Writing Using Idioms with Numbers

We use idioms to speak our mind with wit and a dash of humour to accentuate the message we intend to convey. So, let us try to use some of the idioms that use numbers in them to convey our message garnished with humour:

Have one over eight:     Someone who is tipsy due to drinking too much alcohol
At the Eleventh Hour:    Just at the final moment
Five o'clock shadow:    Someone who has not shaved and stubles appear on his face
Have Forty Winks:          Take a quick nap (sleep or rest for a short while.)

Now let us try to form a sentence using the idioms we have learnt the meaning of and listed them above.

Waiting for his project to complete successfully, Will had one over eight at the eleventh hour, so decided to have forty winks only to find five o'clock shadowing his face. 

[This means: While Will was waiting for his project to complete successfully, at the final moment he was was influenced by the alcaholic drink he had and decided to take a short nap only to find that he had slept long enough to grow beard on his face.]
So, are we ready for some more after the warm up session?

Let us take a few more idioms:

A chance in a million:           Rare and much awaited opportunity
Feel like a million dollar:      Feel extremely good
Never in a million years:     That which does not happen at all
Nine day wonder:                  Excitement lasting for a short time

For Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, it was a chance in a million making him feel like a million dollar, a nine day wonder that never had happened in a million years.

[This means: For Astronaut Neil Armsrtong, the first man to land on the moon, this was a rare opportunity he much waited for; he was proud of his achievement, though it was an excitement of short visit that has not happened at all.]

Let us now try to form a sentence using some of the eight idioms listed above:

At the eleventh hour the hare had forty winks making his excitement a nine day wonder giving the tortoise a chance in a million to feel like a million dollar.  

Refer to the meaning of the idioms to see what the sentence means.

Shall we have you use the following idioms to form a sentence or two:

A drop in a bucket:                                  a small part of a bigger whole(entity).                          
A penny saved is a penny earned:     saving money little by little
A picture paints a thousand words:   image impresses more than verbal description
A dime a dozen:                                       Anything that is in common

Happy time making sentence by combining one or more of the idioms to discover your creative potential!

An Experience of Cross Culture Blending

I was once asked, "Where are you from" to which I replied, "My Father is from West Bengal, Mother hails from Punjab. my birth place is Orissa and have lived in most of the major cities of India. I hope I have replied to your question."

As a resident of Bangalore, I preferred and also found the public bus service to be within my means to travel length and breadth of the city. As a commuter, I was impressed by the bonhomie the women commuters shared among themselves. A woman would leave her seat for an elderly woman and students, who would be seated would offer to hold the heavy bags of their friends who had to travel, standing in the vehicle.

In Calcutta, I found men eagerly offer their seats to the women: fellow travelers while the bus conductors helped the women to easily board and alight the bus.

My Mumbai experience is also quite impressive as I found the commuters stand in a queue and wait for the bus. They even board the bus in a queue. It is a remarkable sense of discipline and self-restraint.

The migratory birds like me, who live in various cities and experience unique cultural ethos, can help in blending the myriad hues of culture and enable the homogeneity of myriad cosmopolitan hues thus making India a truly nationally integrated country making our lives worth living in the country we call our Motherland.

Anukaran kaa Anusaran (Emulate to Follow)

पथ पर राही ने पायी नहीं  ठौर
चलता रहा, चलता रहा
पथ पर अडिग निरंतर.
पथ पर राही  ने पाई नहीं ठौर
बढ़ता रहा, बढ़ता रहा
वह मंजिल की ओर.
पथ पर राही  ने पायी नहीं ठौर
समझता रहा, समझता रहा
वह इस सफ़र का दौर
पथ पर राही  ने पाई नहीं ठौर
निरंतर, तत्पर
वह बढ़ता रहा अपनी मंजिल की ओर.
पथ ने कहा, 'मैं हूँ बहुत कठिन, यह तुमने है जाना
तुम हो तत्पर, यह मैने  है माना.
क्या है तुम्हारा उद्देश्य पर यह तुम मुझे बताना.
राही ने मुस्कुराकर कहा पथ से, "मेरा मकसद है जीवन,
पथ है माध्यम जीवन के निरंतर क्षण भंगुर से आगे बढने  का
पथ है माध्यम चिरंतन विचरण सुघड़ भावनायों का
पथ है माध्यम आत्म मंथन कर जीवनकाल चक्र से मुक्त होने का.
पथ, तुम हो आशा, प्रत्याषाहीन
यही है मैने जाना.
मैं राही एक अंश तुम्हारा, येही है मैने माना.
तुम्हारी प्रेरणा से प्ररित होकर बढ़ रहा हूँ निज जीवन मैं
तुम्हारा अनुराकर्ण कर कर रहा हूँ, कर अनुसरण जीवन का."

Top of the House 100

There once lived a monk in a monastery in the Alps with only a St. Bernard as his companion. The dog also did the job of rescuing the travellers stranded in snow storm or buried in snow. The monk called him “GOD”. When GOD would rush to the monk and bark aloud raising an alarm to rescue a poor soul fallen prey to the treacherous Alpine weather, the monk would quickly follow him and get the victim to the cosy confines of the monastery.



One cold, dark morning, when snow blizzard was raging outside the monastery, GOD rushed to the monk and tugged at his habit. The monk, who was praying at the alter immediately got up and rushed to follow GOD, who led him to the spot where a weary traveller lay unconscious, buried under a thick pile of snow. GOD immediately began digging up the snow in a frantic gesture to help the monk. To revive the man, the monk poured a few drops of brandy in the traveller’s mouth, wrapped him in a thick blanket and brought him to the monastery where he nursed him back to health.


While the traveller was recuperating in the monastery from his rough encounter with the fury of the Alps, he often found the monk ask GOD to go to the "top of the house" and have his “Hundred”. Curious to know what it meant, the traveller asked the monk, “Father, you often ask the dog to go to "the top of the house" to have his ‘Hundred’, what does it mean?”


The monk smiled at the traveller and said, “Son, the creature you call dog is a God Send for weary travellers like you who fall prey to the nature's fury,  that is why I call him GOD. I ask him to go to "the top of the house" to have his "Hundred" is to go out of the monastery to see if anyone needs our help.


(Foot note: The Numbers or creatures don’t always mean their face value, they also mean the purpose they serve in the grand design called the world at large we live in.)

BAKER'S DOZEN

Once upon a time, there lived an old baker named Barkis, who hardly had any customers visiting his bakery. So, he gradually began losing hope of selling the bread loaves he used to bake every day to sell.



One winter morning, a stranger walked into his bakery and said, “Barkis, I am new to this village and I have no family too, but I still want you to bake me a dozen loaves of bread every morning and I shall buy them from you.”


Happy with a sudden turn in his fate, Barkis baked a dozen loaves of bread and completed his work by daybreak.


True to his words, the stranger visited the bakery in the morning and asked Barkis for his ware.


Barkis eagerly picked up the wicker basket he had packed  for the stranger and handed it over to him.


The stranger quietly took the basket and opened each of the brown paper packet to check the bread loaf. After having checked all the loaves he produced one to Barkis and said,” Barkis, this loaf of bread is partly burnt, can you replace it with a fresh loaf  along with the dozen loaves you will deliver to me for tomorrow?”


Quite amazed at how he could overlook the burnt loaf, Barkis quietly took the loaf of bread from the stranger and agreed to replace it with a fresh loaf the following day.


The following day too, the stranger pointed out to a partly burnt loaf of bread and requested Barkis to replace it with the fresh loaf the following morning and this continued till such time that it became habitual for Barkis to bake thirteen loaves of bread instead of twelve for the stranger.


One day, the stranger visited Barkis’ bakery with his friend who requested Barkis too, to bake a dozen loaves of bread each day.


Habitually, Barkis baked thirteen loaves of bread each for the stranger and his friend and packed their wares in two separate wicker baskets.


Next morning the stranger and his friend visited Barkis’ bakery to collect their loaves of bread and the stranger’s friend was the first to open the basket to check the loaves. After having seen them, he returned one loaf to Barkis and said, “Friend, I had ordered for twelve loaves but you have given me thirteen.”


Barkis smiled and replied “So, after all, no more burnt loaf of bread.”


So friends, to be habitually proactive is what Baker’s dozen means, to avoid any eventualities.




(Foot Note: Especially quality compliance.)

Learning English the Easy Way - I (for Working People)

Let us see what is:

SINGULAR ~ ONE

PLURAL ~ MANY

First Person Singular "I"

First Person Plural "We"
We can learn the language in a very simple way by using Color Cards that will represent the important parts of a sentence and help us in understanding the relevance of each part in forming the sentence.

• First, we will make three color cards for "Subject", "Verb" and "Object". Subject to represent the person or object that does the action or activity denoted by the "Verb" card and the "object"  is the objective or result of the action.

E.g. Girl makes tea. Girl = Subject, makes = Verb, tea = Object.
Subject is person or thing that does the action denoted by Verb.
So, Subject can be Noun (name of person or any living thing, place or non-living thing.)
E.g Girl = Noun and makes = Verb.
Object is the result of the action (Verb) of Subject
So, Object often Noun (name of person or any living thing, place or non-living thing.)
E.g. The result of Girl's action of making is "Tea" = Noun.

Note:

Pronoun is a word that represents noun.

Person	Noun	Pronoun
First (One:-Singular)	I	I
First (Many:-Plural)	We	We
Second (One:-Singular)	You	You
Second (Many:-Plural)	You	You
Third (one:-Singular)	Boy	He
Third (Many:-Plural)	Boys	They
Third (One:-Singular)	Girl	They
Third (Many:-Plural)	Girls	They

Activity:
Display the following sentences and ask the learner to display appropriate colour card to identify the Subject (Noun/Pronoun), Verb and Object component of the sentence.

1. Navin learns French.
2. Baby drinks milk.
3. Students do home work.
4. We have dinner.
5. You know him.

Job Hop and Attrition: Individual and Oranizational Perspective

According to Khuram Shahzad, in terms of Job Hop:“There can be multiple reasons, as explained by Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. Employees want to move to other departments/teams when they feel that they can get better personal growth, self esteem, salary or better relations with manager/peers in other team as compared to their existing team. ” He feels that Attrition happens: “when employee feels that the overall environment of the company is not according to his required standards then employee thinks to go in some other company which is more aligned with his future goals and plans”. 

This is what Suhasini Sahakare thinks about Job Hop and Attrition, “The first typically happens because of “short termist” priorities at the top leadership level, which impact organizational culture.

After all, retaining people yields benefits only over the long term. Only when leadership is focused on the long term does it make the sacrifices necessary to retain people.

The second may happen for any reason under the sun really. I mean, a number of employees move because their spouse got transferred. How do you control that?” 

About Job Hop and Attrition, Steve Sutton says:”I not so much believe in "Human capital" as in humans.

People are not just one of the four types of fixed capital as Adam Smith wrote ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital ), but the base of any organization.

You can have machines, instruments (tools) of the trade and buildings, but without people you still have nothing.

On the other hand, people without machines, tools or buildings can and are capable of making a difference and earning profits.

A company who "cuts costs" by reducing staff is either making a big mistake now, or made one in the past by hiring the wrong people in the first place. If they have the right people, getting rid of them will cost more in the long run than any perceived savings in the short term.”

This is what Abhijit Sinha has to say about Job Hop and Attrition, “People don't leave organisation they leave their bosses. this statement is true in majority. I firmly believe and have seen that people who shift or change job of course think and say that they are moving for growth,but the question is if they get opportunity and growth in their own organisation why the will they shift and start from scratch.,

As there can be vision of organisation and scenario in various phase plays an imp.role.”

regards

abhijit

Milton Rivera Manga says, “Individual and organizational level are of course related.

It seems that a large proportion of individual job changes are due to a bad relation with the superior or boss.”

Zach Jonson says, “Employees are constantly moving within companies, sometimes outside factors like completion of college leads employees to a different employer and higher pay. With high turnover it basically means people are leaving the company fairly quickly. When people leave the company normally someone else changes positions to fill that vacant position leaving their position open to another person or a new employee.

The key for great companies is finding talented people and being able to retain those people within the organization for a long period of time.”

Christine Hueber opines:

“More enjoyment in another position.

Links:

[ http://ChristineHueber.com|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3ChristineHueber%2Ecom/HRT6 ] “

The discussion makes it clear that an employee can change job within the organization for the following reasons:

1. Lateral movement from one department (functional area) to another functional area.
Benefit to the employee: Employee gets opportunity to acquire knowledge, skill and experience of different functions of the organization and this gives twin benefits to the employee in terms of becoming more valuable to the organization by acquiring more comprehensive knowledge and experience of its activities and secondly, the employee gets an opportunity to move into the functional area of better comfort level, which helps in his/her career development objective.
Benefit to the organization: Through such movement, the organization is able to develop employees internally for its functions use their talent, skill and experience on the long run in decision making process at the management level  as part of the organization's management or skill succession plan to groom its people to plan and perpetuate its vision on a long run. This is also useful in technology intensive organization as they can help their employees to upgrade their technological know-how while developing their cross-functional skills and experience.


2.Vertical Movement: What we all generally know as internal job posting or addressing the vacancies through the existing resource within the organization, who has the required expertise to handle the portfolio, instead of hiring an external resource for the function. it is similar to lateral movement only that movement is up on the functional hierarchy ladder.
Benefit to the employee: Employee is able to utilize the opportunities available within the organization in career advancement. He or she can avail such opportunity to showcase and exploit ones multifarious talent to mutual benefit and this will also provide scope to the individual to enhance know-how and experience in mid and long term planning and preparing the road map with clearer vision gained from the experience gained from various levels of functional  hierarchy.
Benefit to the organization: The organization is able to groom and retain talent who can align their career objective with the vision and functional objective of the organization and can help it in fortifying and successfully executing the long term plans and objectives.

3. Geographic movement: from one location to another. Usually, an employee can move from one location office to another location office of the organization.
Benefit to the employee: In case an employee has to join his or her family or work from home town or country. This also gives the employee an opportunity to gain experience of the unique functionality of various geographic locations and this is of benefit for the marketing and media development professionals as well as those in research and development activities, who need to be aware of the ground realities at various geographic locations.
Benefit to the organization: Have employees comfortably positioned at its location offices so that they can help in executing its functions effectively. Have employees placed at locations who are aware of the place and the ground realities to effectively implement the organizations policies and functional objectives. Especially, when an organization is opening a new location office, it can relocate its employees who are from the region to do the pioneering activity of setting up base and establishing the organization in the region. Most of the MNCs are in the practice of giving home transfers or home relocation with promotion to their employees.


External Movement in terms of an individual and attrition or manpower turn over in terms of organization can be due to various reasons. Let us see what they are:


External Movement: Individual:- It is true, people do not leave organizations, people leave people.

1. No more career advancement prospects with the current organization.
2. Unfavourable working conditions.
3. Lack of recognition and functional motivation.
4.  Office Politics or derogatory work pressure.
5. Fallout with the immediate superior.
6. Disagreement with the policies or the functional objectives of the organization.
7. Better opportunities available outside the organization.
8. Personal reasons viz. family pressure, health conditions, etc.
9. Move to better matched job opportunity if available.

External Movement: Organization:- High employee turnover experienced by organization.

1. Challenge from its competitors who body snatch its employees.
2. Poor working conditions.
3. Lack of functional motivation to its employees.
4. Flawed work policies and regulations.
5. Improper planning and implementation of its vision in terms of resource management.
6. Lack of proper alignment of its vision with the functional objective of the employees.
7. Over-emphasis on short-term objectives leading to improper remuneration and compensation policies.
8. Improper leadership at various levels of functional hierarchy.
9. Improper hiring and training policies.

It is quite apparent that what ever may be the reason for job hop and attrition, proper hiring of  resource supported by proper HR policies and working conditions giving opportunity to an employee to align his/her career objective with the vision of the organization will address job hop and attrition in a positive way.

In case you are curious to about the reasons employees resign from their employ and leave, then  read "Why Employees Leave..."