ChEcK...MATE

P.S: This article might contain unintentional explicit material. Unintentional because the job of a bloody coder is to code some crap piece of  even crappy logic in an alien language to meet the CRAPPIEST (I mean Grotesque) requirements. And, it's a disgrace that I belong to that bloody breed. Yep Mate!!! life has forced/thrashed me  to become a useless coder.

To be very frank, actually there is nothing wrong being a smart techie who programmes a monster with terabytes of memory to behave as per the requirements. 

I have learnt this hard way, but it needs to be shared with y'all 'coz we all have been, at some stage or another, scr!@# like hell in this account by follically impaired creatures hiding in an unknown corner off the western region, even beyond Yorke Peninsula. What the heck was my fault??? "I chose to blow the whistle on deaf ears :-| "!! My faith upon Almighty has shattered. God, how can you do this. Yes, I am a sinner!!! But why a Capital Punishment for a small theft!!!!

I am still bemused thinking "How can a completely unstable piece of work be stabilised in a trice; a work which never shed its deep red skin from day one!!!" One point's sure that it aint chemistry that converted crimson to leafy in a day. It always was our hard work that ensured that come what may we will hit the target by MAY. Pardon me for being so crazy, but the upper echelons of my anatomy have gone haywire and I am still in process of construing of what has happened today. How can they be so purblind and deaf to not have noticed the value of our work. I don't blame them all; its a fact that kangaroos only take care of kangaroos (Its always blood man!!!). But i am seething with anger on those who had previously mentioned that we all are same. Unfortunately my frnds, its not the colour of the project which changed from Red (Crimson) to green (Leafy) in a day, it was the change explicitly exhibited by a chameleon. Everyone knew that we will hit the deadline by May, but still we were shown the Leaf covered in scarlet red so that we work (Was it Work!!!) at the cost of our rightful leisure time. It aint miracle that we have gone live on 13th. Sheer classic chess move by God.

On 18th January 2008 i got a call that i would be going places. Yup, i am going places!!! 

When i work on some defect, its Demon's land. When i reach home, it's devil's Cave!!!

God, please don't test me anymore. I'm not Jesus. I'm done now. I'm pure mortal fella who just dreamt to go places; some dreams even touched Yorke peninsula, and i even tried to increase my standard so that no one would put a speed breaker on my way.

I have seen 2 Go Lives in my life. First Go Live earned me a citation from Former Governer of Tamil Nadu. Today, on the day when i have crossed another milestone, i feel cheated. God's own creatures befooled me to pave their own dream path.

You only tell me how would it feel to you when you bloody work like hell for 4 weeks to create a document, which, unknown to you, will be changed by others to someone else's amusement.

Have dealt with stupidest of manic beings who pelt stones at every corner. I literally lost my whole year just to chase a dream. God, its sad that i will still be on this container ship which is remote controlled from a place 7000 miles away. 

I was not the one who chased dollars for runs. 

I just played Chess, and 

I was CheckMated. 

The Kickoff Meeting!! What were we doing in it???

Day One (30th Jan '08) :
I am sitting wid my PL getting interviewed. Do you know Oracle?? Me, as if I won the 1st battle, replied happily, “Yes I do Ma’am. M quiet comfortable wid SQL”. It all started then. :(

Day 2 (31st Jan ‘08)
After this, we were asked to attend a kickoff meeting. When asked to come at 10AM sharp, I reached on my own time after a wonderful bike ride enjoying the joyful weather of Bangalore at 12:30PM. I was instructed to make myself available at LCenter at the time specified. Me after already being late, was happily having tea with my ILP mates at the Abhilash when I received a call from my PL asking where I was?
I ran and reached the conference room at 12:45 PM where the meeting was going on.

I entered and after some time one of the many Big GUNS(the CAT eye) present in the conference room started, “Why do you want so many freshers into the project. As we heard this line we slowly started to walk out of the room until somebody replied”, company policy sir. We gotta have 8:2 ratio of Fresher to Experienced. We got elated hearing this n thanked almighty for the wonderful opportunity we have just had. Who knew this was just the beginning of new end.

Story Continues………..

Deja 'vu

Dis Was Inevitable!!!!! I had sensed it even before joining this tortuous flight. 

Mr. Martinet (JOHNNY BRAVO!!!!)  from sydney had made up his mind to teach a lesson to so called incompetent Offshorers.

Word had reached Bangalore about scheduled client visit on July, 28th. There was palpable tension among all of us. In order to save someone's arse, it was decided that we will showcase fully functional Self Service module with a Live Demo. Man!!!!!!!!! how can one develop a system in 5 days without even knowing whats that all about. Nevertheless, we agreed to go ahead with the plan and Ashish's Exits module was given green signal. Infact, we had no option to say NO.

27/07/2008 : 6pm - System was ready. Atleast page was getting displayed :-) It's time to take the angrez Head On.

27/07/2008  : 6:30pm

Ashish : Bhai!!! Ek baar aur test kar lein!!!! 

Abhishek : Arre Koi Nahin, kucchh nahin hoga; sab theek hai yaar, system kaam karega. 

28/07/2008 : 10am

(CONFERENCE ROOM SCENE)

Angrez 1: (Smirk upon his face) I'm not here to make friends. (Offshorers to gaye aaj!!!!!)

Angrez 2: hahaha, Hey Mates!! This system is very critical to us (Growl!!!!)

**** : Guys! lets take oath that we will deliver quality product on time. (Alas!! Was it time to say "INDIA IS MY COUNTRY..." vow!!!) Come On, grow up ****

Angrez1/2 (Diet cokes and Kinley in their reach; god, i even didnt have water from morning) : Lets look at what you guys have done, hahaha(Grrrrr...)

TIME HAD COME. I SAW SATAN SMILING

28/07/2008 : 11am

Angrez 1: We will start with Live Demo. (God save Ashish :)

Ashish  (6 peoplesoft punters staring his comp screen as if India Vs Ozzie match had reached its boiling point !!!)  : Good morning everyone (Dude, why u said that :), here i present fully functional SS module. Look everyone, when i click on Submit, system will ask for confirmation to submit the request. (Situation still tensed) Now i will click on No button and system will again take me to transaction page. (Thanks God, it worked !!!)

Angrez 1 : Click on OK button mate!!!

Ashish : Ya Sure, (Oh My.... DB2 was still open with unlocked record, SATAN's work had started ). Now i will click on OK button. (Woops!!! system got stuck for  minute; RESULT: FATAL SQL ERROR HAS OCCURED!!!!!)

{ For 2 minutes, everything in ODC came to standstill; Oh God, shit maaaan!!!! this was not in the script. Then came a feeble sound - ABHISHEK! ABHISHEK!, he only developed this piece of code :)}

Abhishek (Marr gaye bhagwaan, i tried my level best to not listen!!! first time in my life i hated to hear my name :); I looked at that error as if my bank account was robbed in front of my eyes) : Well, it is some issue with DB2 server, we will fix it {What a crap Abhi!! you could have said sorry  I don't know instead} 

{ Again, for 5 minutes, everything in ODC came to standstill; Oh God, shit maaaan!!!! this was not in the script. Then came a feeble sound - JAYANTH! JAYANTH!, he helped to developed this piece of code :)}

Mates!!! that was THEEEE happening day for me in this project. Even though we miserably failed at that moment, but it resulted in new resolution to prove ourselves. Again , i got fire in my belly to shake up the situation and make it work according to my way. That day was also important in one more way!!!! It exemplified that only frnds remain at your side in your tough times. 

No matter what others say about our work, OFFSHORE rocks and our involvement has ensured that we can accomplish anything against all odds. GO LIVE party will be held at sydney harbour, but somewhere deep in my heart incident of 28th July will continue to tickle; the day when it all started.

Indeed! we were STUPEFIED, PETRIFIED, MORTIFIED on that day; but we will leave this project DIGNIFIED.

KUDOS to everyone who faced the wrath and steered this flight to its destination.

Joining the Project

It all started with the same old story of me gettin released from a project n begging MATC 4 relocation to Delhi....and like an adamant father of an old movie heroine, MATC gets me a callfrom a boy of there choice(a proj in bangalore )....the guy on the other end asked me if I knowcooking....I mean Core HR modules....the answer was a big "NO"...."You have seen PeopleSoft screen right....?".......n tht was it....my stint with CBA had seen its beginning...

This was a promo... Keep checking for the complete movie....

Antarctica..

You ppl might be wondering "why on earth is this guy referring to Antarctica sitting in Bangalore??". But i have a solid reason.. kudos to 2 gr8 explorers within HRF team.. "AWE Guru" aka Abhishek Shrimali and "App. Engine Guru" Vijeth. (Antarctica was coined by Abhishek)

As soon as u get out of the lift lobby of 5th floor, you will see a dark passage right opposite to you. Thats the path to what should have been one of the most decorated offices within TCS.. office of the VP of TCS.. (donno who he is..!!) . But lemme tell you its one of the nonattractive corporate offices that i have ever seen.. At first look you just feel you are entering a furniture showroom with new plywood fittings stocked at a goodshed..!! This even remembers me of famous dialogue.. Circuit telling to munna.. "Bhai.. aila.. yeh room to shuru hote hi khatam hogaya..!!".

Never mind.. but whats important is the reception to that shed which is in my opinion, one of the coolest places in PIONEER.. just the kind of the place that you would wish to stay for a while to beat the summer heat.. enough space to accomodate 4-5 ppl, this is the discussion forum for us.. disussions here are mostly on the project and sports.. nowadays politics is slowly climbing the ladder.. (me, abhi and Vijeth regular.. often accompanied by ashish n kavita) . Everyday, after lunch we often spend 10-15 min in this place to destress ourselves and also to enjoy the chilling ANTARCTICA effect..

Once again kudos to Abhishek and Vijeth for exploring this chilling place..