Excellence in our work

Was realy impressed by the story regarding excellence, which I have added in the week calling.It made me sit and think, if I am excelling in what I am supposed
to do.

How many times do we compromise, on something.

Not running that extra test case to make sure that things go fine.

Notice a weird message on the screen on the last day of testing,
and choose to ignore it ,thinking ''Hmm everything is working fine
as expected in the BRD.So why should i bother''.Or ''let the user
raise it in UAT. I will fix it then.''

How many times have i assumed that things will be fine,and
ignored what I was really supposed to do?
We see so much of injustice,pollution, crime,all around us,and
all of us do sit and complain. Its all because,someone is deciding
to lower the standards just a little bit.Someone out there is
thinking twice about putting in that extra bit of effort.

Scary huh??

Well its not the civil services bad guy who is always the villain.
We are doing the same thing with our jobs. Not only when it
comes to the test cases, and project work. Every day that we
come late to office,we are lowering our standards,and creating
a bad image for our organisation.
Every day when we do not send a proper update, we are failing
to excel in what we are supposed to do.

I remember the days when I was fresh out of ILP, and working for a project in Mumbai.Being a fresher,I and another guy in my project, were given documentation work only.It was quite disappointing, as everyone comes out of ILP dreaming to be
a master coder

We used to do the works assigned, carefully, but never used to review it that much,thinking it to be some work of least importance.

And one fine day, we made a reasonably big blunder in one of the reports.

My team lead, being the nice guy that he was, did not scream at us,but sat us down and gave us a nice talk. I do not remember all that he spoke about.Half of it was all about the report , and its importance to business etc etc..
But I still remember one sentence

'You wont always get to do what you want in life. But you can always try to beth best in what you get to do. '

You would have trained to be an architect:but the first years of
your career,you will be doing nothing, but drawing straight lines
on paper.Unless you get your lines straight there,no one is going
to trust you with building plans.

If all strive for excellence in what they are doing,imagine how
wonderful this world would be.

IF - Rudyard Kipling

One amazing literary piece which holds a lot of value in todays
world of deceptions:

IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,I
f you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!--

Rudyard Kipling