Another Day at Office

What a boring day it has been? At least till now. Coming early to office I hoped to find some worked assigned to me so that I don’t suffer from guilt and bore pangs along with other hazards like dozing off on my chair or being caught by my boss watching videos on YouTube. I haven’t been caught yet but this morning has been nothing but boring. To prevent feeling guilty for not doing anything while my teammates are busy doing their analysis, I had this great idea of reading the Approach Docs and the Functional Specification Docs. At the time of writing I have gone through them twice without adding much to my knowledge repository. But the most tragic part is that it hardly took an hour, leaving me with an eternity to spend. Next ? I sought refuge to some epaper sites, hoping to catch up with the latest news (Bob Woolmer’s murder?, Sri Lanka’s Victory, some Mexican having fun on a plane and landing in jail for it etc ). Since I had read the TOI this morning (why?), I couldn’t send much time here too.

That set the stage for a virtual rampage ….The Cog video on YouTube , its making video, mailing both to all the contacts in my mailbox, watching the 1984 apple ad spoof featuring Hillary Clinton, the original, some research on Mahjong(it’s a Chinese game similar to cards but like all things Chinese much more complicated), Tangram(again a Chinese puzzle), water torture etc. I’m done with all that and its time for lunch now. Since I cant leave office before 6.30 (against my principles(sic)) I will have more than 4 hrs to spend at my seat in a very sleepy state, doing something so that my boss thinks I’m working. I have no idea what I will be doing next but I’m sure I will find something. If anyone thinks I get paid for doing nothing, just go through this post again and tell me what you think now. Add to it thinking about innovative ways of pretending. Isn’t that tough work?? Comments welcome.

Outsourcing "War"

It didnot take much provocation for US and it allies to launch a full scale war on its perceived enemies.The provocation came in the form of the WTC attack which resulted in the death of a few thousand american residents.Although this not a small figure by any comparision, many other countries around the world have been facing terrorism
since decades with casualtie far outnumbering those of 9/11 by many times.But no country apart from Israel (to a limited extent )has gone on a "crusade" to eliminate its enemies and to establish its own world order. The most glaring examples are too recent to ignore : Afghanistan and Iraq. Although Afghanistan is slowly limping towards a semblance of normalcy ,a long road is still ahead of them, Iraq can at beast be called,by even the most sympathetic american supporter, a disaster.
And imagine who is paying for this? if you guessed George W Bush in the next elections...think again 'cos he cant be elected for another term in office according to american law.If u thought the american taxpayer...you are partly right as he is paying his taxes and part of it is being used to fund the war on terror .But dint the american public call for a "war" in the first place ? So whats wrong if they are paying for it?....even after receiving tax cuts from the bush Government. The people bearing most of the brunt are the soldiers and Im not talking about american soldiers alone. Its soldiers from all over the world fighting a war for america...young and dreamy
men from different regions of the world - nepal , india , many countries in africa and hold your breath FIJI. Yes these are some the places where the US gets its soldiers from. I happened to read this article on the BBC's website which detailed the process , pros and cons of recruitment happening in Fiji. Hundreds of men are the fatigues for america for money as little as $60 per month , the amount a typical "middle class fat ass american" spends on BigMacs a month. After BPO and Animation this is a new form of american outsourcing. But contrary to the former ones
the goings not so rosy for the workers here. Come to think of it....a soldier recruited by a private company supplying men to american army goes to Iraq to fight a war(having no idea about the intent) and dies doing his duty. His family gets a compensation of about $5000 if they are lucky enough. The news goes unnoticed in the american media. No one even gets to know some soldier was killed fighting for a foriegn cause in a foriegn land. The company which recruited him doesnt inform many about the incident as it hampers the recruitment scenario in its region. the greiving parents are paid and told to shut up. Ocasionally the national media picks up the news and even then it is seen as a sacrifice by many. As if we are born with an obligation to serve Uncle Sam. George W Bush is spared of criticism americans do know and dont care about anything happening outside their own land.
Who paid for the great vision of Don Rumsfield and Mr. Bush? Only the poor soldier and his family.

But the risk doesnt deter other aspirants from queing up .After all the lure of the greenback is hard to gloss over.Hopefully this outsourcing trend will not gain momentum as its other cousins have.If world peace is too much to wish for at present let me pray for Americans fight their wars themselves.Amen

The BBC Story

The Great Indian IT Professional

Feb 25 2005: Got placed in an IT Company
Jun 05 2006: Joined the company


Two significants dates in my life. The former being responsible in many ways for making my life boring and dull by making me an IT pro( not really).Let me take the pain of painting a rosy picture of a typical indian IT worker....

• is clueless about his/her job.Not only in the beginning but daily.The same can be said of his immediate senior and his senior and so on.
• is a pampered person. Gets a high-end machine to work upon.Unlimited free coffee tea and water(considering the price of bottled water i consider that a gr8 incentive).A cab to drop home incase he is slightly late.(Slightly = 4-5 hrs in managerSpeak).
• indulges in luxuries like having a 5 hour sleep. The less fortunate ones try 2 have a nap lasting around 10 mins after the lunch hour.
• his idea of heaven is "an unending weekend". Idea of hell?.....need I tell?
• devours office food ,during lunch and when he is working late ,for two reasons: 1.The food is subsidized(along with the service,quality and quantity) 2.The nearest eatery is a kilometre off and he never has the time for anything else than the simple act of eating.
• is a highly social animal. Drinks socially(only if it is free) ,smokes socially(theres a special smoking zone designated for this activity), parties hard(the party is usually hosted by the account/comp/or some poor soul(s) returning from onsite or getting a 1% pay hike). Is too focused on his job to indulge in anything else.Although some are married and lead a family life...thats only a part-time occupation.
• loves to listen to rumours about pay hike and promotions. Lots of chain mails and chain of puffs result from such rumours. As is the case with most rumors these remain as rumours only.
• is a distinguished member of the soceity. Can be readily distinguished from people of other creed just by his cheap looking expensive clothes,tired face, dark circles and that "dont mess with me " look on his face. No one messes with him .....but every1 milks him like a holy cow ....even if he is not wearing his company tag.
• likes to keep himself entertained . Has an mp3 player, dvd player, laptop(if he is high enough up the ladder) and other luxuries.But is highly cautious ,hence uses these sparingly(read has no time to use them).
• loves to write about his co-workers ,work place and his other imaginations .....just like im doing now.

Hope that would inpire you to join the Great Indian IT Bandwagon. And if you are in it already.....may the force be with you.

Reincarnation

Had a great urge to name this post "Why I gave up blogging?" but as many timid souls inhabitants of this poor planets I also changed my mind at the last min(err second).But whatever the title of the post may convey this post is concerned about my giving up blogging only and some other peripheral things that concern it. Life has changed a lot since the time I posted my last blog.Im in a new city, salaried and missing my sleep for different reasons. Not being able to blog is just one of the differences.Not that I never wanted to , but whenever i thought of doing it i was always stopped by memories of one unfortunate incident.
FlashBack to the near past(a few months back) : Training days. Hadnt done anything worthwhile since landing in Kolkata.The day crawing ahead with hardly anything to look forward to.Right at this moment an idea struck my mind.Why not channelize my boredom towards a fresh blog(altho it was net xpected to b close to fresh).I went over to Gol's room and typed about a page of stuff that hardly anyone hasnt heard or read.Feeling glad and proud of overcoming my laziness n blogger's blog i gleefully clicked the Submit button. But some superior being had other plans for my "labour of bore" that day. Nopes im not reffering to the almighty.Im only referring to the network adminstrator of my company who had put in place a new network policy which denied access to networking, blogging, entertainment ,game or anyother site which cud even suggest something remotely connected to alleviation of boredom that the workplace offers. And what did it do to my blog? It simply vanished into the thick air conditioned air of TechnoIndia(thats the name of a building ).
Present: Since that episode i could never muster up enough courage to write a post again.That post was about the changes that happened or were made to happen on coming to Kolkata. My views on a number of issues including the reservation in IIMs for OBC n stuffs of those kind.But as I always say "let bygones be bygones" , but hardly practice what i preach. Henceforth i will try to be as regular as possible in posting new blogs.Not that its somethng any1 other than me looks eagerly to, but because its something i would love to do. Wheredoes one get so much freedom to express one's mind without giving a damn about opinions.If u have read till this line , then thank u for doing so. Thats a really enourmous feat that u achieved coz not many people hav d patience to do that(me included ;-) ).So till the next time ALVIDA.