Another Blog!

It has been quite some time since I have blogged. Work (yes, the new job) is keeping me busy. I think I have fit in well. To start with the team is great. There is a strong sense of togetherness. We celebrate birthdays together, go out for dinner often, not to mention, the birthday treats .
Got in touch with my colleagues (oops, ex-collegues), Meesh has gone to Sweden, he told me he was learning Svenska. He seems to be frustrated, as usual, he is making good progress though. He had recently switched from another BU and was dying to go abroad. God heard his prayers. Manna will soon be on a plane to start her second trip to Aus.
All of this almost gave me a second thought about switching. I am happy here !

Things to do next year

• get a digi cam and dvd player.
• buy tons of dvds and increase my waist size.
• get a good raise.
• dream of getting an iBook.

My friend, Bach!

Bach is the assumed pen name of my friend. I pronounce it as b-ch. Yes, it rhymes with beach, peach, patch, etc,etc., as me and chintu discovered there is a deeper meaning to it. I would not have discovered it if not for the pre-lunch tantrums thrown by chintu, which has direct consequences on my direction of thought and its quality.
Although Bach never misses any opportunity to show his apparent distaste for Microsoft. He secretly admires Microsoft. Bach is directly linked to batch-processing and batch file of Windows/DOS (oops MS-DOS). Also, another thread of thought reported he might be/worship Batman ( recall batch files are named .bat). Considering a lateral thought it might have the other way around.

PS: With sincere inputs from Rohan.Chintu, by the way, is my stomach.

What a Man!

My friend bach showed me this blog few days back. It is a reaction to the blog of Martin Fink, HP's Linux Vice-President Read his blog for yourself here. Ben Rockwood, the Author, is a die-hard unix and Solaris fan. What make this blog interesting is Martin Fink allegedly made a few comments on Solaris which has driven Ben to vehemently defend Solaris in a rebellious fashion. Do let me know what u think.
My favourite comment in the blog is :
" "While it should be obvious, be very clear that Solaris on SPARC is NOT Solaris on x86."... Maybe it's just me, but you might want to ask your university if they want their degree back. Of course there's a frickin' endian issue!!!!!!! "

Faith and bollywood

I love to watch movies. I have watched lots of them. Only criteria being I should understand the language or the movie has sub-titles. All through my childhood none of the Saturday and Sunday movies, telecast on DD were missed. As time progressed I began to rapidly loose interest in Hindi movies. Part of the reason being the bad (no, pathetic) quality of movies being made. And time and again this belief has been reinforced. I have repeatedly given chances 'Mohabbatein', 'Yaadein', 'Baghban', and more recently 'Shikar'.. , they have left me scarred. It is not that I expect every movie to be a master-piece. Even a simple, watchable story would do. But, some of these movies lack the basics of my perception of a movie. Some even lack a plot, casting is done based on popularity rather than aptness and some that even try to be intensly emotional. I have read about a movie called 'Khel', which introduced Ajay Jadeja (yes, our very own traitor) on to the Silver screen. The scenes involving Mr. Ajay Jadeja had to be re-shot since the emotional scenes had apparently turned into unintentional comedy.
Nagesh kukunoor has been doing a great job recently. Not to forget the great Satyajit Ray. Manoj Shyamalan and Shekar Kapoor have proved their talent.
We are a great country, we got hajjar talent, we have the best diversity. One Billion people cant be wrong!

Sunny days

I like riding in the mornings. No traffic, No pollution, No cops, No rules, No limits. The chill in the air makes your feet numb. Also, it gives you an illusion that you are listening to your mom/sis/girl/any-other-well-wisher's words, who has been pestering you to go jogging in the morning to reduce the growing-by-the minute tummy. This is the same as jogging except that you have to move less and loose a lot less calories. Although I am riding to work on a Sunday, I feel great. Please do not misunderstand me, I am not so enthu about working on Sundays for proof look here. The only reason I was there was to get the hell out of there. Let me explain, I GOT A NEW JOB. Yes, I GOT A NEW JOB.
The pay is good the company is better (atleast my perception says so). I am very thrilled. But, the only thing that stands in my way is kekada my ever pestering lead and who also mentioned, in his attempt to convice me to stay back, "Although it (current job) not suitable for comp grads,was the best in the industry". Only after making this statement did he ask if was one. BTW I am a comp grad :-D.
My manager has been looking at me funny since I told her about my decision to leave this organisation. My senior told me she was doing so because it was all that she could do. ;-)
Anyways I did get out of office in under two hours, I used a hack to get to the "solution".
BTW Kaadu has not yet gotten any work! It has been three months. His lead derives sarcastic pleasure by making him redo the project done at training. Kaadu's CAT dreams hit a new low when he got a seat in the same cubicle as Dileep, whats even more tragic is Dileep was preping for CAT himself, even using the same material as Kaadu does. Fate is probably singing in a devilish tone "And another one gone and another one gone, Another one bites the dust". Owing to all this frustration Kaadu sent threatening messages to some of us "you bastards! Have u forgotten me , we have to meet up, else..." ;-D

Yahoo! LAUCHCAST ki jai

Proabably I am the last the last guy to discover Yahoo!'s LAUCHCast. "Better late than never"- somebody once said.
It is a great(brilliant, super, super-duper) way to enjoy and discover new music. Not to mention legally! 'Yahoo!' lets you choose the music station by genre or themes (Oldies, At work, Coffee house., to name a few). Info about the band, album reviews etc., are just a click away. It can be accessed either through Yahoo!'s latest yahoo messenger with voice or by going here.

I got hooked, so should you!

Boy-Friend Girl-Friend and all !

I almost fell off my chair when Krishna let me in on his secret. Krishna had a girl friend. Not for one or two but 5 long years. Believe me Krishna is not the kind of guy who has a girl friend and all. He is a bit geeky and quite far from being charming, chivalrous, etc., etc., We soon got to talking (rather I coerced him to talk) about his "boy friend experiences" and all.

He told me a few things about that, I HAD to put on the blog.

Even after five years Krishna could not predict what mood she would be in, why she would say something but mean quite the opposite, why she would spend hours at the Mall and never purchase a thing, why he was responsible for all the bad fortune that occurred to them, and the purpose of having a teddy bear. He did convince me that these were not complaints but this stuff just puzzles the him. Although this drives him to desperation from time to time. There are a zillion things he likes about 'her' and how...

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me

She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe
And she'll take what you give her, as long as it's free
She steals like a thief
But she's always a woman to me

Oh, she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

And she'll promise you more
Than the Garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin'
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause she's always a woman to me

Oh, she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh, and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

She is frequently kind
And she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
But she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me

(She's always a woman to me - Billy Joel)

Strange!

PS: Krishna has just jumped to another firm. That makes me the lone CSE fresher @ my-current-employer. I getting jittery everytime somebody mentions the words future, career, on-site, cat,... I did send my resume to Krishna's-current-employer, and a few other companies. Secretly hoping I will get through. As usual I am confused, mixed-up, dazed, etc,etc.,

Corporate life - Part III

Ah! My own Cube

I can’t believe it! It is a giant leap, far better than being locked up in the dingy training room with Sam. After the strenuous training month, it is something I deserved (or so I think).
Well, there is a whole list of accessories that have come along with the “Cube”. A personal phone, a stack of drawers, a coffee mug and of course the machines, thanks to Murthy with some maska, Micheal and me were given good ones, a GB of RAM and all ( I remember my first machine had a Hard Disk of the same capacity). I spent the whole day calling up friends and fiddling with every device on my table. Although most of you may find it juvenile, this is very new to me, and I am enjoy every moment of it.

At about 9:30 AM today I was introduced to my lead, Vini. Micheal told me she was “khadoos”, so I made it a point to put as much maska as possible (yeah! I don’t care what you call me ‘suck up’, etc., etc., naanirode heege ( I am like this only)). 2:00 PM in the after noon I was already in a project meeting with 4 others I had not seen before, Manna, Meesh, Beed and Madhuka. Manna Meesh and Beed knew each other well. Madhuka and myself were new. She was a “resource” from another company called Symphony; this was overheard from the discussion between my manager and Vini (I hate the practice of calling people resources, people are not resources you only resource the people).
Vini allocated the work at lightening speed. I was asked to work on three of the eleven-page change request. I had a bad feeling about this, it was confirmed when Vini said,”I think none of us have a problem working on week-ends”. I nodded in approval but suppressed all instincts to give the finger. Vini also arranged for a laptop for me( I was pretty excited at first but soon discovered that it was part of her devilish plot to make me work from home too).
The project was about tweaking a website, that allows people who are in a quest of their family tree to search the municipal records of UK. I was given the changes of the account module. I was supposed to change parts of the front-end as well as the back end. I simply had no fucking idea how to do it. But did contemplate on what kind of jobless people would use the website, have to appreciate the idea though, it is in fact making money.
Vini asked me to identify the changes to the files and database. I did take a whole day and explained it only the morning after. After obtaining Vini’s approval I started to make changes to the JSP. I fail to find an example to portray the amount of frustration I felt in programming in a language I did not know.
The worst part was even if I had a doubt about anything I was directed to Google. The problem with this was I didn’t know what I was looking for. So, Googling was just garbage in : garbage out.
I was forced to stay back almost everyday up to 9:00 PM.
Later that week Vini asked me if I could finish the work in the next three days. Although I didn’t know if I could I did agree. Then worked my ass off for the next week. Thank fully Vini was on leave on the D-day and two days there after. After a lot of coding and recoding I did complete the project, with lots of debugging help from Manna and Mesh. Manna reminded me of my elder sister, Mesh was a frustu tall lad who had this uncanny ability to switch jobs faster than girlfriends. He is a good mentor and a friend. Although I had pushed the dead line for a whole week, I was fucking relieved.
I desisted from putting the disclaimer:

Some parts of the code may be unnecessary, but removing or altering them may affect the smooth functioning of the application. The author shall not be responsible for any abnormal behaviour as a result of the code written. Henceforth he is free of servile (de-bugging, redesigning, recoding, etc.,) bands. The liability of any bug discovered while testing will lie with the tester itself, and the bug shall not be reported to Team Lead, Manager or any other employee of the company who has considerable influence on the appraisal of the author. If any parts of the code is reproduced, you should seriously consider an executive's post in the 'L' club.

PS: Please excuse me for all the profanity in the post, had to vent the frustration.

...To be continued

Corporate life - Part II

Break!

Finally! We got a break. A break from Sam, I guess he needed it too, after all the "Could you please repeat that, Sam”,” Could you please scroll back up, Sam", "Sam, can we try to complete the assignment after the coffee break", and the most popular "Sam, I am don’t know what is happening". Have to agree he does have a lot of patience. Kind of like a father figure. He pushed off to Calicut or some place in Kerala, I don't know for what reason. The important thing here is we got a break. Although this just means somebody else will be here to bore us to death.

Early next day, we were upto the usual mail checking, ego surfing, chatting, etc., etc., not to mention job-hunting (Krishna hates the job, he thinks its not technical at all and is a fit only for non-engineering graduates). Kaadu came in at 10 and soon gathered junta for an early-morning-cup-of-coffee (yeah! some junta find it funny even absurd for some strange reason, doesn't seem so strange for us lazy ones), I joined him for his company, and he usually has some good gossip to share, usually involving our female batch mates from college.

No one had arrived to replace Sam. I silently fostered the idea that they might let us off.
Navjeet arrived soon after we returned and just before I almost convinced myself that they would let us off (I guess its hard to adjust to a strict 9 to 6 schedule when you have just finished your college, where I made sure I never attended more than 3 classes continuously). Kaadu cleverly suggested that we switch of the lights, complaining he could not see the ppt clearly. All of us expressed our deep gratitude to Kaadu by conveniently dozing off. I had absolutely no consciousness till someone suggested we have lunch. Afternoon was the same except that I put in a little effort to stay awake initially. Navjeet discovered our dark side only late in the afternoon and pressured us to switch the lights back on. He promptly left after giving us an assignment and set its deadline to noon the next day.

The assignments were completed under the able guidance of Sree, the person who had stayed awake for the longest duration the previous day. Navjeet continued the tutorial; I paid attention but never understood a word. Then the unthinkable happens,” So guys since we are done with the tutorial, let’s have a test", I am shocked! Will the result of this test affect my increment or my promotion or my career or they might even throw me out? (I get kind of anxious when my job is involved).

Thank God! The test consisted of only MCQs. I ticked whatever I thought was appropriate and gave it up as soon as possible. I had the feeling it might have exploded if I kept it any longer. Navjeet discussed few of the answers none of mine right (Sigh!).

Another day, same building, same floor, same room but, a new tutor Budhadev! I liked him the instantly. He was short and looked like one of those guys in school who would usually be very dear to the class bully, and troubling him was as good as punching the bully in the balls.

All of us resumed the afore mentioned activities, even before he started off. Poor guy! He made hajjar calls to the support guys to report the missing application instance on which we (the trainees) were supposed to practice. But, to no avail. At last! Our loving father in the heavens is sensitive towards our feelings.

Budhadev gave us a session of theory in the morning and another in the after noon. He too left us with an assignment to complete (Of course! the instance had to be up and running in the first place ;-)).

Urmi, our training co-coordinator announced, to my joy, that four others and myself have been assigned to projects. And, we will be taken off the training programme. I was thrilled, rather relieved. Kaadu was not among the four, so he would be continuing the training. Tch! Tch! Tach! The training was scheduled to finish 21st the next month. That’s a WHOLE month.

... To be continued

Corporate life - Part I

Training!

"Sam!", kaadu shouted desperately trying to gather attention from our SQL tutor . Sam took us through a brutal week of training .We went topic to topic at rapid pace. Kaadu found it real hard .He hadnt even heard it till Aug 3rd 10:59 AM.

Kaadu is a good friend from college is like they say a jolly good fellow etc.,etc., always grinning and making fun of guys, the final year saw girls inducted into his victims hall of fame. What singled out kaadu was his unquenchable thirst for irritating and playing pranks on people. He had just managed through the 8 long semesters of engineering with a decent agre. Although he had taken up trical, he hadnt had the slightest idea bout wat the hell was going on all through the four years. He just attended classes for the sake of attendance and scrammed for few days before the exam. Obviously everthing he had learnt was flushed out minutes after the exam. I guess most of us in the engineering student community are a bit like that. Somethings never change, I still remember like yesterday, cramming for the placements apti luckily for me and kaadu placements had gotten over as soon as it started. We got placed just in the second company. I a lot of luck i guess!

Here we are together sitting in the cold training room of this huge MNC. Just a week of having worked here I already have a list of things I hate

1. The practice of switching off the AC in the afternoon

2. The soggy burnt rice pancakes disguised as Masala Dosa

3. The way Sam goes on from topic to topic only stopping to say "Any doubts till now", while we are wondering "What did he explain in the previous topic?"

4. I find it absurd that everybody can be nice to everybody. "Hello! At least somebody is faking".

5. The practice of "employees" to use lifts to move between a single floor, while the building has ten floors

6. The assignments and training that has left all of us gasping for air, week ends and not to mention sleep.

..To be continued