A year gone by

I have been meaning to write this post since 1st July, 2009, but never got around to actually writing it, and until recently I had decided not to write at all.. But it’s worth a shot :)

So… 1st July, 2009 was the date I completed exactly one year at my job. One year gone by.. first year completed of the career journey. And if I think about it, a lot has changed since I graduated from University and joined my very first job. And of course, this is nothing new, it happens with every one, and so has happened with me as well.

There was a time, when I had spent a month at office and a senior had commented

“Aap ko aik maheena ho bhi gaya.. aur pata bhi nahi chala”. (You’ve been here for a month, it didn’t seem like a month to me)

I took no time in replying

“Mujhe se pochein, mujhe to aik aik din pata chala” :P

Such was the extent of my boredom, during the first month. All I was expected to do was to read documents and even edit them. It took me everything not to say

“You know na, I haven’t been hired as a technical writer, rather as a Software Engineer. My appointment letter actually says ‘Associate Software Engineer’.”

At that time, I couldn’t figure out WHY on earth was I being asked to edit some centuries old document, and put in what.. screenshots!!!!

I was also given the code of one of the projects and was asked to go through it

“Ghool ke pee lein isay”

my Boss would tell me. And this is what I tried to do, of course, I wasn’t actually able to do the same, but that did help me to understand a lot of things.

I can still remember my first meeting cum training session, where my supervisors explained the entire theme of the project on a small white board. I don’t think I remember any thing else from the meeting.. except a few terms I didn’t have a clue about.. and I wondered why everyone kept using them but I never realized those terms will become a part of my vocabulary, and I’ll be the one using them in every sentence that comes out of my mouth.. :P

My vocabulary is now punctuated with a lot of terms which don’t actually exist in the dictionary, and if they do, not at all in the sense we use them in our day to day life. The process started when I joined University.. I learnt the word Cheetah there, before that we simply used the word Genius or Einstein… and I thought the process would end there, and that I have learnt all the jargon terms.. but I was so wrong.. In this training session, the words that got my attention and got stuck in my memory were.. let me put the entire sentences here..

Code nahi phatna chaye

Peeli screen nahi aani chaye, chahe kuch ho jaye.. koi bhi screen aa jaye.. peeli screen nahi aani chaye…

Yeah.. go on, call me illiterate for not knowing these terms during bachelors, but we actually didn’t. We simply used to say, in plain terms.. “Yaar error aa gaya”

But now I use all these terms like I learnt them during my first year in this world and not the first year at job.

The first month went by slowly.. with no friends at the new place, my reserved self refusing to go and talk to any one unless and until it was absolutely necessary, avoiding a face-to-face conversation as much as possible, and using our network chat software, trying to figure out whether I’ll be editing documents all the time, or will I be given actual work someday, and then at a later time, am I Support Engineer or what, I should have joined Support instead of the so-called Development team.

But things began to roll, slowly at first, the clients called up with all the problems. In fact, my very first cut over was to go live with all the modifications. I was taken to the client side so that I can get accustomed to the environment, meet our clients and all. That cutover, went smoothly enough. Just one script refused to execute, giving an error every time we tried. I got nervous like anything.. saying things like

Phele to yeh script sahi chal rahi thi (This script worked fine before.)

Thankfully, my supervisor handled the situation pretty well, not loosing his head like I did on the face of a problematic script (:P).

And this above, is actually called a smooth enough cutover, because there are always problems.. always…

I was given a project, which can’t actually be called a project from scratch, but it wasn’t equivalent to giving support to clients either. I was to develop a new module in the existing site, and I wasn’t even able to complete that when I was given another project, I was asked to make changes (which started out as a few changes and later became a big change) in the same project (but on the existing modules).

Then came the time when I was to visit the client side and test out all the new developments and modifications. Again, my boss sensing my nervousness decided that he and my supervisor will go along with me, to make sure everything’s going fine.

My boss asked me then

How much time do you think it will take you to test out everything?

And I said something like.. two hours or maybe two days… and it actually turned out to be WEEKS!!! That time was horrible (but marvelous at the same time :D), I discovered a lot of things I had done wrong, because I didn’t know any better, I used to take the office laptop at home and worked there, then directly went to the client side the next day.

But all that going to the client side for so long, did a very good thing. Before that, I didn’t really like going to the office everyday, but after the client’s visit, I thought, going to office is much better than going to the client side, and though I hadn’t really made any friends at office, at least there was some one to talk to, I could roam about.. and that’s what I did when I came back.. I roamed about, and talked to everyone.. and I started to ease-in a bit with the environment..

Again changes were requested in the project currently deployed at the test server. And again I went through the same cycle; development, testing, testing at client side, entertaining their farmaishine (wishlist).. it was another month or so there.. and finally, a cutover.. on a SUNDAY!!!

During this time I got permanent as well.. thankfully.. I was worried that after so many problems occurring at the client side, they won’t make me a permanent employee… might even let me go.. :)

My Masters began after a month into the job as well.. so all was going at the same time, job, first project, first cutover, classes, midterms, assignments, finals… everything.. and we thought Bachelors was difficult. :P

So eventually the project ended, went live with it, and since then, it has been one project after the other, and the journey uptil now has been good. At the beginning, I took more tension then needed, but slowly I got used to it, now I don’t deliberately forget about lunch just because I have work to do. I’ll always have work to do, so better always have something to eat to go along :P

For once in my life, I am getting along with my seniors. Never during my academic life (till Bachelors) have I ever been friends with any of my seniors. My seniors didn’t know me, and I didn’t know them, that is changing (but not much), I hope for the betterment. :)

(This post, highly resembles another post of mine, doesn’t it.. can’t help it.. just love to talk about the first few months at my job :P)

So, I have grown from a fresh graduate to one-year experienced employee, from someone who sat quietly at the corner, working and only working, with no messengers connected, to a person to whom people keep telling “aik yahoo messenger hee reh gaya hai woh bhi khul lo yaar” (Only Yahoo! Messenger has not been installed, why don’t you go ahead with that too?), from a person who didn’t budge from her seat now keeps bugging people until one of them agrees to go to the tuck shop with her, from the person who came in the office, switched on her computer and started working immediately to a person who now gets everyone to go to the roof with her before starting work, from the person who completely forgot the meaning of the term lunch, now starts buzzing her lunch mates to go to lunch from noon almost every other day… and the list goes on…

I know this has been the story with everyone else, but looking back at the year makes me realize that it was a good first year, MashaAllah, Allah ka shukar, :D, hope the rest of the career is as fun, or more fun.. Let’s just keep hoping for the very best and nothing else :D

We, the "IT" people

Excerpt from a chat session with a uni friend. This must have happened somewhere in July, August 2008.

Me:"The fact that you are not replying to me and am still talking is prove enough of how boooreedd to death I am"

Dhat: "Yeah... they say Software Engineers go crazy after a while"


I have had my share of IT people, and when I joined my job I promised myself I wouldn't join their league. I have this friend, who because of the pressure he has to endure at work, has become very quiet. He spends his entire day at office, and that's more than the usual 9-6 timing. Then at home too, he sits either in front of the tv or spends his time with his beloved laptop. And this is exactly what I didn't wish myself to get into.

And during the first few months, I held true to my promise. After 4 hard years at university, where even when we were at our homes, we had to spend our time working on the computer as we had a lot of assignments, projects and presentations to get done. So naturally, when I joined job and came back home at about 7, and had nothing to do at all, I felt I had a lot of time on my hands, and I spent it sitting with my father, talking endlessly, then I would go to the kitchen and sit on a stool and talk to my mother, both of them now know everyone I know at my office. And then I don't know what happened, but I went back to my old routine, which includes coming back at home, freshing up and then switching on the computer. Sometimes the excuse is;

"I have to submit this presentation proposal tomorrow."
OR
"I have a long overdue assignment I have to work on"


But they are just that.. excuses, mere excuses. And I too have become a part of the league I was trying to evade in the beginning. It hasn't been one year yet and I have broken the promise I made to myself.
In my university days, when I noticed what that friend of mine (the one I wrote about above) was doing to himself and when I thought that his family must miss talking to him, my resolution not to become like him one day strengthened. But now, I have become just like him. And it's not just me, it's the story of every other software engineer I know.

We all wake up in the morning, as late as possible, get ready for work, go to our offices, sit in front of our machines for 9 hours or more, then come back to our homes and then again switch on our machines, and spend the remaining of our day in front of our Home PCs. The only times we aren't sitting in front of our computers is when we are eating, sleeping, or traveling. We don't have much time to talk to our families, or our friends. We don't know what's going on in their lives, and we don't much care either. We get more worried when our computer breaks down, then we care about when one of our friends is feeling low.

The friendships that have remained since I graduated are with the people who have the same routine I have, and this is because we can chat with each other. The rest of my friends.... I don't know where they are, or what they are up to these days.

To prove my point, this is an excerpt from an actual-talking session with one of my class-fellows and now my colleague;

"I go back home, switch on my machine, log in to MSN, and spend my time doing on one thing or the other(all which involves computer). My mom keeps shouting that I don't spend any time at home, even when I am at home. But what to do? I guess she'll get over it"

The truth has been twisted here a bit. But more or less, this is what we are all doing.

And I have realized that this is the reason, why I am exhausted all the time. I have a life, yes I do, but there is no such quality of life to speak of. I never feel relaxed because even during the time I should be relaxing, I do things that get on my nerves and the funny thing is that I don't even realize it.

The problem lies in our daily routine. And the fact that we are not aware of the problem. We are just spending our lives... just spending it, not actually living it.
We all are a part of a marathon, and we don't even know who we are competing against, are we just trying to prove others that we can spend the most time in front of our computers without having an actual conversation with any one, without having any life?????

How long do we think we can go on like this?????

The first project

It has again been a long long time since I posted something on this blog. And though reading this post will be a complete wastage of time, writing it won't. :)

So it has been seven months since I joined my first job, and finally in January we went Live with three products for the same client, and one of these products was the one I was working on since I joined. 18th of January to be exact. Yup, it was a SUNDAY!!!!

I have been working for the same client, and two versions of the same product. One version was already LIVE and I only had to do maintenance, deal with any issues that arise and stuff like that. The second version was developing an entire module, a new functionality our clients wanted.

Developing wasn't the hard part. The hard part was testing it. I have always hated testing and I am not good at it.

We had already gotten the clients to approve a static version of the new module. And we developed it, tested it on the client side and deployed it. But they wanted a lot of changes in it. So it was going through the process again. Develop the module, test it on the client side and deploy.
Second time around it wasn't just the testing I had to worry about. My finals were starting from the next day and as usual I hadn't prepared at all. Who prepares before you really have to???? (Don't answer that!)
So anyways, my supervisor took over the project for the time I wasn't around. And when I came back after giving my last paper. It was the same cycle again. And it was worst than ever. The clients had started complaining, demanding changes on every single page and still complaining. This was the most worst part. Had to listen to a lot of things. Days spent feeling low about myself and had no one to discuss it with. Each day when I reached home it was too late to call up any of my friends, SMS doesn't convey the feelings too well. And along with that my results were coming out. One of teachers had an actual meeting with me, scolding me on why was my performance going down the lane. And all this time work had to continue. And for the third time the cycle - develop, test and deploy was executed.

Meanwhile plans for Sunday (The Launch Day) were being made. Some of my colleagues who were working on two different products were supposed to spend entire Saturday night at the client side. I was supposed to come on Sunday at 8 A.M., while my supervisors were to reach by 6 Sunday morning.

Finally Sunday came. We went Live with all three products. With a very funny incident in between, for which there were high chances that I'll be scolded like anything, but my boss somehow decided to pass on that. I was going very low on my confidence level, and didn't want to launch the product just yet, while my boss was saying "Ab Live kar detay hain". I continued saying, "No, we should test that again." At first, he listened to me, but then at some point in time he realized that it's useless and that I'll never be satisfied so he decided to go live with it.

This wasn't the end though. The next week was spent monitoring, and dealing with issues. What made things worst was that people from other, more complex products were done with monitoring in just one day. And only I was left. Being this my first project, I was more nervous. Things like "Mera hee kaam khatam nahi ho raha.. pheli dafa mein sahi se kyun nahi ho gaya tha" etc. kept running through my mind.

But anyways, it all ended. A lot of people helped in getting this project complete. Supporting whenever necessary, boosting my confidence level when needed. Saying stuff like "Pareshan honay kee baat nahi hai". Also saw different sides of people and realized you don't have to take everyone on their word.

It was overall a very good and learning experience.
And the thing is I am finally done with the development and launch of my first ever Professional Project. Hurrahhhh!!!:D :D

How to spend time at office

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