'Playing basketball' I said to myself.
"In the office" I replied, of-course I was in the office, that was stupid response and yet a perfect one, I didn’t lie and I didn’t tell what exactly I was doing, I was vague, that’s what being in IT is all about. “Don’t be responsible but hang around so when shit happens cut loose and don’t take blame, but if things work out just fine, step forward and take the accolades”
'Bring your sorry ass over here' I was expecting her to say, she said instead, "Get to my cubicle immediately, I want to talk to you"
"Okay, madame" I replied, I wanted ask her location but before that she disconnected. I called back, she picked up the phone, "Where's your desk location madam?" I asked. She paused for a moment I don’t know why, maybe she took the question personally, maybe it was a philosophical enquiry - She's confused, Where is she? What the hell she’s been doing?
She replied, I am at fifteen, desk 119, first floor. come faster please" I sensed it was urgent and so there was I running through the corridor.
#
A few minutes later I reached her desk, and she was like this is my pc. Gosh, she was pretty and surprisingly young for a manager, maybe I was ready for that promotion.
"What… okay" I replied looking at her PC. I wondered why she was showing me her PC. She stared me for a moment, and then said, "Take a look, the network is not working, the cable is connected and IP address is there but still no network, my whole work is blocked" Maybe this was some kind of test, before she inducts into the project. I looked at the bottom bar of the minimized i.e. window, the title said - 'shoes-world.com' category heels. I looked down, she was wearing this long long (hand gesture - from thumb to index finger) heel. "How can I help?" I stared her back quizzingly.
"How do I know? You are the system guy"
"Wo, wo!" I replied. "Excuse me? Systems?" "You have got your cocktail mixed up wrong!" "You called me for the project, and now this?" I felt at complete loss.
"You are not..." she opened her email, "Hiren?" She said looking at my card, which was hanging down my neck, but was perfectly resting in my shirt pocket, I didn’t like advertising myself, and I didn’t like someone labeling me. No, Jesus I am not Hiren and I am not some system guy. Clearly it was a case of mistaken identity, the formula already beaten to death in Bollywood movies, I had no intentions to carry on the drama.
I was wondering how the heck this can happen? Did she get cross connection or something, and then it dawned on me. The manager called from her desk phone (to save a rupee), the call from the desk is routed through the internal exchange and you can’t call back or at times it goes out to random people. She was still in comprehending the situation mode when I left. I was on the right floor, I knew this was the dev bay. So, I asked a guy sitting duck bent and almost immersed in his computer monitor, for this mythical lady manager, he pointed me to a cubicle at the last row.
My first reaction was of disappointment, the manager chick was far from attractive infact she was quite the opposite – the idea of promotion just disappeared immediately, I was totally fine with being a measly software engineer, she was totally repulsive, forty maybe, fat and ugly, one teeth missing from the upper line. She told me, to meet some guy who would arrange me a seat, and we do start immediately from today. Boy, I was excited, at last project, a java dev project this is what I wanted.
We were bunch of 7-8 people headed by the guy apparently called a 'PA' I didn’t think though that he was drunk - he walked without bumping and talked without slurring. He introduced himself as Dinesh which I thought was pre-archaic name and on top of that he kept his off-white half sleeves shirt tucked out. And yeah, in case you are wondering the girl who took me for a Systems guy was in there too, her name was Bhargavi, Bhargavi Seth.
We gathered in his cubicle and he showed us a document. It was a project related to capturing some credit card info of the customer, maybe profile management or something. He explained something, but I didn’t understand a dime what he was saying - web service, callback method, server side validations, but I still nodded, I had to look smart, specially from the next guy standing beside me, that’s how it works in the industry, it’s okay too be dumb as long as you are less dumber than the next guy, your job is safe, call it cutthroat competition or relative appraisal whatever BS. So, here I am one minute banging the swat team, another minute banging my head on the cubicle wall.
It was a temporary location he said, but I sensed that my problem was permanent, I had no clue about the requirement. But again he mentioned that we had to do it together, dividing the work and helping each other and all. I was trained in Open systems so I had no clue in java, I knew java from college but still this was different, this was corporate. I remembered I did make a chat messenger using java in college with swing ui, it looked neat, the external team liked it. One of the guy, from our team, although he looked tiny and puny, took the charge, he called a quick meeting and decided for us who will do what. Unfortunately I was left with the toughest part, or I felt so because I did not know a dime of java. After I came from lunch wherein I told Arnav excitedly that I have got a new project, and he didn’t show a bit of enthusiasm, he was crowded with his own problem, he told me that his client is too fussy, he (the client guy) complained his manager over the font type he used in constructing new WebPages. He complained that it was gross, and he should learn a thing or two about web designing himself.
"What?" He said frustratingly "Should I join a calligraphy class now?" "I am a damn developer" "In my opinion the text read absolutely okay, and if you can read then where is the fucking problem"
His extremely liberal use of the word fuck bothered me, it was quite unlike Arnav, he didn’t swear, or very seldom. That only indicated how poor he felt at that moment.
After the lunch I went back to my desk. My God, it felt so good that I kept on repeating while going back, but when I reached I was in for a surprise.
"Hey, excuse me" I said politely to the guy, he didn’t reply neither he bulged a bit. So, I tapped on his shoulder then, nothing again. so I went to bathroom, and came back after few minutes, I shook his chair with some force, he looked up confused, I guess he was fast asleep after the lunch, everyone felt sleepy after the lunch, I suspected if the canteen mixes something in the food.
"What?" He asked. "You are sitting at my place" I told him, pointing to the fifth port he was sitting on (a cubicle normally has four ports, fifth is like for someone whom you think has no real use, meaning has no project or has no meaningful contribution to project).
“The PA guy (remember I am bad with names) told me to s(h)it here”, I smiled at his pronunciation, I guessed either he was from bengal or nepal, I had interest in knowing that though.
I went to the PA, he gave me the new location, guess where, in the same cubicle where that who-thought-I-was-a-system-guy girl sat, little miss Bhargavi Seth. Her eyes followed me as I settled myself on the forth port, apparently she was on fifth, I felt lucky, she frowned, I guess she had her eyes set on that for sometime, and she didn’t like some outsider came and claimed that. 'She was my bitch' she must have thought. She was looking at me, so I teased her, I caressed the CPU box with my hands like you caress a little puppy and then I switched it on throwing a smile in her direction. She smiled back, but I could see that it was not a welcome one.
For the week that followed I hung around in the office for like twelve hours straight, no more pool games or TT matches, or powernaps at sofa, or playing counterstrike, it was all about coffee and code. That's it, that’s what my world was wrapped into. The girl turned into a nice being slowly after the snow of jealousy melt off her, and she helped me with the here and there with the code, I was learning fast, and I liked it, even thought it was exacting and sweating.
So, after few weeks of hard work when we were done we showed the work to the PA, we were happy with what we came up with, both look wise, and functionality wise as well. It looked only a distant cousin of what the required system was, but I guess litt
le deviation was expected. So, we enthusiastically presented it to the Mr. PA, once again the puny guy took the charge and to my surprise, and to everyone’s surprise in the team, he walked off with all the appreciation, we felt cheated and belittled. But anyway I was quite used to it by now.
The guy hardly did anything, he just worked on the integration part, and nevertheless he was much appreciated. The PA said this was merely a test, a dummy project; we were surprised to know that, he said he wanted to see if we had the right skills for the project, and he was okay with our performances and expected us to work harder. The manager then barged in and congratulated everyone and told us that they are expecting the project in few days and we should be prepared for it. Hearing that once again we were excited; just the mention of the project was enough to tingle our nerves.
Meet Mr. All Smiles
It took us about three weeks of non-stop, no-sleep hard work to get the job done, the development was completed and everyone was so scared. We sincerely hoped this was not a test again. Thankfully everything was real this time and the project moved to the testing phase. Oh wait I forgot to mention that even though project was real it was only the first release, it had like at least a dozen of release to go on which not to be mentioned had to be done in a very short span of time. I looked at heaven and asked why me?
And so I met Dev Bachhal (nicknamed D.B.), the Punjabi lad from Saharanpur. The first thing you'd notice about him beside his small frame was his wide grin, he smiled at just about everything, I introduced myself he smiled, I pointed out that what he raised was not a defect he smiled, I updated the defect sheet without fixing the problem he still smiled. Basically, to sum up, at the beginning of the time there existed a smiley and the God attached a guy around that smiley and called him D.B., that's it that pretty much nails it what D.B. looks like.
"That's not a bug" I complained, "That's a feature" I added.
"This is not a part of requirement" He pointed at the doc. 'To hell with the requirement doc' "These things are not always accurate you know" I protested. "Rule is a rule" He replied. I squeezed my teeth in frustration and moved on.
Then it dawned on me, I came back and asked him that I am going for a coffee and if he would like to join, a trick that I learned from Arnav. He was much calmer, more open to reason, I showed interest in his story, although I don’t remember at all what he blabbered in those twenty-five minutes, yes sir I was watching my watch that whole time accounting for every damn sobbing minute and second.
And what a luck, the next day I again bumped into him, this time in ozone, he was having rabdi jalebi. There was a girl with her, she looked like his twin sister. Had it been someone else, some other friend, I surely would have passed a comment or two on her. But I refrained waited for him to introduce, and as I guessed she indeed turned out to be his sister, not twin, but nine months younger. Nine month? I wondered how did that happen? It was a very stupid thought but very wise from medical science point of view, and if…
"What are you thinking so hard?" He asked me.
"Nothing, just regular work" I replied.
So, we bonded over a plate of rabdi jalebi, a delicacy of kadhaai, kadhaai with a slogan – proudly making people fat since ‘99, but I think at least it was better than eating French fries and American burger. I found out he lived in Aundh, near Spencer he told me. For a moment I thought here I am falling in the same pattern - making a new friend, raising my hopes, relying upon him and then… what should be my immediate expectations and my mind floated to the possibilities, one was particularly favorable and highly likely - befriending him might help me at work, he was tester and I was a developer, he might go easy on me and might find less faults. I smiled and I asked if he uses orkut – which at that time meant a giant step toward friendship, adding someone to your orkut was like trusting that guy big time. Yes he replied, there were quite a few Vilas D.B. in the orkut, but it proved fairly easy to find him - I just looked for the guy with most-est widest grin.
Next day on lunch I told Arnav about D.B., and immediately Arnav's emotion got aroused when he heard that D.B. hailed from Saharanpur, he himself was from Saharanpur by origin. I told him that I'll introduce him to D.B.. He said, "ASAP" And so we all three met over evening tea, which was financed by Arnav. They hit-off instantly without much hesitation or the awkwardness of first meeting, they were like perfect pair I thought, a match made in heaven, if only one were girl. But then what the hell, world is changing fast, India too is expanding its narrow and conservative view.
One a warm sunny day we were just cutting our time sitting outside Arnav‘s building when I got a call, it was some woman on the line trying to sell me a card. “What’s a credit card” I looked at the guys, Arnav looked at me dumbfound as if I had asked something like how many states are there in the east of India but D.B. rose to the occasion, the guy had like whole Wikipedia inside his head, you throw a term to him, like a ball to a dog, and he will fetch you the history and geography of it.
He told me it was a card that you can swipe without even having a rupee in your account, it sounded promising, you spend the money you haven’t earned yet, the idea caught my fancy, he gave further details like - I could pay the amount that I spent on a later date, a date chosen by the bank. I asked him if I had to pay any interest rate. “No,” He replied, “as long as you pay by the due date”. I wondered if everybody paid within the due date, “how the hell the bank made the profit” He assured me that it was the banks who always made money out of card business, simply because you pay and you forget, it is impossible to remember to pay back. I nodded, I couldn’t agree more, I saw the logic in his line of reasoning. “Who remembers to payback? That’s true and that’s what those greedy bastards counting on.”
Having a card like that sounded like a perfect plan, I would buy at least 10 and keep on paying one card’s bill through the other. It was like a financial lifejacket that I could hold on for as long as I could to save myself from drowning in debt.
I opened my mailbox as soon as I came back from lunch, I scanned for any funny forward mail, there was one with lots of pictures of babies doing funny stuff – I particularly liked the one with a beer bottle and the one with cigarette pursed between the lips. Suddenly I clicked on the compose button, without a thought, and I typed a name on the ‘To:’ field. I was glued to my seat for few seconds unable to think, and then I wrote:
“Wanted to see you, come for lunch tomorrow”
Yours truely,
“I”
From then, I waited for a new mail like people wait for any news of launch of a new phone, every five minute I would refresh, although there was no need, and I would check my main folder and the junk mail too, wishing the reply to just popup.
#
The next day, around tea time D.B. and Arnav and I went to this guy who stood at roadside outside our office. On our we got into a strange discussion.
“Did you notice what I noticed?” Asked D.B. in his famous cryptic way, to more it was very weird.
“Yes, I did” I replied.
“So, what do you think about it?” He said.
“I think you should stop talking in morse code” Arnav replied, irritatingly.
“Oh, you just don’t get it?” D.B. continued. “I don’t blame, it is tough to deduce”
“What????” I said almost losing it.
“Bhargavi” “- and Vishwas” What was he getting at I wondered.
“Don’t you see it, the way Vishwas see her?”
“They talk more often, I guess” I shrugged.
“Next time, look into his eyes” “He has got hots for her”
“The guy is married for god sake” Arnav interrupted.
“No, he is right” I defended, “A moral ground is the last thing you would expect from this guy” “I told you about my vizag story?”
“He is hitting on her, do you think she is taking a bait?”
“I wouldn’t know”
“Even though you sit right
next to her?” Arnav said.
“Yeah, we don’t much really” “This is corporate some people are willing to go any length for success” I said, “I wouldn’t blame her” “And that bastard got promotion on my cost, on the product that I developed!” “Go, figure!”
But whatever, I now knew what his weakness was. I had an advantage now, or at least had the information that I could eventually use to create an advantage and then with it turn the table on him. I knew what exactly has to be done, The Game was on.
#
The card guy was standing right outside the gate. I asked him his qualification, to which D.B. and Arnav stared at me as if I had asked some gravely wrong thing. He told me he was an MBA, “Which college? I asked.” “From IIM.“ he replied. “IIM?” “IIM Pune” Arnav added. “Indira institute of management” was the guy’s honest reply. I took a sigh of relief, thank god everything was still okay with our premier institutions, we were no doubt getting slowly into recession but no way our IIMian should do this, he told me that he paid hefty fees for the degree and now he had to earn money whichever way he could to pay back the bank loans, my imagination just flew always, I imagined him having a younger sister who was getting around that marriage age, the poor guy had to fund her dowry, his father was getting old and suffering from TB or some other disease which makes you bed ridden and cough all day. His mother diligently sew cloths old and new day and night, but now was running out of customers as everybody in neighborhood had lot to wear already, and her machine was catching dust and getting corroded slowly with each passing day. The chain of thoughts broke when someone coughed, it was Arnav, I was out of my daydream, yes I said.
“Great sir, so you will take the platinum card”
“No, I mean-“ Apparently I did not hear what he had just said.
“Wait,” D.B. spoke with his wisdom, “give him the one which is free”
Zero Defect: An autobiography of a software engineer Page 11