Planning & Plan

"Plans are useless but planning is indispensable." - President Eisenhower

Plans, especially when followed without caring for changing reality, are useless and can be fatal. But, planning is very useful. Seems very contradictory. But, the point is planning is very useful because of the thought process that goes into it. After that if you can commit that thought process on to the paper, it become imprinted on your mind and you are ready to execute per the planning process.

What happens  many times is that, plans are developed in a hurry by filling out some random templates. After that they are let to gather dust on the shelves. Later when a need arises to refer to plans, plans are referred and executed per the plan without taking into account reality which may have changed during that time.

Best practice is to constantly plan and execute based on the insights generated. Planning is a continuous activity. It should be driven by constant feedback which fuels additional planning and so on.

"Plan the work. Work the plan."

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Enterprise rent-a-car

Recently, I had to rent a car for a few days. Like before, went with Enterprise Rental Car. They are convenient for several reasons. They are in many locations. They work with many body shops and insurance companies. They bill directly to insurance companies etc. Most importantly, they are good with picking you up and dropping  you off. All good and nice things.

One thing that really bugged me is that both the time I rented car  this month, the gas tank was never full. Of course, they do not ask you to return the car with full tank. They ask you to return the car with exactly same amount of gas. But, it is so damn hard to return with exact same amount of gas when it is like 5/8 nth full etc. For example, I am sure I returned the car last time with at least 3-4 gallons of extra gas. That means like 10 bucks. That is loss to me. Who pays for it?

Enterprise and many car companies should make absolutely certain that they rent cars with a full tank of gas. No exceptions. I realize that  many of these car rental companies do not have gas filling facilities on the premises and that may be a reason why they are unable to rent with full tank of gas. But, I have see the same problem while renting from airport facilities. All in all a very lousy and frustrating business practice.

Cheers!

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Pelvis - Elvis

"By sticking guitar in one's pelvis, you can't make him or her an Elvis."

Funny quote. The way I understood is - you can not make someone an expert in something by giving him a gift or training or something. One can hope to come anywhere close to Elvis only if he or she practices guitar for a long time with perseverance. No shortcut to success than hard work coupled with some amount of intelligence and a pinch of luck.

Cheers!

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Obama

OK, elections are over. Thanks for that. Enough of that over last two years.

Personally I would have liked to see Hillary Clinton become president. But, unfortunately she did not. If things were to be good, I would not have minded McCain. But, his party has not led us to anything better in last 8 years. On the contrary, it has become a war mongering party. Can not give them another chance to wage wars on more countries. So, although I have a lot of respect for McCain, his experience and service, he could not get votes. So, had to settle with Obama. Let's see what he is going to do. If not anything, he and democrats do not seem to start any new wars. Less we do wars, better we will be. Hopefully, we will learn that lesson.

Fist time in life, I voted. Although, I was a qualified voter in India, I was never there at election times. So, had not voted even once since getting voting eligibility. Happy to have voted at least once. It had to be in US. That's ok.

Funny thing, a distant relative of mine once voted in my name in India. Brave of him. He just went to voting booth, told my name and voted. This, I guess, was much before they came up with voting ID cards. I still remember going to some vague place in Bangalore in the very early morning sometime in 1996 to get pictures taken for voter ID card. It was TN Seshan's time and voting card mania at peak. God knows what happened to voting card. Do not remember ever having received that.

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