LCD Needed... NO... DEMANDED

I have been complaining for a long time that I have a regular CRT Monitor while all (well.. almost) others have the privilege of using a LCD monitor everyday at office. As expected, my inane demands and complains have proved fruitless.

The best output I have gotten so far from all the lamenting and whining is a screen saver on the CRT I have been using for the last two years. As old as it looks it has managed to survive all this long. If my CRT wasn't this deterministic to face all odds with persistence and keep on living I would have gotten a LCD long ago. As the rule states;

"As long as your CRT monitor is working, you can't get a LCD."

But all of this has resulted in some amusing and interesting suggestions from my team mates:

1. "You should have come to your brother before you went to your boss. Come on, let's steal someone's LCD. Is there someone you don't like in office, let's steal their LCD."

2. "The next time you have a drink of water, don't forget to pour it on your CRT... accidentally of course."

Any other suggestions, people.

Office Chuckles

Note:
The following though may not be very funny for all, and it wasn't exactly hilarious for me either, but it was something I thought was worth sharing on blog.. so here goes.. (aren't Notes supposed to be in the end??? well.. never mind.. :) )

As I sat trying to work my way through the log files, trying to find the reason due to which the customers were facing an error, thinking..
"Ab kya phat gaya yaar?" ("NOW what's wrong?")
suddenly a voice like "Peeepp" from behind me startled me, but only for a few seconds, as I realized what it was, I got back to my work.

A message popped on my screen (Office Network Chat);
F:
"That voice...any idea?"

Me:
"Yup, it's the laptop. Apni zindagi kee akhri saansein letay waqt chila raha hai.. (crying while counting minutes to it's death)"

F:
"Oh...."

The peep voice continued and after a while I added.

Me:
"And all of us are too busy to put the laptop to peace. We'll let it shout and disturb us rather than get up and do something about it. Getting up and taking a few steps towards the laptop may be counted as exercise you know."

F:
"Then why don't you get up if you are so worried about it."

Me:
"Naah... Let it be"

Just about then I found the root of error and called my boss. At that point my boss and the people sitting next to him realized the noise pollution emitting from the cubicle near me... It took them a few seconds to realize that it was the laptop. And I, helpful as I am (:P), suggested that we keep it for charging.
And my boss, as he walked towards the laptop, rejected my suggestion and did something more wise.. He put it to sleep... (equivalent to killing it in accordance with my analogy of the laptop dying).

Though it was the obvious thing to do if you weren't in the mood of going through the hassle of putting the laptop on charge, neither F nor I came up with it. And it was a little funny when I saw my boss executing the easier solution.

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

Received these in email....

New job... New life..... :)

It has been 2 months since I started my new job, that is to say, my very first job.

(I joined on 1st July, and people told me that I should have taken a break, and now I agree with them.)

I have been meaning to write about my job since the day I started, but never actually got around to it. This is because I didn't know exactly what to write. I don't know now either but have decided to go ahead with it anyways.

So... new job.. a new phase of life. Completely new and definitely different. Utterly new for me because I didn't have any experience of free lancing or internships. Different for the same reason.

We have been doing projects throughout the four years of our bachelors. These projects included not only the programming projects, the softwares we created, but also the presentations we gave, or the researches we did and produced a report as a result. We did a Final Year Project to give us an essence of what professional projects are supposed to be like. But being in professional life in reality is different then any simulation you go through during bachelors.

And it's not only the work thing. It is basically about settling at a new place. With new people, who will play different roles in your career, they can be your supervisors, the people who'll work with you side-by-side on a project, the people who are hired with you and the people who are your seniors. It's about settling with an AC on top of your head, and you are feeling like you are sitting in an igloo. It's about getting acquainted with your workplace computer. :P (People who work with me would know what I am talking about.) It's about getting used to the working hours, though they are less then the time we spent at uni, but definitely more tiring.

It's about calling your office, your place.
In an orientation session at office, the presentor broached a question

"Can a person work at a place about which he doesn't feel like he owns it. Can he work at an office which he doesn't own?"

I sat quietly while the others nodded. My expressions must have betrayed me because the presentor pointed me out and said "Yes you tell me, is that possible." And although I wanted to say yes, he can, I instead said no. And then he explained, again because my face expressions must have betrayed me, that

"yes it is possible if the person doesn't like working at that place."

For me the answer 'yes it is possible' holds true for completely different reasons. My reason being that if I think I own the place, I'll stop working. :D :P
I'll work when I understand that I am doing a job there and I am supposed to work. If I feel like this company's owned by me then I would surely not press even a single key, would not even bother to place a ';' at the end of a statement.
But what he meant by owning a place is not literally owning the company, but he meant owning in a completely different sense. And I won't go ahead and explain what he meant, because I don't know how to explain this phenomena.


And in the end it's about enjoying... making new friends, experiencing a new side of people. And again, enjoying...
Coz it's not worth if you are unable to find an element of enjoyment. Enjoyment encompases enjoying your work, loving what you do, realizing that you chose the right field, the right profession for yourself. And you realize that only when you like doing what you do. No, not like, love it. Enjoying is when you don't really want to get up in the morning, and you drag yourself to your office, but when you start working, you get so indulged in it that you don't realize the time flying by. Enjoying is when you are finally done with a project and you get that feeling of happiness, yes the feeling you get when you have finally accomplished something no matter how small. Enjoying also includes the feeling of nervousness you experience when you are assigned your first project, when you are asked to give a time line and schedule of that project, when you are expected to solve a problem, when you are expected to come up with new ideas and what not.
Enjoying is.. being there, doing it. :)