Rushed out of the fridge

Now days, when I talk, my thoughts overlap and I end up mixing two conversations and end result is hilarious.
At my office there are six lifts, of which one lift doesn't stop at 2nd floor (My work floor) due to technical issues. On Thursday 24th March, my parents got a new fridge. Following morning on 25th March, on the way to office, I spoke to my mother about the fridge. I reached office, ended the call and entered the lift. Couple of known faces entered the lift; I greeted them with a "Good morning". Just before the lift started closing its doors, I realised that I was in the lift which wouldn't open at 2nd floor. I immediately said "oops!! This fridge won't open in 2nd floor" and rushed out of the lift.
In the background I heard someone saying "What??” I realized what I had just said, laughed to myself.

Once my laptop was up, I pinged my friend Deepa who worked in the same building and narrated her the story:


Vin: Hi da
Deepa: Hi
Vin: you know what happened today?
Vin: I was talking to my mom on phone, about new fridge they bought. I entered the lift that doesn't work for 2nd floor.
Vin: couple of colleagues entered the lift, I realized that I had entered the wrong lift.  I immediately said "oops!! This fridge won't open in 2nd floor" and rushed out of the Fridge.
Vin: It was pretty funny.
Deepa: U seem to be confused soul today, you still are saying "Rushed out of the Fridge"

It looked like I was really confused that day.

On Rajan's Chair

Poor Rajan!! always targeted. Sujit one day stuck a Postit on Rajan's chair which said "Please Kick Here". Everyone had a smile when they passed his cube but poor Rajan remained oblivious of it for a week.

Onsite - Offshore model...

Lot of raving about onsite - offshore model isn't it? Global team!! One team!! Bah!!
Now imagine entire team of developers / analysts / testers out sitting in US and you one and only poor developer stationed in offshore-India (for the heck of it); intentionally or unintentionally you will end up feeling like a foster child of the project ... hmm or the entire project FAMILY.

Client is in east coast of US and the team (Apart from the poor developer) is on the west coast, so you will never be able to talk to the client... time difference!!! If you are going to complain and raise a bawl then be ready to forgo you night sleeps, be alert in the calls that start at your 2 am or 3 am (that is the only slot client has). And of course the team out there will try their best to remove the feeling of unwanted ness that has grown into you, they will ask you take the notes and to promptly send them the MOM (minutes of meeting) before their EOD (end of day)!!!

You will burn midnight lamps to meet the deadlines and in the status call you will jubilantly announce that you have completed your tasks well within time... only to have the entire team chuckle because the deadline was pushed for the following month, months ago. #$@$@#$!!!

You will cry, scream and jump around to find out what is happening there. Unable to bear your bawls the family there will give you some work, which doesn’t need much of your brains. Try standing unnoticed; hoping someone will understand you, will allocate you will some work that is of your caliber (!!!), if you think so you shall continue to remain unnoticed.

As days pass by in the project, you will resign to the fate of receiving only end tasks, which are monotonous and boring. Don’t bother to complain, you will get to hear only the management jargons. Just start praying and hoping that your next project will come offshore and you will have just onsite team member!!! Every Dog has its day!!

Where is the Restroom?

This incident is the most embarrassing; and most humorous incident of my life. I did think a couple of times before I decided to put this up.

At college all I did was study. I never watched any English serials or movies. Relevance of Why I am mentioning this, you will know towards the end. I got selected to Trigent Software through campus. I joined this company in my last semester.

My first project lasted just 2 months. It was a proof of concept, which was destined to fail from the start. There were fifteen of us on the team (14 seniors including my manager); so proof of concept didn't fail because I was on the team :-)). Since all were seniors, interaction with them was limited to project talks.

Second project, as destined I landed under a manager who was the nastiest amongst all the managers and leads till date. I forgot his name, must be Ravi or Naveen or Chandrashekar. Let me assume it was Chandra. Chandra was around late 30's or early forties. He moved to IT from insurance company. We were a team of two under him. He took upon himself to monitor how much time we spent talking to which person, how fast we ate, how much coffee we drank, what time we came or left. If he realized we are free, he would mail us a word document and ask us to covert it to a PowerPoint presentation or vice versa. He sat few cubes away from where I sat, but he exactly knew how many times I opened yahoo mail / chat, how many forwards I got so on and so forth. I can't figure out even to this day how he did it, maybe he had a sniffer :-).

The facility we were using was under construction, and one day our senior manager called for a meeting to talk about the progress. In the talk he mentioned that the new restrooms looked good and elegant. Now, I took the literal meaning of restroom. So I pictured it to be a place with couches/ a coffee vendee machine / newspapers and magazines. I had never seen any such room in the office. How could such a place be there and I not be using it? You see the disadvantage of not watching English movies or studying too much or not interacting too much with the seniors.

Immediately after this meeting, I had a meeting with Chandra at his desk. I casually and innocently asked him “Where is the restroom here?”
Chandra stared at me a bit shocked, a bit puzzled, a bit amused. He covered his mouth with his hand and asked "You don't know where the rest room is?" Maybe he meant, how are you surviving the whole day, without using the restroom? :-). I innocently replied, "No, I don't know, thinking that it was a pretty evident place and I am too stupid not to be aware of it". Then he paused, raised his hand and pointed in the direction of the toilets. I was shocked and all that I could blurt out was "Oh!! Those are restrooms." Well!! the signs on the restrooms just had a man and a woman, no mention of restroom anywhere.

I was pretty embarrassed at my ignorance. I later laughed after narrating it to my parents. Chandra too must have had a hearty laugh. I don't know where he is now, but must be teaching some managers about monitoring their teams.

The Tale of My Eyeliner :-)

Well, when I go to office I am a plain Jane. I wear crisp cotton dresses a matching watch, many times matching bindi, rarely matching earrings.

Babitha comes to office dressed to perfection. She wears matching earrings / watch / lipstick / bindi and always puts on eye liner. Many a time I complimented her for her neat looks. She sugested I put on eyeliner or at least lipstick which would enhance my looks too. Put on eyeliner and lipstick!! No way!! What an effort to do that. And I wasn't good at putting on eyeliner. I asked her to give me a demo of the same sometime :-).

Today, Babitha noticed I wore watch and earring matching my dress and she offered eyeliner and lipstick. We went to the restroom and she put some eyeliner on me. It could immediately see the difference. I applied some lipstick too. I thought I looked good.
Now, B and I headed to meet Prashanthi. Prashanthi was almost shocked to see me :-). By then I had smudged some of my eyeliner. So Babitha and Prashanthi cleaned it for me.

So much is happening in Cube then how is it possible that Rajan would not react. Rn along with Sarferazul sang "Sajana ne re muje...." :-). Asked me why I was decorating myself. Sarferazul said that adding eyeliner enhanced the beauty of the eyes; only person who gave some good complement ;-).

Rajesh saw me and he came down to my cube and said, "Did you listen to Radio mirchi today, they were talking about how much time women spend in dressing and they spend about 300+ hours" :-)). I walked to Rajat's cube to get some suggestions, he gave a strange look and said U look like a ghost!!

Prasad saw me and said "you look so different. Something different about your eyes. Were you wearing glasses before? Or are you wearing glasses now!!!" rofl. Then I had to tell him that I am just wearing eyeliner.

Next, it was Arul's turn. He looked at me quizzically and asked, "Are you not well!!!”. Prasad and couple of others could make out the difference and they went into peals of laughter. Arul, apologetically asked "Is it something I shouldn't have asked". I explained that it was my eyeliner.

Back at my desk, Prashanthi suggested I clear off the eyeliner as they were thick. I said who will look at me now and half day was done. I added "well, it is just Rajan around". Instantly Rajan added, "You dressed for me. Wow!! I am feeling shy”! We went into peals of laughter.

God's Ways of helping

I work on Oracle BI (OBIEE). I was working on the project called Portfolio management (PFM) along with MBR channels. Work was overwhelming, I was working late night and over weekends (something I never did all through my career till this point). Aug 29h 2008 was the deadline for me to deliver the reports on the PFM.
I received the data model on Aug 18. I plugged it into the existing data model. It worked. I decided that just few minutes of work is left and I can wind up on the weekend.

Weekend when I started working, I realized that the data model is wrong, I cannot sum the values!!!. And of the 6 reports that have to be completed two reports can't be created in OBIEE. On 25th Aug, I pinged the database team and asked them to give the right data model. Now they were busy and they could give me only by end of day. Now, I was getting scared. :-).

Database team was co-operative and by end of 25th Aug I got the data model on the development environment. I copied the repository file from the production server on to the development server, and then imported the data model. I created the joins and deployed on the development (dev) server, hoping it will work. I brought the UI up and when I tried to add the fields from the data model. It started throwing up errors. The error was straight; it said that tables were not found. I guess I was already worked up, I thought the problem was in the data model. So I went about doing umpteen numbers of trails and errors to fix the data model. It failed. I was at a loss.

Next day, while driving to office I kept thinking on how to bring up the system. I pinged the database team and requested them to look at it. But they were already overloaded. I kept on with my trail and error. At that point, my PFM manager Chandra pinged me. He asked me why was the development server was showing production data. Eureka!! It then hit me; the repository file was pointing to production database, while the new data model was in development environment. I hadn't changed the repository file to point to the development environment after I copied it from the production server. So I was getting the error. I replied to my manager saying he was great and he had helped me debug the problem. He was perplexed. Then I explained to him, I guess he had a good laugh.

Now, I changed the repository file to point to dev and Aaiye La!! It worked!! Phew!!

If my manager hadn't pinged me and asked me about data, I don't know how long I would have taken to debug the problem.

God's ways of helping are really unique.

Comedy of Errors

Ri just leaves her home keys carelessly on the desk at office. One day, I noticed her keys lying on the table unattended. I picked those keys and dropped into Rn's bag. Rn, willingly hid them in his bag.

After a couple of hours, it dawned on Ri that her keys are missing. She went around asking the more notorious people for the keys. Finally Disappointed, she descended at my desk, asking for her keys. "I don't have the keys" is what I kept telling her. She checked my purse and drawer. Finally she asked me to promise, which I did. Well, I wasn't lying. Was I?

Now, her attention turned towards Rn. She asked him for her keys, obviously he said he didn't have them. For some reason, she picked his bag, and started shaking it vigorously. And she could hear the sound of keys. Suspecting them to be hers, much against Rn's wishes she dug his bag. She found her keys and Rn's home keys. As revenge she took away his home keys too, though Rn tried to desperately explain to her that I as the culprit.

Rn just forgot to collect his keys before leaving for the day. He reached his home at BTM layout only to realize that he has no keys. He called his room mates, and they were to return after two hours. So, Rn had to spend two hours on the roads and in the rains. He called me, cursed all of us. All I could do is laugh and laugh. Poor guy!!

Now coming to Ri, fearing that Rn might take away the keys hid her keys and his keys in the drawer. While starting for home, she forgot to collect them. She reached her home and realized no keys. So she had to return to office. When she returned, she had forgotten the place where she had hid the keys and went on searching. Finally, she found them and called me to tell her story.
All I could do was laugh and laugh.

Fun at work

I work in a IT firm. So how the office looks and how people sit can be easily imagined. We all sit in cubes of four. At my office the placement of people changed, to bring people in same project together.

My whole cube was occupied by P (she) and me. Two other seats were vacant. Since R worked in my project, he was relocated to the cube adjacent to me. He is known to have a good sense of humor and also to crack many wacky jokes.

Now we were two girls against a guy. So the day he moved, we started our campaign of irritating him :-). Firstly, P and I decorated his cube with stickys bright pinks and yellows. Those stickys were noticed by one and all that passed the cube. R went crazy with all this. But...... But........ He didn't remove the stickys. So we went ahead added some lines on the white board "Welcome to the cube warming - R". This attached more people to his cube. We had our office admin put up two bright orange stickys and a note "Whenz the Party".

R kept THREATING us, saying that he would talk to our manager to change his place, which he never did.

We had an ultimate laugh when one of our senior colleagues, sitting in the adjacent cube walked by and requested "R can I have a sticky please. I need one and you have so many".

But, R preferred to take out his sticky book and give him a sticky, instead of pulling out one from the board. Senior colleague a little puzzled, and then said "oh, I see that stickys have a pattern". All of us were rolling with laughter.

Over a period of time, the board looked more creative.

GDC day - Sweet Victory !!

Finally 6th Oct 2006 had dawned. It was the GDC day!!! We boarded the buses which would take us to Club Cabana. Journey was long, and slow owing to traffic. Interestingly, the driver didn’t know where to take us. We lost our way to Club Cabana and went 2 kilometers ahead of the club and had to retrace. Thirsty and hungry, we pounced on the welcome drinks at the Club.

No time to relax! We rushed into a photo session, it was followed by a couple of speeches and we broke for lunch. Phew!! After lunch we had singing competition, a toastmaster capsule, and finally the skit competition.

We geared up for the skit. Since our skit was the first skit to go on stage, we set the stage in a hurry and the skit kicked off. From the back stage, I could hear peals of laughter all through the skit. We had a huge round of applause when our skit got over. We had few more teams performing. We watched the other skits, kept our fingers crossed and hoped for a first prize. We requested our teammate to record the skit in his handy cam. But later realized that, he had forgotten to press the “Rec” button. Googly!!!

Now it was the Time for results! The judge announced that our team was victorious. We had won FIRST PRIZE!! Entire team was up on its feet, and celebrating. From the stage we rushed to the garden and posed for the victory photos, with the trophy.

The return journey was a celebration with singing and dancing.

Practicing the Skit - “X – factor”, GDC day - Part 2

We are a Lazy bunch of people in our team. So the leads literally had to pull us into the practice rooms. But little did we know that this would turn out to be a fun ride, with surprises..

What’s the story of the skit?

Our company follows a performance appraisal rating system where people are rated as one of these: X, E+, E and E-. X being the topmost and E- being the bottommost.

A fresher 'kid ' in the company aspires to get the topmost grade “X” during performance appraisal. During the first year, the kid works diligently but his arrogant manager gives him an E, but promises a better grade the following year. The following year, kid works harder, but the manager is replaced and he ends up with an E again! The kid is frustrated.

In the third year, the kid is no longer a kid. He's grown into this macho, scary man wielding cycle chains, knives and the like. (We actually replaced the thin timid looking actor with a huge, muscular one to make the transformation obvious!) . And this time, the manager is a timid, diffident chap. Our guy threatens the manager with a knife and a gun and cruises his way to an X. Hence the title “X – factor”.

We also had some interesting characters in the skit: like the cool dude who always gets an X, the filing assistant (not the administrative filing, but filing the nails of the 2nd manager), etc. Another thing about this skit - it was a silent skit, no dialogues! We selected songs from Bollywood to match each character and situation.

The Fun Part

You see, we are software engineers and we are used to changing roles and responsibilities everyday. So we felt free to would swap our roles during the days of practice. The director clueless of the swapping would pull his hair, and re-align the characters. Ooops! I forgot to mention, we had a director for the play, whom we drove so mad that he lost quite a bit of his hair during practice session.

The characters kept coming up with weird ideas to implement in the play, and added to the confusion. One of the leads felt there was enough confusion and decided to take matters in his hands. Moment anyone would come up with a weird idea, we had him running after them, shooting at them with the toy gun and bullet. Two days before the event, couple of the main character threw in the towel and withdrew from the event (project pressures!) We had an hour long serious talk to decide a “GO” or “NO-GO”. Finally it was not-so-unanimous “GO”.

Well, the most important part of the skit, Me!!I play the role of the second manager. My entry would be accompanied by the jingle from the movie Kuch Kuch hotta hai “Ms.Breganza...aaahaa”. , followed by “Haaila!! New Manager!!”. To record “Haaila!! New Manager!!” we did many takes and retakes, tested everybody’s voice. Phew!! Finally!! Got it recorded. And yes forgot to mention this. When I am on stage I will have an assistant filing my nails.

A couple of practice sessions and individual acting tuning, the skit shaped up well. We were all excited about the real show.

More to Follow:
GDC day
Sweet Victory
Toastmaster

Back to Life!! GDC Day - Part 1

A mail saying that 6th Oct is "GDC day” Yawn!! Yawn!! (GDC is the name of my division, comprising of around 300 people). The event was at Club Cabana, who cares!! Another mail saying "Participate in Skit competition between the groups in GDC. Teams Enroll now!!" Yawn!! Yawn!! Are people jobless to participate?

I had bid adieu to stage before entering my post graduation and I had no enthusiasm to participate / initiate any skit, neither did I think any one from the team would be interested.

That evening my team started to plan for the skit - theme, script, actors. Wasn't keen on joining it, but joined. Well!! I don't regret joining the skit preparation; it was whole lot of fun. We were mimicking out Performance Appraisal Process. Coming up with the script and casting people onto the roles, turned out to be hilarious. I got cast too as a project manager. The entire script came up on the “White Board”. Now who will write it down? We are software engineers, we do SMART work not HARD work. So we took photos of the board with our mobiles.



















Few days were left to practice, projects were on and there were many deadlines to meet. I didn't think this skit would even take off.

But, it is a strange world, you see.

More to Follow:
Practicing for the skit
GDC day
Sweet Victory
Toastmaster? or RoastMaster?

Alarm in the lift

When we enter a lift, we notice there are many buttons; some indicate the floor numbers, one to keep the door open, one to close the door so on. But,I always wondered what the button with "Bell" symbol would do.
Where the alarm would be set off? What would be done after that?

Couple of months ago, IBM was stationed in Symphony building in Bangalore. I was working there. Lifts in the building had catchy yellow button with a nice picture of a bell. Very Tempting!!!

One of the days, 2 of my friends and me, took the lift on 3rd floor, to go to the canteen in 8th floor. The button with the bell, was tempting, beckoning me!!

Me: Shall I press that Button??
S: Sure go ahead
Me: Sure !!
S: Sureee!!

My fingers slowly n gently pressed the button. A louddddddddd alarm went off in the entire building!!!!! oh God !!

S: What have u done !!
I was rolling in laughter, while S clasped her palms together and started shivering.

Lift reached 8th floor, doors slowly opened. Security in 8th floor, people who were heading for lunch, had dropped silent, waiting for the lift to arrive and staring as we stepped out.

We gently, turned our identity badges so that our names are not read, hurried out of the lift. Me still giggling, S still shivering, I knew S woundn't spare me for putting her through this ordeal.