Summer Vaccation

Last 51 days following by today, it feels like my good old school days. I am now at a new client place in a new state in US. Unlike the previous state, the current place is a laid back one. Lots of wide drive ways, full lush green lawns and it looks typically like the AMERICA I have seen in movies. I should consider myself lucky as I go with two mallu roomies.
I found it a little difficult to shift from the vacation mode to working mode, had been at home for last 51 days doing almost nothing other than mailing my managers saying, ‘I am available!’ It is not a good feeling to go out on a hunt for a project when you are in proper visa dead lock. Just go through the visa formalities for h1 b extension in h1 b, you will get to know what I am talking about. One of the highest rated assets which I added to my valet, my US driving license, is invalid now as it is expired! So much for the trips down to DMV! Still, will be visiting DMV in another state in us for some more adventures!

My new client had a lot of surprises for me. First and biggest surprise or better phrased ‘shock’ was my work timing is from morning 7 to evening 4! Think about working from morning 7 for a guy who was sleeping for more than 16 hours a day for last 51 days. Big ask rite? On the third day at my new client place, my client manager caught me napping in the QA lab. Thankfully she had a good sense of humor and asked me that I can try out the work out area if I want to keep myself fresh. Her advice was to come an hour early and work out, which will help me keep myself fresh! I had my sleep calculator inside my head screaming, complaining about cutting out one more hour from my precious sleep.

My lucky charm is still continuing with me breaking everything and every procedure I touch. The security team in the new place took three snaps of me (I was seriously thinking of smiling wildly for the third snap to make sure at least a white strip is visible in the snap) for my ID card. First, the camera broke, second day, the data cable didn’t work and third day the operating system itself crashed. After three attempts, I got my ID with my grin face on it, rite now hanging over my belt. After seeing my snap, a general realization, it is very important to smile in any snaps! Even in ID card snaps. If that was no enough, the client cubicle allocation system got disrupted when they tried to find a seat for me near to their team. Until now, client is fighting to find a place for me, but working from an office which is shopping complex-leased office where a walk from my current work place to my QA lab is about half a kilometer with three escalators and decoding of a stupid map, is fun! I got lost my way so many times in this building and still finding some lonely corridors which remind me of the grass maze shown in Harry potter movie. This place is scary at times.

I am moving away from the topic, the summer vacation is about the 51 days I spend doing nothing! I never thought it will have such a bad effect on my routine. For the last one week, I am literally struggling to keep me awake during day time. A bitter drink, chewing gum and music with full volume are my only weapons against a very strong urge to sleep. After three days, bitter drink tastes good. I preferred this drink which tasted the worst of the lott, to make sure it make my senses realize that I need to be awake. But senses are working in the exact opposite way by developing a likeness towards the drink!
By Indian terms , the summer is gone but here the summer is around the corner and every one is talking about their ‘schedules’ to see when they will work! Hopefully by that time they will find a proper work cubicle for me. Sitting on a temporary cubicle is pretty tough when my super – super boss is just two feet away from me! Now vacation is over and back to work. The biggest shock is blogger.com is blocked in client place!!!

Sleep ...time ..tic tic tic

I heard the soft buzz sound from my client laptop. It pulled me out of sleep. My eyes reluctantly open and started looking for my mobile. Yes, found it, at the other end of my bed. Still with half opened eyes, managed to look at the time, it is 5:15 in the morning. The thought crossed to sleep again but the other part of me who is still worried about the presentation coming up ….finally the other part won.

Open the lap top, entered my password, loading and loading.
My eyes again felt like closing ….i felt the warmth of my pillion on my cheeks, yes I am back on lying posture, a faint smile on my face … and the better half is winning now ….

Again the same buzz sound from Lap top, this time, and the worst half took over. A stream of thoughts came in, yes my boss has sent some review comments and I did not respond, he is asking where am I in the second mail …all these thoughts fled in a matter of no time into my head …..

I checked my laptop, it has loaded, I can see my desktop wall paper with my half opened eye, checked my outlook, yes there are two mails. Oh my god, those where mails from my HR which I usually delete without reading. This time it is all about a half marathon coming up. Who is going to run? The software half was getting beaten up the human half in my head. I got my cheek close to the pillion. No, the warmth is gone from the pillion, I searched with my cheeks on the pillow if any portion has a little warm …I found a small area, tried to get my cheek there, position for next 30 minutes sleep.

The gush of checking mails had dried up my sleep, now it will take at least 5 minutes to get back to where I left over the sleep. Suddenly I heard my mobile alarm again, man hadn’t I set 6:00 or it was 5:30. I just kept my head at 5:30 only. I checked my alarm, it was 6:00. Oh my god, my morning sleep is spoiled. Again I hit the snooze button, thought for a moment with closed eyes, balancing my upper body on one hand over the pillow. My stomach is growling and I felt hungry also. The softy guy came on mind again

Look if u don’t get up now, you will not have time to pack ur lunch, that means going out to street and eating all alone. Also chasing the bus in the morning with an empty stomach! Do you really want to sleep back ? Think again!

Where did this guy (Worst part, softy part) appear all the time when I am quiet happy being lazy, I mean the softy guy in the head, which always think ahead and reason my actions now? I took my mobile, cancelled the snooze, sat up, prayed (Not usual but today yes I did pray)
‘God help me sleep better tomorrow’ went to kitchen looking for the tea maker.

I think anyone who is staying alone might have gone through the same set of things but in different aspects …. Morning sleep! an irreplaceably addictive habit. The sweetness of this sleep increases in case of Mondays and sweetens most when you have an early morning meeting with client!

FACTS ......

Do you think you belong to any of these categories? I don’t know if I belong to any of these! But they do exist in almost all the BIG MNCs.

DNPTC list in mobile phones / phone with caller id.

It is DO-NOT-PICK-THE-CALL list. The category I am talking here is people who just call up and keep talking. I mean they keep talking even if they are properly informed that you have work or other important things to do. These folks always have all the time in the world to keep the phone numbers updated and call up intermittently. They might call you in the morning and again call you in the evening and ask the same question like, ‘how is your family?’ or ‘You still have five fingers in your right hand?’

DNRTM list in your outlook or in outlook rules

It is DO-NOT-REPLY-TO-MAIL group. These are the people who send the same old forwards and wearied news everyday to your inbox. They never forget any of the father-mother-human-women-valentine-etc days. If one unfortunately reply to any of such mail, they will continue with that mail chain until we say that we have to go / we got work / or boss around the corner

DNSTT

DO-NOT-SMILE-TO-THEM-GROUP. This group of people is often seen roaming around the corridor, office lobby and in the reception with coffee or with mobile on their hand. They check their cell phone at least two times in three minutes if they have a missed call or message, but in reality the only messages they get are from the ring tone advertisements and the calls from credit card advertisers. If, in any awkward moment you happen to exchange a smile with them, they will make a biography out of it. Be ready with a statement next time which sounds like “Are you angry with me? You ignored me when you saw me on Eat-Street” This group usually has only guys, but I know couple of females also which falls into this category! These folks always target elevators and walkways where people can be lured into easy conversations.

DNGL

DO-NOT-GIVE-LIFT-GROUP. Often good minded people fall pray for this group. If you own a vehicle, a two wheeler or a four wheeler and you happen to offer one person a lift one day! In the commute conversation, the hunter collects the information on your routine and makes sure the availability of your vehicle and timings. Next day on the same place at the same time, you will find the same person with a plastic smile all over his / her face with an extended hand. I am not against giving lift to people, but every day lift, that too some times, you get a message, “I will be 5 minutes late today, can you leave late or please let me know if you are leaving early today, I want to go to a movie, so have to leave early” kind of messages

KA

KEEP-AWAY group. These are jobless folks who go around the company website and keep track of everyone’s detail and demand treat for anything from a sneeze to completion of 1 month in a new cubicle. They call you up on your date of birth with a cheerful voice and wish you a happy birthday day. Around 3 O lock in the after noon, you can see the same folk leading a group of people to you cubicle with a 70 mm smile demanding a treat for birthday. If you are a guy, some kicks on your butt is a token gift together with a nice bill in the name of birthday treat. You should consider yourself lucky if they don’t come with a cheap cake for the birthday and paste it all over your face and dress. If you are a vegetarian and the cake is with eggs, your so called best day of the year, I mean birthday is ruined! It will remain as the smelliest day of the year.

KA-Version2

This KEEP-AWAY- version 2 are people we have to watch out, if there is some function going on in your office. It might be an open air event or a get together event. These folks can be sported with a nice looking, heavy camera which is carried around like an Olympic medal. They cruise around the crowd, making sure that the best faces are always captured for their personal use. It might not be long before the same snap will come out in the KA-V2 guy’s private orkut / picassa album. If it is a stage event, they join you in the crowd making sure that he makes the most intolerable comments and PJs. He might even run three or four times with one coin or a white hand key towards the stage to win a goodie price from the MC, but will always be late, cursing the crowd about not giving him space to run.


ORB

These are the onsite-return braggers. They are usually spotted with an I-pod Nano or an I-phone, with a face & smile which says, I am just from US/UK. They always complain about the weather, the sub standard AC in office, the substandard coffee provided by the company, about unavailability of MC-DY and Star-bucks in Indian office premises. The fake accent added to their broken English from 6 months to 1 year assignment in US is an added edge. Mostly, these are folks who where sent to create an excel sheet or to assemble a machine from package to desk. They talk like they where working in a NASA- initiated rocket launcher application code and series of escalations they faced in client place. The worst part of this group is their bragging about the places they visited, how smart they where to learn the foreign culture, ‘things’ they achieved in foreign land. Once they get a chance to start, they go on and on and on.

The groups are the unfortunate folks who are on bench or not required in any of the project, who has to kill time inside the office premises without almost anything to do. All we can do is pray that these folks get a VISA soon and packed uo to some far off countries

My First client Escalation , being in client location

My hands were wet with sweat. I was feeling the pressure of committing a mistake while being in a client location. The only way out I had, was to accept the mistake and go ahead. The review meeting will come out with some decisions which will reflect badly on my further growth. What have been done is over and we cannot do much about it. All I can do is learn from the mistake and don’t loose the lesson. I have to forgive my self first and then look forward. These words look very easy but being in this situation is really tough.

Growing tough out of bad situation is what makes a man different from being a looser. I have to believe in myself and work towards quality and standards on my deliverables. It will not be easy and it would require an organized approach on each step to come back from a lost battle. The competition in this arena is very critical and we always have to be on the top to be alive and successful. Each moment counts and it pays off later.

The mistake I have committed was out of over confidence, compliance and care less ness
So here it goes, facing the challenge of accepting the mistake to the client in a highly competitive environment with all the mud slashing aimed at me. I’m going to stand up and stand tall what ever the reactions may be. It happened and it happens always with some one some day. So today is my day to face it. Grow up and stand for it, I can grow out of this and come out with flying colors. This might be a bad patch which teaches me all the way for a grand success path.

My meeting starts in two minutes and what ever happens for the best. I am taking it with a smile on my face and guilt in my heart. I have to improve a lot from where I stand today if I decide to hang around in this arena.

Aftermath:
Nothing of head slicing happened. It was all an analysis on the impact of re work we have to do. The re-work part was nullified as we are 'experts' on our work (Said by me who just committed a big blunder). Client is ok for now, but this thing will pop up any moment some thing else go wrong.

Lessons learnt:

Most part of the suffering is not when you go through the problem, but waiting for the out put just after identifying the problem.

A client escalation is a big thing when it happens for the first time with any one, then the client get used to it or you get used to it or client changes the contractor and we get used to it :)

Experince is the funny name tag we give it the mistakes we have done in our life, but this comes at cost of many valuable things!