Internship Take Away

Alright, I only have a few hours left at work and I am writing this to appear busy and stop any questions people might have for me now.

If you are looking for actual good advice on work, please to stay clear of this :P
But if you want a laugh, go on.

- You are not the hero they deserve. You are not even the hero they need. So stop being so hyper active and take it slow.

- Your hard work will NOT impress your TL. It will only make him look bad and hence backfire on you.

- Always, and I cannot stress this enough, always push work onto others when possible. Don't be THAT guy.

- Complete your work in as little time as possible. But do not check in code till the very last moment.

- If you work 150% during your first week, everyone will think that it is your 100%. Very very bad idea.

- Making a great first impression means the only way is down. Try for an okay-ish impression so that it leaves room for improvement.

- Network. Talk to as many people as possible. I am terrible at this and know first hand how bad it can get.

- The best employee is one who appears to have worked the most. The one who appears to be always busy. Notice how I said "appear" twice ?

- Do not over promise and under deliver. Under promise and over deliver works great. (For eg, tell them it'll take a week and finish it in two days).

- If your company uses office communicator, Auto Mouse Mover is your best friend. You are welcome.

Finally in the wise words of Batman twisted for real life,

It is not what you do, but what others think you've done that defines you.

What's Up?

Everyday in my office I run into random people who almost always instinctively ask the same thing.
"Hey man, what's up?".
And I always blurt out "huh hey hi err hi".

The question "What's up?" has always baffled me. Now, you might go thinking that this is a very simple thing, something not worth spending a lot of time thinking about. But then when you are on bench for a long time, you tend to start questioning a lot of things.

What exactly do you mean when you ask "What's up?" ? Do you want to know what I have done in the past few days? Or what I am doing right now? Or perhaps you are weird and want to know about the stars and the sky?

Why I don't really like this question is, it immediately puts me under a lot pressure to come up with something cool. If I told you "Nothing da" which is really the truth, I just end up looking lame and boring. Lets admit it, I am not like some of my more out-doorsy colleagues who party every weekend and upload like 200 photos on Facebook daily. So unless I reply "ah just a bit tired after getting bit by a shark while practising scuba diving" you will remain uninterested and walk on.

Every time my manager asks me "Hey man, what's up?", I just smile awkwardly looking like a mute.  Somehow saying "I just finished Facebook stalking and came for a cup of coffee" didn't seem a better idea.

The even more weirder part is this conversation.
X : "Hey! What's up?"
Y : "Whaaattttt's uuuuuuuup?"
* End Of Conversation *
Seriously? Your answer to "What's up" is an elongated, more shrill "Whaaattt's uuup"?

The only possible conclusion I can get to is that human communication is an inherently complex phenomenon and not meant to be fully understandable.
Or I have had too much free time.

What You Probably Knew And I Didn't

.) A few seemingly unimportant decisions impulsively made can often come back to haunt you.

.) Giving a big smile to someone who hates you is the laziest and greatest form of revenge :)

.) Laziness is a talent.

.) Associating a song with a person. Worst. Idea. Ever.

.) Women want men to listen. Men want women to understand the offside rule in football. Neither is going to happen anytime soon.

.) Hard work is not always better than talent. You can mostly always get away with just talent.

.) Life is full of surprises. Especially when you think you have just seen the worst.

.) Being the nicest guy in the world gets you nowhere. You need to be, at least to a certain degree a real badass :D

.) Silence is always bad news.

.) The "ah things will become alright on its own" never works. Never.

.) Karma is real. I have seen it come back to haunt people :)

.) You don't really have any control over your personality. The people around you decide it. That also means, you get to be partly responsible for the personality of the people around you.

.) The line between pessimism and realism is a thin one. And only an optimist can see it.

.) Exceptions are not examples.
                                                                                       
.) Today's FML is tom's LOL.

Drawing The Green Dot

My First Week @ Deloitte

Deloitte offered two weeks of accomodation at the Sherwood BelAir hotel and so on the 26th June, I went to the Belair. No surprises to find that it was a pretty neat place. I was told there would be 3 day orientaion program after which people start their training.

On 27th morning, all of us headed to the ITC - another big hotel - to kick start a career at Deloitte. First thing, we all were given a laptop in a kutty bag.  An i5 4 GB RAM but office monitored one. Yay?! We were then given tables numbers which ensured no one you knew would be anywhere near. A sign of things to come :)

For the entire three day orientation period few phrases kept popping up. "Networking" aka getting to know everyone there, "Welcome to Deloitte" and "Party" which is something you don't hear in every office setting. Of course they also gave a whole lot of information about the company, our job blah blah, most of which just went straight over our heads. I got to meet with a lot of people, most of them very friendly. Lunch was pretty great there :D

I don't know what is it with me and messing up bus rides. On the second day me and a few of our friends missed the company provided bus to the ITC. We got into one of those AC buses and got down at the Richmond Road. We later realised we should have gotten down at the Richmond Circle, the next stop. Getting down at the wrong stop in the first few days seems to have become a tradition to me seeing I have now done the same thing in my school and college :D

There was a small excitement when people found Sehwag was staying at the ITC. A few people even managed to take a photo with him, post it on Facebook and squeeze a few likes out of people. There was one unfortunate dude who after giving the right pose with Sehwag was told his camera/mobile said "Insufficient Memory". Talk about bad luck!

On the third day we were all put into a specific "service line". There was AMS, SAP, OPT, IM, SI whose expansions sound like difficult college subjects! I was put in AMS - OPT and given location center for the training after the third day.

The first day of training was somewhat similar to the first day of my college. FUll of classes straight away. Classes on database for a full day. At the end of the evening, a guy says "You are in IM actually it seems so you will have to join those guys".

So on friday I go along with the IM people. Now these people stay at a different hotel and so already have a gang. So had to spend the day on my own with mails to send telling people about the change.

End of friday Went to Transformers with my relatives. The movie was heavily inspired by old Vijaykanth movies :D

Saturday a guy calls me up and says "Dude I just confirmed that your name is not in the IM people list. So you will join the OPT guys." So had to spend some time mailing people about the change in the change. Ore confusions of India tha :D

There was also some people who were told they had to go for a six weeks training in the Hyderabad office. Company sponsored flight for up and down travel, six weeks accomodation included! Lucky for them.

All in all a very eventful week :)

P.S : The Deloitte logo has a green dot in the end for reasons am not very sure of. Hence the name for the post "Drawing the green dot"

P.P.S : This post does not do full justice to my first week. I might have missed a few things here and there.

I Hate You, My Friend

For the people who have wronged me,
Here be my curse said whole heartedly;
Dark will be the things thou shall see,
For it comes from yours lovingly :)

A mokka figure will fall in love with thee,
Disturbed at her sight you will forever be;
Her super friend will be your soul mate,
But she has eyes only for your roommate.

The papers will say you won the big lottery,
Only for you to find they printed it all wrongly;
You will challenge me to a game in hamachi,
After defeating you big time, I ll say chi chi.

You will quit your job one fine day,
For an offer with much higher pay;
On the big day you ll be shocked to see,
Sitting on the interview chair ll be me :)

The Farewell That Wasn't - SOS

Sothapals Of A Somberi


Epilogue : The Farewell That Wasn't.


Having watched a lot of movies/tv series I always imagined how a farewell would go. But what happened was actually a little different.


Expectation.
Sitting in the last class of my college life and thinking "This is the last time I will be sitting in a class with my best friends. Maybe I should try taking notes one last time. Am gonna miss attending class though. How much fun I have had.."
---
Reality.
I overslept and missed the last day. Actually I didn't even know that was the last day of classes. I realized that only after seeing the message "Why didn't you come on the last day of classes?" at 1 pm.


On the last day looking at people and thinking "That dude's English made us laugh so much.. That guy singing without any care was epic.. The guy who walked like a girl.. There goes the "choreographer ".
---
When I saw all the people hugging each other and bidding goodbye, I couldn't help thinking "Ada pavi this fellow is in my department only huh.. Four years and I never knew that girl was studying in the other section"..


Talking to my favorite people in class and unwillingly saying goodbye to them. Becoming sad that the chances of seeing them again are very small. (All while a sad song is running in the back of my mind).
---
Okay, this kinda did happen to a certain extent.


Going up to the two (maybe three) girls whom I secretly had a crush on and talking to them at least once.
---
Too shy.


Writing pages and pages on people's slam book re counting all the memories that we shared over the four years.
---
Writing "We have never talked much in the four years but hope you have a bright future" in almost all the slam books.


Giving people my slam book and later reading them and remembering a few nice things.
---
Too lazy to buy a slam book and giving it to people. Ended up reading this.


Looking at the few "couples" in my class and being glad at least they have made it through four years and working on continuing it beyond the college life.
---
High five-ing with your best friend that the oddly matched couple are finally showing signs of breaking up. Good for her!


Receiving messages saying "Goodbye friends! If I have done any wrong to you, it was fully unintentional so pls forgive me" and forgiving them for those mistakes.
---
Receiving messages saying "Goodbye friends! If I have done any wrong to you, it was fully unintentional so pls forgive me" and thinking "Unintentional my arse. I didn't like you in the four years. That is not going to change because you sent an apology to everyone in your contact list thanks to your free message booster".


Walking around college and looking at places and seeing myself and my friends appear suddeny, laughing at something silly that we once did and then suddenly disappearing again.
---
Yet to do that. Am considering going to college and doing this by walking around with my headphones playing a few slow songs :D


Anyway at the end of the day, I loved most of my classmates and will miss them terribly. And for people whose path I have crossed, if I did anything wrong, it was completely unintentional (seriously :D ) and hope you will forgive me( am still serious :) )

Politics And Facebook

So the election campaigns are going on. I know this from the sudden construction of roads, groups of people wearing vetis popping up all over the town, the drunk Vijaykanth video etc etc. I have never followed politics or know the politicians name except for Mr.Karunanidhi and Ms.Jayalalitha of course.

Most of the election campaigning ideas seem to be based on making a list of stuff they will give for free. But one thing that is puzzling me is, why there is no serious campaigning going on in Facebook. You can argue that only a small portion of people would be affected by this, but still every vote counts.

Now I searched in Facebook to see if Mr.Karunanidhi and Ms.Jayalalitha had profiles in FB :D I found only this for Mr.Karunanithi and these two for Ms.Jayalalitha (no idea if they are authentic :) ). Admittedly the latter has better profiles. But not a great deal of activity on the profiles.

Now there are a lot of ways you can use a profile in Facebook. Consider if Ms.Jayalalitha had posted "If the DMK government promises to give 24 hr electricity for the next term, why not give it right now?"*, imagine the no of people "liking" it or re sharing it. Imagine the effect it would have on the people like me who don't really have a lot of idea on who they should vote for. Especially on the ones who have stopped watching TV and look to Facebook for day to day news.

* - As quoted by Vishnu

They could have even followed the Cricket World Cup and wished Team India all success from their profiles. That would have a mighty positive effect on the people online! And if you see "Ms.Jayalalitha is attending the Support Anna Hazare meeting" on your Facebook wall, you would be impressed.

And the whole thing is not gonna take a lot of time. The parties can even hire a few people from colleges and get the Facebook campaigning going on. An internship for a err "real-time application" like this looks swell on your resume :D


P.S : There is a possibilty that online campaigning is going on a large scale and I am simple unaware of it :D

P.P.S : I hope one day I will see on my FB wall "Opposition Party |> Ruling Party : Pls amend the bill according to the mail we sent you, if you need us to agree on it" :)