Virtual Ramblings

After an unexpected and fun evening with S on Thursday, Friday turned out to be another unusual evening too. Many of you guys know that I don’t smoke, but then this is what I did on friday evening

My friend set up a hookah at home, being a non smoker had never tried one, and it turned out to be fun. As I do not like the tobacco smell, we filled it up with strawberry flavored non nicotine stuff, all in all an unusual experience and a fun filled one.

Meanwhile its been a long time since I posted something over at pure pursuits, so here it goes
I call it “Amateur thoughts“

Scene: A table of for four at my workplace cafeteria.

People Involved:
Yours truly: sitting at the end of the table [usual preference]
A good friend: My coworker, good friend and a lunch buddy.
Guy1 [Lets call him Tom]: A reasonable young guy, looks like just out of college, may be an year of work experience max.
Guy2 [Lets call him Dick]: A guy in his mid twenties, neither too young, nor to old confused age I guess.
Guy3 [Lets call him Harry]: A late twenties guy, looks like a north Indian, and speaks like one.

And the fun began.
Me and my friend hurriedly walked into the café, I had been the culprit delaying lunch by about half an hour, you know the usual work pressures. So we walk up to surprisingly empty table in our busy café, and comfortably seat ourselves in the remote end. Somehow I have developed liking for the corner seats and tend to choose the ones in the far most table. As usual we opened our lunch boxes [yep we are fortunate ones who get lunch from home], and began with usual discussion about the project, and whos doing what badly, the usual suspicions as to whats gonna happen to our company, and throwing in the subject of movies once in a while.
Tom and Dick, seeing the empty place walk up to the table and make them comfortable, conversing with each other in hindi, and then a third guy Harry walks in and squeezes himself in between the other two.

Tom [to Dick]: Look Harry looks so concerned, he has began the hunt you know, now he is all tensed..

Tom [to Harry]: hey don’t worry too much about this, Dick can help you with this, btw you should decide on your specs first …

[Read it as, got to decide the specifications, the term used in the cubeland to indicate the requirements for any product/software]

Dick: Yeah you should first find out what you want, just “homely” is not good enough to find what you want.
Dick: I think you should go for a north Indian girl, South Indians are very forward.

*me thinks, Dick must have watched Chak De on Sony last week, talking about forwards..*

Dick Continues… South Indian girls are really well educated, earning well, and also mostly employed in a high paying corporate job. They are self sufficient and know they can live independently.

*me thinks Ah!, Ideal for me, but why “South Indians” and I look up to my friend who can’t stop smiling*

Dick Continues…Now a days you know girls directly ask, do you know basic cooking in the first meeting itself, so its better to employee a cook than marry one.

*me thinks ok at least he thinks wives are not mere cooks*

Harry: Surprised and a little worried by now, oh really? So we should know how to cook?

Dick: yep all IT couples in Bangalore, share the cooking job, if the guy reaches home early he will cut the vegetables by the time wife reaches home, and wife fine tunes them before cooking them

*me thinks, another tech word, fine tuning..job terms in conversations like this make them hilarious.. wow this guy is funny.. but good he wants to help his wife.*

Dick: That’s why you should marry a north Indian girl.. They are excellent managers you know, they take care of both work and home easily, you need not worry a bit.

*me thinks, so here comes the true color*
Tom [who was listening silently so far ], yeah that is the reason why I said, “You should decide on the specs”.

Dick [citing an example], you know my friend was telling this case, one girl who was exactly of the type we want, put up her profile on a matrimony site, and within a week there was a line, so such girls are totally out of reach

Tom: May be you should put up your profile too, some or the other will match your config spec

[Read config spec as the set of rules we define in the clear case to chose a particular version of the file in the vob]

*me thinks this was the limit, config spec hahha I need a break*

My friend was done, so we walked off before I could hear any more c**p

I think in this world, there are two kinds of people,

One who set themselves up for challenges, work hard, conquer them, and then try to move onto better challenges.

One who set themselves up for challenges, work hard, conquer them, enjoy the results, and continue to look for challenges in what they do.

I am talking purely about professional career here.

I and my friend S might have spoken about this topic like thousand times. She more or less belonged to the former category and me the later one.

I had a tough time when I left my first company; I am really of the old school of thought where one works for a company for a lifetime, if allowed. I had to quit because I was very dissatisfied with my job. I have been with this job ever since.

People, young professionals like us, [well we are not young anymoreJ], but people who just move out of college are generally very enthusiastic about work they do. With years of hard work put into studies, they want to show their talent in things they do. When they join a company, and within few months come to terms with reality, they realize that not every aspect of the job is challenging, and not all work that happens around the technology company is the kind of research they dreamt off.

I have been there, I have lived the days where I felt any stupid person can do what I do, I have seen people around me feel the same about the standard of work that happens in technology companies here in Bangalore. Slowly we begin to learn the “job”, even though we had the basic knowledge of how to do, we were so raw. I can really see the difference in professional me, when compared to me from days of college. The work still excites me is still the same, but the work items that excite me have changed so much.

Coming back to the topic, of moving on or sticking to a company, I guess both are right, it’s just what you choose.

Somewhere when we work in a company for many years, we get into a comfort zone, we tend to do the things in a way which is fit only for that company, we get used to it, and after that many years it might get tougher to get used to the other company outside. Mental ability too, I mean you keep on working on a particular product or a project, your knowledge gets very streamlined, so chances of survival when that product dooms might be very difficult.

I kind of agree with S, when she thinks in the above manner. She always told me that many settle in their comfort zone, and never try to come out of it.

I am not defending myself here, but still my ideologies are different, when you work so hard to build your legacy in a company, learn the tricks of trade over there, when you still enjoy to do what you are doing, should you really quit because you are used to it?, or you need to get out of the comfort zone?. I know the answer is not simple.

The Rupee appreciation in front of the dollar has hit the Indian job market badly, but still there is demand for talent, if you market yourself properly, and if I get to jump out of my current job, and join another company, I am sure I can look forward to a raise of at least 30-40% raise in my annual compensation. Isn’t that a good enough reason I should change?, also company I am currently working for is not doing that great in the market, so there is always clouds of uncertainty about the future, but then every technology company is not doing well right now, the doubt will be there in any other company.

Again it all boils down to the individual, one who likes to move on, would chose to move onto various other challenges outside, look for a constant challenges outside in different companies, go test new waters, learn and move onto newer companies.

I wouldn’t say that’s bad at all. It does sound very exciting. But there are people who like to stick on, learn more, dig deep, enjoy the success, search for challenges, and build a legacy within.

Debates never end, well that’s what I like about friends and friends with different view point, and they provide so much to think about.

Its a funny feeling today, I feel as though I didn’t finish my last post, as though the link to my previous thought was provided by a fellow blogger as a form of comment, which I read first thing in the morning, and ever since these thoughts are on my mind.

Firstly, I would like to thank for a thought sparking comment. This is probably too big a response, so thought of making it a post instead.

Cubelands I have been in, two as of today, are extremely one sided in terms of gender, its almost 7/8 males per every single female dweller, I am still figuring out the possible reasons for this, anyways I have always wondered how different it would feel for a female dweller in the affairs of the cubeland.

Firstly the cliched topic, the workplace rogues, who make the life of the female coworker miserable, I have seen this in couple of situations, and not so sure how women take it so easily or seem to take it so easily, I have never spoken about it openly with a female co-worker, I don’t feel comfortable nor, do I have someone close enough to ask such personal questions. But from what I have seen, and what I have observed, I find that if justice exists, some males are headed straight to hell. Thought I boast of gender equality, I am yet to see one women bound to get to hell,at least because of personal mis-doings with a male co-worker.

I get to hear a lot that female managers are worst to work with. Wait!, hold your breath. I have heard this from female co-workers too, I always snub it out saying its not female managers, but that person in particular, I think I still stand by this at least when it comes to sexism, there is nothing as a bad female manager, its just natural tendency to hate your manager, and it happens to be in some cases females.

When It comes to working closely with a female co-worker, this is some real gray area to me, I have never worked in past, closely with a woman, now not that I am afraid :), but it has never happened. Anyways whenever I do a feature/project with one of my male leads or fellow workers, I end up working late in office for days together, and we almost end up spending huge amounts of time in each others cube, two three people stacked up in close space, late nights, on the fly decide to hang out for dinner till late hours, and in many cases, one of my coworker dropping me home. I have always wondered what if I were to be a woman, or the other person was a woman, would this arrangement work?, would we have worked so closely with each other, won’t one of the two end up being conscious about the work/off-work relationship?. I haven’t even brought marriage into question, what if people were married, or in the worst case one was.

Real toughie!

As my friend mentioned, females too work in comfort groups, one of my observation has been that their groups tend to change quite often compared to the male groups, and in very rare cases we have this real closely working mixed gender group. I hate to generalize, but I have seen its very often that the loyalties within the female-only work groups change very quickly, and of course they form loyalties very quickly too.

what goes on in a female cubeland dweller’s mind, anybody interested in clearing the clouds?. Are they too into these confusions?, are they too into two minds before asking a male-coworker for help?, do they get self-conscious too?, or its all just way too much stupid nonsense thoughts in Rambler’s mind?

All is well at my cubeland, same old work, same old talks of attrition, new faces here and there, same crib about the cafe food, and same old battles with the managers. Today that I was bored, my day went in keener observation of my fellow cubeland dwellers, and of course more into myself. Some really strange thoughts went through my mind

Teams across the companies are bound to have different characters, people with various ideologies, people with different working styles, with different levels of competency and experience, different attitudes and of course different level of tolerance. Its almost inevitable that you develop a certain level of comfort with certain people in the team, somewhere there is a match in the frequency, and you tend to form smaller groups, I know its really bad for the team that this happens, but is it something which is inevitable, bound to happen and better deal with it, kind of an issue?, or is it just an excuse which we come up when we know that we are incapable to solve the problem. I do crib some times about certain individuals in the team, somewhere, it becomes a mental block when it comes to few people, the working styles never gel, and in some cases it might be natural sense of competition, a little ego, and sometimes issues at personal level too. It kind of surprised me how easily a new person into the environment, easily finds a way into one of the groups, I mean any outsider can easily spot these groups within a team with so much of ease.

When you get to lead a team, and are provided with a big set of resources, you are bound to get people with different level of competencies, and ability to actually put in hours of work too, varies a lot. So when you really lead a team, I guess it boils down to your skill in getting work done out of not just good people, but also the slow workers, and not so capable people as well. I was thinking how far from this skill set I am. We are all at a phase where we got to start developing leadership skills, I guess its easy to do all the work yourself, and a big art to get it done out of people. Coordinating, highly competent and competitive people is also a big challenge. Any profession does have favour banks, so it becomes a big difficulty, when you transition from a team member to a team lead, you might have a lot of senior members who have huge deposits in your favour bank, so now that you are a team lead, you cannot just clear all your debts easily, you might be forced to do few things to keep your account going, in the same way, some others might have to compromise here and there. I think I am discovering how difficult it is to get the work done lately, and the worst thing one can do, is to compare the others with themselves, we tend to forget that not everyone has the same priorities and principles as you.

People management has always fascinated me, not in a sense where I want to do it, but just as a spectator, its something which has immense level of confusion and complication. The worst part of the job, according to me, is to keep everyone satisfied, you would have your own budget, not that every one can get a huge hike, all awards, all promotions, you do have limited rewards but you got to keep everyone happy. It becomes more difficult if you are handling a team with a wide range of performance, sometimes you might have to keep even a person who is working say at 40-50% of a high performer, just because, he would be still better than a new person into the team, now even the average performer would demand equal perks as a very highperformer, he not only has to reward the high performer with a bigger chunk, but also make sure the average performer does not discontinue. I don’t even want to get into contentions between two equal performers, even a slight mistake and he might end up losing both the good resources.

As I sat there in the cafe, with couple of colleagues, my mind was wandering trying to think the different roles people are playing around me, team member, team lead, team manager, so many roles, so many challenges, so many challengers.

Things I would have never done If I were not in software industry:

• Spend so much money on food in restaurants.
• Change my sleep cycle, reduce sleep and work at odd hours.
• Restart the bad habit of drinking coffee.
• Take Saturdays off, having a five day work week,
• Afford things, which I could not even dream of.

Things I don’t do/don’t get to do, because I am in a software industry.

• Take holidays whenever I want, even though I have loads of unused vacation.
• Spend more time in front of TV and books.
• Sleep in the afternoons
• Have a long chat sessions with my relatives or friends
• Get back home in time for the evening snack.

Things I escape[d] from doing because I am in a software industry.

• Attend functions and ceremonies which I hate to attend, now that I can fake being busy easy to escape.
• Answering people why I chose to stop studying after my Bachelors, people assume its for the money.
• Look for a job, good I have one from the day I finished studying.
• Explain my lack of interest in going out, people assume I am tired from work.
• Do boring errands at home

So people, tell me, do I look like my portrait?
Somehow cubeland dwellers seem to see me like the one in the picture. I have written about my issues with saying No, right. I have been told many times by my well wishing friends that I need to start saying No. I had almost learnt it. I have been trying to push things off my plate recently.
Out of some 10 things that are asked of me, at least I am saying NO to 2/3 of them. Considering me, that’s a big number.

For people who think that’s a good news, here’s the bad part. Some of the people who have realized my new funda, have devised a new and smart answer to it. They stopped asking me. They even stopped telling me, they are just telling world along with me, that I will be the person who will be responsible for the thing.Now this is really getting on my nerve. Someone cannot just dump things on me, without even asking my availability and bandwidth.

When I am asked to do something, I normally come up with my own schedule. Its normally well planned in terms of dates, and I generally keep some buffer towards the end for unseen problems. Now these buffer days are not something which are provided to me. I would have to work more than 8 hours and weekends to have this luxury at the end. The luxury of buffer is not for my benefit, its for the product, to make sure we don’t miss the deadline. Now when all goes well and I have some time between the two tasks, time which is because of my extra work. people seem to be really jealous of this gap. Without even my notice they dump their stuff onto me.

The worst part of all this is, they want me to do it not because others cant, or I am someone really good, or not because I cant help others to do it. Its because the others are smarter than me and know how to not do work. When you walk into office after a long previous days work and start slogging again, your neighbor walks in 2 hours after, and spends like half the time on orkut, it really makes you feel what am I doing wrong. Sometimes It puts a doubt in my mind, am I just a hard worker not a smart one?. Do I have the wrong work ethics?.

After saying all this, even today when I am dumped with some work, I keep cribbing and end up working on it. At the end when I really debug the problem I feel so happy. Have you ever heard of a satisfying happiness which can be saddening. This is one such. I cant differentiate, after all the sadness and anger, whats the fun in these problems which makes me happy.

Happiness is really strange.

I had an interesting conversation with a nice friend of mine. Well she wanted to say sorry to me because she said “You are a total mess” yesterday, and she was feeling sorry because she really meant when she said that. I know I tend to give more importance to things, more than they actually deserve, but still. This conversation put two thoughts into my mind immediately.

Firstly I loved her honesty, honesty in telling me what she felt about me. Anybody who sees me as a mess had not come up to me and told me that. If it was “some” person I wouldn’t have cared, but she is not one I would call “Some”.
Secondly I didn’t like she apologized, does she really need to say sorry when she tells me what she honestly feels?. I don’t think so, that too after knowing me, she does know I am not the kind who would not accept criticism or advice.

This really made me to think on two totally different things. This thing called ego is so strange right. Sometimes small things hurt my ego. A person commenting on my accent, dressing or even books I read. It really annoys me when people who don’t have any idea about me or the thing they are talking about criticize me. These people are the ones I don’t care about, but still their comments hurt my ego. I have made sure at least I don’t bring bias into ego, a particular class, gender or age group do not hurt my ego more. Its just people whom I don’t care that hurt my ego more.
Now, people I care about, their opinion never hurts me nor my ego. It does make me think. I really can tell when people I care are talking with sense and seriousness. Really it does not make me angry, it just puts me in a thinking mode, and provides me areas to work on. I am sounding too idealistic. I am not. There have been numerous instances where I haven’t agreed with what they think about me. The fact that I don’t let people know about the conflicts, does not mean they do not exist. When you know people’s intentions, and somewhere deep down you know they are talking truth, there is no point in getting angry right?

Coming back to me being a mess. Well its true. I am a total mess with my personal life, it always gets lost behind my professional life. I am not really sure I ended up like this, but somehow I cant take my mind off work when I am off it. It takes something really big to keep my mind of it, for long time.

I do agree that its really not worth it, nor it is required always, but still I tend to worry a lot about things concerning work. I tend to over worry about the schedule and quality of work items I work on. I always used to think Its happening because I am doing it to impress my peers/superiors/ or even big bosses, when people started to get impressed, I kind of made up my mind that this is the right way to impress them. I am not that immature, that I cant realize, that I need not do this to impress anymore, I am confidant enough that my work will speak for itself. Then what is it that makes me worry?.Wish I had answer to this question.

I have always criticized my mother, when she tends to worry too much on things she should not be thinking about. She does it in personal life, and I do it both in personal and professional life I guess.

The conversation surprised me a little, has it become that obvious, so visible that people think I need to change. I just started to wonder. Currently I am not in any kind of relationship, nor have been previously. If I am letting my work affect my friendship, I am just wondering what would really happen when I get into a real relationship and commitments.

I do want to improve, and I have started a little. My idea to blog was one of my efforts, to divert my mind to another passion, to make sure I enjoy something, to get away from my normal thoughts for a while, to look deep into myself, to tell things which I feel strongly, to people who will not judge the thought by the person I am, and me from the thoughts I have. I kind of give myself almost 2 full hours per day to do things I like to.

When it comes to social life, I have never been a social person, I always like small groups of close people, with more personal relations. Also I have never been a person with lot of hobbies and outdoor activities. I kind of don’t like to change this either. But yes I did understand what my friend wanted to tell me and I hope that I will improve.

July 31st 2003:
The day I got my first paycheck. I had worked for 32 days, and 16861 Rs was credited to my account. I was so enthusiastic about my first salary that I had made around 5 trips to ATM to check if the amount was already credited. There is something fun about the first paycheck which is unexplainable, right.

That must be the only month where I spent almost whole of my salary. I first bought myself a cell phone, one of the cheapest ones that was available, those days even these used to cost around 6000Rs. The first weekend, I was supposed to take out my cousins out for a drink and a nice dinner, we were link a bunch of 13 people and I ended up spending around 7ooo Rs on the dinner. That must be the only time ever in my life where I was totally drunk. I was so drunk I could not even sign the check at the restaurant and my dad had to do it for me. [Totally different and hilarious story, may be another post soon :)]. I did spend some money on clothes. In total my salary for the month was almost spent. Knowing my spending habits, this was like a shock to myself, just a month back I used to live with an allowance of 150Rs per month, within which I saved too. What a change it was.

Even though I spent a lot within my first month, I was back to my normal habits from second month. I used to save most of what I earn. I can’t say if it was good or bad.
Those days, we used to have bi-annual salary revisions. After just two months in the company, my salary was revised, as it was too small tenure, I was handed a nominal increase of around 6-7%, I must have seen my revised salary atleast 10 times that day. I immediately planned what I would be buying for myself and what I would buy for my parents with the extra money in the next month. The increase translated into something like 1000rs per month extra. But still I had so many plans for next few months on spending 1000Rs.

2nd July 2007:
The hikes were announced yesterday, we were all called individually by managers, and handed over hike letters. I was anxious to know how much I got, Is it good compared to others?, Is it good compared to my expectations, Was I expecting too much, Am I paid very less compared to other companies. These were the questions on my mind. I got a satisfactory hike. I came back to my normal routine. My colleague reminds me the salaries for month of June has been credited. I had totally forgotten about the salaries this month, I checked how much of income tax has been cut this time. The only column I look at now a days when my payslip comes out. The amount of deduction towards tax this month.

I was anxious about the percentage of hike, but really had no clue as to how much it translates into, I mean the actual amount, how much more I will be getting per month, Is it going to make happy?, Am I going to buy something, Am I going to spend the extra money I make, Am I going to enjoy the extra cash. Answer for almost all the above questions is No. Probably another week I will forget about the fact that hike happened. Until I notice more tax being cut from my salary next month.

Its not just me, I did speak to a couple of my colleagues who had the same opinion. The enthusiasm we had with out first pay check, our first hike etc, is totally lost, none of us were really bothered about how we can enjoy the extra money, only thing we were bothered was how much people in other companies are making.

Annual salary hike has ended up becoming just a number, number we use to value our performance against peers in the company and peers out in the other companies.

Future:
I think more responsibilities or financial liabilities might change me. May be the movement from enjoyment to no feeling, will turn into worries, how will I make the extra cash ? will be the question on my mind.

P.S If you think the numbers and dates are fake, you don’t know me.

Working in corporate is taxing, but not always. You get some free entertainment too. How many of us listen to music when we work? most of us right. But more fun than that, is listening to the crooners around you.

I always have had some nice neighbours, who provide me with all kind of music. Some provide me with only lyrics and some provide me with brilliant music either by banging their desks or crooning the instruments too. The language too is not a limit, I get to hear english, hindi, tamil, telgu and even gujrati some times.

But the best part of these crooners are the facial expressions that comes on without their knowledge. Sometimes I stop my work and try to observe the passion in their faces as they try to blast the song out, with the earphones on.

Dont believe me ? if you live in cubeland too just peek into a crooners cube next time you hear one.

Do I do it?, I must ask couple of my neighbours.