go wrong.

I was fortunate among the few of my best friends who did not make it up at the final interview. And few bright kids who made it to the course at S.B.O.A school at Annanagar. End of the course my friends graduated to be ticket collectors at different parts of India.

I have been tracking few of my other friends who were doing ticket collecting jobs for the past 9 years
1997 – 4 close friends of mine joined as ticket collectors, they were all earning while we were all studying and they were the wealthiest among all our friends

1999 – one quit and went a head and did ICWA and other courses (his dad was smart kicked his ass ) finally now in the UK as a Project Manager

2002 – one more person did ICWA and other related courses and finally quit railways and now in Pune as software engineer

2004 – one person quit Now in Bangalore as software engineer, likely to get married, just made the first step in financial growth.

2006 – one person still will Railways, quite not settled, financial status is a big question. His elder brother now works as CTO for a UK based e-learning company.

Here are questions, for which I am looking for answers.

Why does RRB need good candidate for ticket collecting jobs?
A lazy duck like me could have been doing this ticket collecting job than the brighter ones who could have been brighter stars.

Apart from the training etc after some years most of them have left Railways and headed for a bright future.
RRB just wasted money on training on these bright kids and on top of that they just spoiled their careers. Atleast for some years.

What do you all have to say?
Rage or happiest times you experienced

Technorati Tags: India, chennai, railways, Indian railways , RRB, job, career

Seth Godin needs this mobile

I had been to “The MobileStore” at Annanagar, 2nd avenue, chennai last evening, and was in the search for Scratch guard for my Nokia N70 as soon my eyes was on the samsung SGH- E250 with a special feature saying Mobile tracker, It got my attention. This mobile has all features of Nokia N70 + wifi + Mobile tracker - theft guard and the best price is 7800 INR (approx) i.e half the price of Nokia N70.

I remember looking in devanand blog post my mobile my mobile, and here is what Seth post had said.

I personally feel having two credit card sized devices one on the mobile and another one on you neck or your hand or in your wallet is another pain in the butt.
If you could forget your mobile, you could also forget taking the card sized device.
I would say the best option would be a mobile which automatically would sends sms to your pre configured mobile numbers as soon one changes the SIM card.

Kindly Note: Most models of Samsung Mobile phone has the Mobile tracker installed by default.

Convergence: when the whole world is looking forward to have all controls under one device, for instance mobile phones have integrated Music, Photos and  Internet access. Why do we want the Mobile tracker be another piece of hardware on your butt. Just consider the user experience of carrying two device at a time

Technorati Tags: mobile, nokia, samsung, seth, seth godin, marketing, mobile tracker, tracker, security, user experience, convergence

Brand vs Local shop

A discussion which Mr. Baskran of Castrol BikeZone MSF Manager and I had last week.
You might have known about my death of Nokia N70 and the rebirth of Nokia N70 which I spoke in the other blog.

He had been to my office at Adventnet for a friendly chat on one afternoon and I told him that my Nokia N70 had a rebirth, I should thank the bright young fellow entrepreneur who primary business was on selling caller cards and the second one on servicing mobile Phones. In just 48 hrs my mobile Nokia N70 was in my hands and full functional. There was horrible difference when I had handed over my mobile to Nokia authorized service center at HCL Infinet. After looking in to the mobile they said that I either had to replace the mother board or replace a new mobile.

So here is the question

Why HCL infinet couldn’t fix my mobile where as the local shop keeper could fix my mobile in just 48hrs?

HCL Infinet – replace mother board or buy new mobile
Local Mobile service center – buys a “power IC” from Gagdet store at Burma Bazzar near Parrys corner.

HCL Infinet  150 INR for checking the mobile
HCL Infinet repair cost estimated – 11000 INR

Local mobile service center – 4000 INR (3500 INR for Power IC + Service charge 500 “out of sheer user experience and happiness”)

What I asked Mr. Baskaran.

me: Why do Big brands don’t look in to the small details and try to fix it up, so that the customer benefits?
Bakaran: It is because of product packaging. Chips or IC’s are not available for the Big brands separately. They are either sold as Unit package/ Components which will consist of IC’s or chips. It is because they need to pay tax to the government as unit packages, if they are going to pay tax for smaller components they may have to pay larger tax.

By this time I could figure out that maintenance is also easy in warehouse.

Baskaran: the same holds good in automobile Industry. The cost of the bike is cheap by adding additional taxes the cost of the bike is almost double.

So what do you feel, should you blame the government for increasing the tax or big players for not giving the benefit to the customers.

End of the day, If you are looking for better service it is big brands and if you have lot of money.
Small things can be fixed at our local shops and getting things promptly

Technorati Tags: Nokia, castrol, n70, adventnet, tax, service, brand, local, hcl, hcl infinet

Management Lessons

I have see lot of email forwards and this is no bullshit story on management.

Lesson Number One

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A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day.
A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?”
The crow answered “Sure, why not.”
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested.
All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Management Lesson:

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.
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Lesson Number Two
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A turkey was chatting with a bull. “I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree,” sighed the turkey, “but I haven’t got the energy.”

“Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?” replied the bull. “They’re packed with nutrients.”

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.

Management Lesson:

Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there.
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Lesson Number Three
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When the body was first made, all the parts wanted to be Boss.

The Brain said, “I should be Boss because I control the whole body’s responses and functions.”

The feet said, “We should be Boss as we carry the brain about and get him to where he wants to go.”

The hands said, “We should be Boss because we do all the work and earn all the money.”

And so it went on and on with the heart, the lungs and the eyes until finally the asshole spoke up.

All the parts laughed at the idea of the asshole being the Boss. So the asshole went on strike, blocked itself up and refused to work.

Within a short time the eyes became crossed, the hands clenched, the Feet twitched, the heart and lungs began to panic and the brain fevered.

Eventually they all decided that asshole should be the Boss, so the motion was passed.

All the other parts did all the work while the Boss just sat and passed out the shit!

Management Lesson:

You don’t need brains to be a Boss – any asshole will do.

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Lesson Number Four
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A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold, the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field.

While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was.

The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.

Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung and promptly dug him out and ate him!

Management Lessons:

1) Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3) And when you’re in deep shit, keep your mouth shut!

courtesy:Kailash

Technorati Tags: management, bullshit, lesson, funny,