The turmoil, decision, announcement, and reactions ....

Roll the drums.....
Blow the trumpets ....
Clap your hands ....

I have finally left Ajeeb-O-Gareeb!! I cannot even begin to express my feelings. Unlike NIIT I will never be a junkie for A. Towards the end, that place sadly left me with the Stockholm complex. I hated the place, the toxicity, the useless tensions and stress that was all made by stupid, incompetent, egoistic people!

Have you ever joined a place and then the place morphs into something totally different? Then the reason why you stay on is just inertia ...You fool yourself into believing that things will get better, all other places are the same, it's all in your head, you are in control of things, you are just being restless.... well I did all that and more.

The first sign that you've outgrown a place is when you don't wanna go to office any more and start looking and finding excuses for not turning up at work.

In my case that happened a while back and then I forced myself to focus on only the positives. Then things changed and I would have stayed on in A only if I was forced to undergo a lobotomy or maybe even then I would have moved on.

All that constant restructuring, people who couldn't be bothered about anything except themselves, layoffs of the people who worked, promotions of people who were hiring disasters!

Imagine living with local management people who get off on playing mind-games, have HUGE egos, who are delusional enough to believe that they are beyond reproach, can't take feedback or criticism from anyone... the classic "my way or the highway" sorts... the entire team had changed many times over in the ~4 years I was there but I guess I was naive enough to think that I could change or accept and continue to live with things the way they were.

One side of reporting was perfect and then the fact that you get along with the US people more than the local powers, gets you in bad bad bad books. Imagine managers focusing on people they dislike rather than focusing on projects doomed for disaster! It's because of this disconnect between the US way of managing (supporting/nurturing) and the local way of managing (controlling/smug) that I was stifled. I joined when A had some great managers, the best actually. Indians who had spent YEARS in the US and were fighting a lot of battles to get work to the Indian companies.

But nah! the change from the blunt-jovial-devil-may-care person to the politically-correct-self-sacrificing-parvati wasn't happening and in any case the disenchantment had gotten far deeper than the surface.

So when I finally reached my threshold of not being able to put up with things anymore, I started looking. And finally reached a place where I could have been 4 years ago!! But I guess que sera sera.

The last few days of the decision were tough but I am so glad and relieved that they are behind me. I have some people to thank for that - how do you say thanks to people who have had faith in you when you seem to have completely lost it?!

To make life worse, when I served my notice, reporting changed and we were all reporting the bestest pubs manager I ever met. The same person who was about to get laid off 2 weeks back!!! So no layoffs - complete restructure ... but it was too little too late for me.

Things had been done for which there was no undo and life needs to move on ....

So the bullet in my resume describing my current employer, got an end date.

For the first time, I looked for a job aggresively - interviews galore - then got a job thru an ole pal, who I bug like questions.exe! I pinged NIIT and they were more than happy to welcome me back but sadly, it wasn't about to happen. There was no going back ... maybe some other time. Maybe never ... Maybe I was meant to join this place, this is probably as good as it gets. I found the old NIIT culture here. Maybe because barring 1-2 persons, the entire team is exNIIT!

This one has been a sadish one I know ... but then change is never comfortable. I was sad to leave my friends and that way of life. I will be back to my normal mode soon .....promise :-)

~R
(I started this post on 23 Dec and am published it on 13 Jan. A lot has changed since then.)

The storm in the lull

I know I know it's been quite a while and maybe you thought that this was the end of this blogomania of mine. Nah! Not happening. Just that there was too much happening in life - since only me pals read this and matter - they know . . .

So in this last month there have been more layoffs more restructure ... many people were sad that they got laid off (I have always wondered about this term - lay .. lay on ...lay off ... well never mind! but seriously why that and in the hotel line they call overnight guests from airline lay overs!!!) and then there were some that were looking forward to that severence package and didn't get laid off! So misery abounds.

Peter Pappu (u wonderin who that is? *sigh* Go and read the last post!) announced the changes in the weekly staff meet and pronounces this as the golden moment in the team's history! Lordy! That oaf is at (most?) times an imbecile with the power to detonate a H-bomb!! See I know him, his work, his pluses, his minuses, them all ... but will I ever use or manipulate them? NO! Why? Because I have no sense whatsoever!!!! Now siren has been bending over backwards to be maha nice and all with us all esp. MOI!!! In the time that has happened between the last post and now, we've seen MANY festivals, holidays, .... some personal score settling and display of sheer bitchiness.

So let the tale(s) unfold ....

*****A girl's best friend*****
So you though dog? No, you silly billy! That's a MAN's best friend, we are talking the fairer sex. So the correct answer is D*I*A*M*O*N*D*S!!!! We have a new kid on the office block called henceforth Willo, a sweet person, does her work quietly sitting on her vending-machine-facing-wk-stn. Happily polishing off chocolates and getting by ...Her hubby sponsors (poor guy! God alone knows what levels of emotional blackmail he must have had to undergo...) some fantabulous stuff for Willo - this includes a large swanky 18-(maybe more)-diamonds-studded-groovy ring. Now picture this - all she has to do is wait for the 10 O'clock brigade to arrive at work. Willo, Nashila, Blue, and Siren all are the 8 am babes. So we waltz in to the 6th floor, doing our obligatory bottle-filling, spreading cheery his-howdys-dirty-looks morning ritual. Willo just raises her hand to reset her glasses, and then light dawns - new diamonds on the floor!!! Wow - kahan se lia kab lia kitte ka lia .... aye ... idhar aao tumne ye dekha ... total excitement - geeky engineers raise their heads to take a look and when they realize what's going on. They have exasperated / indulgent / incredulous / repulsed / curious ... expression. I really REALLY REALLLLLYYYYY pity Pacafic for the place where he sits!!! But maybe he has learned how to block the feminine chatter out ;-) After we all are ooohing-aaaaahing-drooling-trying, someone (com'on you know whoooo) walks to Willo and talks crap until the right time to POUNCE oh her hand and shriek - ARREEEEEEE these look so nice?! Are they real?!!! Willo jaw drops, eyes widen, throat constricts, bile rises.... and she is aghast and answers no these are real. So this is the lady eshtyle! Willo narrates this to EmAr who dies laughing and she tells this to us ... since then we have this standard question/insult - fakin it AGAIN?!!! Blue returns from the states after NRI bro's shaadi. One day she wears her bhabhi's ROCK (I swear this would have have made any hollywood marriage veteran socialite types hang her head in shame ...) again the same saga of feminine delight and lo and behold the very same question from the very same person about ... the authenticity of the baubble!!

Next, with my post-Durga Pooja loot and a little smart jewellery exchange, I get really smart tops (earrings that aren't rings are called tops in the Indian jewelry industry) that had ..... gold.... and DIAMONDS :-) By now peer pressure is mounting at work - u cannot CANNOT not have new diamonds. The lone geeky lady engineer also has new baubles after all!!! Pu gets her act together and cashes a lot of her brownie points and gets .... :-) you know what? GOLD and diamonds :-)

Menfolk who think this is all women love - u are partially right. We love THIS and then some more. By now even EmEr digs old a fancy firang ring complete with colorless lil things ...

This is getting really stressful for ze lady! She announces to all and sundry that while we mere mortals are into gold and diamond chips, she in her wizened way is into SOLITAIRES and white gold! This from a lady who wears jhanak-jhanak-gold-bangles with everything! I can do a complete blog on her fashion sense rather the lack of it!!!!!

When the entire team is out for Diwali vacations, she waltzs over to my desk and asks me to check out her new stuff. I am gulping down bile and also controlling my expressions and check her from head to toe. Nothing amiss... she then pulls think 14 caret thin clingy chain that has a tiny "W" shaped thing with some twinkle - I am told DIAMONDS!!!! I am now really lost - if what we have are chips then these are DUST!

Then I ask - aren't these two small and tiny? Maybe ok for a preteen girl but they lost on you?
She: oh these my daughter's! and mine are bigger.
I: oooh! show me them -
She: They are bigger then this not as big as the ones you bot.
I: [smug] ok
She: urs look nicer cause of the shape of your earlobe!
I: [gasp and try to recall the shape of that part of my ear!] hain?
She: it is about the perfect alignment of the right lobe with the right earring!!!
She: what is this joke about asli and nakli diamonds?
I: [wondering is she is being snidey or naive! and still wondering about my EARLOBES] That's just a joke!
Since then the diamonds never came back to work - we snidely asked her about them ... but so far no news!!!


Maybe with her bonus she'll buy some and outshine us?!

*evil grin*
Rags
[suddenly realizes that her earlobes are so KEWL!!!]
PS - Next post coming up soon on the STC presentation ....

Scheming siren and sulky sacrificial scapegoat

I'm back! I'm back! I'm back! So you have been missing me huh? Good. At least someone did :-) This one is part 3 of the bitching series - the Story of the Scheming Siren!

So you know that she has been promoted - thank you very much dear company (read manager) for being fair and impartial. Henceforth called Peter (cause of Peter's principle) Pappu (for being a puppet).

Since the magical mystical moment materialized, the siren has been trying to be very social. I am told that she has been asked to work on her inter-personal-skills and also her social graces!!! Horror of horrors! Oh the people who asked her to do this also asked me to report back!! Talk about divide and conquer. Peter Pappu is getting powerful :-)

So lemme in this post describe a typical day with siren. Sulky for obvious reasons has been sulking and was completely ignoring the whole big deal about the promotion and how it was the most deserved thing and blah blah blah. I would reach office and I would get "checked out" not a very pleasing and complimentary thing might I add. If you've been following the posts or know the truth you would recall that I am something like a style guru for scheming siren. Comments like - you know your hair is looking very dull today, you haven't worn lenses for a long time, these keds look so worn ... this is how I am complimented on the way I would look on other days. So if I am told you are not looking nice today means that I was looking nice previously ....huh? u capish?

So far so good aage chalo (let's move on - xlation for Sri!) then comes the time when the tactics change - I am AGAIN grilled on all that she sees and well what she doesn't is thankfully spared!!! So not funny!!! Anyways the all female teams end up like kitchen politics in Balaji (wonder why Ekta hasn't started calling her setup Kalaji? Heh heh heh ...)

Siren has now taken upon herself to do a complete social thing by complimenting anything and EVERYTHING! Since her move up the food chain she is supposed to train the newbie minion (who might I inform you has fantastic atttitude!), obviously she screws up. Asked him who has the attention span of an amoeba on acid to read 42 procedures!!! Hello?! As a technical writer you are responsible for creating learning/training material for unknown organisms sitting someone on terra firma and here you are goofing up on a LIVING BREATHING IDIOT???

Amoeba on acid is let lose on the ClearCase VOB!! He happily checks out stuff and writes comments like "First", "Second", "Third"... you catch the drift. The ClearCase admin is obviously not amused by this obnoxious turn of events! It's sacrilege!!! Then siren passes the buck to another person who so far has been nice to her but hah not for too long :-)

I am recalled into training Amoeba who doesn't quite realize what's hit him! Siren sits through the training and then sends an email complimenting the training and how she also benefited. Yeah! Right :-) YUCKKKYYYY!!!!

Another time she decided to pat someone on the back by saying "keep it up!" choke gasp splutter!!! She is still on this trip of whatever good happened I did that and whatever didn't I didn't!!!!

When on earth will I be able to chuck this place and walk out?!!!

Life is unfair; get used to it!

I am so massively irritated that I can't even begin to comprehend my anger and disgust at what is happening. The cheepie woman has managed to wrangle a promotion that she most certainly doesn't deserve.

I hate office politics.

What happened to NIIT?

Ajeeb-O-Gareeb top management, I mean the board of directors of the EM-EN-CEE itself not the strange automatons that pretend to run the India setup, have decided to relocate certain jobs to Asia Pac (read China and India).

OT - Did I ever tell you folks about their (the Resident NRIs) buzzwords of the week trick? This week it's Low-hanging fruits, focus on core strengths, un-diversify, golden times, exponential growth, leadership capabilities, and so on ;-) End of OT.

So we are in this "end-of-an-era" mode, and with 15 Aug around, it sure feels like Brits leaving India in the hands of Nehru and chamchas at the stroke of midnight. Bad analogy but never mind. I am so unsure of the local managers - you can fool your bosses but you cannot CANNOT fool your juniors / peers. Or maybe they have some magical powers that are invisible to mere minions, such as me?!

So you wonder where is NIIT in all of this? Here it is: We are hiring like there is no tomorrow. We gotta RAMP up and get work, processes, systems, and ALL transitioned in ~8 months. So the bosses do their own figuring out - they see us 5/7 writers are exNIITians so lets get people from there. POACHY Times ahead!!! We scan MANY MANY MANY resumes and somehow out of the ones that make it to the top of the miserable pile, some 40% are NIITians. Who might I add are ALL team leaders or higher who manage writers and do planning and other mumbo-jumbo. This is all in response to an ad for a JUNIOR TECHNICAL WRITER!! What happened? Since when does writer mean someone who can do EVERYTHING, such as planning, reviews, construction, editing, following processes..., but not NOT write!! The way NIIT of yore followed processes was a learning (unlearning in my case though) in itself! But these new fachchas are all like zombies who can't even write properly. And the cookie-cutter resumes YUCK!!! They are all trained in Edit levels 0 thru zillion and they score 2/20 on a plain editing test on which my 15 year-old-neighbor scored 20/20!!!!

I really feel like telling these liars that I was there when they start their unrehearsed, boring, lying, story.

My point in all this - what happened to the place? They are churning out IDIOTS. The fact that the industry depends on them to train (EVIL GRIN) talent is secondary, what baffles me is that how the heck are they running their business with these dimwits?!

I actually feel like a Mensa level person when I deal with such people!!! And then there are their idaes of being called SENIOR writers/leads!!!

Unlimited madness....Part 2 :-)

This is the first sequel to my "If you can't slap you can BLOG" post :-)

Ok people you know me - I am not a supersweet (YUCK! Even the thought disgusts me!) fake person, I am blunt and honest. I can get along with anyone I decide to, but mostly I get along with crazy HONEST people. Honesty and fairness are REALLY big with me. The fake M&Ms of NIIT make me barf! Normal is boring, psychophancy and hypocrisy suck and I can't even try my hand at those cause I am just programmed differently!

Ummm..... I like difficult people. They're far more *interesting*. They have personality, fire, drive, emotion, passions. I prefer people who have the potential to be dangerous than the sweet mild sort who pretent they would never harm a fly and then take out a dagger and slit your carotid! I like people who know what they want and how to get there without trampling all over others. They get what they want fair and square. I like people who don't mind throwing the occasional temper tantrum and who'd shrug off mine.

They're so much more palatable than the sugar, and so much more REAL. I honestly feel that people who fake the holier-then-thou-attitude are exactly that FAKES.

It's unnatural to be perfect - perfection is "oh-so-boring" and downright "impossible" anyway. I find myself intrigued by people's flaws. Its usually the imperfections that attract me. If what's on the surface is what is within then the character is far too two-dimensional for me to enjoy anyway - there has to be a deeper person. And I like complex people - call it character or whatever. The wannabe complex people are full of complexes :-)

All in all I really like difficult people. I'm glad I'm friends with so many of them ;-) GRIN GRIN GRIN! One day Poo wondered "Rags, have you realized that all your friends are crazy and bizzare?!" I answered "Yup! You too." :-)

BUUUUTTTT the lady in question is not just difficulty she is TWISTED! Her work ethics - whine about her workload, backbite to people - incidently she bitched about me to my friends on IM!! How smart is that? Prad promptly copy-pasted the interaction and we laughed it but I was revolted and aghast!

People I admire and respect professionally are good at their work and possess really vanishing traits called OWNERSHIP and ACCOUNTABILITY. Suffice to say I so far haven't seem these in the person.

It's always someone else fault - the screenshot is dithered - SnagIT is at fault, the PDF has some funny issues, the procedure is wrong, the language is dense, I didn't write it!!!! So on and on and on....

The rest of us all have it easy cause our developers are helpful, we have easier components to handle, we are lucky.... she loves whining ... hello! you are officially the one with an "engineering" degree - learn to live with the consequences :-) Traaa laa laaaaa laaaaa!!! You can't DEMAND help - that's impossible.

If she is doing a peer edit - oh man she is bloody insulting! But if it's her document, you can see that she has missed even basics. Not an issue all writers need friendly eyes to look over your work, but this one is BONKERS~

On a draft she will comment on layouts and formatting!!! Mixed up priorities ....

Back to the saga ---

So we finally reached US and had the first set of skirmishes on the choice of bedrooms. Next one comes the taking over of the common stuff which then turns to taking over MY stuff!!! Slippers, lotions, bags, ... I did give you the initial highlights but here are things in gory detail. No, there is no "limit" to this one's psycho behaviour. In this post I will tell about the yelling shows put on for my benefit - no strange as it may sound - I didn't yell. Why? You wonder - I was too revolted, disgusted, stunned, and taken aback!!! BTW she can't stand the other lady who joined with her!!!!

TW team -> kitchen politics

Both the trainers are really good people and since I had known them ever since I joined this place, we were really chummy. This lady decided aah now they are her friends too!!! She went with Seam and the guy trainer who incidently had his boyfriend along. She came back and said "They are very close like brothers." I choked on my drink!!! Then I told her about his different tastes - she was actually heartbroken!!! ;-) I honestly don't care about err....ummmm.... people's bedroom habits. But later when we were in class, in between breaks, she would wonder "R, are you SURE?"

The other trainer invited us over for kayaking - that day Ms.I hate Indian clothes decided to wear a churidaar and kurta! The previous night I got a call from M that advised us on the type of clothes to wear. I am a late riser and the lady wakes up early (one day she says "When you get a older, you sleep less!" Oh please! Sleep is so wonderful, why would I ever deny myself that?! And the way you sleep in a place where you have no responsibilities ... ummmmm.....devine!

So while I slept, femme fatal went to work. She realized that I didn't give her the message :-) Now that I think of it, I probably should have jaan boojh forgotten it and told her to go take a flying f*&^! She was always imagining people plotting against her, maybe it is a paranoia or maybe she drives people to it!

The days we decide to avoid her at lunch cause of well... wardrobe reasons....we have to sneak and hide!!!!

In office, all hell broke loose!!! She lambasted me - I said "Take 30 USD and go home and get your stuff, but just SHUT the f&*% up!" She went on and on - You wore capris, you purposely did this -- all this while till 4 hours ago she wasn't sure she wanted to go!!! But when she saw me and M getting all enthu she decided she has to come.

Net net she sulks - on our way to lake Natoma - I was putting on sunscreen - she asked for it and smeared all dark and dusky self with it!!! Very maukaterian!!!

She declared the third lady a tramp who was interested only in male company ... which true or false is really none of our business. Just see, observe, analyse, and mentally chuckle! And, excuse me, if you don't enjoy it why do you wear what you do rather what you don't?!!!

The apartment that we were in gave us vessels and all and 3 PRECIOUS plastic dabbas. Which as you might have guessed by now - were all under Her Highness's patronage. So much so - that I went to Albertson's and BOUGHT myself a dabba and a bottle.

Ahh the bottle - on our way I had taken a plastic smart bottle from the Jap steward. This was ... yeah... you guessed it ... smartly hijacked!!! While watching TV I used to sit in one place, next I find that place has her! I move to another place ... she follows!!!!

After a few days, we switched rooms. One day I realize that I am seeing her dig her teeth and gums (YUCKYYY!!!!! and that pttcchhaak pttcchhaak sound!!!) with safely pins... I have trouble keeping my dinner down. I realize that I can't find my lil dabba of pins, clips, and stuff! I went to my exRoom in her absense and HORROR it was kept there and she had USED them on her dental challenges!!!!

DISGUSTING~~ Then once the lady, Sean, and the third one decided to go to SFO. And guess what I didn't go but my backpack, my bottle, my box, my chotu stuff all went along!!!

I was so GLAD to see her go that I was okay with her attitude. At work she has this wonderful ability to con people initially but after a while people can see thru her. She has this competition with me - which regardless of whether I win or loose, I am tired of.

Have I told you about her FETISH for copying dressing styles? She has so many duplicates of my clothes!!! YUCKY! Today I went shopping, lets see how many things she adopts!!! Bleah ...

What pisses me off if the wonderful manipulating ability such people have - my boss used to think she walks on water but then how long can you hide your true self :-)

That's all for now... trust me I will be back with more :-)

Why me? Why me? Lord! Why me ....? Part 1 of n

Shaggy said it for different reasons but he sure had the sentiment right :-) In case you think I sympathize with his pal getting a kick in the rear cause he was doing what he was , think again...

Heads up: This is a whine post! I really wanna slap a certain human who continues to piss me off and since I can't do that I am "blogging" her. The adjective bitch for her is not okay, but the verb bitching, PNPC, is what I am gonna do. The word bitch is usually used in such a context but it portrays female canines in really bad light. And I love them K9s so I won't call them females that. There are other creatures I will describe. And if they ever read this not a problem cause they know exactly what I think of them.)

Some time in the past, our team was looking for people we were on an aggressive ramp-up campaign. Aggressive as in posting an advertisement in Ascent for 10 Ls- Yeah!!! Now you know ....

This results in our getting 659 resumes! All are dumped on our website as .txt files ji ji! Imagine the fun I would have had scanning the resumes ...

Run a search "containing" FrameMaker, the RoboHelp, then ... aise karte karte narrowed the range to TalkOverPhone list. There I spoke with various specimens of humanity esp. technical writing. TW is such a huge blanket statement!!! It covers practically every gamut of the spectrum.

After a lot of searching high and low, we narrowed down the list. I still kick myself about having fought with the-then-manager to hire her. How can someone look so nice on paper and turn out to be a twisted creature?!

The story begins, after 3 telecons, 2 HR-mental tests (which are so bloody off the mark as this case proves!), the lady joins. So far so good! She is a very curious person so I figured in HOURS.
"What's this?"
"How is that?"
"What grade are you in?"
"How long have you been married?"
"Do you color your hair?"
"What are there so many Muslims in the team?"
This is all in week#1.

Her idea of sharing is very interesting - what's anyone else's, she wants/demands. What's hers is out-of-bounds!

Age is something that she uses to her advantage, yeah she is older by a decade or so. So when she is hurt, she pulls the "I am senior" angle, and then when it suits her she is on "Age doesn't matter!"

I, in a flash of moronic brilliantness, pushed her case. Tch tch! As the popular show on TV says "Aye ki kitta Kareena!"

One month passes, and I start to see the follies that abound about me. She says "Oh you are just like me!" I die on the spot but then deep DEEP breathing and a friend's kick/footsie and eye roll and WINK keeps me alive. Then continues the list of similarity "I don't have many friends - I end up fighting with them!"

Hain?! I am similar then HOW? I have a truckload of pals, awain types to I don't even bother counting!!!! I mean real REALLY wale pals.

The lady has a great love for flaunting her assets. The dress theme remains - tight, tighter, tighessssttt!

There are times, the rest of the girlgang has tried to drop hints and be totally bindaas and tell her but we all get that "Huh! They are so jealous of me!" look. Anyways, since we all dislike her and she likes people oogling, who are we to object?

It just makes the world a safer place ;-)

Some time passes and the new kids are supposed to go to the US for training - I too am sent. Horror of horror begins then - we share the same apartment!!!!!

This was her first visit to the states so I drew up a list of spices, grub, pressure cooker, tawa... you know the sort of stuff you don't get the very day you reach the US all cooked and killed after a 50 hour ordeal. Ji that's how long it takes if you go via Asia-Pac!

At this time, another let me introduce you to two more characters in this tale. A guy called Sean and a lady called Jill. Jill is an Indian blonde with the IQ of a 12 year-old who is controlled remotely by another third character who I shall rip into shreads in some other post. And she is supposedly the love interest of one of the managers ;-)

Jill booked two apartments for us - me and the lady-of-honour-in-this-post were to share one and Sean was all alone in another. Lucky bastard!

I know this post is gonna be a long one so let me do this in parts. Here on begins part 1 of n... as long as she is around she will keep at it and I will keep getting mad at her!!!

So we reached the destination - suburb of Old Sac and port of entry LA! Then we hop from LAX int'l to LA UA terminal ... no I am not turning this into a travel iteniery but painting a picture. I am on a later flight from LA to SFO. There I reach and find a sad and glum Ms Painful. She recovers her baggage and discovers that the airline ppl have not only broken open the locks on her suitcases but also damaged one! She had some tags that had stuff written in Arabic and you know how that is FLAGGED off in US!

She freaks and yells, and that's not the best way to get help in an airport! I sigh and put my people skills to use! Asking the ferocious HUGE black man politely that what can you advise? Can you get us cartons? Complete with batting my tired eyelids! He asks "She with you?!" hee hee heee

Net net she gets a swanky new Samsonite from United! And I don't even get a thanks :-)

Then the clown Sean who nearly DIED of happiness that FINALLY he is in the US - he gets complete cold feet. So me was Mary and these two were my lambs but with a lot of attitude!!!!

We finally reach Roseville and get off the cab after paying 450 USD!!!! See Delhi cabbies aren't the only thieves!!! We realize that the places are locked and our access number don't work and after talking to neighbours in the apartment complex - we realize that he are STUCK!!! One person finds the site admin and she opens our apartment! The guy is also stuck at our place ... in all this madness Madam announces that SHE MUST have the bedroom with the attached bath cause she is "used to that." As if I come from a BBY chawl where each morning ... never mind!

Before we went from India, we drew up lists of who is taking what. The lady forgot to get two main things on her list - atta and a tawa! ANd the gentleman says, my wife says US mein sab milllta hai! I am too tired to argue...

BTW I took the master bedroom, I have no probs with a non-attached-loo but the way the lady freaketh I decided I won't give in. Just like that!

So that was the beginning, next I see her using my slippers - my creams ... she says ooh I forgot to get this, I like this.... I freak ....

Then supplies that we took from here end but then starts the fun - she LOCKS the stuff she has! Imagine hiding tea leaves, sugar, PORRIDGE?! Something that I eat only under duress?!

She is quite a miser so in Albertsons - she would search out the cheapest stuff that I would refuse to even consider!! I am talking about food stuff like bread, milk, curd, veggies!

She would actually compare 3 lbs for .99c vs 5 lbs for something so that one is better. Oh! today the corn is 1$ ke 2 kal to 1$ ke 3 the so you buy it for yourself!!!

Sheesh!!! She actually takes over your stuff and anyone who knows me even an iota knows that I am very personal space conscious. I am friendly but I guess most people esp. such strange aliens can't distinguish between that and being friends!!!!

Once me and the US boss went out for lunch without the tag, the tag SULKED SULKED SULKED!!!! It was not funny. I went shopping with another friend this lady refused guess why? Cause I was planning to return by cab and then she would have had to share!!! That friend decided to drop me back, I reached the apartment, the lady GOES BALLISTIC! I knew this was your plan - you are soo secretive! I was totally taken aback and went deathly quiet and replied "You are not my mother, I don't need this. I am secretive because you are so inquisitive!"

I went to watch a movie with a friend and again there were sulks :-) Imagine planning and plotting things so secretively like teenagers with control-freak parents!!!!

She had hijacked my bags - I asked for it back. She is "arre you have two. u won't them BOTH???" Wow! Ulta kutta chor pe bhaunke!!!

I have to post this -and no I am not fibbing!!! And I have just covered 1 month of our association!

This lady is zimply great! And I would like her greatness bestowed someplace else!!!!

Mincing people but not words

During my stay in NIIT I had the chance of meeting many a character. In this post, I’ll try and sketch a few that are etched in my mind. All excellent people and good friends too, but perhaps a few transactions went a bit hither thither.

When I started my career, I had made friends with this girl with whom I worked closely with on many projects. She had the kind of good looks that sent many a guy running frantically to the gym to pump iron in an emergency. A very good-looking angelic sweet girl one would say. But as you got to know her, the only thing you could say she lacked was a bunch of gorgeous blonde hair! Not that she didn’t have a bunch of gorgeous black hair but just to be politically incorrect and for the sake of consistency perhaps blonde would have gone better with her intellectual prowess and maturity levels. There were many a lunch and coffee break spent in patience while the eternal whiney whined about her meek weak constitution, her ever-aching head, back, stomach, neck, knee, elbow, ear, nose, finger, toe, toenail, hair follicle, and many other cellular aches that I didn’t catch. Her tireless and persistent fusses over every mouthful of food at the lunch table would leave many with no appetite for their otherwise scrumptious home cooked meals. We longed for her to be married with a few wailing kids of her own to tell her what endless wailing and whinnying can do to people but I think we should have thought again. For soon, she added to the list not just whines about her pains and aches but also the baby’s pains and aches and in-law-out-law woes as well. One neat metamorphosis from a person in pain to a person who is a pain and a very big pain at that. Amidst all the wailing, no one can ever get in a syllable much less a word about anything at all. One pain that I think I can say I conquered with my analgesic dose of caustic sarcasm. Rags on the other hand has yet to find the medicine that might do the trick for her!!

Among the many that I met, there were many that drove me up the wall through the roof screaming across the stratosphere. The others I just observed from a safe distance. From the suave sarcastic golf gods to the dandiya-crazed laughing hyena (as Rags once put it) there are so many people I can write reams about. But I do suspect there were times when I made substantial contributions to the general bonhomie. For example, this guy I noticed walking up the staircase ahead of me one day appeared to be a tall, broad shouldered fellow with slow measured steps leading me to believe that he was probably good looking and polished as well. But when he turned around at the coffee corner and said Hi to me, he removed all doubt. The extra movement and the extra shake added up to make a contradiction on two legs. But what added to the horror and entertainment was a casual greeting blurted to my fellow teamie in vernacular. My teamie being a strong well-built booming voiced girl herself greeted this guy at the coffee machine while he was on his way to the restrooms in F-90. He didn’t reply immediately but paused later on the stairs leading downwards and onwards to the loos, turned around to return the hi as, “Vannakum”. Myself being totally oblivious to greetings in alien languages made short work of it and mapped it instead to a very American “Wanna come?” invitation. I hate to tell you this but I think on this count my red-faced choke had my team in splits for days on end. Especially since my manager at that time was a southie herself!

But let me return to others now. A few years and many projects later, I had the chance of working with this one grating presence that went “qhhweee-ing” all over the place. Made you feel you’re coming on with serious nasal congestion with an unfriendly repercussion on the voice box. A pretty windy nose I’d say he had! Actually, I could possibly extend the windy weather to his head as well. A number of transactions led me to believe that. Especially when he missed taking one screen shot that was required in the middle of an installation sequence. Since I was merely a borrowed ‘construction’ resource, as per agreement, I was not expected to take these screen shots myself making me at once a queen and a beggar. When I halted work on account of missing screen shots, this nice guy (whose course it was) stayed back overnight to retake the same for me. Next day I was given about two dozen screen shots with a proud proclamation, “I have taken ALL the screen shots!! (beaming smile) You can replace any screen shot you like.” All screen shots?? What the heck – now I scan each one of them once, twice, then a coffee break and thrice. But sure enough in the two dozen screen shots, the very one I need is missing yet again. I fetch the fellow have him scan the two dozen screen shots, once, twice and then I get a weak admission, “Qhhwee are missing a screen shot. It should be here… hmmm… let’s see… oh… I think… I was working on the other machine also you see… this screen came when I was on the other machine… qhwee will need to install it again!”
“You mean…” I say on my fast evaporating patience, “you stayed back all night installing and painstakingly taking each and every screen shot that I didn’t need and when the installation reached the dialog box whose shot I did need, you turned to work on the other machine while it did a teasing song and dance, stuck it’s tongue out at you, and then disappeared without a mouse-click or key press the moment you looked back at it again???”
I think I must have ended that with a shout because no one asked me about the unfinished module all day that day.


People in the support groups used add their fair share to the good times especially the graphics people one got to work with. Nice people really but maybe missing a tech orientation at times. This would be evident when they would struggle hard try to grapple with some technical nuance that escaped them big time resulting in some very literal depictions. I’ll attempt to describe two of my all time favorite literal graphics I came across that lent to the madness of the times. One was a recurrent element denoting an oft-used word and liberally used in almost every other frame in that course. When complete it was probably a picture of I guess a guy running for his life! In the graphic element, the top half of the poor guy’s body was cut-off waist-up leaving two trousered legs in the running posture. Now what one would wonder could running legs denote in a tech course? Well a ‘running application’ of course! And sure enough, each time the user was required to check if the server or the application was running; these two legs would appear superimposed on a rectangular box which passed as the server or a scrap of paper which passed as the application! The other all time favorite was a result of a creative use of imagination. While denoting the computing environment the graphic area of the ill-fated course was completely dominated by a healthy happy lush green banyan looking tree! A tree no less depicting our clean-green computing environment to a hapless learner! Another iteration of the same idea had tiny computers dangling from its innumerable robust branches! Well it may not have adventitious roots but sure boasted of dangling computers, CPU, monitor et all!!

But before I end this post let me also talk a bit about a certain Movement Manager here. Here’s how our first interaction with him went.

We were busy in a serious meeting when a tall lanky form stuck his head into the interrupted meeting and queried, “Who is Rags?”
After Rags boldly claimed to be Rags, while others looked suspiciously at her, he demanded, “Why aren’t you moving?” I am afraid that took all of us by surprise cause we all felt sure that Rags was really quite alive and there was absolutely no reason for her to prove to anyone and that too in the middle of a meeting that she is indeed alive and moving if not kicking. So we transferred our suspicious glares back to the interrupter for explanation. His next try was a trifle better when he demanded, “Why aren’t you moving your workstation?”
Because maybe it is too heavy but Rags came back quicker with an equally forceful, “Why?”

“Because if you don’t move people from F-90 cannot move.”

At least I, at this moment, imagined lots of unfortunate folks in F-90 struck with a debilitating paralysis of sorts because of Rag’s new found unmoving tendency was bringing the collective movement of a dynamic task force to a grinding halt thereby causing this grave situation. We were barely controlling our laughter when Rags shoved all our restraint down the drain when in a serious I-mean-it style she did a little jig in her chair and emphatically announced, “I am moving!”

It was not until then did we realize what a potent effect our movements or the lack of it was having on the release of a building because the lease had expired and NIIT didn’t want to re lease it! I could go on and on describing the hilarity generated by the move vs movement vs managing movement trip but might need the aid of avi’s to capture some of it. But all in all the Movement Manager, went on from managing movement to managing moves in the HP project only to move to greener pastures later. Somewhere in the meantime we came to call him Happy.

****************

ISO: It's SICK and Obnoxious!

Before I start the real post - first things first: Excuse me, I am NOT Racho! Next time you call me that, I shall go and edit thy post. I have admin rights, so there!! Psst - Did you do this cause your pals visiting MY blog were confusing me with another person called Rags? If yes, then it's fine. But an aside to those people - do you really think a very much loved, admired, and respected (!) project manager will come up with all this stuff? Naaah! I dislike others getting credit for my work - this started from the first project I did in STRIDE. My so called trainer got redundant after 2 months :-) Not that he was an idiot I was just made for this job. That's all - no vanity or lack of modesty - just a "purrrfect fit." Danke, now onwards ho ....

Happy says "I have decided that every time I read one of Ash's posts, I am inspired to write. " khee kheeeee kheeeeeee!!! How Annu Mallikish. Ash needs some thoughts usually from my mad banter to kick her thoughts off.... puts so much pressure on good ole moi! But it's okay, since I am the creative evil master genius!!!

ISO is not sick - the way we did rather screwed it was SICK!

Back to the SEI CMM and stuff - Happy prescribes his way of getting all crap to work to his advantage and how you can get management on the backfoot! Even bad publicity is publicity ... excuse me that's not how we (no I'll drop the royal we) ... correction I think .... do what you say WHEN you say it will be done. Doing things for the sake of doing them always and I MEAN ALWAYS gets me mad. A doc. being fudged 6 MONTHs after it should have been is a farce.

Instructional strategies - my foot! Happy dear, in all of NETg and in fact all of KSB we dredged some ancient relics and put on them some make up and got them to wear their dancing shoes and went to the homecoming ball!!! TIs creation - hah! your products and NETg background is showing .... The only SANE project that I got to do for KSB (then LTB) was CA - we were trained and had to clear external certification before we could work on that one. KK was SERIOUS abt this - but was LTB serious? Getting saving-a-hard-night's-work-on-a-CD-while-playing-online-chess on that project? Kash as an editor - who marked EVERY instance of Abrowser after being told that it's a product name?! It was on the darned wordlist too!!

FUFs on HP and Sun?! Who won't recognize a sun cluster even if it BIT her?! Who asked Mr.Undependable to create a web page which BOMBED cause its text fields accepted special characters and screwed the backend database. And all she had to do was pick up the phone and ask one of the SSB benchers to do it, who would have been happy to do so, and have done a BETTER job! Finally after the fiasco I called SSB and spoke with a biggie and got it all done. Of course I had to keep her in the loop and all that crapola, but who was the boss? Who should think all ALL sides to any action? She and most of the PMs were LIVING in quadrant 1, and when then SHOULD have been planning and stuff, they were doing something else. A PROJECT kick-off MOM 6 months down the line is akin to asking the parents of a 5 year old child for their wedding menu! How does it matter anymore?

What ID strategies are we talking about in CBTs / WBTs? Where the client defined template controls what you can / cannot do? MCLA, ILT - thats where you RUN with the content SME or no SME. You talk about CBT TIs? We were bidding for Sun SAN certifications!!!

Maintaining files is okay since we are anyways such over-documented people and a documentation profession at that. But what about the DARNED PM's responsibility? When you are brought in to salvage a NIIT-just-might-have-to-lose-a-client-or-(gasp!)-pay-a-penalty_level-of-dead project? And guess what 2 years SAME manager?! If I can see it, how come them bosses couldn't?

How can you justify the saving-a-hard-night's-work-on-a-CD genius? The sari-clad-benevolent-autocrat, also called iron-curtain-manager by an exchum?!

See now after so many years and after seeing some supremely asinine software industry managers who make even Dilbert's manager seem like sane rational beings... who are living proof of the validity of Peter's Principle, I know NIIT wasn't all that bad. WHY? Cause we were a cookie cutter model. It WAS a factory - we WERE doing production line work. So if few pieces were defective, we would hastily blotch up things and make it look pretty and no one was the wiser.

I am not talking about the ISO audit - you saw the HP project salvage so you know what I mean. You spent a LOT of time on these dead-as-a-doornail OPG projects so maybe you found HP another of the same sort. FUFs is still with the same bunch of femme fatales just their collective domain name has changed.

Somewhere I read about passion for one's work - it doesn't take too long for passion to turn to frustration, irritation, ....

And BTW "Attack is the best form of defense." on a playing field, so why do most managers take it as extreme insubordination when asked pointed questions? You are paid to resolve issues. You know you and a lot of people wonder why I dropped out of the managing people game? I will tell you why - u need to answer to such ignoramuses that it's a strain. They have their restrictions in terms of company policies, budgets, and all that BUT the biggest limitations are a lack of real interest, BRAINS, common sense, and that f-all need to bloody do PR all the time.

Look back and you will see the truth. You won't recognize it cause you too were playing the same game. Ash and I lost out cause our personal code of madness forbade us to do that. We foolishly expected our bosses to be on our side.

I have not had as bad a deal as Ash cause I didn't work with her namesake - I worked with adorable people - Nanz was the TOPPEST of the pile. Or maybe I don't feel as bad about them things ... my sunny disposition and all that jazz....

Sun gave me pain but Sun also gave me a great deal of good stuff and the PM had NOTHING to do with it. The lady FH had to intervene in all of FUF's projects. Maybe that was a part of the plan - she gave her boss a chance to shine so both were happy.

Even Pappu was sincere and painfully honest in his work. He had another set of issues but then who doesn't?! He was in an R&D setup, FUFs and co. were in the so-called-revenue-earing-factories. BIG difference.

The managers in there always could make the problem come from outside - they all had aced the "not invented here" bullshitting technique. Now I can take on any of them people. I hope I never have to. Ash and Bang might - since she is bored with the product world and is missing the constant upward surges of BP!!! And he is homeward-bound-yet-again!!!

Sorry Happy if this ended up a bash-up-the-messenger session. But I can go on and on and on ... Amaron!!! And yes, you were on of the better if not the best person to work with on HP salvage.

I can work with any damn idiot on the planet but I won't ever pretend to like them - they have to live with it. I am bearing that cross of being defient and a rebel - but thats my choice. AND as a manager and esp. my manager or supervisor, I expect to at least be able to like you as a professional, respect you, and maybe look up to you for solutions WHEN I run into trouble. To be treated fairly. And if you can't do it, let the TLs do their job, don't try to fib in SMRs.

Those who can't audit!

Hee heee heee, in your case, PM or not, we all HAD to look up physically!

Bye for now,
More later.

SPCTW - Save the Writers!

Guys and Gals!

I propose a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Technical Writers!!! The attack of the Fakes!!!

This is planned to be a rant post - I wanna know where are all the writers? In the current crop of TWs and IDs them people aren't techy - some of the geniuses probably can't configure a USB drive (sachchi!) and writing - wo kya hota hai? And they can't write!! Just today some creature called to check on a person who claimed to have been a TW in Ajeeb-O-Gareeb!!! This is AFTER the girl joins the place!!! People who hire such crap, deserve to be penalized - deduct i USD for each error that the writer makes!!! Wow!

What are the ingredients that we need to add to a human and do "mumbo jumbo chingling wingling hoosh woossshhhh" and sprinkle some (un)holy water to result in a GOOD technical writer?

Aptitude - but how do you check for that?
Attitude - aah! the proverbial double-edged sword!
Ownership - I am currently in a place where the stuff is all historical kachra (garbage!!) and we do maintaining work 70% of the time and baaki time we create kachra for future generations! (Honestly tho I hope not!)
Clarity - But how the heck do you gauge that?!

My editors, readers, peers, reviewers all compliment me on my work - no I am showing off ( you know I prefer the school wala terms show-offing!) but I want to know what constitutes good work?! Why person A does a better job then B?

In office the non-techy-tech-writer dishes out clean crisp clear stuff that is really to the point and the engineer who I think cannot imagine a sentence without at least three clauses, one but, one therefore, and maybe a therein thrown in for good measure, can confuse you by giving you directions to YOUR OWN HOME!!!

Besides sounding like a professional-narcisstic (not in that way silly!) I really want to know.

We have this creature at work who is a candidate for a series-of-hateful-spiteful-mean-evil-posts. Ash too has a list of woes and we will do that later. Happy dear has never to my knowledge ever had trouble with people professionally (esp. the females ;-D) so I am quite certain he will be quite left out on that series!!!

I am tired of people thinking she knows FrameMaker, she knows RohoHelp, she knows Epic therefore she is GOOD TW!!! He worked in Bindview, he worked in Oracle therefore he is a good TW! Hello? I know Madonna, I know Loius Armstrong, I know Jackie Chan so does that make me a kung-fu-kicking-jazzy-pop-singing-TW? I am so PISSED!!! We need some GOOD TW PR else this profession is gonna lose to the attack of the FAKES!!! When RoboHelp dies what will happen to the brilliants?!

Back to our-resident-strange-persona at work - she has HOARDED TW books and if you were to see her works you would wonder if she ever opens them!!! Reminds me of Jughead (Archie comics) who slept with books under his pillow to prepare for the test ....

Help me and this domain pleeeeaaasssseee!!!

People join companies and leave managers!

After a lot of NAGGING Ash uploaded her post and wasn't it a wonderful read?! Well! I completely enjoyed it! Why? She writes very well and I WAS THERE!!!

I was there when Pappu cried, I was there when Ash turned all shades of red her skin and complexion would allow when she was in the freak-session with the auditor. I was there when the saving to CD happened! I was there when she was with "Boss ye to karna padega."

I was in another team but thanks to our lunch sessions, I knew all. I was working with Ms. Benevolent Autocrat. We both were moved into HP at the same time to SALVAGE that project! One of us had Diesel and another Euler. Can't remember which one - Ash, Bang, and me were like one person working round -the-clock and resolving stuff for Loo and AAG (Waise have you realized the irony here? Icky!!)

We moved out of NIIT to the semi-retired super-senile BORING world of product companies. We deal with the same small-town-boy-who-did-well-became -engineer-went-to-the-US types.
We were there and today I am glad I was, but at that time, we all were in the "ANYWHERE BUT HERE" mode. I have my sides of the episodes Ash mentioned. And I will have to write a series of posts!!!!

First things first - I have a serious problem with doing things that just need to be done, with complete, utter, and abject disdain for the reasons, the whys, the reasons ...

Even when praying to God, I can never understand the protocol part, excuse me this is GOD - the supreme power we are talking about, does He really need the gangajal, the rosary, the incense sticks, the covered head, the kneeling down?? No! WE DO! It's so that we are proud of ourselves and our commitment to being pious and following "official dictate". Bunch of balooney!!!

In the very same way, I have trouble with fudging things just to close / avoid NCs! Ash was furious and I was pitying her but was also thinking "Better her then me!" Sorry Ash!!!

Do these SEI CMM labels really matter? Do Edit and ID certifications make even an iota of difference? ISO auditors - I refrain from commenting on them!!!! I used to be called a "Rebel without a cause" in another life - but I have enough causes!!!

People need structure and a big place like NIIT could not survive without all these things, but people esp. managers made such a complete mockery of them thingies!

Be is SMR, PPDP, PTD, ... wonderful tools and great industry-wide standard stuff - but the tool is only as good as the hand that wields it! Same knife - butcher, housewife, serial killer, thief - different results!

I have had the best of managers and the worst of managers! Actually after coming out of NIIT to Ajeeb-O-Gareeb, even them bad NIIT ones seem quite good! WHY?? Because somewhere in the long and confusing chain of management, there were people who actually used the tools and heard the PM's spiels in the SMR / Lotus databases, thought things thru and lagoed major vaat! The GM in my new office has very little exp. with so-called R&D setups but will he admit it? Naaah! So now our entire reporting has changed to firangs - which is a VERY good thing! You learn so much from them - with the Indian blighters - they would put put up so many road-blocks JLT! Some of the products company managers need to learn THINGS from service company managers. REALLY!!! Them US managers are a SUPPORTING function the Indian chappies are a CONTROLLING function.

In NIIT you could talk about things that could go wrong - in fact it was promoted - it is called rick analysis. In Ajeeb-O-Gareeb, the manager is spewing out rubbish, I have this what-crap-are-you-talking-shut-up-NOW look and I proceed to tell Mr.Fragile-Ego-ZERO-competence-vindictive-as-hell-GM's-chamcha that I think he is talking CRAP and carry on with my reasons ... I am so glad I report to a HUMAN now and not that extreme example of semi-people!! Looks like one, talks like one, but is he REALLY one?!

People skills = 0/10, management skills = -3/10, give him the BEST project and he will have no trouble srewing it up!!! But babes, he is BOSS-PROOF!!!

My hubby is a manager in a voice-based BPO process and he always says "Managers don't work, they MANAGE." The way the ITES industry managers face flack is very different from the IT managers. Or maybe it's the wife vs subordinate thing happening in me!

Bottomline - use the best people, put them in a fire situation, they will salvage the projects, the management stuff will suffer! You can't take a cadaver and make it into a pretty ZOMBIE!!!
What Ash and I REALLLY get mad about is, we did more than anyone else could in those situations, we never were acknowledged or praised, we faced flack for faltu stuff! Our peers were being FIRED for strange reasons, two were given excellence awards - and the very next year went to the docks!

The ONLY person in our gang who got credit was reporting into another manager. Love the person and we can't ever begrudge her any of that. There were the other FAKES that we wouldn't even clap for in the FilmFare awards!!! So fake that I doubt if they are even biodegradeable!

It always reminds me of the Hindi movie scene - Man rushes in with patient who is bleeding and about to die if not given medical attention soon, the doc says "dekhiye ye police case hai" (This is a police case!) or "arre inka operation karna padega- pehle jaake 2 lakh Rs jama karwaiye" (the chappie will need an operation so please deposit 2 Ls")

All of you know what happens next - the doc is bashed up! I was always so tempted to do a Sunny Deol when after all is said and done - FUFie would preach CRAP!

Forget Solar Plexus and Ash's fancy haiiiiiyyyyyaaaahhhh kicks - I would shot - stab -punch -yell! Waise Ash did a complete thing on the last HP-PM we worked with! Hehhehehehehe!

I was still at home and I got at least 6 calls from the D 190 basement ki Ash has FINALLY FLIPPED it! When I reached office I see her in a don't-even-think-about-asking-me-what-happened-look! Weeellllll I do and I get her abridged version of things! Ufffff.............

The "boss-ye-to..." a.k.a the cooking-paranthas-in-kitchen-to-BTMZ-transformation babe! I kid thee not - she and another overgrown-Farex-baby shed them KILOS with such speed that VLCC should have signed them up as BRAND AMBASSADORS! Who knows shayad (maybe) that's where the magic happened?! But we are not interested in that part ..... They were going thru their share of personal hell - felt sorry for them - but it didn't justify what they did rather who they should have and never did!!! NIIT was a sweetheart with people in trouble - they gave them US transfers - a lot of space - but at what cost?! And ALL people?!

The other parts of Ash's post elicit LONGER responses that will be coming your soon soon soon!!!!

The chess-playing genius who wanted to break the CDROM tyranny! Hello what part of
READ*ONLY*MEMORY don't you understand??

He who would have rolling crushes on the females one after another ....

He who would appear on DD and PLAGUE all of us to watch DD-187 or some such obscure channel!

He who would S*I*G*H so loud in the office that a snoring DRAGON would die of an inferiority complex.

He who when asked "can u see that server on the network" would promptly stand up - cause a little quake by his fidgeting, nearly pour 6 1/2 cups of stale coffee on the keyboard, and lean, inch on his toes, and say "haaaaaannn bilkul wahi na jiske side mein orange wali files hain" (x-lation- yeah I can see it - the one that has orange files next to it!)

We all WENT MAD laughing only our PM kept a straight face - Mr.General Knowledge had some TERRABYTES of patience!!!!!

Uffff..... I used to go to work with him / return with him and I have spend such a lot of quality time with the character!!! I feel sorry for him too but comic relief ROCKS!

In the end - donno why NIIT went thru what it did - its bubble burst or maybe it didn't. I really thought I would retire from there. All white-haired and wobbly. But ..... Que Sera Sera ....

Same number of years in NIIT and this really-cushy-well-paying-easy-as-heck job but I still say "HAMARE NIIT mein ... " something about that place was (is) pure magic! And no it wasn't my first job!

I was a "poached person" from Aptech :-D

No place like that ... I am so sure of it .... we can go back but it's not the same - the people are different heck I AM A DIFFERENT ME now!!

I refuse to be doled out stationary and orange notebooks by Mr.Entertainment!!! I am used to working in this fancy-shmancy setup now. Thats nostalgia and this is my real world!

Bye for now,

R

On why I want to kick ass

I guess for me it’s most instinctive. Often I have to bite the deep-seated urge to kick somebody where it hurts most. Or just simply kick ass. My mom says it’s not my fault. She claims I have been kicking since a very early age – almost since I was an embryo. She was quite sure she was giving birth to a Pele but it turned out to be me. So I grew up kicking about a lot. It was a bit later that I learned some real cool techniques to kick creatively. Happened when in school I signed-up for some martial art classes which is when they taught me how to kick with technique and precision. Stand with your right side towards the victim, raise your right knee with your leg still folded, unfold your leg with your heel flying towards the victim’s face, aim at the victim’s nose and hit with all your might. This is the side kick. There were others. There was a front kick, a round kick, a straight kick, a reverse kick, and a flying kick. There was the solar-plexus kick and the face kick though most of the time we could only raise our foot high enough to kick below the belt. Some struggled to learn it right while others figured that the blood and sweat wasn’t worth the worth one got from a fair plexus or face kick. These hit below types are the types one gets to meet every other day more so in this wonderful corporate swamp. But to make a point - there are many ways to kick the unsuspecting and sometimes the well deserving.

Although I still itch to kick some real ass*****s in the face everyday, I don’t usually do it the way my coach taught me. After more than 3 decades since my first kick I believe my itch to kick is a bit more controlled. As in, I don’t give break into a Haaaiiiyaaa each time I encounter stupidity. And stupidity abounds. Take for example my old TL who sobbed with real tears just because just once during the entire project the team rebelled and refused to stay back late to ftp the final file leaving him forlorn, helpless, and weepy on his boss’s boss’s shoulder. Then there was this asinine auditor who wanted me to produce Minutes of the Kick-off Meeting of a project I didn’t kick-off. She went blue in the face yelling how I MUST produce Minutes of the Kick-off Meeting even if I hadn’t been there to kick it off and the people who had kicked off the project had either been kicked out of it or had quit NIIT after good sense kicked-in. They simply refused to provide minutes of how and when they kicked this project down the drain. While I really didn’t care about the kicked out team, I sure wanted to kick some real ass**** that day. But did I break into a Haaaiiiyaaa? Nah! Like a true-blue NIITian I kicked the ISO9001 processes to hell instead and wrote a fictitious Minutes of the Kick-off Meeting for a project I didn’t kick-off. I did the obvious thing of writing a one-pager full of bilge – fictitious strategies, fictitious estimates, fictitious attendees, fictitious date and time though it was aptly titled Minutes of the Kicked-off Meeting. Minor spelling oversight. But needless to say, it sure kicked one NC (Non Conformance) to hell and left one obtuse auditor feeling very pleased about ISO9001 procedures.

Add to this ever growing army of the daft was another pet manager whose standard all-purpose solution to all problems and all situations and all circumstances was a shrug followed by ‘Boss yeh to karna hee padhega’. The proverbial managerial I-don’t-care-how-you-do-it-just-go-do-it-and-see-you-at-the-annual-PPDP-time-where-I-shall-tell-you-how-you-should-have-done-it-and-why-you-deserve-to-be-screwed-up type. The incredible deaf ear and blinkered eye and sore brain that cannot think beyond the I ME MYSELF and kick the team to hell – they’ll survive the poor souls have no choice. There were also the sympathetic category of managers who would say nice things, sympathize, express worry about your workload then assign you two new projects with a I’m-so-sorry-but-you’re-the-only-one-I-can-trust rhetoric, and then offer you shelter in case of midnight emergencies should your parents throw you out of the house because you stayed in office to fight a meaningless mindless deadline drafted by one of these deaf ear and blinkered eye and sore brain creatures with the ‘Sorry Boss. Par yeh to karna hee padhegaa’ all-purpose solution.

Then there were these priceless boss favorites who confused themselves when they tried to work and save files on different machines. Poor souls who simply could not fathom the complex technological nature of networks, couldn’t understand whether the files that they saved on their system and opened on someone else’s system had been opened over the network or not. They asked innocent questions, such as “But if I work on Vikram’s machine will the files be saved on my machine?” “But the files are saved on my machine, how do I view them from Vikram’s machine?” “The files are on my machine but I was working on Vikram’s machine so when I save are the files on my machine?” “If I save files on Vikram’s machine, ya the files are on my machine, but I’m working on Vikram’s machine…” <> “… so do I need to redo the changes from Vikram’s machine to my machine?” Duh! When it came to technology, this guy sure didn’t have a leg to stand on.

But there was more. This same brilliant person one day very graciously offers to stay all night offering to make last minute fixes for a course. He was handed over a CD and told that the latest course files are on the CD and he should take the files from there and then make the changes and ensure he finishes it all as the course needs to be sent the following day. Simple enough. So he takes the CD, opens the latest files (from the CD), diligently makes each and every change, after every change he very dutifully saves the files. While saving, he also very meticulously dismisses all the innocuous little messages on the blue screen telling him innocuous meaningless details which he dismisses in a know-it-all-done-it-all-nothing-can-go-wrong-stupid-message style. So each time he saves, he gets this silly message, and each silly message is dismissed with the same patience and perseverance all through the long night. The following morning he proudly presents the night’s labor in the form of a CD to a surprised and temporarily delighted TL. TL inserts CD and opens files, finds them just as they were the previous night, untouched and clean with not the slightest hint of any change. When questioned our brilliant protagonist proudly proclaims he made all changes – each and every one of them. “But then where are the changes? Where did you save them?” asks a very confused and frustrated TL. “On the CD!” comes a matter-of-fact answer. “On the CD???? What CD???” “The CD that had the final files” says Mr. Brilliant. “On the CD??? Wait let me get this straight. You took the CD, opened the files and made the changes right?” “Right.” “And then you saved the changes, right?” “Right.” “So the changes are on the PC or the CD??? “CD” “So you made the changes and saved them to this CD??” TL waving the CD in Mr. Brilliant’s face. “Yes Yes I have made all the changes and then I saved all the files… I got this message… but I just clicked ok. The changes are all done!” “Did the message say something like – you cannot save changes to a CDROM…..”

Well well well - those were good old NIIT days which we still reminisce about. We still share our priceless experiences and laugh at what once was no laughing matter. But I figure that such people are rather ubiquitous. For I now have who I love to call a Six-Sigma-certified-bullshit-factory in my team. Her claim rather one of her claims to fame is that she believes from the depths of her being that she is the focal referral point when it comes to Framemaker tagging. A focal referral point who once italicized with the Right-click-Font-Italics instead of the using the predefined templatized Character tags. A focal referral point who extracts HTMLs to check her hypertext markers! A focal referral point who has no clue as to how to update templates and has actually spent past 2 years using old dated obsolete templates in her books – she still does. HA! A focal point she is undoubtedly. Maybe she may not have made it to being a focal point for Framemaker but when it comes to stupidity, there’s not a shred of doubt. The undoubted focal point of stupidity. It revolves around her like engrossed bees around a pot of golden molten honey. As you can see I have yet to distance my self from these current occurrences and view it with the judicious amount of humor such people require as I have come to view some of the people I’ve had the chance of working with in good old NIIT. I’m sure Rags and Happy have a lot more to say on this – they’ve had their fair share of bright-as-midnight kind of people to work with and must have often bitten the urge to just kick some wretched soul to the Great Wall of China. I personally prefer the Siberian desert for them.

NIIT - When Cupid Strikes!

Heads up - You know Blogs are context-specific and my blog's name says it all - but this post is even more so. But please read on, I wrote it na?!

I was just thinking just how many people owe their shaadis to NIIT and the killer time we had to keep there. It was so cool! Parents were used to your coming late, half the chummery (is that how it is spelled?) junta were bindaas folks. People would KILL for a chance to train at SEED the taandoori night (yummmmmmmmyyyyy) wasn't the only attraction. I am still in the Safdarjung Enclave wala SEED days. I liked the new one at Sainik Farms but THE real SEED was the REAL DEAL. The late walks and the mandatory visits to the ice-cream walas are stories that a lot of lil ones will hear from their parents (and wonder these old stooges did ROMANCE??? Yes they did!).

My first visit to the place was NIP (National Induction Program - explaining for the benefit of my nonNIITian blog pals who are brave enough to wade thru my posts :~D) there I made a lot of friends a lot of whom were GNIITians who were joining NIIT as full-time employees after the mandatory one year ragda (torture + ragging) of PPship (internship)!

So in addition to the lovely stationary, trademark black bag, info dumps, visit by the big-wigs (who can forget "Mr.Damn Good Looking" in a magenta (I kid thee not) shirt, multi-colored tie, salt-pepper hair .... swooooon), I got the inside deal. One day we had to stay late and I was coerced to stay the night at SEED and share the room with a REALLY in love girl. She had a HOT DATE with the "special one". This is all the pre-cellphone era; so imagine all the coordinating effort and the long queues at the phone :-)

I wanted to meet D who I hadn't seen for days cause he had already moved to GGN and I was still at GZB with mum!! So we had our version of meeting under the harsh fluorescent lights of the AIIMS bus stop. He dropped me back to SEED at 1 am and the guard gave me a look "Arre ab to shaadi shuda log bhi ye sab kar rahen hain!" Pretty embarrassing but super-fun!

There in SEED I met an interesting lady (Ash wipe that smirk off!!!!) who became my friend and I am struggling to sneak out of that one friendshipp since hmmm.... lets see....2002 :-) I have given enough hints but .... A*S*H SHUT UP!!!! Ash calls her Whiney I call her self-absorbed shallow creature - same person different reasons to detest!

Back to rishte hi rishte ... there were loads of them, some blessed by the God above and society: that SEED girl was married to another C125 character, Pappu and his wifey were the original Stride couple, followed by another Stride pair. The MS team had the Bong and Delhite pair! Sun team had it's own clandestine couple (they tried the classic "we are just good friends" routine but hah! ...ishk te mushk chupaye nahin chupte - translation - you can't hide love and the smell of musk!), Happy will tell you about his amar prem kahani (immortal love story!) And then there were the cross-team affairs. There were too many of those to remember or count! My favorite was Pooh and GN.

Can you guys tell - I have to translate a lot for some people who are bad at Hinglish but it's fine. I will do this to ensure avid readership :-)

My MOST favorite juicy hookup was "Mr. Frog eyes who needed to join AA" (who thought he was God's gift to womankind and he always reminded me of "Your perfume is nice but must you marinate in it?!!!") and Ms.Dreams!

That is another series of post and maybe Happy will oblige us and tell us about it ALL. Cause hey NETg ka eshtory tha....

Another one was Kash and the II floor trainer. He much older, married before, sarcy as HELL, and she an innocent sa pretty sardarni. Maybe this was the real Mills and Boon saga. She 24 and inncocent he 35 and jaded! We spent a lot of lunch hours talking about this one ;-)

Then there were the unofficially-official ones - starting at STRIDE. Peace-lover and his stinky poo babe ;-) She so had that place eating outta the palm of her hand!!! And most of us covering our noses to avoid barfing!

When STRIDE was given the VISTA Dev project we got a bunch of developers from Products, who used to laugh out loud, smile, chat, listen to songs, ... my jaw was on the floor considering Pappu and Kash had a FLOW TIME (disgusting name!!! ) Where we couldn't talk - just imagine my plight!!! We could ONLY use Lotus Notes to communicate!!!!

All these guys had serious girlfriends and the trend was the girls were a good 3-5 years older! "Mr. Teddy Bear in kurta with Ravan's laughter" + petite sardaarni, Tall-fair-cute Sandy + Ms.TL from products (I still remember her talons!). Most of these fizzled out but some made it to the altar and beyond. The southie-from-UAE and trainer; KB and much younger-baby-faced-BF.

I was the buddy who used to go and passive smoke with the guys and I got a lot of HINTS from some but a mangalsutra and an adoring hubby can be such a blessing :-)

The time I spent at KKJ was the MOST fun :-) That rooftop cafeteria has so many interesting tales to tell!!!

I played a match-maker for the Mani Mani case!! Them two owe me BIG-TIME!!! But what could I do - it was so OBVIOUS they were in love and perfect for each other and both were acting out some serious adolescent fantasies by trying to make the other one jealous! They had the same surname before marriage! If they had sent ads in papers, they would found each other!
Ash was quite an unsuspecting victim in this one :-) The Eiffel Tower keychain she got played a great role! She will kill me if I tell anymore :-)

In Okhla - the guards and the canteen walas were the first set of people to know that something was afoot and the management LADIES would ALWAYS know :-) Always made me wonder how could they? Spies all around! Then the casual flirting types who names you would know if you were there and I am NOT gonna name names!!! And no I don't mean the lech manager of D 185, or the RnD Head with his gaggle of geese!!!

What a wonderful place NIIT was - full of romance!! But I hear thanks to the switch in ratio things have changed!! Sad no office romances are fun at that age / stage / place. In Ajeeb-O-Gareeb also we have some things afoot - people here know who ALL I mean. But where ever you have people who spend so much time together sparks will fly and some catch fire :@) Or maybe its a generation thing. The new kids are all in call centers and thats where sparks fly and I hear from my sis, sis-in-law, and hubby (all in call centers!) that a lot of other stuff flies about :-P

On this lovey-dovey note I sign off!

More later - ciao!

Rags

English: Writing, Editing, and Technical Writing!

"I can talk English, I can walk English, and I can laugh English because English is a very phunny language. Bhairo becomes Byron because their minds are very narrow."


Amitabh Bachchan in Namak Halaal

Yeah! English is a very FUNNY language! For most of us Indians it is a second, or maybe third, or in really interesting cases fourth, fifth .... language! 26 alphabets out of which 5 are vowels and all of these rules are enough to drive you up the wall. "i" before "e" ... and then all those rule-breakers, homonyms, .... and to this add the editing for technical writing rules!!! Oh jeezzz?! What the heck is going on?!

In my team we are about 9 writers (the about is cause at times the writers don't write), one editor marked EMSs to EMSes another marked EMSes back to EMS and the writer was ready to freak!!! So there is this argument "What is the rule for making a plural of an abbreviation?" Who really cares? OSes or OSs? Potatoes Potaatoes -- let's call the whole thing off!!!

What an interesting life we lead? Writers (and I too am guilty of this one at times) sneak stuff in without checking and sit back, wait, and watch "Does the editor catch this?!" Now that I am an editor, I have to support my edits with reasons and rules. (Imagine ME marking things with "see CMS #6.16?!) How the mighty have fallen!!!

Uff!! I tell you languages are meant to let people communicate and the rules esp. The TW editing rules FORCE you to do such strange things!!! Not that other languages don't have trouble - the use of gender for inanimate things baffles non-Hindi folks no end. The bong-side of my family always jokes - Inspector AATA hai, constable AATA hai, lekin police AAATTTII hai!!! I thought about it a LOT and finally gave them a clue anything with an "eee" Ki matra is streeling! Nah! This rule is bogus - they proved it - SIRISH AATA hai, Madhu aati hai,....

Back to English now: all the rules that they have, Tech Writing editors bite, chew up, and then throw out! The rules that I learnt said that anything that ends with "x", "s", or "chi" gets "ex" to make it plural. You know bus-> buses, dress -> dresses, but SOS is SOSs (or SOSes or SOS's)!!! Laaaah!!!

I feel the rules or in cases such as our's the lack of them rules in technical writing add that mysterious dash of the unknown.

The amount of time TWs and editors spend on line width, character spacing, use of contractions, ... is not even funny! I mean how many people except nit-pickers pay attention to such things? But who am I to object? If it wasn't for such rules God alone knows what we would do?!

I wonder what makes some people so bad at writing and some so good? Does it have something to do with the type of fiction you read, your love for words, your need to fluff up your sentences to prove your one-up-(wo)man-ship?!

I am quite fascinated by linguistics, the way people read out guides (or don't RTFM?!), just curious... do they even care???? We focus on the viens on the leaves and the poor tree is lost!!!

Now I have a problem remembering mundane things like spellings and English rules - does that make me a bad writer? I don't think so . . .

Do we TWs make a big fuss about things that don't really matter and completely miss the point? See the leaves and lose the forest maybe?!

Write Justified?

Left Brain vs. Right Brain and the Whole Enchilada . . .

I’m back I’m back I’m back!!!!! (You wondering where I ever went?)

Okay first things first – in this post there is a lot of stuff I picked up from the dub- dub- dub (WWW as MS folks call it); so I need to give credit where it’s due. Consider it given and let's cut to the chase.

I am assuming that you know about the big brouhaha about how women are right-brain (or was it left?)-brained (hah! as if you can generalize?!), they are good with communication right from the age of two (and maybe in my case even earlier :-D according to mum, I spoke before I would walk – no surprise there I would think!). Women can’t read maps and men can’t shop all that faltu bakwaas… I know men who are more feminine then females (and I am not referring to Sylvie!) and women who are more manly then most men (No! Not Falguni Pathak!!!). Look around you and you will see what I mean.

I gather from Googlu (my current nick-name for the BESTEST thing that ever happened to search engines!):

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS:

• uses logic
• detail oriented
• facts rule
• words and language
• present and past
• math and science
• can comprehend
• knowing
• acknowledges
• order/pattern perception
• knows object name
• reality based
• forms strategies
• practical
• safe
  

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

• uses feeling
• "big picture" oriented
• imagination rules
• symbols and images
• present and future
• philosophy & religion
• can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
• believing
• appreciates
• spatial perception
• knows object function
• fantasy based
• presents possibilities
• impetuous
• risk taking
  

So this brings us to the theme of this post – why are so many technical writers women? Or should I change that to why do so many women become technical writers? We’ll also talk about the “bechaari nari in the TW mode.…” Is it something to do with which side of the brain works MORE?!!

When I started my career in STRIDE, there were only a handful of us womenfolk, although it was SOME handful it was one nonetheless. We had guys around us. Then things started to change – we went to CRCS in IIT Delhi and oh! there we were in such a minority! The R&D guys were such oglers and the IRIS aunties were a lot headed for the golden years. (Any NIITian of that era would recall the henna-haired typical 50-going on 25 punju aunty librarian!!!)

Then KK is about to start him own company (vidyatech) and people are asked to join him or ask for placement within the big bad world of LTB (or was it LSB in circa 1999? NIIT and it’s constant need to rename!) I was sold US projects because of hazaar reasons and I lapped em all up and went to Sun to (what else?) salvage FUF’s project. That’s when KSB was born (rather renamed) and we were hiring all Toms, Thelmas, Trivenis, Taras, and Tinkus!!! Please to be noting: the call center boom is still a twinkle in GE’s eye and the Silicon Valley is BOOOOOOOMMMMMMIIIINNNGGG! (I am starting to sound like a REAL OLD TIMER (ROT?).)

So we train them, boot camp them, Bloom Tax them, Info Map them, … basically frighten the living daylights out of them. Even till here we have a good male:female ratio. The construction and graphics team guys offset the low number of writers.

There are definitely more female PMs then guys… the Factory Head and above levels are still all-male bastions. (Interesting here happens a switch female bosses start displaying obvious preference for guys! Has to happen. How else can I explain Sameer screwing up and PRD quitting?!)

Now I finally get to the Product world’s TW domain where the gals are like eye-candy / damsels in distress / alpha females (meaning they are more male then real males)! You think it’s cause the development team has more guys and the HR is trying to balance the great gender divide?

At work there are these females who really should quit and leave their places for more deserving candidates! One claims chronic maukataerian illnesses (maybe it’s true but who cares?) and the other is such a Starlet! The managers here actually hired women who were data-entry ops! Maybe I should leave and let them continue having all this fun!!! Please find me a fun job!

Now the moment you have so many females in the same place you have the classic "familiarity breeds contempt” and there are saas-bahu sagas and there is bitching and chronic ill-will towards one another.

Dolly has an age complex (she thinks she is too old so has to look and behave YOUNG! As in Dolly Parton young!!!), Polly has an age complex (she thinks she looks too young so has to look and behave MATURE! Takes a lot of crap from people just cause she thinks she has to), Molly has a I-am-not-techy-enuff complex, and I am beyond complexes! There has to be a new term for people like me, actually there is: AQUARIAN!!!!

One development manager actually has taken to calling us the “Kitty Party” not flattering AT ALL but in a very twisted way TRUE too!!! BTW none of the developers would dare to say this to our face(s?)!!!

So all the females are trying to out-do each other, not working on enhancing themselves but trying to pull down the one ahead. Disgusting u think? But that’s how we females are!!!! I won’t pretend to be the martyr (so what if that’s my birthday?) but this sucks big time and I wish I could knock some sense into this. So my solution would be to get some more guys into this profession, then the gals will be focused on them (cause it’s obvious the work isn’t keeping them busy enough!!!) and all will be well in R-World :~D !!!

Am I left brained or right brained or no brained?!!! And before you answer this, consider yourself?!

So, if NIIT was cat’s whiskers, why are there so many exNIITians?

Or why Rags became an escapist?!

PETER PRINCIPLE and NIIT of Yore

You haven’t heard of the Peter Principle have ya? You will be surprised when you learn more, you actually know this one, and to top it all, you are SUFFERING the consequences of this PP! (Errr maybe YOU are also the cause for someone being miserable beyond belief?! Think about it dude /dudette!)

I won’t tell you too much on this Peter thingie cause you know of the Googly-woogly thing called Google! Buuuttttt, we can’t have you wandering all over the WWW can we? So here it is:

In a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence".

An example: you have Ms.Champa Chameli who was a very good writer, next she is made a lead writer, SFSG (so far so good!) she continues doing a great job, she is made a Team Leader, parties all around! And then a new project comes along and the management decides that this is the precise moment when Champa needs to be praised to the skies not just in words but in kind with action and what better way then to make her a PROJECT MANAGER(PM)!!! And then there are some ladies who walked into NIIT wearing saries, looking very impressive, complete wih MBA/MCA degrees and go on to directly becoming managers! That sounds very reverse-sexist! But I don't belive that, idiots, fools, intelligence is gender, age, caste, color ... insensitive.)

BTW there are many routes to becoming a PM in NIIT (in fact a promotion in any damn place). It all depends on your Kaarma, your PR skills, your boss's PR skills, the boss's competence level, your rapport with ze boss, your visibility, lack of visibility, your manners, your clothes … you get the drift.

Please to be noting that I haven’t mentioned anything yet about your competence, abilities, skills …. Ah! You think she is coming to me. Nopes! I ain’t gonna do no such thing sweets :-)

Whhhhhhyyyyy you bawl?! Cause it doesn’t really matter u sweet naïve kiddie! The moment a person reaches a place in the corporate hierarchy where they are really screwing things up, they STAY THERE!!!! And screw up some more . . . I saw two of my very good and competent friends taking the fall for no fault of theirs!!!

In NIIT we had a real eclectic mix of weird “persona non grata”s. Now that was a place where you LIVED!!!! People fought, had affairs, got married (I mean not right there but found life-partners), got divorced, ….

People join a company and leave a manager. In my case (and maybe in yours too …) I left an entire (mis)managed style!!!

I loved that place but it was killing me:

• My personal life was non-existent
• I would wake up and reach Okhla
• Live on the sick cafeteria fare of alu-toast, thaali, maggi . . .
• Battle PTD (Project Tracking Database), SMRs (Senior Management Reviews), confused managers who tried to bluff their way thru
• Unrealistic matrix pressures
• Good people being labeled C players
• Brown-nosers being called A+
• Your PM not doing enuff PR, …, irony= Your boss is not really fond of you or even has an iota of your welfare in his/her heart but HAS to hold on to you (they have their agenda after all); won't let you go to another manager - who promotes her people to the skies!
• Being sent to the US as a consolation prize

I was called a commando, fire-fighter, type A, adrenalin-junky,… but with no real appreciation and no light at the end of the tunnel, constant fights at home, an unkempt home, going in a kamikaze cab back to GGN at 2 am in the morning, collapsing after each deadline, filling out NCS (Non-Conformance Sheets), all while tolerating so-called ISO audits by people who weren’t doing real project work but all this stuff (I know that’s important and esp. in an SEI CMM level 5 company but at what cost?), tracking things to closure (I hated this phrase!) . . . I wanted out.

FUFs had screwed up a project BIG-TIME that was part of her core-competency! So after salvaging Sun, Rags was packed off to HP to do one module! What a fib that was! The client decides that I was the stuff her dreams for the project (and my nightmares) were made of (I lost this sentence structure! And btw now it’s okay to end a sentence with “of”)!!!

From one module, I get 2 courses, meanwhile 2 people collapse, and Ash, Bang, and I shoulder the entire mismanaged screwed-up project! I lost my most favorite teamie to mind-games people played with her. My own friends did that and to date it I am mad about this. Bad resource allocation – imagine handing an HP (techy as heck) project to a Social Butterfly?! I am flown off to Singapore to fix / kick-off round II of project HP!!!!

This was a project where I worked with Happy for the first time, of whom until then I had a very unmentionable opinion ;-) We all nearly died, Ash's dad nearly threw her out of the house, Bang kept falling ill, I nearly died twice driving back home with a drunk/sleepy cabbie, ... Happy used to stay with us (a huge rarity! why would a PM do a night-out?!!! and here there were people like me - I would always have to stay back - regardless of my designation / classification ...), we did so many night-outs that we burned-out! FUFs walked out of the project or maybe she was shown the door? Happy takes over the HP junkyard!!!

Ash was a friend for quite sometime but we worked together for the first time, Bang actually started writing in HP, and explained XML tags to us - Ash and I went mad laughing on his head-para-para!!!

So here you have a single-sourcing, an XML-based project, where you are a co-vendor with Mastek for HP, a constantly changing team, I rejoined work after some serious medical stuff, DGs was in the US, the padosi team was winning "BEST TEAM AWARDS", I was being sermoned to that "You can change the world, you are a born (ring) leader, ....spiel, spiel, spiel ... !!!

Happy proved what a fantastic manager he was, we three (and Sri too actually) slogged and delivered the goods, we saw XML in action and got multiple outputs from the same XML!!! AAG and Loo were happy. All was fine in the world ... or so we thought.

Then we all quit ... Suchu turns to social service, Sri went to one of the Noida crappy joints, Happy goes to Kash (still wonder why?!), Bang goes to Kol, Ash goes to Cadz, I join Ajeeb-O-Gareeb.

Now the management of NIIT has decided to have a collective shift in email address and has gone to GE!!!!

I leave this post for my Sun and HP teamies to share their tales of woe and why they quit the place and love it and hate it forever.


Every statistic was green, the company follows Six Sigma, still something was rotting ...