Friday, June 09, 2006

Once upon a time @ College..

Hmm..pretty bored at office...Wonder how many times, i've employed this phrase "bored at office" in the past few years.. Oops that is gonna result in a myriad,don bother counting that. Wanted to scribble abt this for a long time and am in a perfect position to do this, as iam "Pretty Vetti". No wonder,these two words rhyme with a perfect cadence...
I've hardly ever noticed ppl in my gang getting 'bored' during weekends @ college times.. How colourful were they and how quick those days passed.. We always had something interesting to ponder about or do.. Be it the assignments, weekend beach visits, late night dinnerz, GRE/CAT preparations, flooding the ever famous "kaiendhi bavan", movies at satyam, an more... We were just engrossed in whatever we were doing..Those were times when we yearned for a 25 or 26 hr day so that we could extend the fun and gayous moments..
Early in the morning, with a long standing grudge towards that tiny alarm piece , which wakes up the whole damn apartment,we begun the day. Then would be a quick sneak peek at the sports section of HINDU and without dadz attention, the 2 pages that contain the crossword section gets expurged artistically from the whole bunch. Next a quick sip of the fresh 'Kaapi'and a mad rush towards the bathroom. Bathing would become an additional payload during sem exam times.Thanks to all the denimz and axe effects, which kept other ppl around us alive !!
With 95% of our bag reserved for lunch box , 3% for news papers and novels the subject books got a really extravagant 2% space. That mean figure too, got dwindled as time progressed and we cleared sems!!
Now then With some adreanline rush and extra juices flowing around the whole body, we'd rush to catch the morning hogwarts express which took us safely to college. Real fun begins there. With a wrap up of the local and international news in a jiffy, someone from the gang wud start "machan therz a new girl in the ECE dept da..". That'll then trigger a huge discussion which lasts long enough until we reach college. The best thing abt them is nobody wud be spared.Right from the person who started the snippet, to the head of the department :-).. Train travel wsa always filled with fun an frolic!! Simply unforgettable..
Upon reaching college too.. the fun times continued. Itz Worth another post .
Alas...On the contrary,after getting into the IT world, things have reversed literally..We really wan the day to wind up asap so that we could free ourselves from the gory clutches of PM's, TL'S an rush home for some peace of mind. At the weekends ppl instead of meeting their close ones and freaking out, cite lame excuses and refuse to move their butts even. Therez this element of happiness missing definitely..But this is gonna be a vicious cycle, neverthless - office - home - office. Not even 2 complete years into this industry an here iam composing this blog, narrating the ennui at IT.. Life which was like a 40 GB external HDD then, has shrunk and resized itself into an ultra compact 1 GB flash drive ..... Huh damn this IT..even analogies are turning technical..

Friday, June 02, 2006

Banglore Mail and the Dreadful Journeys !!

First thigs first.. I owe a big apology to all those ppl who have taken some time from their busy schedules , read my blogs and had commented "don make it too personal..". coz this onez the final bit of personal stuff i have with me.. and without this i won be doing any justice to my blog theme (banglore mail) at all.. Read on..
So there was yet another "S/w Engineer in the m(oc)aking" at banglore and it was none other than meee!! Initial days at office were all perfect and just like what i had always dreamt off. Days passed in a jiffy and i had made quite a number of pals by then. At last training ended and along with it our fundoo times too..It was show time then, we had to pack our bags an move on to projects... A bunch of us were interviewed by a PM and were successfully 'hardlocked' to a proj. Now for ppl who wonder whatz all this hardlock is abt.. Its yet another jargon used in this IT industry with which the PM'S glue u on to a seat in the project and make sure u are no more visible to the HR (an that expands to Highly Ridiculous), who usually are in dire straits looking for resources and are so desperate that they start locking evrybudy,be it the floor warden or the bay sweeper,never mind!!
Right then, First day at project and i realised that my dreams of becoming a "hardcore developer" were shaken up a bit and had underwent a li'l transformation by then. It now read "Hardware Keeper" .. That waz what the jobz nature, precisely was.. "AM GONNNA BE A SYS ADMIN, DEALING WITH HARDWARE !!!" Whoa.. Doesn it sound great, if not atleast for the first spell out!!!
What was more gloomy was i had persuaded my mates too, to take up this new assignment, citing that "this is going to be a gr8 challenge. We will get a lot of learning opportunities.. we'll hve helluva development work..blah blah" .. Poor ones , they had got convinced by tat speech , which usually a PM manages to give everytime, during indcution of rookies into proj and they do listen agaped and of course thrilled..

So a bunch of clowns aka sys admins were brain washed and were trained to become effective sys admins !!! To make situations more worser we were scoffed and ridiculed by some (not all, though) experienced ppl who were already present there .. Tougher times were those and some hom we managed to grit them out all with a steely resolve..

Days rolled on , we had slowly accustomed ourselves to the new environment and we were no more 'rookies'.. Boy, we did almost everything that even a few senior guys didnt try. Sooner those ppl who were laughing at us earlier and made a farce, now termed our bunch as "the backbone of the operation".. Its really funny when u realise how pplz perception change as time does..

So i was really engrossed during the weekdays and it was the weekends that put me down. Since i wasn living with anybody, weekends were damn boring , to say the least !! Just had the TV for my company plus the 4 walls.....After spending a few morose weekends there at bang , i finally took a decision. "I am not gonna stay here for the weekends, watever be the case.".. . Thats where it all started. I began to frequent the banglore mail and weekend speicalz , sparing those odd weekends where in i was bugged by my TL who forced to come for weekend works (crap !!)..

U won blv me , i wud have spent almost all my sal for weekend travelz.... Friday night was the best that i cud ever get and the sunday nightz were the worst.. Coming home on sat morning , freak out with friends, taste ur home food , meet all ur college pals , continue all those late night phone talks ..all these became a routine , rather !! On the contrary the sunday nigthz killed me..There were times when i really din wanna go back so much that, i used to check NDTV & headlines today constantly, hoping to hear something like "Rains lash banglore.. all trains leaving from chennai to bang cancelled indefinitely.." ....

But since we don dwell in a fairy land, where all ur dreams come true.. i'd pack my bags at snail pace and with not even the slightest of a smile , i wud leave for the station.. Through out the way i'll just be cribbing and dreaming of a transfer.. More agony would be waiting for me there at the station where i'd bump on a romantic pair who wud really be excited, unlike me, to travel together.. I'll let out a big sigh (what else can i do !!) and move on.. When i travel with mates , i wud rather be ok since we always had snippets & hot news to ruminate on ..

This became a vicious cycle then.. banglore-chennai-banglore.. Hold ur breath , u havta blv me . outta the total 1 year and 4 months , almost all weekends I_WAS_AT_CHENNAI , except for a coupla them (or +1 , thats the max). I had booked so much tickets between chn - bang , that the Indian railways later decided to issue a special railway pass for me (of course with concession!!). Go to the url irctc.co.in and i'm sure that , those chaps wud have mentioned my name somewhere in the site or atleast in the disclaimer.. sumthing like "Accept.. if over 18 years of age, first name not like 'Kartik' & travel plan definitely != chn - bang :-) ".. for the amount of transaction that i had performed over there.. Also If u had tried booking a ticket last year at the irctc and should u have experienced a "server busy error" ..hang on.."I_AM_THE_CULPRIT .."

As in a fable ,where everything ends on a positive note.. this blog is also gonna do.. After constant pestering , bickers and 'I_AM_GONNA_QUIT' threats , i managed to obtain a TRANSFER... Know wat, the first draft of the letter that i was abt to send to my HR , giving a reason for a transfer read some thing like ..

"Hi,

The reason for the exigency in my relocation to chennai is that, i am exhausted, boarding the
banglore mail and all possible special trains , that southern railways had introduced for
reducing the congestion between the 2 cities and have exceeded the quota for maximum
number of tickets that can ever be booked by a individual bet 2 stations. As a result of this i
have been denied a ticket to my home town. Sensing the ultimate danger that i could never
board a train back to chennai , i request you to kindly gimme a relocation asap..

Regards,
Kartik

p.s : I have attached a mail from the Chief station master, banglore city with this, that will give
ya more insights into the issue..

"
:-)... Keep smiling..

Saturday, May 13, 2006

College To corporate - A perfect Transition

Hmm.. thy ended my life at the constr site and i was all set to take up new challengez (was there one ?) at accenture. I came to know abt my location on one fine sunday, while i was busy playing a cricket match at the JRTCC (Jubilee Road Terrace Cricket Ground). ICC was one of our partners until it decided to split and venture out as a new governing body.. huh copy cats..
Lady luck decided to persist with me for some more time i guess, as some ppl got placed at mumbai too. Mumbai is one of the scariest places i wud have ever wanted to be. For ppl who dunno, its one of the places where u just need to board the train and when u are sure that urs is the next stop.. march forth and just stand wherever u are.. u don need to take any extra effort to even move ur legs.. u'll be automatically 'ousted'. Thanks to the 'decent' mumbai crowd...

Was really excited abt going to banglore , abt new job , settling there and stuff. Finally i boarded the 'shatabdhi' express in the morning, just like the college days. Arrived at the
stat ion just 5 minutes bfore the trainz departure and managed to sneak into first class a/c compartment(pun intended !!) . Hey me not Richie Rich. When ur company pays Rs 10000/- for relocation, u can even afford a Chartered flight !!

Sep 1 2004, i was at banglore.. and my IT life started there with a bang.. We went to a 5 star hotel for induction. I was too engrossed with all other things except the induction pgm as such. Food, girls who had come along and joined with us... and wat not..

Right then.. i needed to find a shelter for myself. This is where i had serious diffculties coz all my friends who were there had already got settled there and it was tough to separate them. Finally a charisma in the form of my mother made it all possible. She had got me a small room in a home at jp nagar wihtout any advance and hidden costs ;-) .. I was pretty lucky indeed, when compared to some of my mates who were staying in a so called "PG" with bunker beds, one on top of the other. Most of the times rats and cockroaches were the occupants of the bottom most bed!! And food ... last thing u'd ever ask for in a pg. Juz horrible. Sambar tastes like paal payasam and rasam , well no comments.. I'd rather leave it to the bangloreans who 'might' read this un.

Initial days at office were all fun filled, as i was into training. My word, the trainers were all really amazing and i found myself writing code at ease.. Could clearly benchmark the difference between my college profs and the corporate ppl. To wrap it all , "My college to corporate transition was indeed wholeheartedly complete and i earned my self a title 'Junior Software Engineer' :-)"...

The Journey of life continues........

Laughter & Tears - Everything Could Count

Banglore.. IT HUB.. Every s/w guyz dream... and wat not.. so much of hype surrounding this southern city.. That adrenaline rush & those gayous thoughts din spare me either..
Getting placed in a Construction comp right outta college and having a night mare over there, with the big bound civil books and training sessions where in i used to explain the oldies (so call young guns of the organisation) "How to move the mouse and double click the goddamned 'My computer' icon.." uh ..oh tough times were those.. Not only this.. .. One fine day during the induction period they took me to a construction site and guess wat, with a "grey helmet" at the top of my head.. i was at the terrace beore the blink of an eye. That beat the shit out of me really.. more than the fear of 'wat am i doing here' , it was the open place that intimidated me a lot. They hadn even completed it fully and me and another IT guy ( i felt i had a comapny :-) then) were asked to go , watch and admire that work. Leave alone the admiration part we were asked to take a seminar the very next day on that. I said to myselves 'One crap of a civil engineer in the making" Poof Life was tough blv me..

In 15 days time i decided that was it and without even a formal resignation i ran away like forrest gump without turning back.. Breather,at last.

The follwing days were really really tough.. With all ur mates settled at some place or the other, this feeling of insecurity looms over you easily.. Finally after some days of hard work and resume mailers.. lady luck decided to ping me . I got a job at *********(Masked for obvious reasons). was really overjoyed. Who wudn be ? I never even dreamt of getting into a MNC, with the state in which i was.. Gleefully accepted the offer and was waiting for the location. Thank god it was banglore....
To be Continued...

Wanna know the name of the anonymous organisation that i first worked for ( ahem..15 days).. Take the first letter of all the words from the title of this blog and there u are..

Friday, May 12, 2006

Something abt me !!

My first ever blog on the net.. Whoa!! iam all the more excited to start scribbling..
First Something About me. I am yet another software enginner carrying great hopes as every damn individual in this IT industry does... Unfortunately half or infact none of them have got fullfilled yet. Graduated in the year 2004 (don ask me the college name , i'd rather prefer to hide it due to the recent hallelujahs). Now working with one of the MNC's hooked up in chennai with a pay package i'd say 'TOO_MUCH_FOR_THE_WORK_I_DO' (Do I ?).I enjoy 'Orkutting', reading other ppls blogs, chatting (of course) and freaking out with friends.K lemme wind up this small intro of mine with this. Have plans to write more and publish 'em. BTW anyone reading this shud be wondering y on earth have i chosen "banglore mail" as the blogspot url.. keep guessing !!