Friday, 17th April, 2009.
Heat of Chennai.
Sometime post lunch break, Prakash, Amita and I had pretty much given up on things at the Nokia, JP Morgan block. Being a Friday, most of us tend to do things that aren't too strenuous. We were having a cup of tea each and discussing about the summertime heat in Bangalore, about how hot it is outside. Gradually, geographic location moved out of Bangalore to various other places before ending up at Chennai. And, this is what Prakash had to say about the weather in Chennai.
वहां बाथरूम में भी एसी लगाना पड़ेगा नहीं तो पाता नहीं चलेगा की तुम पानी से नहा रहे हो या पसीने से
It simply means - you need to have an AC even inside the bath room, else, you will never know if you're having a bath with water or your own sweat. I couldn't stop myself from laughing my gut out when I heard this one.
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009.
When you've got good luck like this one, who needs bad luck!
The weather outside was pretty cool for a summer day when I woke up at about 5:45AM. It had rained overnight and I could feel the fresh breeze outside. It seemed like a perfect weather for a long drive or may be a party or to just curl up on the couch, watch TV with a nice cup of tea by the side and since the following day was a holiday (23rd of April, voting day in Bangalore), I knew that people in office would see the lighter side of things. I'd successfully managed to crash my laptop the previous evening at the PTP Nokia office and I had to go to the SJR office the next day to have it re-configured. Re-configuring the system would usually take a day and so, I presumed this would be one of my lucky days since I would have pretty much nothing to do at the work place.
Quite clearly, the atmosphere around was pretty casual and so, I decided to dress up in casuals. I chose to wear this nice dark maroon half-sleeve Party Wear Shirt (That is what my dad had to say to sell the shirt to me when he'd got it from Mumbai), made of some very nice linen material and a faded Levis jean to go with the shirt and sport a sublime look.
While pressing the shirt, I noticed that the second button from the top looked like it was just about hanging in there. It looked like the button might come off any moment and it had to be fixed. But I was in a hurry that morning, I had to collect my passport from the 
Frazer Town post office at 7:00AM before boarding the office cab at 7:15AM and so, I left the button as it was and I knew I had to keep an eye out for it and be very careful while using it.
The drive to the post office was very nice, the weather was perfect. I was still very weary about the button, but then again, a wardrobe malfunction could happen to anyone and in the past, people who've had a wardrobe malfunction have become famous, its a sort of thing that makes a few of them famous. So, if it happened to me, I'd join the likes of Carol Gracias, Kareena Kapoor etc.
I'd stroked a chord with many in office that day, since most of them, like me, seemed relaxed and had dressed casually too. I had a nice breakfast, handed over my laptop to the IT Service for restoration and I'd settled down with my other system to surf a bit around the internet and check mails. The one thing that I don't fail to do first-up is to check the weekly horoscope by Rochelle Gordon 
and that very day, as the horoscope said, was my lucky day for the week. So, chancing my arms around was affordable, nothing could go wrong.
Naresh, my team mate, agreed to lend me his laptop and use his other system for that day. I had to download some S60 stuff which would usually take about 5 hours complete. At about 10:00AM, I triggered the download and then I wanted to grab a cup of tea before settling down to surf the net. I was on my way to the cafeteria and as luck would have it, the button came off the shirt. There it was, my first Wardrobe Malfunction. Believe me, not even my thoughts of Kareena Kapoor and Carol Gracias could stop me from feeling embarrassed.
I had to fix this problem and fix it in a hurry. Just then, I realized there is a Raymond's Shop just adjacent to the SJR building. So, I hurried over to the shop, picked up a T-Shirt,
which actually looked pretty cool, went into the rest room at the SJR basement to have my shirt changed. While entering the change room, my access card holder got stuck to the door knob and it broke. I'd broken a card holder about 2 months back and this was the second one that I broke. What a lucky day!
Once I had my shirt changed and the access card holder replaced, I thought things would be back to normal. But, I had thought too soon. At about 11:45AM, just about when the download that I'd triggered on Naresh's System was nearing completion, my bad luck came back to haunt me again. Naresh's laptop threw up the blue screen of death.
How could this happen? This was supposed to be my lucky day. First, the button comes off, then the access card holder breaks and then, I manage to crash the second laptop in two consecutive days. But it wasn't over yet. Later that day, I found out from the IT Services that my laptop restoration would take another day to complete. I had no other choice but to leave it with them until I could get it back on Friday, the 24th.
Fortunately, Naresh's laptop had been restored at around 3:30PM. And then, my stroke of good luck had finally come. I had a friend at work place by the name Raghu. He had quit his services with the company about 8 months back. I got call from Raghu at around 4:00PM and he had called me up to let me know that he had transferred Rs. 1000 to my account. Supposedly, he had borrowed some money from me long ago. So long ago, that I didn't even remember lending it to him. But, you see, this was my lucky day after all. Things had to come around.
Nevertheless, it was a very eventful day. Four blows followed by glimpses of good luck. And about the wardrobe malfunction, well, we'd have to agree that it is a sort of thing that happens with the celebrities.
The Phases. Quite clearly, the freshers have to put up with a lot of stuff and they have a shelf-live too, they tend to wear-out too. Almost every single newbie goes through different phases in his/her tenure as a fresher. So, the different phases, as I see it, explained.
Phase 1: I need to get to the top of the world.
July-August is that time of the year when most of the office is on the watch out for some fresh blood to be induced into an otherwise irksome environment. Ah! Those freshers. What with the enthusiasm soaring sky high, a great zeal to take on the world, the charm, the eagerness to hit the top of the world, suddenly most of the office starts to revolve around them. The energy quotient is so high, that the work picks up pace, the social events are so much more fun. (Although it mostly has to do with the changing behavioral pattern of the seniors around, good for the organization though. See "The Fresher Syndrome: Part 2"). The 'Gen-Y' factor these people bring along makes a significant difference, so much as to change the dressing sense of certain few around. You'd find the freshers hanging around together during the tea intervals and breaking for lunch together and think of those old times when you were once a fresher, the impact they bring about is such that you can actually feel yourself egging to go to office as soon as you're out of the bed every morning. Phase 1 of a fresher is filled with energy, creamed with optimism and laced with the 'Gen-Y' factor. Unfortunately, like most good things, this one comes to an end too.
Phase 2: The work pressure is killing me.
Phase 2 is when the mind games begin. Things slowly seem to get hazy. "Hang on; this is not exactly what I thought it'd turn out to be", "I don't see things under my control any more", "Is it just me or does everyone in the group feel the same". If you're loaded with work, you'd say "I've been asked to do too much", else you'd say "My friends seem busy. I'm the one who's free. Has the team lost the confidence in me?", "Why do I get to look after the over nightly builds while he gets to work on some real-time development". Suddenly, the chirpiness is missing, the tea breaks are curtailed and the heads are bogged down. "This one in my group is doing very well at work, I need to catch up". You'd find most of them having frequent BMDs (Bad Mood Days). The smiles are no longer to be seen. The social events are not fun anymore. "What would my team members think of me if they watched me dance like a goon". Quite clearly, the 'Gen-Y' factor is waning away.
Phase 3: Well, what do you know, I don't care.
Phase 3, as I'd like to put it, is the last phase a fresher ends up in and remains in for the rest of his/her tenure as a software engineer. It is what I'd like to call the 'Accepting' phase. "May be this is how it is supposed to be", "Let me ride along the tide and not against it", "Things are not under my control. So, I need to accept the situations as they are", "My friends seem to be busy with their work. Lucky me! I'm free!", "Poor chap. He gets to do some real-time development. And I've got just the over nightly builds to look after. So relaxing", "I've got work to do today. Let me finish it", "I've got nothing to do today. Let me enjoy", "So what if I get embarrassed on the dance floor. I don't want to be the football of others' opinion. I'll get my team members to dance along with me". If you find yourselves saying stuff like these, my lads, welcome to brotherhood/sisterhood of real software engineers and let us all wait for the next set of freshers to join us.
I remember this one incident between my immediate junior and my senior back in 2006. Let's just name the junior "Jr" and the senior, "Sr". On the way back home Sr got some time to talk to Jr, ask him a few questions. Here's the conversation, as re-iterated to me by Sr. Sr, by the way, happened to be my mentor. Watch how Jr goes through the phases within a matter of 20 minutes.
Sr: "Hey Naveen, I got to speak to Jr yesterday on the way back home".
Me: "Good good, what did you guys talk about?"
Sr: "I just asked him a few questions. He gave me the answers. And then I started to prick the bubbles"
Me: "Enlighten me".
Sr: "So Jr, what is kind of stuff you'd like to do here in Symbian".
Jr: "Well, I'd like to build mobile applications, you know, the ones that would really make a difference". (Jr, clearly in phase 1)
Sr: "Really?" (By now, the devil within Sr is warming up)
Jr: "Yes, you're from the PIM team. You must be getting loads of interesting stuff to do"
Sr: "Well actually, I kinda pity you. As a fresher, you'd probably get to work only on some system-wide projects, or the over nightly builds." (Mind games begin as Jr enters Phase 2)
Sr: "If you're lucky, you might get to work on some propagated defects, and if you're really lucky, then you might get to work on some customer incidents".
Sr: "But, getting to work on projects, well, that is kinda asking way too much" (Sr, full of sadistic pleasure)
Jr: "Hmm... well... okay" (I'm in trouble)
1 month later...
Jr quit Symbian and moved to Oracle.
Symbianites from 2006 pass-outs, you know who Jr is, don't you? Well, he wasn't patient enough to wait for phase 3. By the way, Sr is now in UK, busy exploring and clicking snaps and sharing it across to us. I'll leave it up to you to figure out who Sr is. And Sr, good job, and I'm happy you didn't try this trick on me, not that it'd have worked anyway.
Antics of the seniors.
If you thought categorizing the freshers was fun enough, let me give you a moment to think about the antics of the seniors. The kind of stuff these rascals come up with might just make you laugh your gut out. So, as I noticed, the common behaviors of the seniors revealed.
Behavior 1: Look intimidating.
It's absolutely amazing how a mediocre engineer turns out to be one of the hardest working when a newbie is thrown into his/her team. You'd find him/her spewing out technical terms aloud, making sure that the new girl/guy around notices. The pace at which the senior walks around in the office would be such that his/her purpose is much greater than that of Mahatma Gandhi himself. You'd generally find these people fret for no reason at all, put up a serious face, eyes almost watery, staying back late just to make sure that the juniors are intimidated.
Behavior 2: Look cool.
"Have you noticed that smartly dressed guy? Wasn't he the shabbiest around till yesterday?" - Clear signs of a new girl in his team. This is a very common behavior. Just throw in an average/good looking girl (in fact, the looks don't even matter) and you'd notice how the dressing sense of a certain few would change drastically. You'd find seniors of this kind cracking jokes, trying to look relaxed almost as if they are the coolest and the smartest ones around. "So you're facing this problem? Honey, let me tell how I fixed a similar issue in the most efficient way", "Oh!, this job is way too easy, I've only done it like a million times before". Remember the "Category three freshers: Girls, don't worry, I'm here to help"? Guys from this category usually come up with behaviors of this sort once they have a new girl joining the team.
Behavior 3: Let me make myself known to all the newbies.
The best flirts fall under this category. They've got this undying hunger to make themselves known to all the new ones, girls and guys alike. You'd generally find them organizing a lunch party, a sports event, may be bowling, but that's the most they can do. Let's just assume that they're not equipped enough to take matters any further.
Categories of freshers.
It has been 4 years since I graduated and over the years, I've had a good look at the freshers who've followed ever since. The kind of dreams they have when they step inside the doors for the first time, the kind of attention they get and then the kind of crap they thrown into later, I've had pure fun observing all of these. And if this isn't enough, it has been even more fun to notice the kind of antics the seniors come out with. Let me just enlighten you a little more.
I remember the days when I went through a rigorous training program back at the Kshema campus. This is where I had the maximum fun simply by categorizing the people around me. And since I'd already worked in an IT company for 3 months prior to joining my services at Mphasis, I was not really a fresher any more. So, I assumed I had enough privileges to split the kids around me into different groups.
Category One Freshers: How am I going to survive here?
Most of the lot would fall under this category. Just about anything seems way too tough for these individuals. You would find these individuals at the corners of the training room, feverishly staring at the monitors, scratching their heads and looking tensed. They envy people who belong to "Category Two: I know it all". These are probably the most boring people you'd come across during the training program. And once out of training, they have nothing else to talk about apart from work. "You know what happened to me in the meeting room yesterday?", "I haven't yet figured out how to get rid of this panic", "I have to go to office this weekend", "I don't know what my managers think of me", (To the category two individuals) - "Man, you're so smart in coding. Will you teach me?"
Category Two Freshers: I know it all.
Along the way, you will come across certain people who portray themselves as though their brains were forged by the almighty himself, every cell in them speaks a different programming language, ooh!, they're so smart. Category one people would die to become like one of these. These individuals nonchalantly talk about their past feats in programming; they brood on the appreciations of the category one individuals. Well, actually, they're not really smart. In fact, they're complete morons, the perfect kind you'd find and these are my favorite people. All that I do to have fun is to go by their own way, let them teach me stuff, and then I just wait for them to make a silly mistake. You've got to see the expression on their faces once they know they've made a mistake, especially after they've been corrected ever so carefully by category one individuals, they just come crashing down from cloud no: 9 to ground zero. Once this has happened, they no longer belong to category two, do they?
Category Three Freshers: Girls, don't worry, I'm here to help.
Absolute buffoons, these people are. They just want to be every girl's hero, a savior, when in trouble. They'd do just about anything to catch the attention of the women around. The real fun is when the girl happens to fall under category one, the kind of things they do to console her, pure joy for the rest watching these people in action. "Don't worry, things will be alright", "Do you need some help?", "Can I get you a glass of water? Would that make you feel better?"; The kind of things they do, unsolicited fun.
Category Four Freshers: The cool ones.
This is the best category of them all. People of this category are usually the smartest ones you'd find. Unlike category two individuals where empty vessels make more noise, these individuals tend to be genuinely smart. You're more likely to find them in groups of individuals of similar kind, having fun. They usually finish their work fast and easy and have fun watching the category two morons and category three clowns in action. You'd seldom find them fret about work outside office and it's usually fun to hang out with these people.
Sometime post lunch break, Prakash, Amita and I had pretty much given up on things at the Nokia, JP Morgan block. Being a Friday, most of us tend to do things that aren't too strenuous. We were having a cup of tea each and discussing about the summertime heat in Bangalore, about how hot it is outside. Gradually, geographic location moved out of Bangalore to various other places before ending up at Chennai. And, this is what Prakash had to say about the weather in Chennai.
