Counting Thursdays...

Every Thursday at IBM, we clock the hours we’ve put in at work.
The time we were in (never honestly), the no of hours we’ve worked (sumtimes honestly) and what we’ve worked on (heights of imagination here)

Every Thursday, I realize another week has passed at IBM. Another of the many weeks. Nothing special about it. Many have passed, many more to come. Just a another week, just another Thursday.

No. of hours actually worked……. God knows! ( a few may be)

Information overload?…………….Yes

Stuff learnt…………………………loads

When will it be used?....................... maybe tomorrow, maybe never..

Improvements?..................................uh-ummm

Degradations?......................................No, no no

Goof-ups?..............................................of course yes

‘I’m proud of myself’ moments?............. a few..

Added business value?.............................. ha ha ha

Every Thursday, I ask myself the same questions, get the same answers. Solid consistency. It’s as if life had become a count of Thursdays.

But wait, why am I thinking of Thursdays? Today is Wednesday!
Wednesdays are fine. But Monday, I tell you, is the most detestable day of the week. Everyone hates it! But it still comes shamelessly every week, after the darling Sunday.
Someone coined the term ‘Monday blues’ to represent the fact that everyone is gloomy on a Monday. But I just don’t understand why do ppl have to associate such a beautiful colour with gloom. No! I call it ‘Monday Grays’.. dull and boring!

I feel like starting my annoying chant-

‘I.. hate mon-days.. I hate mon-days..
Dirty nasty stupid days..
Coming after Sundays
Oh- so boring Mondays!!
“
I wish I could tell u the tune too.. but no… Make up your own!!!..

Tuesdays are fine,somehow. Thursdays are well.. Thursdays!
I love Fridays! Coz they bring the weekend with them. The weekend starts in my head around 5 on Fridays. Fridays are good.

Now that I think of it, I wonder how the people in AT&T account at IBM feel about these days. They go 2 work on weekends too. So I guess they don’t hate their Mondays, don’t love their Fridays.. it’s a li’l sad.. I hope they at least like what they do..

Nyways, things at my account are fast changing. Lots of new developments shaping up. Things promise to exciting in the future.. almost to the point of dangerous…

So let’s c how things turn out.

Maybe there’ll be more to the Thursdays in future..

Achievements!!!

Things keep happening at IBM, but then I’m not able 2 document all of them. However, I shall be posting from time to time.

Let me start by listing out the achievements made by our people..

Abhiram, the coder, has created a Simulator, which gives a GUI for the RSA which can be used even if the RSA isn’t installed in the system (abhi, sorry if I’m wrong, but that’s what I understood).. I think he’s gonna be the first one among us to get promoted! 

Ramana has been appreciated by a client for his work.. She’s put it in writing, so ppl, remember 2 take an appraisal party frm him, coz he’s surely gonna get one!

Anil’s being made to attend training which is meant for managers, where he was apparently asked to give work to ELTPs (ha ha ha!) That shows what confidence his manager has in his capabilities and expertise. (Don’t laugh ppl, I’m not kidding!)

Ezra has also been appreciated by his Team Lead.. (again, in writing (I think), so party no.2 coming up!).

Neha battled with a lot of issues, in totally unknown environment and resolved all of them successfully, emerging victorious.

Amit, has ben working really hard, in conditions of extreme pressure and has achieved a utilization of above 140!

My achievement is that I managed to NOT get fired, inspite of some database disasters and minor server mishaps.. Hey n by the way, after all the drama, my team lead told me those stupid databases were not important!! Should I sue IBM for giving me mental trauma over useless databases?? Let me know what u think!!

I vaguely heard something about Chaitu solving some probs at work, but am not really clear abt it.

Gouse’s achievements? Well… ummmm… actually…. u know… ahhh… mmm… well…

Reena and Santosh are valiantly battling on with boredom and uselessness.. and the fact that their immense potential is not being tapped properly! Don’t worry guys, u’ll do gr8 things, we know.. Reena has created some impressive excel sheets though!


So kudos to all out achievements, good work people.. lets all have a bigg party to celebrate all of this,, wat say?

post-lunch session of "madness" by EZRA R BATHINI!!

Madness at Mysore 2

'...I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it...' -- Jack of Titanic!

Jack had nothing to do with 'Post lunch : Madness at Mysore' but then, I had previously decided I'd use his quote whenever I write something! Now me writing 'here' is something like Cyrus Sahukar playing Ishant Awasthi!! (As for those of you who dont watch Mtv, he actually did and the show was rightly called 'Bechaare Zameen Par'!). But poor Manasa needed a proof!..
Read On...

We started for the Mysore Palace after lunching at an infamous restaurant, which we later understood was famous for 'serving' best vegitarian food!! The Palace was very picturesque with its beautiful domes and equally beautiful visitors!
A huge elephant's head with heavy tusks hanging from the wall welcomed us into the palace (hardly a warm welcome!) but the palace was all grand with its delicate wood carvings, graceful chandeliers, decorative stained glass ceilings, ornmentals,
paintings, portraits...
Halfway into the palace, Ghouse Started wondering (and reasoning) if kings who lived there played Cricket (?!)... and Deepthi Started counting no. of mirrors in the palace(poor thing!). Santosh, more interested in the monetary value of the things
around!..Manasa reading evrything she could find below those Pictures....Neha wanting to 'click' everything... Chaitu
topping her from doing so... (Thank God, they dint allow cams inside...I could imagine Ghouse and me cursing for hours!). Anil slowly slipped into Jodha-Akbar mood (understandably!). Reena..No, she was just smiling at everything!!

We then moved to the Palace's family museum with more pictures of the Royal kin, history of Mysore Dasara,collections of costumes and jewellery. Ghouse by now established that the kings played (or liked playing) cricket.[info : The present scion of the Mysore royal family His Highness Some Raja Wodeyar is actually the president of KSCA and was watching the rain soaked 4th onedayer in Bangalore while we were happily touring his home!!]. The museum also had some fine examples of family hunting talents and ofcourse the Royal Armory.


Outside the museum, we were greeted again by elephants obviously giving rides to people. Time now for a 'Haathi n Chiti' oke...nevermind!...read on... Its natural that people get excited about animals such as Elephants... but funny when it came
from Manasa..Now she wanted to 'touch' the Elephant (Ele, in short) there...despite Ghouse's warning(Now, this warning's actually a shout 'No, Manasa!'.... people around stared at us!)... Ok now the plan was simple, you give give the Ele a coin (It uses its trunk to take), it passes the coin to its master and then gently places its trunk on your head..(as if blessing you!). We raked our pockets for a coin and found one.. Manasa was supposed to give the coin but mind you she was too brave for this..So Santosh did the honours... the Ele passed on the coin and lowerd its trunk to 'bless' Santosh... Now its our brave Manasa's turn, the Ele lowerd its trunk but couldnt find the head...the mighty beast tried again... lowered and lowerd its trunk... to the poor ele's trouble our M was duckin low... Now, imagine Glen McGrath trying to pat on Sachin Tendulkar's head (who was ducking)!.. the Ele somehow managed to touch Manasa's head.

We joined the others and it took us some time to really get out of the palace (Reason?.. the Cams are out again!). Ghouse and
decided to sanctify the walls of the Grand Palace before we started for our next stop.... the Chamundi Hill(s).
The said hill was famous for being a sort of vantage point...from where you can look at entire Mysore City... the sight would be beautiful, I was told, especially with all the lights On!... Now as we set out, Reena was guiding me...,"on your left"...

"On your right,now"... "No, there!". and finaly we saw it.. the illuminated mysore with Palace at its centre... wonderful sight again but then it dint last long... thanks to our driver (He's not driving the tempo...but a Chevrolet at some
Motorally!!).. On top of the hill was a temple... and also darkness (pun intended!).. The darkness did not dampen the spirits.. Chaitu's still taking pictures!!... [Quick question, what if this Chaitu was asked to play football?... He'd be kicking?.. No he'd be Clicking!!(haha... bad joke?!... Ok, One for the Over!)]...

Well we soon stared our journey back home.. Obviously tired, everyone fell asleep except for me, Anil and ofcourse Deepthi... She was showing us her infy pics (five times each!!...) For a momemt i wanted to accidently drop that camera!! [D-joke coming up, start laughing, Anil: Are Yu Fine? Deepthi: entha kattali (fine)??..
Bored, Anil decided to wake everyone up... music started and with it Anil and his moves!!.. what followed next was, as Manasa would write, 'lots of dancing and singing', even Neha and Manasa (Not very surprisingly!..hehe).... Everyone's high and happy when suddenly mummy Neha realised that something was 'wrong'... and ordered everyone to sit quitely!!...[Quick question again : What if Neha was asked to play football...No, She'd be Kicking really!!]

Back in the tempo, everyone obliged not knowing what was happening!!... Now the wisest of the group, me and Anil knew what was the 'wrong'!... It was Gatorade... yes, harmless Orange drink, mixed with a little of 'nothing' (Shaken, Not Stirred!..
007 sytle!)... The 'madness' was instilled by the day!...not by the 'not-so-vile' drink!... but then Anil's wild moves and my cricket-commentary-influenced speech on 'Avnanna... Kaadanna...' exaggerated the idea!! Everyone had only one thing on mind for the rest of the road.. food!!... After a make-shift dinner(its already late for food in Bangalore... we could only manage to get some cakes!!) and Anil taking the respo of dropping people!!... Me and Ghouse ran to our place just in time to see
unusually healthy looking Munaf Patel save the rain marred 4th onedayer!...

Sanity Returned!

"EZ"

madness at mysore!!

Here’s the story of another rocking “weekend at bang’lore”
At Mysore rather, coz dat’s where we went…

After 2 dozen e-mails, about 4 dozen phone calls, 49 cancellations and 50 confirmations, finally a party of 9 set out for Mysore on a cold November morning. Me,Neha,Reena,Deepthi,Anil,Chaitu,Santosh,Gouse and Ezra… Abhiram, Ramana,Amit and Valli couldn’t make it. (we missed u guys!!)

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge Neha’s cam n our brilliant photographers, splly Santosh n Chaitu for the pics used in this post.


The madness began at around 5am with a frantic attempt at getting ready in the dark as there was no power. We set out at around 6, in a comfy tempo traveller ,in really high spirits with awesome songs blaring in the background. Everything from dostana to kailash kher. Anil, Gouse n Ez were specially overcome with emotion at the song “teri diwani” , wonder why….. they were singing at the top of their voices n swinging 2 d beat.. was a funny sight!



After a quick breakfast of ‘rock-vadas’ and triangular idlis, the first stop was a scenic spot on the way to Ranganathaswamy temple. Lush green fields, a cool breeze and a heavenly climate. A totally picturesque, rustic, rural atmosphere. I, Neha,Santosh and Chaitu took a short bullock-cart ride while the others walked into a field wading through slushy mud (you can see them posing as scare-crows in the pic ;) )






Next stop was the beautiful Ranganathaswamy temple. Even the serenity of the age-old temple and the tranquil ambience cudn’t make Anil less crazy (see d pic) and the rest of us, less “click-crazy”…every li’l thing had to b photographed. Meanwhile ez n gousie went for horse-rides. Dunno y they felt like it, coz the horses were really smelly! Nyways, after the darshan, we saw the spot where the mighty warrior Tippu Sultan was found dead (in 1799 AD)……thr’s a small memorial built thr.



From there we went to Sangamam, the place where 3 rivers meet. On the way, there was lots of dancing and singing, even Ezra and Gouse(surprisingly!).. According to our very wise Anil, one of the rivers was “Godavari”!!!!! (in Karnataka??) he was kidding of course.. Well, none of us knew which 3 and nyways, who cares? We had a ride in one of those round boats. It was therauptic, floating away on the water.. a wonderful feeling like being detached from the world.. it was a short ride, but was good enough. Reminded me a lot of Hogenekkal!




We then headed to Balmuri waterfalls, which according to me was the highlight of the whole trip. There’s something about the combination of water and rocks, which can turn anybody into completely crazy freaks! The guys were even more excited coz they’d just seen some really cute babes there..lolzz… Water fights, yelling, slipping on the rocks, screaming and mastiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! We splashed about for around 2 hrs.. and there we saw a spectacular display of swimming by our ace-swimmer Reena, who swam for 40 seconds
NON-STOP! ;) ha ha..
As we came out of the water, we were exhausted n cold, hungry, but happy. Had a good lunch at a restaurant whose name I obviously forgot.

Well, for the post-lunch session and a special feature “D-jokes” and more pics, wait for the next post!

Cheerio!

can't think of a title 2 this one..

Well, it’s really been a long time n ppl are clamoring for my updates.
Neha left a comment askin 4 updates.

What she said : ” a blog’s supposed to have updates”
What I interpreted : “ Manasa, we’re really missing ur blogs. Reading them kind of makes my day. Do post some updates. Plzzzzz” ;)

A few days back Ezra said dat too. Don remember what he said but sumhow I made myself believe that ppl r really interested in wat I post!!
Hey by the way, did I give an intro to Ezra in my blog? Well since I’m too lazy 2 go back n read it, I’ll just give it again.

Ezra Raj Bathini, alias raju garu, alias EZ (some funny name he gave himself.. in an attempt 2 sound cool? Dunno ;D) .. is a nice friendly guy with a fantastic sense of humour. No dull moments when he’s around!

3 new characters have entered the life-at-ibm-b. Got trained at Chennai n r here to make this blog more interesting.

Reena! A totally quirky,bindaas character. Whenever I’m with her, I always find her and myself laughing like maniacs, for no apparent reason.

Santosh, an equally fun-loving, quirky guy.. the kind of guy who can call u up in the middle of the night, chat abt this n that for almost 2 HOURS n then say “hey by the way, did I disturb u?”

Anitha- in contrast, is a li’l quiet.


As to how work is gng on at ibm-b, each of us is faring differently. Some are sick of work, some r sick of havin no work, a few are over-worked n a few r getting bored..
Typical software scenario.. deadlines, meetings, goof-ups, reviews…all kinds of
Naansense..

Speakin of work, I’ve an advice 2 give u ppl! Read the book the Dilbert Principle. It’s an awesome, super-funny book by Scott Adams who apparently hates all kinds of work. He criticizes all the jobs possible. Specially management related jobs get the brunt of his comical whip-lashing.

A few glimpses of the buk:



 The Dilbert Principle: The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage – MANAGEMENT
( hence it isn’t strange that most of us r planning 2 do an MBA..;) )

 Remember the Total Work Equation:
Real Work + Appearance of Work = Total Work
Try to keep your total work at a constant level but do not increase your real work.

 There are three types of employees:
1. Those who work hard regardless of compensation (Idiots)
2. Those who avoid work, thus appearing lazy (Idiots)
3. Those who avoid work while somehow appearing to be productive (Contented Employees)


This book might de-motivate u a lottt.. but what the heck, it sure is a fun read!
Njoy! Cheerio!

the exaaaaaaaaaaamm!!

No matter how old you are, no matter what u r doing, exam time is always horrible, Always! Specially if it’s an exam u’ve been dreading for over an year.

IBM is a great company to work for, but it kinda scores low on job guarantee. And since we were placed in our 3rd yr of engineering, we’d spent over an yr hearing horrible rumours and advice from all over the world “ start looking for another job!” ;) . this paranoia reached gigantic proportions when a 1000 or so IBMERs were kicked out last yr after an exam!!
so we were worried about being kicked out even before we joined .. lolz doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it was…

Funny part is, we were tensed and all that but never actually did anything about it. No preparation whatsoever.. spent the 2 months of training completely loafing around. At least Neha and Gouse would agree with me. The AT&T batch would claim that they’ve been working hard..blah blah blah..

Nyways, whatever, the D-Day was 8th of September, which came after a week of cramming, guessing who set the paper, catching hold of every scrap available with us about Java, stupid jokes and hell a lot of rumours.. coz failing the exam meant being chucked out of IBM!! The exam was at our beloved Manyata. 60 minutes of brilliant guesswork (the paper was of the multiple choice type) and it was all over!

That’s how life at ibm-b almost came to an end, but did not

Everything amounted to the one sentence which came in an e-mail a week later …

“Congratulations! You have Successfully Completed the Evaluation!!”

how things got better..

Next day was equally horrid…. Bad bad bad! Just sat at a desk having nothing to do and no one to talk to. Amit turned up the next day, he was also into our account but we were in different applications.

During the initial days of training, we had a 2 day session called ‘college to corporate’. Back then it was just another boring session, but the actual transition from college to corporate happened during the first week after training. We realized we had to snap out of it and accept the fact that we had to grow up and adapt to the “work culture” now.

And work culture is sumthing like this:

 realizing the fact that everybody will be busy all the time!
 Learning everything by yourself
 Attending loads of meetings without having a clue about what’s happening. ( I tried to hang on to every word in the first few meetings, but now I just let my mind go on its wandering sprees!)
 Sametime connect ( IBM’s internal chat) which was overused during the training days, now lies silently in the corner of the desktop, waiting in vain for a double click..

But after a few days, it all gets better. Once the work actually starts, it feels great! Yeah we do miss each other and life ain’t one big party anymore, but still.. thr’s sumthing really gud about being busy. Sumthing gud about working in a team, meeting deadlines, figuring out stuff we don’t know.. something gud about belonging to IBM ,being an IBMER.. and of course something really really gud about seeing our bank accounts getting credited every month!


And a few days back, all of this almost came to an END!! (or so we thought)
Wanna know how?
Wait for the next post!!!!.