Waking up on Friday mornings is fun, there aren’t enough words in English to precisely describe the feelings but I could comfortably settle with saying that its just an antonym for what I feel on a Monday morning. The very idea that you can do whatever you have been doing at office for last 5 days, without going to office excites me. Today is no exception.
The Friday fever woke me up at 7:30 Am, if it were not for Friday, I would have safely decided to take the 11o clock bus, but on Friday it should be different. I stood up, I looked like the fast forwarded version of my video taken on non-Friday weekday. I need to leave for my bus-stop by 7:55 Am and I did all I could to do so and of course, making sure that I do not compromise on my looks, after all today is Friday, huh!
Well, to make the story more interesting, all those scenes of me running to the bus stop, getting into the bus, crossing my fingers and praying for a girl to sit beside me, me cursing the guy who stole me of that chance as he sat beside me in spite of many other seats being empty, bus getting stuck in a traffic jam because of a Maruti 800 crashing itself into a truck, are removed from the story and I will take you to directly to the scene post break fast, yeah the swipe in machine.
I swiped in, as usually waiting for my chance amidst all those non-believers in technology who fanatically swipe-in and swipe-out at all the machines available to them. I generally swipe in at only one machine, because I always think that continuous sound of beep-beep-beep might awaken the alien spirits and might even provoke them to attack Infy, so all the people out there thank me for saving you from aliens. Digression!!!!. Let me continue the story- After swiping in, I headed towards my work area, a secure zone which requires me to swipe in.
I happily ramp walked(now a days limping is re-named so) to the swipe machine where I swiped in, beep said the machine, but red LED was too lazy to turn green, I tried again, this time the beep was more of an angry one. I was slowly allowing myself to react. I tried again, no luck and this time around the swipe machine almost called me names with the security in charge there giving me a weird look, I gave her an assuring smile so that she will not mistake me for an in filtered MNS activist. I gathered all my courage and tried my luck for the last time, it was red again. My jaw dropped.
The failure of my last attempt has seen the surprise in my face turn to worry, my worried expressions can be precisely put as one sentence, was I sacked? I could not even reach my manager, I did not know what to do. I did not even want to log into Infosys network, what if I am unable to log onto. My brain started calculating all the necessary next steps, is my resume ready? Will dad be allowing me to sit at home for that long? What will I answer the interview panel of the B-School if they ask the reason for the gap? Will Infosys provide me with an experience letter………..
Just as my brain took me to the verge of madness, my phone rang, it was my room mate, “abbe tera ID kaam kar raha hain kya?” My jaw dropped!!!!
How did he know? I quizzed him with questions about HR approaching him to tell me that I have been sacked and other permutations of the possibilities, he was hell confused, he called me a few names and asked me to see what was the name on the ID card, I obliged, it read Shripad Anirudhha Wangde.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A deadman's suicide......
The premise:
Raj Thackeray has started the divine mission of ethnic cleansing of Maharashtra. It took him quite some years to succeed. But during the gestation period of his success there were some quite interesting things that happened.
Due to the heavy appreciation of rupee, Indian software companies started concentrating on local businesses, the aftermath being a satellite launching station in Harihareshwar. A mission to Space, which is a build, deploy and operate project was taken up Indian IT confederation. And first time in IT industry 5 SE engineers are sent onsite to Space. Sanki is one among them!
So Sanki Sharma along with four others has been sent to Space in a Space shuttle that was designed and developed by a group of software engineers. He left on August 7th 2009 and returned to homeland on August 4th 2014, but shot himself to death on August 7th 2014.
Lets see how the story unfolds........
4th August 2014
He landed today in Harihareshwar after a week's journey into space according to the spacecraft's time. Since he traveled with velocities equal to that of light, Einstein's time dilation came into play and he returned to earth after 5 years.
Unfortunately the idiots who have designed this craft never knew about something called theory of relativity and hence they never expected them this late. In fact they were so surprised that Indian Air force has sent some 100 missiles, luckily the craft was under autopilot mode and no one bothered to change the trajectory and hence, all the 100 missiles missed the target.
He looked around the moment he set his foot on earth, his inquisitive eyes searching more vigorously than the google search engine for a glimpse of the baby like face of his girl friend, but instead he found surprised officials.
Little did he knew that everyone gave up within a week of his take off. And that his name had been added to the likes of Kalpana Chawla.
And with in an hour, after a heated discussion with the officials, he realized that he was considered dead and his family has been given 30 lakhs compensation after a mock funeral that was conducted over the weekend. And that his brother married his girl friend and bought a flat with those 30 lacs. Depressed he walked out.
As he walked out of the space station, he was in for another surprise- there were no taxis, yes they are replaced with bullock carts. He climbed into one of them when a voice said "hello, how are you" in the most beautiful English he had ever heard, he later found out that he was a retrenched call center employee. He reached home, but was surprised to see the name plate changed, it read Rajesh Apte and actually it should be reading Rajesh Sharma, he was confused but only until he found his surprised mother.
His mother, the moment she saw him, dropt the vessel she was carrying, rounded her eyes to make a perfect zero and inadvertently rose her left arm to bite the back of her palm. Anyone who has head above his shoulders could make up her expressions, they said 30 lakhs. Does she have to pay the compensation amount back? Sanki's dad, of course, had no similar worry. He was sure that he could sue the IT companies for it or something, so he did not seem to perturbed. He was a lawyer, so Sanki need not worry about lawyer charges.
5th August 2014
Though he did not allow himself to react to the situations around him, reality did its best to dawn upon him and it did succeed. He realized that something was utterly wrong. Questions and more questions popped into his brain. But the situations at home are not all the more honky dory to be fit for a question and answer session.
His parents though happy about he coming back, did not seem to be too amused to share the happiness with every one, the reason might be the four annual death ceremonies conducted at a very social level, with aaj tak giving a complete footage on first ceremony. His brother avoided him for more obvious reasons. His (ex) girl friend too could not face him; it is too much for him to digest in a week’s time. And he almost gave up on the concept called time.
He needed a break, he decided to watch TV. To his utter surprise, it was in a dilapidated state. It seems that no one was watching TV for ages. He switched it on and to his utter disgust he found 5 local channels all telecasting agricultural awareness programs in the local language. He could not understand the regression.
The whole day has been spent on nailing down the possibilities for the current situation, but he could not fathom any. However, his parents after dinner, which is again all the more similar to local style, have managed to tell vaguely about something which the then CM, Raj Thackeray, has started less than a decade ago.
He was surprised, he knew that there was something about this Raj Thackeray guy regarding driving out the non-Marathi people out of Maharashtra, but how could that lead to all this? He could not really fathom anything out of this. And he hardly could sleep that night.
6th August 2014
He had a better discussion with his parents today. They seem to have to come in terms with reality and shooed away their disappointment and are talking to him more openly. He then had a conversation with his dad, which cleared all his doubts on the current situation.
It all started with ethnic cleansing of Mumbai, driving out non local population out of Mumbai. It then spread to other bigger cities of Maharashtra. It was a huge success, at least on papers. People who have no property for themselves in Maharashtra have vacated, but those who had their property here found out a way, they changed their family names. And hence the changed name plate outside his house.
He also came to know that Amitabh Bachan succumbed to the pressure and changed his name to Amitabh Thackeray and also named his grandson as Raj Thackeray Jr. Sharukh could not do so, Sharukh Thackeray was sounding too weird and hence he vacated.
With complete success of this revolution, Sr Raj has to come up with another political issue. This time it was ban of all the non local language cable channels. It then followed by ban of non local newspapers and everything and anything non-local has been banned. In fact in a strange move, Sr Raj has banned all the vehicles as petrol which is not a local entity is deciding the local economy. It was then followed by banning of all non local trade, all the IT companies, BPOs etc have been banned. Every one started farming and pulled bullock carts in free time.
His dad also drew his attention to lack of babies. After the ban of sex education, all the Hindi/English movies have been banned for vulgarity and as the aftermath youth did not know how to copulate and hence no babies.
Raj then adapted non-violence as his next agenda. He banned cricket as it was perceived to be dangerous, throwing a ball and swinging a bat are too dangerous to be handled by people and hence the government settled for a less harmful bridge and chess.
With this, he thought that he had heard enough. Whirlwinds blew through his mind. His heart pumped out blood as if it were a volcano. He just could not stand what has happened, and that too it was too much of a change for him to handle in a week's time notwithstanding the change management course he has undertaken. With a heavy heart and and blewn up mind he hit the sack.
7th August 2014
He woke up with a heavy headache. He had decided over night what has to be done; he could not just get in terms with Sr Raj. He then shot himself on RT road (FC road was renamed so) , his blood splattered all over Raj Putla, and his brain was forced out and fell on the pavement, an enthusiastic dog made a meal of the same. (Dogs are not yet banned here).
His parents hid his body and his fifth ceremony was conducted. His brother and his ex- girl friend had a sigh of relief. And they both want to make movie of this story and name this as The Dead Man’s suicide. Of course it will be in local language.
Raj Thackeray has started the divine mission of ethnic cleansing of Maharashtra. It took him quite some years to succeed. But during the gestation period of his success there were some quite interesting things that happened.
Due to the heavy appreciation of rupee, Indian software companies started concentrating on local businesses, the aftermath being a satellite launching station in Harihareshwar. A mission to Space, which is a build, deploy and operate project was taken up Indian IT confederation. And first time in IT industry 5 SE engineers are sent onsite to Space. Sanki is one among them!
So Sanki Sharma along with four others has been sent to Space in a Space shuttle that was designed and developed by a group of software engineers. He left on August 7th 2009 and returned to homeland on August 4th 2014, but shot himself to death on August 7th 2014.
Lets see how the story unfolds........
4th August 2014
He landed today in Harihareshwar after a week's journey into space according to the spacecraft's time. Since he traveled with velocities equal to that of light, Einstein's time dilation came into play and he returned to earth after 5 years.
Unfortunately the idiots who have designed this craft never knew about something called theory of relativity and hence they never expected them this late. In fact they were so surprised that Indian Air force has sent some 100 missiles, luckily the craft was under autopilot mode and no one bothered to change the trajectory and hence, all the 100 missiles missed the target.
He looked around the moment he set his foot on earth, his inquisitive eyes searching more vigorously than the google search engine for a glimpse of the baby like face of his girl friend, but instead he found surprised officials.
Little did he knew that everyone gave up within a week of his take off. And that his name had been added to the likes of Kalpana Chawla.
And with in an hour, after a heated discussion with the officials, he realized that he was considered dead and his family has been given 30 lakhs compensation after a mock funeral that was conducted over the weekend. And that his brother married his girl friend and bought a flat with those 30 lacs. Depressed he walked out.
As he walked out of the space station, he was in for another surprise- there were no taxis, yes they are replaced with bullock carts. He climbed into one of them when a voice said "hello, how are you" in the most beautiful English he had ever heard, he later found out that he was a retrenched call center employee. He reached home, but was surprised to see the name plate changed, it read Rajesh Apte and actually it should be reading Rajesh Sharma, he was confused but only until he found his surprised mother.
His mother, the moment she saw him, dropt the vessel she was carrying, rounded her eyes to make a perfect zero and inadvertently rose her left arm to bite the back of her palm. Anyone who has head above his shoulders could make up her expressions, they said 30 lakhs. Does she have to pay the compensation amount back? Sanki's dad, of course, had no similar worry. He was sure that he could sue the IT companies for it or something, so he did not seem to perturbed. He was a lawyer, so Sanki need not worry about lawyer charges.
5th August 2014
Though he did not allow himself to react to the situations around him, reality did its best to dawn upon him and it did succeed. He realized that something was utterly wrong. Questions and more questions popped into his brain. But the situations at home are not all the more honky dory to be fit for a question and answer session.
His parents though happy about he coming back, did not seem to be too amused to share the happiness with every one, the reason might be the four annual death ceremonies conducted at a very social level, with aaj tak giving a complete footage on first ceremony. His brother avoided him for more obvious reasons. His (ex) girl friend too could not face him; it is too much for him to digest in a week’s time. And he almost gave up on the concept called time.
He needed a break, he decided to watch TV. To his utter surprise, it was in a dilapidated state. It seems that no one was watching TV for ages. He switched it on and to his utter disgust he found 5 local channels all telecasting agricultural awareness programs in the local language. He could not understand the regression.
The whole day has been spent on nailing down the possibilities for the current situation, but he could not fathom any. However, his parents after dinner, which is again all the more similar to local style, have managed to tell vaguely about something which the then CM, Raj Thackeray, has started less than a decade ago.
He was surprised, he knew that there was something about this Raj Thackeray guy regarding driving out the non-Marathi people out of Maharashtra, but how could that lead to all this? He could not really fathom anything out of this. And he hardly could sleep that night.
6th August 2014
He had a better discussion with his parents today. They seem to have to come in terms with reality and shooed away their disappointment and are talking to him more openly. He then had a conversation with his dad, which cleared all his doubts on the current situation.
It all started with ethnic cleansing of Mumbai, driving out non local population out of Mumbai. It then spread to other bigger cities of Maharashtra. It was a huge success, at least on papers. People who have no property for themselves in Maharashtra have vacated, but those who had their property here found out a way, they changed their family names. And hence the changed name plate outside his house.
He also came to know that Amitabh Bachan succumbed to the pressure and changed his name to Amitabh Thackeray and also named his grandson as Raj Thackeray Jr. Sharukh could not do so, Sharukh Thackeray was sounding too weird and hence he vacated.
With complete success of this revolution, Sr Raj has to come up with another political issue. This time it was ban of all the non local language cable channels. It then followed by ban of non local newspapers and everything and anything non-local has been banned. In fact in a strange move, Sr Raj has banned all the vehicles as petrol which is not a local entity is deciding the local economy. It was then followed by banning of all non local trade, all the IT companies, BPOs etc have been banned. Every one started farming and pulled bullock carts in free time.
His dad also drew his attention to lack of babies. After the ban of sex education, all the Hindi/English movies have been banned for vulgarity and as the aftermath youth did not know how to copulate and hence no babies.
Raj then adapted non-violence as his next agenda. He banned cricket as it was perceived to be dangerous, throwing a ball and swinging a bat are too dangerous to be handled by people and hence the government settled for a less harmful bridge and chess.
With this, he thought that he had heard enough. Whirlwinds blew through his mind. His heart pumped out blood as if it were a volcano. He just could not stand what has happened, and that too it was too much of a change for him to handle in a week's time notwithstanding the change management course he has undertaken. With a heavy heart and and blewn up mind he hit the sack.
7th August 2014
He woke up with a heavy headache. He had decided over night what has to be done; he could not just get in terms with Sr Raj. He then shot himself on RT road (FC road was renamed so) , his blood splattered all over Raj Putla, and his brain was forced out and fell on the pavement, an enthusiastic dog made a meal of the same. (Dogs are not yet banned here).
His parents hid his body and his fifth ceremony was conducted. His brother and his ex- girl friend had a sigh of relief. And they both want to make movie of this story and name this as The Dead Man’s suicide. Of course it will be in local language.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Wanna be happy?
I am not sure about my problems, but I guess, I am good at solving things for others, I shed out good advice and my close friends do rely upon me for those needy words which might brighten them up, or at least thats what they have pretended to me, it might as well be due to my never ending inclination to talk and believe me I am very good at (at least pretending)seeming that I mean what I say.
Having said that, I thought that I should put on public space, a write up on what I think or made to think the way things should be looked at. This is inspired by this video by Baz Luhrmann:
As I see it, there are three types of problems in life:
1) Relationships.
2) Career.
3) Confusion between the above two.
Let me handle each one of them. Relationships, mostly the ones between opposite sex , are the most bothering. People just get too much possessive, obsessive, aggressive and what not. But please remember that, any relationship is just a catalyst for a happy life, they are not constituents of life. A human is born alone and is going to die alone, and if you are not aware, sati is banned in India, Pati is still, god forbid, a concept yet to be developed and suicide, if you have survived, is taken seriously by the Judiciary. So, my dear friends if you are thinking of a perfect partner who will be along with you all the time, think again.
So, the point is that, you might get a boy/girl friend, you might not get one, or you might get ditched or if your luck is still bad, you might even get married to your loved one and if you are lucky enough, you might even get divorced. But, the fact remains that YOU are YOU. So its pretty illogical of you to make your happiness depend on long beautiful hair/long legs/beautiful eyes/sexy six pack/muscular biceps etc., believe me your happiness can be depended on more reliable things.
The best way to avoid the head ache is to love yourself, just love your youth, your brains your whatever you could think of, take a number of pics of yourself and put them everywhere on net you could think of; the world is full of fools and there shall be at least one who would be appreciating the beauty in you. So the bottom line is, do not hurt others and do not be with others who hurt you.
To put it crisply, love can never bring pain and if something is paining you, then it cannot be love and you can safely reject it as poison.
Coming to the career related issues, mostly these are comparative issues, X in spite of being an ass is in a better position than I am. He is my junior, but he earns more than I do etc., take a break people. Jealousy is one of the worst enemies for happiness, the other person never asked you to earn less than him. So understand that some times you are ahead and some times you lag, but at the end of it the race is with yourself, your whole life is about where you wanted to be. So just do not bother yourself with bad appraisals, and do not bother either about a test that you could not crack or a promotion that you missed upon, they really do not matter three years down the line. Your career is what you want it to be.
So forget the insults, remember the compliments and just try doing different things, you might fail but then you will know how to.
And coming to the confusion between career and relation ship, all I have to tell is to master the concept called synergy between Geography and life. If you learn how to maintain ties with your family & friends no matter where you are, you must be a happy person.
Having said that, I conclude.
Having said that, I thought that I should put on public space, a write up on what I think or made to think the way things should be looked at. This is inspired by this video by Baz Luhrmann:
As I see it, there are three types of problems in life:
1) Relationships.
2) Career.
3) Confusion between the above two.
Let me handle each one of them. Relationships, mostly the ones between opposite sex , are the most bothering. People just get too much possessive, obsessive, aggressive and what not. But please remember that, any relationship is just a catalyst for a happy life, they are not constituents of life. A human is born alone and is going to die alone, and if you are not aware, sati is banned in India, Pati is still, god forbid, a concept yet to be developed and suicide, if you have survived, is taken seriously by the Judiciary. So, my dear friends if you are thinking of a perfect partner who will be along with you all the time, think again.
So, the point is that, you might get a boy/girl friend, you might not get one, or you might get ditched or if your luck is still bad, you might even get married to your loved one and if you are lucky enough, you might even get divorced. But, the fact remains that YOU are YOU. So its pretty illogical of you to make your happiness depend on long beautiful hair/long legs/beautiful eyes/sexy six pack/muscular biceps etc., believe me your happiness can be depended on more reliable things.
The best way to avoid the head ache is to love yourself, just love your youth, your brains your whatever you could think of, take a number of pics of yourself and put them everywhere on net you could think of; the world is full of fools and there shall be at least one who would be appreciating the beauty in you. So the bottom line is, do not hurt others and do not be with others who hurt you.
To put it crisply, love can never bring pain and if something is paining you, then it cannot be love and you can safely reject it as poison.
Coming to the career related issues, mostly these are comparative issues, X in spite of being an ass is in a better position than I am. He is my junior, but he earns more than I do etc., take a break people. Jealousy is one of the worst enemies for happiness, the other person never asked you to earn less than him. So understand that some times you are ahead and some times you lag, but at the end of it the race is with yourself, your whole life is about where you wanted to be. So just do not bother yourself with bad appraisals, and do not bother either about a test that you could not crack or a promotion that you missed upon, they really do not matter three years down the line. Your career is what you want it to be.
So forget the insults, remember the compliments and just try doing different things, you might fail but then you will know how to.
And coming to the confusion between career and relation ship, all I have to tell is to master the concept called synergy between Geography and life. If you learn how to maintain ties with your family & friends no matter where you are, you must be a happy person.
Having said that, I conclude.
Monday, May 19, 2008
I agree I was a bit weird of late, the effect being the post below, the cause unknown even to the person who has undergone the cause, I cant tell more than this and I hope I could be less reactive in the future. I am wishing myself all the best for the future and promise you to bore you further with my blogs..........
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Not going to write ....
I have decided that I will not write, though this blog will stay here, I am stopping to write at least for quite some time.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Gyan..
There are two types of idiots
1) The first type believes that all statistics are right.
2) The second one believes that there is a second type that exists.
1) The first type believes that all statistics are right.
2) The second one believes that there is a second type that exists.
Monday, May 12, 2008
The future of IT..
The year was 2123. There have been lots of changes in India. C has been declared national alphabet, Cut, copy, paste(not in that order) as national words, Computer as the national gadget, coffee is the national drink, sandwich is staple food followed by pizza, Obesity is the national disease, and Age of empires is now the national game. Java is now recognized as the official language.
Yeah! Java is now recognized as an official language, after the 2067 linguistic based communal riots where SEs belonging to different languages fought with each other. The riots have caused serious damages to IT industry as there were thousands and thousands of monitors broken and even more keyboards hit against the heads, and apart from the property losses, the IT industry had to pump in lots of money as the hospital charges of an employee are covered by the company. The situation didn’t cool down unless the IT minister intervened and promised to declare Java as national language and also promised a new state called Soft Pradesh.
Soft Pradesh has got 2000 year tax holiday, petrol here is completely subsidized and is charged at a petty 50paise per liter. Autowallas are not allowed to charge more than 2 rs irrespective of the distances traveled. Whole of Soft Pradesh is Wi-Fi enabled and communication does not cost you a penny as it is over IP. Power is free. So virtually Soft Pradesh is the Indian improvised version of US.
All was going well in SP (Soft Pradesh) until a disaster struck. What is the disaster? Well the answer to the question is the story of Softesh. (Softesh is the most common name in SP. There are around 100 Softeshs per Sqkm )
Softesh is born to two IT professionals, whose parents and their parents incidentally were IT professionals too; Infact, his whole family for last 7 generations were It professionals. Softesh, little should I say, is an IT professional too.
Before actually getting into Softesh’s problem, let’s just have a quick look at how the roles in IT are demarcated. Any project will have a certain number of SEs allocated apart from the Project Managers (at different level) and People Managers. Project Managers look after the technical aspects of the project and People Managers should see that resources are doing their work.
Also, there are millions and millions of lines of codes available on goosys (yeah the second company took over the first in 2047) all you need to do is to find the correct code customize it and send it across.
Having said that, a typical SEs job has become mind numbingly simple, so simple that the ennui of doing it would force mistakes out of you. So, there are two kinds of SEs people who bend their head and do what is being told and people who protest and people who do neither are deported out of SP. The job of people managers is to identify those SEs who bend their head and do the work, the people will become Project Managers and the second type would become People Managers.
Softesh is a Project Manager material, he has been working incessantly for last 4 months without taking a break, and he has produced millions of lines of code. And on one fine day, he complained of severe head ache and was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed for Cerebrocitis.
Cerebrocitis is a medical condition where the brain due to evolutionary deficiencies turns out to be a vestigial organ, like appendix and tail bone. The main causes of Cerebrocitis are using your brain essentially (but not restricted to) for brushing your teeth, shaving etc. So, over the years the brain refuses to recognize its presence and the basic mind numbing activities that human does will be taken over by the Spinal Cord.
Softesh, after years of mind numbing work and due to evolutionary defects where his parents or grand parents or great grand parents have never used their brain, has now developed Cerebrocitis, he is now as good as brain less person. All his essential activities of Cut, copy and paste and drinking coffee before a computer will now be taken over by his spinal cord, it has been evolved to undertake these quintessential activities.
Now there has been sudden out break of Cerebrocitis in SP. Thousands and thousands of youth have now become brain less. Now, SP which is known for its brain power has exposed its ugly side, the news spread and the whole world is waiting and watching to see the plight of SP. As of now the Indian biological department has confirmed that this is a new species and named it as Softo Sapiens.
Yeah! Java is now recognized as an official language, after the 2067 linguistic based communal riots where SEs belonging to different languages fought with each other. The riots have caused serious damages to IT industry as there were thousands and thousands of monitors broken and even more keyboards hit against the heads, and apart from the property losses, the IT industry had to pump in lots of money as the hospital charges of an employee are covered by the company. The situation didn’t cool down unless the IT minister intervened and promised to declare Java as national language and also promised a new state called Soft Pradesh.
Soft Pradesh has got 2000 year tax holiday, petrol here is completely subsidized and is charged at a petty 50paise per liter. Autowallas are not allowed to charge more than 2 rs irrespective of the distances traveled. Whole of Soft Pradesh is Wi-Fi enabled and communication does not cost you a penny as it is over IP. Power is free. So virtually Soft Pradesh is the Indian improvised version of US.
All was going well in SP (Soft Pradesh) until a disaster struck. What is the disaster? Well the answer to the question is the story of Softesh. (Softesh is the most common name in SP. There are around 100 Softeshs per Sqkm )
Softesh is born to two IT professionals, whose parents and their parents incidentally were IT professionals too; Infact, his whole family for last 7 generations were It professionals. Softesh, little should I say, is an IT professional too.
Before actually getting into Softesh’s problem, let’s just have a quick look at how the roles in IT are demarcated. Any project will have a certain number of SEs allocated apart from the Project Managers (at different level) and People Managers. Project Managers look after the technical aspects of the project and People Managers should see that resources are doing their work.
Also, there are millions and millions of lines of codes available on goosys (yeah the second company took over the first in 2047) all you need to do is to find the correct code customize it and send it across.
Having said that, a typical SEs job has become mind numbingly simple, so simple that the ennui of doing it would force mistakes out of you. So, there are two kinds of SEs people who bend their head and do what is being told and people who protest and people who do neither are deported out of SP. The job of people managers is to identify those SEs who bend their head and do the work, the people will become Project Managers and the second type would become People Managers.
Softesh is a Project Manager material, he has been working incessantly for last 4 months without taking a break, and he has produced millions of lines of code. And on one fine day, he complained of severe head ache and was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed for Cerebrocitis.
Cerebrocitis is a medical condition where the brain due to evolutionary deficiencies turns out to be a vestigial organ, like appendix and tail bone. The main causes of Cerebrocitis are using your brain essentially (but not restricted to) for brushing your teeth, shaving etc. So, over the years the brain refuses to recognize its presence and the basic mind numbing activities that human does will be taken over by the Spinal Cord.
Softesh, after years of mind numbing work and due to evolutionary defects where his parents or grand parents or great grand parents have never used their brain, has now developed Cerebrocitis, he is now as good as brain less person. All his essential activities of Cut, copy and paste and drinking coffee before a computer will now be taken over by his spinal cord, it has been evolved to undertake these quintessential activities.
Now there has been sudden out break of Cerebrocitis in SP. Thousands and thousands of youth have now become brain less. Now, SP which is known for its brain power has exposed its ugly side, the news spread and the whole world is waiting and watching to see the plight of SP. As of now the Indian biological department has confirmed that this is a new species and named it as Softo Sapiens.
Gyan....
life is one of those few things where the more you look back the more you want to and the more you do so the worse it would get.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Here I go...
With impetuous attitude my chariot
And the haughty courage my flagship
When I go, can I be stopped?
With ruthless audacity when I ferret
Success is my love and will my worship
If I fight, can I be defeated?
When each encounter on my road to life
Is punched in face with my fist called will
I succeed and I think I should.
And the haughty courage my flagship
When I go, can I be stopped?
With ruthless audacity when I ferret
Success is my love and will my worship
If I fight, can I be defeated?
When each encounter on my road to life
Is punched in face with my fist called will
I succeed and I think I should.
How to bite ants?
If there is anything that I am consistently worried about since my child hood it is ants. These little creatures, which are so awe inspiring to human kind in many areas ranging from sociology to biometrics, have at most inspired me to thrash them to death.
It seems that there are some 12,000 species of ants on the face of earth and ants constitute of about 15-25% of animal biomass. But, to me there are only 4 kinds of ants
1) Red ants or biting ants
2) Black ants or tickling ants
3) Big ants or oh my god I have to run now ants
4) Flying ants.
The even numbered categories of above have hardly bothered me; my animosity with them is more of induced type because of their brothers in the odd numbered category.
You would most probably know the reason, unless you are from Antarctica or Greenland or Ice land, where our ant brothers have decided not to go.
The first time I came to know about the lethal nature of these little creatures was when I was around 3 years old when a Big ant decided that it can easily attack my cousin who was one year old then, sitting nude on the ground happily engrossed in eating mud. This big ant went and attacked his….. Well you know. It took around 10 minutes to remove the ant and 15 minutes to remove its head from his……hmmmmm. Since then, I prefer to sleep alone in a grave yard rather than to have an ant around me.
Ants continued to inspire me in their optimism to think that they can easily attack a person several thousand times bigger than them. These attacks resulted in many a crazy act like me dancing in cricket field, much earlier and much better than Sreesanth, and people running towards the nearest tap to get an instant relief from an army of red ants. And so here I am, who declared a war against the ant race and fighting it ferociously for last 22 years and believe me, this war seems to be lasting for eternity.
My mom has been my commander in chief in my war against these creatures; she just hates anything that crawls and god save any creature that catches her sight crawling because it gets the opportunity to feel the heel and the ground simultaneously. Thousands and thousands of insects have been killed and when there was no time there were insect repellents used generously.
But, insect repellents are for those loser insects, ants are different, they are super organisms. And one fine morning the ant optimism rose to new highs when they decided to attack a packet of ant repellent which my mom bought as she has got better things to do like mending her maniac son rather than slapping each ant of the army to death. My mom instantly sued the local Kirana stores and the case is still going on as there is no evidence that the ants have attacked the ant repellant.
The war was going on well, until recently. But, a few days ago, when yours truly was sleepy after a days hectic job of eating and more eating and trying to sleep in between, something happened and I woke up itching maniacally my lower rib.
My mom, who is an ardent follower of those science fiction movies where a normal person sleeps normally but wakes up like a monkey, almost believed that I transformed to a monkey and even tried to confirm by checking whether I developed a tail. But before she could, she saw the boils on my left lower rib. Well, the Red ants attacked me again. I guess these ants are from China, as there are 5 boils on my left lower rib, and the 5 boils looked like the Olympics symbol.
Now I have had enough, and to make matters worse this article tells me that insects do not feel pain when squashed. Considering that I have been insulted by another red ant the other morning, I have sworn to make my war against red ants more vigorous, I need to device a way to bite these ants, they should feel pain, they should get the itches, they should get the boils,they cannot ignore others' egos, after all I am going to become a manager and I have been told by my ex-manager that I have to heed to others' egos when I speak and satisfy them for me to grow in an organization.
It seems that there are some 12,000 species of ants on the face of earth and ants constitute of about 15-25% of animal biomass. But, to me there are only 4 kinds of ants
1) Red ants or biting ants
2) Black ants or tickling ants
3) Big ants or oh my god I have to run now ants
4) Flying ants.
The even numbered categories of above have hardly bothered me; my animosity with them is more of induced type because of their brothers in the odd numbered category.
You would most probably know the reason, unless you are from Antarctica or Greenland or Ice land, where our ant brothers have decided not to go.
The first time I came to know about the lethal nature of these little creatures was when I was around 3 years old when a Big ant decided that it can easily attack my cousin who was one year old then, sitting nude on the ground happily engrossed in eating mud. This big ant went and attacked his….. Well you know. It took around 10 minutes to remove the ant and 15 minutes to remove its head from his……hmmmmm. Since then, I prefer to sleep alone in a grave yard rather than to have an ant around me.
Ants continued to inspire me in their optimism to think that they can easily attack a person several thousand times bigger than them. These attacks resulted in many a crazy act like me dancing in cricket field, much earlier and much better than Sreesanth, and people running towards the nearest tap to get an instant relief from an army of red ants. And so here I am, who declared a war against the ant race and fighting it ferociously for last 22 years and believe me, this war seems to be lasting for eternity.
My mom has been my commander in chief in my war against these creatures; she just hates anything that crawls and god save any creature that catches her sight crawling because it gets the opportunity to feel the heel and the ground simultaneously. Thousands and thousands of insects have been killed and when there was no time there were insect repellents used generously.
But, insect repellents are for those loser insects, ants are different, they are super organisms. And one fine morning the ant optimism rose to new highs when they decided to attack a packet of ant repellent which my mom bought as she has got better things to do like mending her maniac son rather than slapping each ant of the army to death. My mom instantly sued the local Kirana stores and the case is still going on as there is no evidence that the ants have attacked the ant repellant.
The war was going on well, until recently. But, a few days ago, when yours truly was sleepy after a days hectic job of eating and more eating and trying to sleep in between, something happened and I woke up itching maniacally my lower rib.
My mom, who is an ardent follower of those science fiction movies where a normal person sleeps normally but wakes up like a monkey, almost believed that I transformed to a monkey and even tried to confirm by checking whether I developed a tail. But before she could, she saw the boils on my left lower rib. Well, the Red ants attacked me again. I guess these ants are from China, as there are 5 boils on my left lower rib, and the 5 boils looked like the Olympics symbol.
Now I have had enough, and to make matters worse this article tells me that insects do not feel pain when squashed. Considering that I have been insulted by another red ant the other morning, I have sworn to make my war against red ants more vigorous, I need to device a way to bite these ants, they should feel pain, they should get the itches, they should get the boils,they cannot ignore others' egos, after all I am going to become a manager and I have been told by my ex-manager that I have to heed to others' egos when I speak and satisfy them for me to grow in an organization.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Is Population growth a problem?
If you think that population explosion is a problem, think again, only if you are in Japan
This article http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/05/stories/2008050557182200.htm says that Japan has lowest percentage of children in last 100 years. May be Indian male horniness is of some help to Japanese dormancy, so all those people who were excited by cheer leaders and threw an abuse or two at them, why dont you try your hmmmmm... whatever in Japan?
This article http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/05/stories/2008050557182200.htm says that Japan has lowest percentage of children in last 100 years. May be Indian male horniness is of some help to Japanese dormancy, so all those people who were excited by cheer leaders and threw an abuse or two at them, why dont you try your hmmmmm... whatever in Japan?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Are we gonna starve?
There are a few things which money cannot buy, if that something covers everything we blame it on inflation.
Of late every thing is on rise, salaries, temperatures, prices, inflation last but not the least the rate at which my hair is falling, but who cares as every one is now bothered about a much bigger issue- global food price rise. It is interesting to note that US was kind enough to attribute the global food demand-supply mismatch to the growing wealth of India and China, I was rolling to laughter when I read the following article
http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/04/stories/2008050460790100.htm .
Now Dr. Manmohan Singh should come out and say that the US is the main reason behind global terrorism, global warming and a lot more other global ill-phenomenon.
I hope Bush was not complaining because every human on this face of earth has the right to proper nutrition. And even if he is complaining, who cares? I should say that India has done a great job considering the humongous price increases in crude oil, what was $80-90 per barrel has now soared to around $120-130 per barrel and if it were not to be for the rupee appreciation the inflation in India would have been racing to double figures. Thanks to the sustained exports business growth and flowing dollar reserves.
The positive effect for this is the increased spectrum of what we can call middle class in India and their increased disposable incomes and the pseudo pitfall for this is the pressure this has added on the global food demands. And what Bush commented has really left me introspecting.
India has been witnessing a steady and enviable 8-9 % growth for last few years where as world’s leading economies grew only 2-2.5%. Sadly, the farm sector, which accounts for about one-fifth of India’s gross domestic product, has been growing the slowest. The growth rate in the agricultural sector has been stagnant at about 2.3 to 2.6 per cent per year over the last decade. There is large-scale migration of farmers and farm workers to cities in search of job opportunities. So India’s agrarian crisis is much to do with an imbalanced economic growth whose fruits are unreachable for rural public.
Now, this is a serious concern, in its recent report UN has estimated a whopping 82 countries to be short of food supply, including India and China. Global food prices have soared up from 25-70% in last few months. Mostly attributed to population rise, increased incomes and decreased agricultural productivity. Now the challenge before the world is increased agricultural productivity without increasing the current arable land and water requirements (food production must be increased to feed a world population that is projected to increase from the current 6.4 billion to 9 billion. The challenge is to double world food production output by 2050 using less land, far less water, and fewer nutrients).
So when Bush or his secretary are making some comments in public, they might as well be hinting at us to look at our current capabilities and what is expected out of us.
So this might be the time for us open our eyes and see what has to be done to make India sufficient to meet the global food demands. Unless we do something serious, we are going to starve, for sure.
Of late every thing is on rise, salaries, temperatures, prices, inflation last but not the least the rate at which my hair is falling, but who cares as every one is now bothered about a much bigger issue- global food price rise. It is interesting to note that US was kind enough to attribute the global food demand-supply mismatch to the growing wealth of India and China, I was rolling to laughter when I read the following article
http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/04/stories/2008050460790100.htm .
Now Dr. Manmohan Singh should come out and say that the US is the main reason behind global terrorism, global warming and a lot more other global ill-phenomenon.
I hope Bush was not complaining because every human on this face of earth has the right to proper nutrition. And even if he is complaining, who cares? I should say that India has done a great job considering the humongous price increases in crude oil, what was $80-90 per barrel has now soared to around $120-130 per barrel and if it were not to be for the rupee appreciation the inflation in India would have been racing to double figures. Thanks to the sustained exports business growth and flowing dollar reserves.
The positive effect for this is the increased spectrum of what we can call middle class in India and their increased disposable incomes and the pseudo pitfall for this is the pressure this has added on the global food demands. And what Bush commented has really left me introspecting.
India has been witnessing a steady and enviable 8-9 % growth for last few years where as world’s leading economies grew only 2-2.5%. Sadly, the farm sector, which accounts for about one-fifth of India’s gross domestic product, has been growing the slowest. The growth rate in the agricultural sector has been stagnant at about 2.3 to 2.6 per cent per year over the last decade. There is large-scale migration of farmers and farm workers to cities in search of job opportunities. So India’s agrarian crisis is much to do with an imbalanced economic growth whose fruits are unreachable for rural public.
Now, this is a serious concern, in its recent report UN has estimated a whopping 82 countries to be short of food supply, including India and China. Global food prices have soared up from 25-70% in last few months. Mostly attributed to population rise, increased incomes and decreased agricultural productivity. Now the challenge before the world is increased agricultural productivity without increasing the current arable land and water requirements (food production must be increased to feed a world population that is projected to increase from the current 6.4 billion to 9 billion. The challenge is to double world food production output by 2050 using less land, far less water, and fewer nutrients).
So when Bush or his secretary are making some comments in public, they might as well be hinting at us to look at our current capabilities and what is expected out of us.
So this might be the time for us open our eyes and see what has to be done to make India sufficient to meet the global food demands. Unless we do something serious, we are going to starve, for sure.
Friday, May 2, 2008
The third side of the coin......
In a democracy majority wins, in any competition majority loses and only one person/team emerges winner, so in a democracy losers rule, they are the winners.
This blog in its own humorous way has highlighted the idiosyncrasies of IT industry where the fit or misfit of a Mechanical, Chemical or some XYZ engineer was discussed. Everyone knows that most of the jobs in IT industry require customization of an already existing code which requires a group of hard working SEs to slog their weekend off, to meet the targets of ambitious, ineffective marketing guy whose only concern is to meet the target and impress the client so that his stay abroad can get extended by an year or two.
As if the identity crisis of a non computer science back ground engineer is not enough, a demon called appraisal system keeps poking you every six months. Though, an ambiguous engineering degree is nothing but a gate pass for the entry into an IT industry, I guess most guys in IT would agree with me that all you need in this mystic field is a bit of common sense and more honing for the skills you developed through your secondary school education, yes I am talking about cajoling your teacher to get a better mark. If you are yet to hear the word called "Perception" in your appraisal, buddy just go and start licking your manager's boot. It might just work too well for you.
Yeah, I am supposed to talk about the third side of the coin called appraisal system, so let me start. If you have started wondering what has the first two lines of the article got to do with the appraisal, here is it- We do not elect our PLs, TLs or PMs or SPMs etc, they are there because, the system requires them to be. So this is no democracy, a reverse democracy, if I may call it so, where a leader decides his people, a system by the leaders, of the leaders and for the leaders.
Having said that, consider a scenario where a PM has to be ranked, for simplicity lets us consider there are only 2 ranks. The lower the rank, the better. Now there are 4 cases.
Case 1: Ranked 1 in both the cycles, most eligible for all the goodies. Nothing to be talked about.
Case 2: Ranked 2 in last and 1 in this, now the question, don't you think in plain percentage point terms, the case 2 guy deserves better than the case1 guy? A person, for whatsoever the reason, who was ranked 2 has done all the good work and has done well enough to be ranked along with the other 1s, should be a better eligible person for anything than a 1-1, for the simple reason that he is more productive.
Case 3: Ranked 1 in last cycle but 2 in this. Now, the question again, in this leader intensive world, where everything including the location you have to work is business driven, read top down flow, what on earth is this guy's leader doing? Is he laying eggs? if he could not set right or make a previously rank 1 employee to deliver up to the expectations, can he do any business? What I mean to say here is that, every time a rank 1 person fails to deliver, the HR must hold his leader responsible for not being able to put to use a good resource. But this hardly happens.
Case 4: Ranked 2 in both the cycles. Now again, the same question, why could not the leader of this person do something to improve his performance? In this case the onus lies on either the manager to improve the rating or productivity of the person in question or the HR for selecting an incapable guy, in either of the cases, the person who deserves the punishment more is definitely not the person in question.
So that is the third side of the coin, I know this will never be taken care of, because in the corporate world's pseudo caste system, the upper caste has to dominate the lower caste and the oppressed remains oppressed. But, one good thing about this caste system is that no caste is permanent. The time lines for which a person has to spend in a caste may vary from person to person, but no person remains in the same caste for too long.
This blog in its own humorous way has highlighted the idiosyncrasies of IT industry where the fit or misfit of a Mechanical, Chemical or some XYZ engineer was discussed. Everyone knows that most of the jobs in IT industry require customization of an already existing code which requires a group of hard working SEs to slog their weekend off, to meet the targets of ambitious, ineffective marketing guy whose only concern is to meet the target and impress the client so that his stay abroad can get extended by an year or two.
As if the identity crisis of a non computer science back ground engineer is not enough, a demon called appraisal system keeps poking you every six months. Though, an ambiguous engineering degree is nothing but a gate pass for the entry into an IT industry, I guess most guys in IT would agree with me that all you need in this mystic field is a bit of common sense and more honing for the skills you developed through your secondary school education, yes I am talking about cajoling your teacher to get a better mark. If you are yet to hear the word called "Perception" in your appraisal, buddy just go and start licking your manager's boot. It might just work too well for you.
Yeah, I am supposed to talk about the third side of the coin called appraisal system, so let me start. If you have started wondering what has the first two lines of the article got to do with the appraisal, here is it- We do not elect our PLs, TLs or PMs or SPMs etc, they are there because, the system requires them to be. So this is no democracy, a reverse democracy, if I may call it so, where a leader decides his people, a system by the leaders, of the leaders and for the leaders.
Having said that, consider a scenario where a PM has to be ranked, for simplicity lets us consider there are only 2 ranks. The lower the rank, the better. Now there are 4 cases.
Case 1: Ranked 1 in both the cycles, most eligible for all the goodies. Nothing to be talked about.
Case 2: Ranked 2 in last and 1 in this, now the question, don't you think in plain percentage point terms, the case 2 guy deserves better than the case1 guy? A person, for whatsoever the reason, who was ranked 2 has done all the good work and has done well enough to be ranked along with the other 1s, should be a better eligible person for anything than a 1-1, for the simple reason that he is more productive.
Case 3: Ranked 1 in last cycle but 2 in this. Now, the question again, in this leader intensive world, where everything including the location you have to work is business driven, read top down flow, what on earth is this guy's leader doing? Is he laying eggs? if he could not set right or make a previously rank 1 employee to deliver up to the expectations, can he do any business? What I mean to say here is that, every time a rank 1 person fails to deliver, the HR must hold his leader responsible for not being able to put to use a good resource. But this hardly happens.
Case 4: Ranked 2 in both the cycles. Now again, the same question, why could not the leader of this person do something to improve his performance? In this case the onus lies on either the manager to improve the rating or productivity of the person in question or the HR for selecting an incapable guy, in either of the cases, the person who deserves the punishment more is definitely not the person in question.
So that is the third side of the coin, I know this will never be taken care of, because in the corporate world's pseudo caste system, the upper caste has to dominate the lower caste and the oppressed remains oppressed. But, one good thing about this caste system is that no caste is permanent. The time lines for which a person has to spend in a caste may vary from person to person, but no person remains in the same caste for too long.
Organic Evolution.
Situation: A middle aged husband reacting to his wife's untimely death.
Long Long Ago: Oh my god...how could you do this to me. Darling, how could you maroon me like this and go? What about all the promises made that you will be with me no matter what! I feel soul less without you. You cannot leave me alone in this journey called life. sob...sob...sob.weep and deep sigh....I cannot handle this. I am incomplete without you.....
Long ago: Darling.... what have you done? ......sigh.....sob......sob.....weep.....who will cook for me now? Who will take care of our children? Who will clean the house? Oh my god... why did you do this to me?
Ago: sob......sigh...... Pick up the reciever, dial a no, Darling.....she is no more.....I think I have feelings for her. Poor thing. I need you in this moment of despair, lets meet up at our regular place........sigh.........hang up.
Now: uhhhhhhhh......sigh.....picks up a cellular phone...... dials a number....... darling, the female dog is dead,....lets party today evening. Yippieeeeeeeee........muaaaah....muaaaah. call ended....
Long Long Ago: Oh my god...how could you do this to me. Darling, how could you maroon me like this and go? What about all the promises made that you will be with me no matter what! I feel soul less without you. You cannot leave me alone in this journey called life. sob...sob...sob.weep and deep sigh....I cannot handle this. I am incomplete without you.....
Long ago: Darling.... what have you done? ......sigh.....sob......sob.....weep.....who will cook for me now? Who will take care of our children? Who will clean the house? Oh my god... why did you do this to me?
Ago: sob......sigh...... Pick up the reciever, dial a no, Darling.....she is no more.....I think I have feelings for her. Poor thing. I need you in this moment of despair, lets meet up at our regular place........sigh.........hang up.
Now: uhhhhhhhh......sigh.....picks up a cellular phone...... dials a number....... darling, the female dog is dead,....lets party today evening. Yippieeeeeeeee........muaaaah....muaaaah. call ended....
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