Why are you not writing these days ?
Disillusionment
What sort of ?
General
Why are you giving monosyllabic replies ?
Just like that
Why don’t you write about this place ?
Whats there to write ?
About the people whose life flows with these river-named buildings, or perhaps about the lack of life.
Its lunch time at NiLa. Lunch breaks and tea breaks are those oases in the desert where you want to get to desperately and stay there for ever but you know you cant. The dialogue is between two over lunch on a week day. One of which is just 2 weeks into the company and the other is a lady in the wrong side of 30s who wears a pair of specs and she is a knows-it-all.
I was told to meet this BPHR as part of induction. Who or what is a BPHR ?
Its your point of contact for addressing concerns regarding work, usually not your work but others’ work. A rendezvous with BPHR increases your BP as a minimum. One usually meets BPHR when one is denied an increment or promotion. After addressing your concerns BPHR gives a 20 minutes lecture. After that one starts to think whether one should be earning this much salary at all, forget increment and even contemplates demotion rather than promotion.
I heard something called PMO too.
We will come to that, before that about the team. A typical team will have 40 to 50 people, god knows why, which is again subdivided into smaller teams like core team, interface team, QA team, not-so-core team, Managers team, how-to-manage-the-managers team, escalation team, parasite team with 8 to 10 people in each team and a manager. But some teams have more managers and less team members such that the team members become confused as to who they should be reporting to and in the end reports to no one! How-to manage-the manager teams are formed as an outcome of such scenarios.
What is a parasite team ?
It usually consists of one or two who, god knows how, have managed to reach job level 8 or above and make a living out of selling the ideas of other teammates to the MD and earn accolades and appraisals.
What is this job level all about ?
Job level 1 are mostly newbies, freshers just out of college who think the code they wrote in lab exams are good enough to create operating systems. Once they are put into a project they realize what coding really is and what they did at college was a case study of how not to code.
Job level 2-4 are people who earn just enough to support themselves and their partner, if any.
Job level 4 – 7 are people who earn enough but has no time to spend what they earn. If a job level 6 husband has a job level 4 wife then some sort of harmony will prevail at home. If job level 6 husband has a job level 6 or higher wife , well, then they are not going to be husband and wife for long.
Job level 7-10 and above are adorned by people who will have a team of their own. The harder your team works the lesser you have to work and the more you earn. So if you work hard to make your team work hard then you don’t have to work hard…
Oops, that’s a paradox.
If you have worked in IT for 10,12 years you get used to such paradoxes.
What are these Prathidwani, Prakruthi, Reflections, Candle ?
These orgs serve the same purpose as that of NSS, NCC, Scout, guides, Philately club, literary club etc of school days.
I was asking about PMO
Oh yes, PMO is that bridge between the Delivery managers, I mean the project delivery, and other team members. PMO is destined to get bashing from both sides.
But what does PMO expands to ?
People don’t know what our company name expands to , let alone PMO.
I heard one floating around in Malayalam.
Whats that ?
Pani Medikkunna Officier
That actually fits the role!
The major works under taken by PMO include sending absentee mails every morning to the team, schedule transport for team during team lunches to hotels and making some complicated looking excel files which no one understands on examining but knows that this is some kick-ass stuff. The last time this happened to you was when you saw the movie inception.
Whats this SCRUM call ?
We have come across scrum as that when followed every day will lead you to rum eventually. The meaning hasn’t changed much and the purpose is still unclear.
So, your colleague got her 3rd divorce ?
That’s what I heard.
Now everyone in that team has got atleast a divorce , isn’t it ?
Yeah, unity in the team, you see. I heard your manager is having an affair with my manager.
Is it !
That’s cross team strengthening.
I hope the team members will also contribute towards such team building measures.
Whats this hot-fix, partner and stage ? I keep getting popups saying some will be up, some will be down and some will be out.
Those are servers where releases are made.
Can you make it simple ?
These are computers where different versions of software run.
Even simpler…
Well, you want your partner to be hot at any stage.
That makes sense.
What do infosec, nsg, big data do ?
Big data is…
When the data becomes unmanageable its called big data ?
Not exactly. When the project doesn’t get over for a long time , you name it in such a manner that those who hear it will think that this is some deep shit in the making – and hence big data.
NSG, National Security Guard ?
No. But that’s what they think they are. They install software in your computer. But to get them to your desk you will have to follow the process which will put to shame the bureaucratic red tapes of secretariat. Infosec team is the one which looks after online security. They block you from accessing malicious sites.
I heard some days they deny access to Google and bing!
Worse, they might even prevent you from accessing 'My Computer' some days !
But why do people keep calling infosec through intercom?
That’s because a cutie pie in that team picks up the phone to reset your password. The password security for your network is next only to that of Reserve Bank of India, you see. So it keeps resetting every fortnight or so.
OK. Stop condescending. No matter whatever be the flaws and how much so ever ruined the life is we continue to slog the late nights, we skip the festivals and reunions, we miss the cricket matches and visits to the native. Yet we continue to work and support the economy. The so called IT boom in India has been possible because we continue to burn the mid night oil.
So deep… I found oil.
Disillusionment
What sort of ?
General
Why are you giving monosyllabic replies ?
Just like that
Why don’t you write about this place ?
Whats there to write ?
About the people whose life flows with these river-named buildings, or perhaps about the lack of life.
Its lunch time at NiLa. Lunch breaks and tea breaks are those oases in the desert where you want to get to desperately and stay there for ever but you know you cant. The dialogue is between two over lunch on a week day. One of which is just 2 weeks into the company and the other is a lady in the wrong side of 30s who wears a pair of specs and she is a knows-it-all.
I was told to meet this BPHR as part of induction. Who or what is a BPHR ?
Its your point of contact for addressing concerns regarding work, usually not your work but others’ work. A rendezvous with BPHR increases your BP as a minimum. One usually meets BPHR when one is denied an increment or promotion. After addressing your concerns BPHR gives a 20 minutes lecture. After that one starts to think whether one should be earning this much salary at all, forget increment and even contemplates demotion rather than promotion.
I heard something called PMO too.
We will come to that, before that about the team. A typical team will have 40 to 50 people, god knows why, which is again subdivided into smaller teams like core team, interface team, QA team, not-so-core team, Managers team, how-to-manage-the-managers team, escalation team, parasite team with 8 to 10 people in each team and a manager. But some teams have more managers and less team members such that the team members become confused as to who they should be reporting to and in the end reports to no one! How-to manage-the manager teams are formed as an outcome of such scenarios.
What is a parasite team ?
It usually consists of one or two who, god knows how, have managed to reach job level 8 or above and make a living out of selling the ideas of other teammates to the MD and earn accolades and appraisals.
What is this job level all about ?
Job level 1 are mostly newbies, freshers just out of college who think the code they wrote in lab exams are good enough to create operating systems. Once they are put into a project they realize what coding really is and what they did at college was a case study of how not to code.
Job level 2-4 are people who earn just enough to support themselves and their partner, if any.
Job level 4 – 7 are people who earn enough but has no time to spend what they earn. If a job level 6 husband has a job level 4 wife then some sort of harmony will prevail at home. If job level 6 husband has a job level 6 or higher wife , well, then they are not going to be husband and wife for long.
Job level 7-10 and above are adorned by people who will have a team of their own. The harder your team works the lesser you have to work and the more you earn. So if you work hard to make your team work hard then you don’t have to work hard…
Oops, that’s a paradox.
If you have worked in IT for 10,12 years you get used to such paradoxes.
What are these Prathidwani, Prakruthi, Reflections, Candle ?
These orgs serve the same purpose as that of NSS, NCC, Scout, guides, Philately club, literary club etc of school days.
I was asking about PMO
Oh yes, PMO is that bridge between the Delivery managers, I mean the project delivery, and other team members. PMO is destined to get bashing from both sides.
But what does PMO expands to ?
People don’t know what our company name expands to , let alone PMO.
I heard one floating around in Malayalam.
Whats that ?
Pani Medikkunna Officier
That actually fits the role!
The major works under taken by PMO include sending absentee mails every morning to the team, schedule transport for team during team lunches to hotels and making some complicated looking excel files which no one understands on examining but knows that this is some kick-ass stuff. The last time this happened to you was when you saw the movie inception.
Whats this SCRUM call ?
We have come across scrum as that when followed every day will lead you to rum eventually. The meaning hasn’t changed much and the purpose is still unclear.
So, your colleague got her 3rd divorce ?
That’s what I heard.
Now everyone in that team has got atleast a divorce , isn’t it ?
Yeah, unity in the team, you see. I heard your manager is having an affair with my manager.
Is it !
That’s cross team strengthening.
I hope the team members will also contribute towards such team building measures.
Whats this hot-fix, partner and stage ? I keep getting popups saying some will be up, some will be down and some will be out.
Those are servers where releases are made.
Can you make it simple ?
These are computers where different versions of software run.
Even simpler…
Well, you want your partner to be hot at any stage.
That makes sense.
What do infosec, nsg, big data do ?
Big data is…
When the data becomes unmanageable its called big data ?
Not exactly. When the project doesn’t get over for a long time , you name it in such a manner that those who hear it will think that this is some deep shit in the making – and hence big data.
NSG, National Security Guard ?
No. But that’s what they think they are. They install software in your computer. But to get them to your desk you will have to follow the process which will put to shame the bureaucratic red tapes of secretariat. Infosec team is the one which looks after online security. They block you from accessing malicious sites.
I heard some days they deny access to Google and bing!
Worse, they might even prevent you from accessing 'My Computer' some days !
But why do people keep calling infosec through intercom?
That’s because a cutie pie in that team picks up the phone to reset your password. The password security for your network is next only to that of Reserve Bank of India, you see. So it keeps resetting every fortnight or so.
OK. Stop condescending. No matter whatever be the flaws and how much so ever ruined the life is we continue to slog the late nights, we skip the festivals and reunions, we miss the cricket matches and visits to the native. Yet we continue to work and support the economy. The so called IT boom in India has been possible because we continue to burn the mid night oil.
So deep… I found oil.
