Anuradha Sridharan

In the past 3-4 months, I have become a regular user of Olacabs . Though I work from home, I do need to travel to meet customers in Bangalore as well as my colleagues in Pune. In the past, if I had to travel on my own, I would choose BMTC buses if I know the exact location where I'm supposed to go and there were well-connected bus stops. Or I would end up haggling with a reluctant auto-driver who never agrees to go anywhere (Seriously, how do these guys make money if they don't want to move at all?). Sorry, no self-driving for me - neither skilled in that department nor motivated to learn either. Ever since I started to take Olacabs, I'm not too worried about traveling to different parts of the city. I usually travel during day time and I also ensure I share the SMS of the driver details with my husband. Glad they have also implemented a SOS feature to alert your emergency contact in case of any issue. I recharge my Ola Money now and then, so there's no need to de...

It's been a year since I got into baking and it has become one of my hobbies that I look forward to every weekend. I bake something atleast once a week, which my family really appreciates and enjoys the end results. Some say baking is therapeutic and brings joy. I totally agree! This post is an attempt to help others who want to get into baking but don't know how. What's the first step? Buying an oven, ofcourse? Not really, some use pressure cooker to bake cakes but I haven't tried that method yet. I have a LG 28 litres convection microwave oven. There have been many debates on OTG v/s convection but for a small scale home requirement, I find convection oven to be perfect. It occupies less space and cakes/muffins come out good. The only regret is that I could have purchased a slightly bigger one, to make a bigger batch of cookies/muffins. For a family of 3 (2 adults + 1 child), 28 litres is adequate but for a bigger family, I would recommend you invest in a 30 ltrs+ ...

Around 3-4 months back, I visited a new health themed restaurant to have lunch with my family. We were the only visitors that Sunday afternoon. The car parking lot right outside their entrance was completely free. We had a delicious and filling meal and the service was good too. They offered a nice spread (thali) with multiple healthy dishes. And the prices were very reasonable. We came back with happy memories of this place. I shared a short review of this restaurant with my friends in Facebook too. Last week, we had some errands to run in the same vicinity where this restaurant is located. So we decided to have lunch there. To our surprise, there were no parking lots available. When we went inside, the restaurant was packed, with 2 waiters running around. I sat with my daughter in one of the free chairs, which a graceful elderly couple shared. Since we were hungry, we placed the order while waiting for the tables to free up. After around 15 minutes, a family left a table and we quick...

I'm a stickler for timings when it comes to my meals. I prefer to eat on time (mostly!). If someone takes up my time while my stomach is growling, I get extremely irritated. The Sneakers ad must have been based on my reactions, I suppose. Due to a certain miscommunication, I had to wait at my daughter's pediatrician clinic today for nearly an hour during lunch time. My temper was at its peak and D was her "naughtiest" self during the wait time. Though I ensured she ate her lunch, it didn't occur to me that I should have atleast grabbed a banana before stepping out. Thankfully, I kept my temper under control and it wasn't lashed out on anyone close (*hubby* dear!). While eating my lunch at 3 PM today, I couldn't help but remember one of my ex-bosses who had this habit of scheduling meetings between 12 and 2 PM. He is one of the best bosses, mind you. But I didn't have the guts to tell him that the timings weren't working for me. Those were the da...

peteoshea / CC BY 2.0 For anyone dealing with knowledge work that requires deeper thinking, analysis, unraveling assumptions and developing solutions, writing is a must-have skill. Whatever be your role - a developer, designer, product manager, marketer, analyst etc, I would highly recommend that you develop writing as a conscious practice. I'll give you 5 reasons why you should invest diligently in this practice. 1) Provides clarity A vague problem for which I seek solutions becomes more clear if I sit down and write about the problem statement in actual words. It gives great clarity and helps me to think through the problem scenarios in great detail. 2) Gives directions As I write down the problem statement, I automatically reflect and think through the causes and context. It also helps me to go deeper into various aspects of the problem and the expected outcome. As a result, I have a good "approach" or steps that I need to take to solve the problem. It doesn't hav...

I'm starting off 2015 reading list with this interesting book on organization culture and customer service - " Delivering Happiness ". When we talk about best work culture, there are few firms that come to our mind instantly - Google , Hubspot , Buffer and the pioneer of them all, Zappos. This book is a first-person account of how Tony Hsieh grew Zappos from ground-up, the challenges faced and the foundations laid towards the best customer service and inspiring work culture. There are multiple lessons for people building startups as well as for those who are looking to focus on customer experience/service as their core strategy. What I really like about in this book is that it doesn't jump into the HOWs of customer service. Rather, Tony has taken the time to talk about his entrepreneurship journey and the lessons learned along the way since childhood. It gives the reader good insights into the thought process of WHYs of customer service and organization culture.  ...

Coughs and sneezes pepper rasam and kichdi Calpol and cough syrup honey and turmeric milk messed up sleep and rest The story of my last few days of 2014, with D falling sick. Before the recency effect takes over and paints a gloomy picture, I felt it's time for me to look back at some of the best moments of this year. I began this year by writing about " small wins " and it was indeed a year of multiple small wins that I collected on the way. One of the goals I had set for myself was to venture into baking . My new microwave convection oven followed by 3 useful baking classes from LG paved the way to get a head start. Cakes, cookies, muffins and breads were baked multiple times, with different recipes and varied results. Whoever spoke about the joy of baking is indeed true. This is one hobby I look forward to invest more time in 2015, albeit in a healthy way by reducing plain flour, sugar and butter. Talking about healthy ways of cooking, I also invested in learning the...