We already have loads of vacant positions for teaching staff and now this? 5 Lab Assistants and Office Assistants required? That actually draws my attention to this line : "Attractive Salary will be paid to deserving candidates". Although attractive is a relative term, frankly I don’t mind working as a part time typist for the college. That way I can have a small income while studying (that’s the key, otherwise you need to find a place to work during the vacations), the college can save some cash (sure, they’ll pay me less…I’m not a graduate yet ) and they’ll get their documents typed out faster. I have to admit, I am proud of my unconventional typing. Then what’s the problem? Well, yea being a typist in college would also mean that I would have get the opportunity to type our classified material (exam papers and the sorts), but those can be passed on to another employee. After all, I wouldn’t be the only office assistant in college, would I?

Okay enough about that, but what the hell happened to all the Open Source Mania that has engulfed our computer labs? Office Assistants are expected to have a basic understanding of Windows XP and Microsoft Office. What happened to Fedora Core and Open-Office? Isn’t Open Source for everyone? Our college begs to differ (Actually, every frickin’ Engineering institution that I know of in Mumbai is doing the same thing)

By using Windows and Open-Office, our college is agreeing that Linux and Open-Office is either non-user-friendly or not powerful, or both. And don’t you think that by using Linux on the office computers, XIE would be in a very convincing position to encourage students here and elsewhere to use Linux?

Sure, but who wants to take chances with serious office work? What if something goes wrong?

If only I had seen this advertisement before the college magazine was published, I would have cited this incident as a strong example in my magazine article "Linux for Dummies???" (which is also available online here)

We’ve seen the "Save Paper, Save Trees" slogan on our college printers, notices and even the electronic display board.

We’re being constantly told not to waste paper and ink unnecessarily but what the college authorities don’t realize that there’s nothing much we can do about it. It’s not in our hands.

We print extra pages because the pages don’t print correctly or because the pages get stuck within the printer. Why would we take unnecessary printouts? To waste college money, to play a prank maybe? Frankly, even if some dumb ass wants to take extra printouts, he won’t have the time to take them. (Use the frickin’ Computer Lab Cameras for proof if you need it)

Besides the time factor, we all know we should save money, paper and hence trees. How many times do we have to be reminded of this?

Being annoyed of hearing and seeing the slogan everywhere I go in college, I’ve come up with a list which can indeed save some trees and give XIE some extra disposable cash.

• Buy better Ink Cartridges.
• Don’t Use Dot-Matrix Printers.
• Encourage Assignments and Journals to be submitted as soft-copies.
• Store Student Information on Computers rather than on paper-Forms.

1) Buy Better Ink Cartridges:

The reason we take extra printouts is because the ink quality is so poor, it is hardly legible when a document is reproduced on paper. By saving money on buying cheaper cartridges, a lot more is wasted on paper.

2) Dot-Matrix Printers:

My friends and I were getting sick of the never-ending queue for the printer, and thought of chipping in for a dot-matrix printer exclusively for us. It seemed like a brilliant plan until we did our research on dot-Matrix printers. You’ll be surprised to hear this but the cheapest dot-Matrix printer costs Rs. 8000 in the market. Remember that this is a black-and-white printer. Even the cheapest colour printer costs Rs. 3000 in the market that uses an auto paper feeder. By using a dot-Matrix printer, we are paying 5000 bucks more for no reason, even the paper has to be attached into the grooves manually, not to mention all the paper-stuck incidents that we’ve been having throughout. Not just that, dot-Matrix paper costs Rs. 350 for a bundle of 1000 Pages. So what’s the big deal? The problem is that nobody will sell you a bundle of 100 or 200 pages. You have to buy the whole set of 1000 Pages. If you are wondering why the prices are so high, the answer is simple: Low Demand, which leads to low supply and higher prices.

Then why are we using Dot-Matrix Printers instead of Inkjet? I think it’s a Mumbai University rule that makes it mandatory for colleges to use these printers. Along with updating the curriculum, they should also amend such rules. But who is taking the initiative? Well sure XIE is, but instead of bombarding Mumbai University with all the "Save Paper, Save Trees" slogans, they’re pushing it on the students as if we can make a difference and change the rules of Mumbai University.

3) Encourage Assignments and Journals to be submitted as soft-copies.

For God’s Sake, people should remember we’re living in 2008. It’s the age of information technology and everything is being stored as a softcopy. Even airline companies have accepted standard printouts for tickets instead of the booklets which were cumbersome to manufacture. Hotel logs are stored on their local computers, and not on paper anymore.

If they can adopt this, why can’t we? It’s highly ironic that we are studying Computer Engineering and yet not implementing even one concept that we have studied in our syllabus.

Imagine how much money,time and space colleges could save if they asked students to submit assignments as soft-copies. There would be no need to make XIE Sheets and Files. Storage of Files would not be a problem since everything is on a computer. It would be easier to write assignments as we don’t have to use another sheet in case we screw anything up on a page, but simply pressing backspace and making the desired changes.

4) Store Student Information on Computers rather than on paper-Forms.

This is something XIE should do right away. If you visit the college office and ask them for your transcripts, you’ll find yourself waiting for at least half and hour watching the office staff searching each cabinet for your file. Why is this required? Why waste so much space? If the records were stored on a computer, finding it would just be a matter of seconds, updating records would not mean using wasting extra paper and the office would have more space without all the file cabinets cluttering the space.

If you calculate the total amount of time, effort, space and money that is saved for even one college that implements these methods, you’ll be easily saving over 2 Lakhs each year. Imagine what the figure would be if Mumbai University forces these rules on all affiliating colleges.

It’s a win-win situation for the university, college, the staff, the students, the country and even Nature. There are absolutely no drawbacks in this approach.

Then What the *(@& is stopping all the Universities from doing this?

"Save Paper, Save Trees" My Ass!!!

College seemed to be pretty dull for the past couple of weeks because of the mid-term and semester results and although Fr. John tried his level best to bring back the excitement through the Electronic Display Board, it didn’t really help but it was an attempt well made and appropriately timed.

April 1st was getting nearer and Robin and Linson wanted to do something big on that day. They were sitting behind me during a lecture and were having a conversation on what they could do for April Fool’s. It seemed like an interesting conversation so I decided to join in (Apologies for not being paying attention to the lecture).

We really couldn’t think of anything to do so we adjourned our little meeting until one of us could think of a killer idea. I was hanging out with Sharmik. I was hanging out with Sharmik a short while later and he casually mentioned how awesome it would be if classrooms would have ACs. Immediately I got an idea which if implemented perfectly would bring the entire college to total standstill.

We then printed a notice in the exact same format of other XIE Notices that are put up on the notice board, stating that the college has been observing a decline in overall attendance of the students, and were planning on increasing it by equipping all classrooms with Air Conditioning, at a price. For that each student would have to pay Rs. 500 on 1/4/2008 to the office between 10:45 to 13:00 on the same day.

We contacted the principal and asked him if we could put the fake notice up on the notice board just for April 1st. He declined initially because he felt we priced it way too much and agreed only when we decided to bring down the fee from 500 Rs. to 100 Rs. That sucked because we weren’t really going to take any money, but at least he was supportive, we thought. We gave him the fake notices and hoped that our plan would work.

Finally, it was April 1st but there was no new notice on the board.

We searched everywhere hoping that he had put it up somewhere but he hadn’t. We rushed to the Principal’s office and our conversation with the principal went something like this:

(not the exact excerpt and a lot of added humour, so please don’t quote me on this although it really did happen something like that)

Us : Sir, we ’noticed’ there was no notice on the notice board.
Pri: Is this some sort of tongue-twister?
Us : Sir, what happened about our prank?
Pri: I know I agreed to help you boys out that day but then I thought about it and I realised that a Principal should not assist a student in such activities.
Us : But Sir, we never asked for your help. We just told you about what we were going to do, out of courtesy.
Pri: Well Yea, but if I had put it up on the board people would start asking me questions on how I could put up a fake notice on the board (albeit there is no signature on the notice) and it would ruin my image.
Us : (thinking) WTF?
Pri: I don’t think I can allow you to do this. Write something with a chalk outside college, I don’t care but you can’t put up a fake notice on the board.
Us : (tried to convince him) Sir, but nobody’s getting hurt, physically, mentally or even financially.
Pri: I’m sorry, I can’t do this.
Us : Alright Sir, Thank You for your time.

When we left his office, I was wondering why the principal cared so much about his image in college. He’s the Principal of XIE. No matter how good or bad he behaves with the staff and the students, we’re still going to hate him. It’s the law of nature. Every sub-ordinate hates his leader, every soldier hates his commander and every employee hates his boss. That being the case, what effing ‘image’ was he talking about? Did he actually think people liked him?

I really thought he should have given us the clearance to go ahead with our scheme. In fact, by allowing this it would show that he is an open-minded person who appreciated harmless humour and that would really earn him our respect. We’d still hate him, but we would respect his decisions in the future.

If only the principal knew that he had no chance at being looked at as a likeable guy. A principal cannot function if his staff likes him. If they did, they’d take him for granted. If we liked him, we’d never care about any threats he made. We all saw how Shah Rukh Khan needed to be the hated guy to get his team to work together in the move Chak De. 

College is just like that team, and the staff and students can only work together if we hate you, Sir.

If only he knew that….

By denying our request he made us hate him even more.

Wait a second….Did he do that intentionally?

If so, I now know who really got fooled on April Fool’s Day ;)