Vagabounds

"A vagabond is an itinerant person. Such people may be called drifters, tramps, rogues or hobos . A vagabond is characterised by almost continuous travelling, lacking a fixed home, temporary abode or permanent." - Wikipedia

No im not a vagabond, it is just a reflection of the state of my mind. While im gradually getting used to the aspect of working from Chennai and making a new set of absolutely cracking friends my soul keeps harking back and forth between Coimbatore and Chennai. Chennai is a fine city (if u could overlook the filth, climate, population, traffic jams, power-cuts, water problems....etc).

I would have been bored to death if i'd not met a few people in the recent past. We form this amazing gang of jokers who would drive down the ECR to Mahabalipuram in the dead of the nite, have a few drinks at any day of the week, go for dinner at 3:00 am, make a mockery of every member and still be able to laugh it off. So coming to the point, during the times of recession and crises in the IT industry its a welcome relief for me to share my thoughts and feelings with this set of like minded Vagabounds.

Life has been tough on me the past few months, i've been drained emotionally and physically but have manged to hold on thanks to a few good people around me. My addiction to driving/bikes/cars helps me to keep adrift of the many problems. Thanks to this gang, none of my addictions are in short supply. I get to drive the best diesel engines at breakneck speeds and no one complaints.

All this bonding is too good to be true and im aware of the fact that good things not lasting long enough but may this gang stick on.........God willing!

Some WTF thoughts about IT

This post is more of a continuation of my previous post "I wanted to be an airforce pilot".
After thinking long and hard about the goodness of being "fired" i decided to rake my brains about thoughts which we normally do not think when we are happily chewing the currency notes.

Here are a few WTF thoughts about the IT industry:

• We sit in air conditioned offices all day yet complain about illness due to 'sitting in front of the computer', jeez get a life!
  
• Our claims run to 100s of $, pounds, riyals yet complain about the company not doing enough, well did you think the company will pay for ur toilet paper!
  
• Our yearly perks are among the highest in the job market yet its always a few % less, when did you dad get his last raise?
  
• Our salaries/allowances are sometimes ridiculous for the actual work we do yet we complain about how grossly underpaid we are, tats coz Tom-Dick-Harry work for Mr.Gates and Mr.Jobs and you work for Mr.Raman Iyer trying to sell a code available on google!
  

On the lighter side:

• We get to chit-chat with the female species unlike other industries since the female in IT is considered liberated...sexually or mentally...ur guess is as gud as mine
• We get free coffee, snacks and in some cases even lunch....although most companies have stopped offering freebies now, anyways it tastes like mud most of the time.
  
• Some lucky folks get to travel in business class
• Some lucky folks even get fuel allowances
• Some companies have the most beautiful HR girls
  
• Some lucky folks get to work on exotic onsite locations.....im in Saudi Arabia, and tats NOT Exotic!
• Everybody gets food vouchers....err i would have preferred drink vouchers
• You can hire a houseboat in Kerala for a team meeting as part of the 'stress-free' work week program wherein you actually...hmmm. Furthermore, its paid for by the company!
  
• Laptops/mobiles are part of the salary package.....if you try a bit harder the HR's personal mobile number aswell
• You can go out with ur mates (read as team in the claim sheet) and get drunk on a team nite out.....ofcourse, paid for by the company
• If your have the right connections, ur techi wife will be ur team member on an onsite project in Switzerland...now thats a WTF moment!

But the biggest boner is that, all of this counts for nothing when your fired due to 'non-performance' in the middle of an onsite-honeymoon in Europe with your colleague(read girlfriend)! IT folks need to understand that 'there is nothing called a free lunch'

I wanted to be an airforce pilot!!

I had to rehearse 15 times before i could tell him the dreaded words.... 'Ur fired!!' Pink slips are a favorite phase among IT employers with all the recession and stock markets crumbling. The worst part is, inspite of the guy being a permanent employee he cannot challenge the decision. Simple reason being, the pink slip is a one way ticket to eternal bliss!! The pink slip has more clause than the Constitution of India.

I had to ask this new join guy to leave the project. There were the usual Ifs,buts, maybe's, ....and all the usual statements. Although he took everything in his stride, acted normal and tired to keep his keep arm from not impulsively smacking me, i swear i could hear him mouth a four letter word. Hey but who cares, today its him, tomorow its me!

To be fair, very fair that is...the guy is just 24 days old in my project, he's joined the team at the very last phase. The project is for Aramco which in itself is like a complex bureaucratic govt office with about a million systems/servers/networks and architectures. How could i expect him to deliver with so many constraints and giving him very little time to get accustomed to the Saudi way of life?

Yes, its unfair, yes its bollocks, but who the hell cares? 'IT' for all its shining glory on the facade has a dark dog-eat-dog side which nobody notices until this bloke called Recession happily strolls along every 8 years and unleashes the dirter side.

My company is hit and fairly speaking, all my colleagues kinda look forward to the dreaded word. Wish i was selected for the Air-force when i finished skool, too bad the selection guy asked me to run 3 bloody miles in 2 fuckin mins...wat am i?? Superman!!

So, I decided to take up the next best job in the world "Sitting in front of the computer 14 hrs a day"!! Now how does that compare to shooting fighter-planes for a job!...sucks eh??