My Tryst With Gun

I was looking to buy a cheap top of the line laptop. Cheap and top of the line sums up every Indian’s disconnect between reality and want. We always want the best but do not want to spend the money that quality commands. In the ideal world of an Indian guy, Mac books should be sold in Dollar Tree. When I set out to buy a laptop, obviously I stated with the best possible specifications. I wanted a 12- or 13-inch laptop. Should definitely have SSD. Processor has to be i7 or i5. Even though I will use it just to watch movies or browse cheap deals. With these specification in mind, I set out to look for a laptop. I found a lot of them. From mac books to Dell XPS to HP elite. These were really good laptops. But the only issue was that they were expensive. My determined Indian mind dismissed these options labelling them as glorifying examples of crony capitalism of USA. How convenient of me. Humans (read it as Indians) always come up with such convenient incorrect baseless generalization when the reality is far from the bubble that we have built in our heads.

 I started looking at other avenues. Undeterred and oblivious of the realities, I was adamant to find a laptop with specifications wort 1000 dollars that can be bought in mere 300 dollars.

Things Indians Do in USA - Frugality

One thing that stands out and perhaps unites all Indians living in USA is frugality. It cuts through the entire social barriers and divide. Irrespective of what gender, religion, looks, color an Indian belongs to, frugality in USA really unifies us as one. It gives us a sense of pride and achievement. We squeeze in every penny. We have been doing it for so long that it has become part of our DNA. I am sure, by now even few of our genes have altered itself as part of human (Indian) evolution.

First reaction of a marine on hearing the word “go” would be to grab his gun. For us, the first and natural reaction is Groupon. We do not do buy anything in spur of moment. We plan it, meticulously. Like a military operation. It does not matter how much, every penny counts. We can spend hours looking for ways to get five dollar off on a five-dollar purchase. It is not easy. It is a tight walk between being a cheapskate and profligate.

You name a service or a category and we have saved money on it.

Netflix Subscription: Four or five family shares the same subscription. Making it almost free. As if you bought the subscription from Dollar tree.

MONSOON,UMBRELLAS and GENDER DIVIDE

Monsoons are one of the most awaited phenomena bestowed upon us by the benevolent almighty. Rains do a lot of good to the mankind. It is a boon to farming, replenishes water table and water bodies. It provides much awaited respite from the soaring mercury. The entire flora and fauna (natural and man-made) gives out a very fresh, washed and vibrant vibes. Raindrops falling on the parched earth to quench its eternal thirst is quiet an emotional and spectacular sight to watch. Intermingling of thirsty earth and restless rain drops is like two passionate lovers reuniting after a long agonizing separation forced upon themselves by the destiny, with a hope of never separating again and ignorant of the fact that every meeting culminates into a separation.
Love prevails all around riding high on the mood and sentiments marked by marriage of thirsty mother earth and rain drops with purity at heart. Feeling of togetherness and reunion becomes the mood of the season. But this feeling of togetherness suffers every time it rains in my office.


Large and beautiful umbrellas have been provided by my office management to facilitate the journey of their employees from their respective buildings to the main exit without getting wet. But we mortal souls, so engrossed in the utilitarian aspect of life, fail miserably to understand the real purpose of such facility (I guess even the office management is ignorant about the same). These benevolent

SOFTWARE ENGINEER and COMPANY TRANSPORT

For most of the software engineers, irrespective of their designation, salary package and sex have commuted in company’s cab or bus (company transportation). You must be wondering, what is so significant about these travels, people across the globe do that. The remarkable things that make these journeys so interesting are the way software professionals conduct themselves during these bus rides. The range of activities that are performed on these travels is worth taking notice of.

Designated pick up points are where this journey starts. Catering to prayers and wishes for reaching these points on time is one of the most important activity that keeps our almighty occupied early in the morning. The amount of traffic these prayers generate can easily bring down any powerful server. For the winners, I mean those who manage to reach the pickup points on time, the joy is boundless. This feeling of victory can certainly dwarf the feeling that you get after coming first in NAT GEO’s Amazing race.



The scene at these pickup points, though short lived is quiet interesting. You can find software professionals forming small groups and talking among themselves. The group formation is basically determined by the number of years of experience one has (birds of same feather flock together).Group comprising of senior professionals usually talk about the news paper headlines, politics and state of country’s economy. The passion and authority with which they talk can give

What is office working hour

“WORKING HOURS” in Software industry is one of the most misunderstood and misused word. Generally working hour means – The legal amount of time the company wants its employee to spend in office (productive and non productive hours is a matter of debate). But that’s the legal or the documented part. Its real implications are completely different.

Right from the birth of civilization (please read as Software industry), the society has been divided into two. First part comprise of the elite few or the oppressor or the tyrant (please read as the manager or supervisor or the team lead, different words but they all mean the same in this context) and the second part comprise of the innocent oppressed class or the proletarians, glorified by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (please read as the poor software engineers).
This divide has led to different interpretation of the word “WORKING HOUR”. I bring here the manager’s interpretation of this word.
For managers the word working hour is the most infamous and popularly used trapping devise. And the victims are who, any guesses, you have got it right, it’s us the poor software engineers working under them. For managers, working hour or office hour has only the start time but there are is no end time. We are expected to reach office at the correct time and never leave office after that (I mean that’s the ideal office hours as per managers). Leaving office on time is like practicing untouchablity or involving in act of low moral and social value for the managers. Working minimum two to three hours after you legal office end time is what managers encourage.

ECONOMIC RECESSION- SOFTWARE INDUSTRY THEN AND NOW

Recession of 2008-2010 (you may disagree with the time pan) changed how the world was perceived. Strongest of economy felt the heat. Some crumpled and some survived. One of the worst hit sector was software industry (IT industry). In order to survive, the entire software sector underwent radical changes. The term “Cost Cutting”, once found only in management book and managerial talks was now the most dreaded monster. Right from the office boy to software engineer, everyone was aware of what this term meant and the amount of catastrophe it can create. Innumerous relentless mayhems were organized and executed by organizations.

All of a sudden things that were considered the basic requirements or our inherent rights became luxury. At first the number of drinks offered selflessly by the innocent office vending machine was reduced to just tea and coffee (tea or coffee). As the recession intensified, the vending machines itself were removed from the shelf. The place which once was the epitome of gossip now portrayed a much disserted look. Most of the software engineers considered that place as martyrs land.
Next to fall victim of recession was the ever rumbling and rattling printers. Printing the entire book was now an unheard concept. Even single page print outs like train tickets or movie tickets were a rare phenomena. Restriction on vending machine affected just the employees but restriction on printers shook the entire society. Family members, friends now had to go out and get their print outs from local cyber cafes.

TEAM PLAYER - Favourite term on Software engineer's resume

Team player is a word which can be found on almost every software engineer’s resume. It usually signifies a person who can gel well with the team and believes in team work.
Getting along with the team is a good thing. This virtue has a lot of advantages, your team members can fill in for you in the hour of need, you can always have company on weekends for booze, movies etc.

But the most important attribute of being a team player is team work. Now this is where this innocent phrase is highly misused and misinterpreted. For managers team player means a person who can collectively work towards achieving team’s goal. This means the entire team shares a part of work individually, they work in full sync, and finally they deliver what was required in time. But for the team members like me who are very lazy and who have mastered the art of dodging all the responsibility coming their way, the term team work is a savior. To them, team work means the entire team working on the same piece of work, rather than looking after different pieces of work individually. As a result no individual team member is accountable. Sincere members of the team put in honest effort to complete the work and we lazy souls keep ourselves indulged in planning for week

SOFTWARE ENGINEER AND WEEKEND FUN

Friday is always a special day for a software engineer. And there are obvious reasons for this.
Coming of Friday marks the beginning for a lot of things. Let me enlighten you on this one by one.
1)For many, especially bachelors it marks the beginning of two day celebration (Counting Friday night and Saturday night) of booze commonly known as DAARU PARTY. They try to make maximum out of these two days as far as tryst with alcohol is concerned. It is a great opportunity to replenish the alcohol (MADIRA-Made famous by Harivansh Rai Bacchan) content of body, so that we can have a state of bliss for rest part of the coming week. It also gives you the much necessary state of mind to deal with crap(can be debated) work that one does sitting behind the computer and turn a deaf ear towards managers irritating hymns and loathes ( It’s a fact, no debates)


2)For many (you can include me too) it’s a day which starts with the optimism of getting a chance to check out hot babes in office. Witnessing the transformation of same aunty types into real damsels on Friday is a spectacular phenomenon.

3)The whole joy of Friday rockets to all together another world if it also happens to be a salary day. You just feel so happy and strong from inside, it appears as if you just had a shot of some super powerful steroid.

From my pen---OFFICE VENDING MACHINES

Hi to all my readers. My never ending urge to serve my readers with something different and probably interesting to munch on has brought me back to blogging. For last couple of weeks a cute little invention of man kind, probably one of the most remarkable inventions for offices caught my attention. To witness and analyze the plight of this wonderful invention in this era of recession made my heart ache and cry with agony and pain.

So here I bring down the curtains. I am talking about the office vending machine which has rendered its relentless services to one and all directly or remotely related to the office.It has obliged every one in office by catering to their most erratic of demands at any time of the day. Be it coffee, tea, milk, complan, bournvita or any other drink, the vending machine has never let us down. But the recession time has done a lot of damage to the rare personified glory that the vending machine was privileged with. Its existence has been reduced to a beautiful white pigeon in a golden cage which could provide just hollow visual pleasure but could never bestow you with eternal bliss which our soul would have otherwise experienced seeing the beautiful pigeon fly freely in the open. Apologies, got little carried away in the rampant flow of emotions.

From My Pen---THE APPRAISAL SAGA

So here I am, once again ready to offer my readers one of my experiences which I had a stint with recently.

I must say it was amazing to meander through the valleys and mountains of feelings and emotions that I was exposed to. Must say an intriguing ride . Before we start, a little enlightenment on reference in which I am using the word APPRAISAL. In this article appraisal means the battery of parameters on which your performance is judged in your organization by your managers. So we can say the ratings that we get in appraisals decide how good or bad you are at your work.

Usually appraisals create a divide in your office which has three categories. The first is the satisfied lot which obviously has received good ratings and end up getting substantial increment in their salary. The second one is the unsatisfied, back stabbed, deceived (sometimes adjectives just do not seem to end) etc... Who are at the lower end of the rating parameter. And certainly there chances of monetary gain are pretty bleak. And the last lot is the one who have got less rating and accept these ratings with profound humility with a vow to improve upon the next time.
But as I have mentioned in my previous article “ONSITE EUPHORIA” I belong to the era of recession. So certainly my experiences differ from what most of you have had. In this doomed time of recession, appraisals redefine the whole categorization of work force that I just explained in the above paragraph.

From My Pen---THE ONSITE EUPHORIA.

Getting an onsite opportunity is something every software engineer from India looks forward to.

For those of you who are not very aware of this term Onsite, let me explain you.
An onsite opportunity is getting a chance to go to your clients’ country and working from there for them at a very low wage.
So why that such opportunity is considered as once in a life time opportunity. It’s not that software engineers are bunch of crazy travelers who are always ready to land in some unknown terrority, build some crazy software there and life after that becomes a cake walk for residents of that country.

Let me try and throw some light on it.

Onsite opportunity means a crazy increase in your fortune (as you get paid in dollars).Ya this is an obvious reason. But there are many more reasons why software engineers are ready to slay anyone who tries to diminish this dream of theirs even to a slightest extend.

Now let’s pen down some such reasons.