Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

Gender neutral language is difficult at first because we are not used to it, but as you start using gender neutral terms things over time it starts feeling natural. For me the most difficult word to stop using was ‘guys’ and it took me a while to stop using it. Even now I still end up using it every once in a while accidentally but it is something I work on. For those who keep telling everyone that it is a gender neutral term, the following screenshot that popped up in my feed says it best.

It is rude but it makes the point beautifully. ‘Guys’ is not a gender neutral term and it never was. Just that people are so used to using it and didn’t want to change that it became sort of accepted.

Language is powerful and important. It can build communities and connections or it can break connections. For example, if you have a mixed gender group and are calling everyone guys you are indirectly telling the non male population that they are not part of the team or not important enough to be recognized. This is not to show that you are ‘woke’ or whatever but just basic human courtesy.

You should always use the correct language when interacting with others and believe me it does get noticed.

– Suramya

Yesterday was Rakhi and as folks know I have a lot of sisters so end up with a ton of Rakhi’s being tied on my hand. For those who don’t know, Rakhi or Raksha Bandhan as it is formally called is a Hindu festival where sisters tie a talisman or amulet called the rakhi around the wrists of their brothers who symbolically protect them and receive a gift in return. The sisters do a Tilak, tie the Rakhi and then give a piece of sweet. My sisters don’t know how to give just a piece of sweet so I usually have a full laddu/other sweets (usually quite large) stuffed in my mouth for every Rakhi being tied.

It is an annual event and so I felt like sharing some Rakhi pics from over the years. I don’t have the pics from 1986-1994 and a few other years as they are not yet digitized:

1985, Surabhi tying the Rakhi on her own for the first time

1994

1998

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2019

2022

2023

2024

2024

I am blessed to have so many sisters and loving family to support me in life.

– Suramya

I saw the following in the status message of someone I know and while most of it is stuff I could ignore, one line caught my eye and annoyed me enough to post about it. Specifically I am talking about “When a Woman stops getting jealous or No longer asks about the other women in your life”. A person can have friends of the opposite gender as friends and I refuse to accept that you are showing your love/affection/care by being the person who questions every other woman in the person’s life.

If you think that the only way to show your love to your partner is to be jealous of their other friends and controlling who gets to be in their life then I am sorry, you don’t have a loving relationship, what you have is an abusive relationship where you are trying to control who the other person can talk to / meet with because you are a deeply insecure person.

Jani and I deeply love each other and I can’t recall a single instance of either of us questioning the other about their friends or women/men in our lives. We have never questioned each other about who the other person is hanging out with and what they are doing when out. Most of the times we meet folks together but there have been times when we meet people without the other person present and the most we ask the other person is “what time are you planning to be back home?” by. I have had friends crash at my place when Jani wasn’t around and it was a non-event in our life, the same way it was when she has had people crash here when I was traveling without me questioning her about it. We are together because we trust each other not because we are controlling the other person. If the only reason your partner doesn’t cheat on you is because you are controlling the people in their life then you are deluding yourself and you should reevaluate your relationship with the person.

When you question the other person about the people in their life you are not showing your love, you are showing that you don’t trust them. Which as you can imagine is not a good way to build a relationship. The following (or variations of it) keep showing up as ‘jokes’ online and personally I feel sorry for people who are so deeply insecure that they can’t trust their partner to be faithful. If that is the case then why are you still with them? It would be better to leave them and be with someone with who you can be your authentic self without worrying about the other person flipping out just because you happened to meet a friend for a coffee or a drink.

I rather trust a car with no brakes than ‘he is just a friend’

One other explanation for this behavior is that they are projecting what they would do in a similar scenario and thus are suspicious and jealous. Basically they know how they would act and are expecting everyone else also to behave the same way. I see this in a lot of couples and when I can I do try to advise them that this kind of behavior only pushes the other person away.

Obviously I don’t mean that you ignore obvious signs that the person is cheating. If you think that the person is cheating you should check and verify that because in some of the cases, the person is actually cheating on you. In which case you need to decide if you are ok with it or you rather get out of it. Personally I would choose the second option but in either case being jealous and controlling is not the right reaction. What you shouldn’t do is be jealous of every single person in their life just because you think that shows your love towards them.

– Suramya

Interviews are stressful no matter which side of the table you are sitting. But till you join no interaction you do with anyone from the company should be done lightly, you need to behave in an absolute professional manner throughout the process. I saw the following screenshot in my feed and just had to comment on it as this is a really bad take.

Well, yes. Yes I do. Typically, if I get past interview 2 I assume the rest of the interviews are just dilly dallying. You shouldn’t need 7 interviews to decide between candidates. If you can’t discern the best candidate within 2 or 3 interviews tops, you can’t interview. So it makes sense to assume that i you made it to interview 4, 5, or 6 let alone 7 you are indeed the top candidate and all interviews past 3 are just a time-lengthening, budget and paperwork approval exercise.

– Elisa from BrainDrip

I assure you that no interviewer wants to be taking interviews just for the fun of it. We have enough work that needs to be done that if we can save time by not having another interview that would be perfect from my perspective. The max no of interviews I have given for a single position was 7 even though 4 of them were done in the same day. In this case the first two rounds were technical. Then the next round was by the local manager and then another one with the global manager. Then we had the FIT interview with the unit head and another with their Indian counterpart. Finally we had the HR round and then we closed the interview. Each of them covered different skillsets and yes theoretically speaking we could have merged some of the interviews but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was possible or even desired.

Thinking that you don’t need to expend effort because its the 3rd or 4th round is an almost sure shot way to ensure that you don’t move to the next round. Like I said earlier every interaction you have with anyone from the company needs to be with full focus and courtesy. I remember reading about a company where the owner would take feedback from the receptionist on how the candidates behaved with her to screen out unfit candidates. So if someone was rude or insulting in the interactions with the receptionist they would get rejected. I have had candidates rejected in the last round because information came up in that round that made us decide not to go ahead with the candidate.

I am not saying that the process can’t be optimized but until that happens the worst thing you can do is become complacent.

– Suramya