Travails of the Blue Collared Laborer-Chapter 2
So, I ended up meeting the team and putting on my extremely friendly plastic smile. "Hello- Daude', great to be part of the team."
"Hi Daude'- Myself, Prakash Rajan, your new project manager, infact your first project manager if I'm not mistaken, hahahahaha. I'm sure you must be looking forward to take up your work. Arun must have already briefed you about the challenges. I hope he hasn't frightened you too much, hahahahahahha."
It was difficult to get myself to laugh at such frivolty, but the excitement of real work was just too much- the feeling of a high, of doing something important brought to my face a gracious smile as a response. So Prakash took me towards the other members to complete the formal intoroduction rounds. The faces in the begining always go around in a blur. Well most of the faces do, but not if it's the face of Romilla. Now I had seen females at work, but hot ones that too without moustaches was a new experience. "Daude, this is Romilla. She also joined as a fresher last year, and has grasped the product really well. You can go to her anytime for help. She will be glad to help. Won't you Romilla...hehehehe"
My mind had taken off elsewhere "She joined last year as a fresher,hmmmm...so shes elder than me by a year....so what....Sachin Tendulkar got married to someone 5 years older than him...whats age gotta do with love anycase...I mean people usually do say I am more mature than my age actually conveys."
Romilla smiled, "Why not Prakash, I'd be glad to help. I am currently busy, but meet me after lunch Daude and I'll give you some documents to go through."
I was taken to a corner, and caught my first sight of what would be my cubicel- the place where I would waste two entire years of my life. There placed before me was Dell- a black beauty. Prakash pointed out the machine. "Well Daude, this will be your workstation. Here is the list of things you have to get installed in your machine. I hope you know how to get an infrastructure request raised through the intranet. If you need anything else please let me know."
I seated myself immediately and logged on to the intranet to raise the infrastructure request. And here came the whole plethora of complications involved in the 'processes' of the software firm.
Number1- Username/password request -Approver -Centre Head
Number2-SOftware Installation request-Approver-Project Manager
Number3-Hardware Request- Approver-Team Lead
Number4-Admin Rights Request- Approver-Network Admin
Number5-Any other request-Approver-Use your discretion
I finally raised the request for a whole list of softwares and luckily all of them required only my Project Manager's approval. The infra man arrived. He was middle aged, he was cranky, and he was talkative. Venkat opened his mouth and spewed his frustration all over. "I have installed Visual Studio and now it seems you need MSDN too. I do not know why you people trouble me like this. Why can't you just look up MSDN on the net."
Now I forgot to mention that Zymbian had a special internet policy. We were allowed to access the internet only through selected stations known as cyber-stalls. Now this was a very cool name,but it was like waiting in a fuckin cyber cafe. There were innumerable jobless people just waiting to pounce on the cyber stall once it was empty. Anyways lets get back to Venkat.
"But Venkat you know the limited net access that we have. And you know Zeo-Fin is Windows based. We definitely need MSDN don't we. Infact Prakash insisted on MSDN."
Cranky people always have their way of getting things to avoid work. "Well I do not think I can install MSDN. Technically MSDN is not a software but a downloadable collection of files. I am sorry but you have to raise an 'Internet Request'.''
Later after spending more months in Zymbian and after more meaningless discussions with Venkat, I learnt his father worked in the Municipal Corporation and retired 5 years ago. Well it so happens that bureaucracy is also genetic. But for now the threat of another request was looming.
"Well Venkat who is my approver for the Internet Request?"
"Just use your discretion Daude'....you will be desgining software soon....you should know discretion."
"Hi Daude'- Myself, Prakash Rajan, your new project manager, infact your first project manager if I'm not mistaken, hahahahaha. I'm sure you must be looking forward to take up your work. Arun must have already briefed you about the challenges. I hope he hasn't frightened you too much, hahahahahahha."
It was difficult to get myself to laugh at such frivolty, but the excitement of real work was just too much- the feeling of a high, of doing something important brought to my face a gracious smile as a response. So Prakash took me towards the other members to complete the formal intoroduction rounds. The faces in the begining always go around in a blur. Well most of the faces do, but not if it's the face of Romilla. Now I had seen females at work, but hot ones that too without moustaches was a new experience. "Daude, this is Romilla. She also joined as a fresher last year, and has grasped the product really well. You can go to her anytime for help. She will be glad to help. Won't you Romilla...hehehehe"
My mind had taken off elsewhere "She joined last year as a fresher,hmmmm...so shes elder than me by a year....so what....Sachin Tendulkar got married to someone 5 years older than him...whats age gotta do with love anycase...I mean people usually do say I am more mature than my age actually conveys."
Romilla smiled, "Why not Prakash, I'd be glad to help. I am currently busy, but meet me after lunch Daude and I'll give you some documents to go through."
I was taken to a corner, and caught my first sight of what would be my cubicel- the place where I would waste two entire years of my life. There placed before me was Dell- a black beauty. Prakash pointed out the machine. "Well Daude, this will be your workstation. Here is the list of things you have to get installed in your machine. I hope you know how to get an infrastructure request raised through the intranet. If you need anything else please let me know."
I seated myself immediately and logged on to the intranet to raise the infrastructure request. And here came the whole plethora of complications involved in the 'processes' of the software firm.
Number1- Username/password request -Approver -Centre Head
Number2-SOftware Installation request-Approver-Project Manager
Number3-Hardware Request- Approver-Team Lead
Number4-Admin Rights Request- Approver-Network Admin
Number5-Any other request-Approver-Use your discretion
I finally raised the request for a whole list of softwares and luckily all of them required only my Project Manager's approval. The infra man arrived. He was middle aged, he was cranky, and he was talkative. Venkat opened his mouth and spewed his frustration all over. "I have installed Visual Studio and now it seems you need MSDN too. I do not know why you people trouble me like this. Why can't you just look up MSDN on the net."
Now I forgot to mention that Zymbian had a special internet policy. We were allowed to access the internet only through selected stations known as cyber-stalls. Now this was a very cool name,but it was like waiting in a fuckin cyber cafe. There were innumerable jobless people just waiting to pounce on the cyber stall once it was empty. Anyways lets get back to Venkat.
"But Venkat you know the limited net access that we have. And you know Zeo-Fin is Windows based. We definitely need MSDN don't we. Infact Prakash insisted on MSDN."
Cranky people always have their way of getting things to avoid work. "Well I do not think I can install MSDN. Technically MSDN is not a software but a downloadable collection of files. I am sorry but you have to raise an 'Internet Request'.''
Later after spending more months in Zymbian and after more meaningless discussions with Venkat, I learnt his father worked in the Municipal Corporation and retired 5 years ago. Well it so happens that bureaucracy is also genetic. But for now the threat of another request was looming.
"Well Venkat who is my approver for the Internet Request?"
"Just use your discretion Daude'....you will be desgining software soon....you should know discretion."
posted by Psychohistorian at 7:38 AM
2 Comments:
welllll.... daude is lucky that at least on the first day he had an approver already set for him.
at mastek, for a long time i couldnt apply for late-day (because i was late) since my approver was some big-shot guy to whom obviously i couldnt sent a "please-let-me-come-in-late-today" request!!!!
and my ml (or tl or pl...whatever.. its just the same) obviously "sent" and email requesting the change but apparently it never reached. (hmm....)
addendum
by big shot i obviously mean someone who had absolutely no idea i existed and had nothing to do with me or my project.
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