After a looong while I took the pen again! (Well not literally :P )

Thanks for being an avid reader of my blog. And apologies for keeping you all waiting, it's been a long while that i have written, created or shared any new or interesting post! Here I go to sum up in short what was happening in my life for the past months. :)

At last after a long and patient waiting, I got my joining date at Tata consultancy services as 29th of March, 2011. I did not even realized the transition from job searching phase to the employed phase as this all happened so soo fast!! There was a time after college I was involved in giving interviews and getting selected in various companies and now finally I am all set to join my preferred one! I say preferred one as in those days I was high on luck and time was with me.. whatever interview I gave I just cracked it in a go.. I got selected in 5 companies.. worked for about 1-2 days in 2 of em and then left as I didn't liked.. :D.. this includes my selection in Infosys...

I was all set and googled out about the place and hangout zones of Coimbatore, my proposed training location. Initially I was in an impression that being a small city it would not be a much fun experience there, but clearly I was just anticipating. Coimbatore despite of not having a proper TCS campus for training, was the best ILP city, I believe! Many groups were made at facebook and me myself created a few to gather up all the TCS joinees for the same place ie Coimbatore. We began chatting and got to know each other.. many friends were found over Facebook only months before we were actually gonna meet up! Then the day came, preparing for documents and online preparation, what TCS made us do, finally the day has come! I was at airport in Delhi where my flight was to leave for Coimbatore... In the airport itself many of us recognized each other by the Display-Pics of FB ;)... and also noticed the best gals accompanying our flight.. ;) the journey has begun...

I had a blast at Coimbatore.. beyond the learning at ILP (Initial learning Process @TCS), found many sweet memories.. many new life's experiences.. many new friends and explored many new places too!..

It was just a beginning to experience life's love, hate, anguish, competition, struggle, hardships, adventure, fun, exploration and yes the corporate world!...

At ILP it was just like a paid vacations that we were having, far away from life's all the hard sides.. only fun and 3 months in heaven...

I never expected to not to get my preferred place of joining, infact I was so sure and confident to get Delhi, that I was least bothered.. My preferences that I filled up were: 1. Delhi 2. Bangalore 3. Mumbai... and guess what.. I got Mumbai! :D It was a clear shock at the beginning...

Still I was not aware of .. what was gonna happen.. the real suspense! All the days of work and massti @ ILP passsed out... all the TRs (Technical reviews), ECs & Case studies passed over... mixed with fear, anxiety, and adventure... the last day of ILP came as well.. with mixed emotions and sad feelings we have to left the place... that surprisingly we started to love a lot! Many things left at Coimbatore to miss.. many sweet memories.. many sweet people... many lovely places.. to name a few.. Glacier's park, Bombay trombay, That's why food, The Delhi wala, Brookfield Mall, Gandhinagar, Cross cut road, Sri sabri towers (Girls accommodation hotel! ;) :D ) Also I was sad of not getting my base location as Delhi, my home.. But still I was quiet excited to explore Mumbai.

The day has come on 1st July, 2011 was my flight from Coimbatore to Mumbai. I was accompanied by my roommate of ILP and we were so excited about Mumbai!...
Then the days of struggle, the hard days began... Reaching Mumbai I realized how a busy and big city life is... Delhi don't even stands in comparison... so much crowd.. so much traffic.... highly populous, overcrowded local train compartments... Gosh! I would never complain about crowd in Delhi metro again, it was not even half of what Mumbai locals have, you can't even turn 180 degree it is so much packed!! :D Above this Mumbai's crowd the city was too expensive, to get a proper meal you have to shed 200 bucks a minimum.. Eating out and living in Hotels in the first 10 days I spent around 10,000 bucks or more... Those were quiet a bad days I can say, till we looked out for an apartment and got settled in the city.. there were many issues even for small things... one can not get a local SIM card even without a "Local" Mumbai's document! :D Even passport was not working... later on we managed to get from the direct Reliance shop and Vodafone stores..

Office life was not a piece of cake as the ILP was!.. I faced the shit of corporate world and the bloody politics in the project teams and work culture.. I got a best project in Java so soon... but the atmosphere and team members were so bad... or I was just new to getting used to what usually happens in IT world! ;)... I switched one project... got another... that too core Java developement, considered too good... then unfortunately or fortunately (only time will tell)... I am released from that project too... right now I am enjoying the "sitting on bench" phase and getting salary without regularly requiring to go to office... :D
Waiting for my next allocation lets see what and when I get it... But one thing I have realised that in TCS your job is safe... it is thats why truely called ... "a sarkari company!"... :D

P.S: To accompany the above article with interesting images (that I chose to omit here :P), go visit my FB albums, Ofcourse you gotta be my friend for that! :D ToodleZ.


Update (15th July, 2012):

- Well only about 40% images are still available on Facebook, so I will append some good images here in the post itself soon, sad part is my hard disk is locked I need to get the data recovered from an expert to access those lovely images, so kindly bear with me! :P


- I have successfully completed an year in TCS with a good performance rating. :-)

Who is the BEST - Infosys, Wipro or TCS?

One day, three consultants, one from Wipro, one from Infosys and one from TCS, went out for a walk.

Wipro guy: "Why don`t we prove who is the best among ourselves?"

Why not, said the other two.

The Infosian said "Let`s have a test. Whoever makes this monkey laugh, works for the best firm".
Being a pure logical strategist, the person from Infosys tried to make the monkey Laugh by telling jokes. The monkey stayed still.

As a more practical consultant, the Wipro guy tried to make funny gestures... No good, the monkey stayed put...

Now, comes the TCSer. Being the practical guy he was always trained to be, he whispered something into the monkey`s ear, and it burst out laughing at him..

The other two were astonished. So the Wipro guy said "OK, let`s take another test. Let`s make this monkey cry!!"

So there they went again, applying the same methods as before. The Infosian guy narrated sad stories, the Wipro guy made sad gestures, and they failed again...

Then, the TCSer again whispered something into the monkey`s ear and oh! It started crying, patting the TCSer shoulder!

The other two just could not believe their eyes! So the Infosian guy said "OK, you`ve won twice. If you can win just this one, we will bow to you. Let`s make this monkey run".


And he barked at the monkey and ordered him to run. Of course, it stayed where it was.. The Wipro guy, true to his type, pushed and prodded the monkey- still No go.


So...here comes TCSer, again, and whispers into the monkey`s ear. The Monkey just takes off! It runs and runs as fast as it can

The other two surrendered.

They Said: "OK, we give up.

You`re the best among us, and you work for the Best firm of the three. But please, please tell us your secret," they begged him.

"Well", said the TCSer , "The first time I made it laugh, I told I work for TCS . The next time, I told the monkey how much I get paid ...so it started crying.

And then I told that I was here for recruitment !!!

Mail sent by Narayan Murthy to all Infosys staff:

It's half past 8 in the office but the lights are still on...
PCs still running, coffee machines still buzzing...
And who's at work? Most of them ??? Take a closer look...

All or most specimens are ??
Something male species of the human race...

Look closer... again all or most of them are bachelors...

And why are they sitting late? Working hard? No way!!!
Any guesses???
Let's ask one of them...
Here's what he says... 'What's there 2 do after going home...Here we get to surf, AC, phone, food, coffee that is why I am working late...Importantly no bossssssss!!!!!!!!!!!'

This is the scene in most research centers and software companies and other off-shore offices.

Bachelors 'Time-passing' during late hours in the office just bcoz they say they've nothing else to do...
Now what r the consequences...

'Working' (for the record only) late hours soon becomes part of the institute or company culture.

With bosses more than eager to provide support to those 'working' late in the form of taxi vouchers, food vouchers and of course good feedback, (oh, he's a hard worker... goes home only to change..!!).
They aren't helping things too...

To hell with bosses who don't understand the difference between 'sitting' late and 'working' late!!!

Very soon, the boss start expecting all employees to put in extra working hours.

So, My dear Bachelors let me tell you, life changes when u get married and start having a family... office is no longer a priority, family is... and
That's when the problem starts... b'coz u start having commitments at home too.

For your boss, the earlier 'hardworking' guy suddenly seems to become a 'early leaver' even if u leave an hour after regular time... after doing the same amount of work.

People leaving on time after doing their tasks for the day are labelled as work-shirkers...

Girls who thankfully always (its changing nowadays... though) leave on time are labelled as 'not up to it'. All the while, the bachelors pat their own backs and carry on 'working' not realizing that they r spoiling the work culture at their own place and never realize that they would have to regret at one point of time.

So what's the moral of the story??
* Very clear, LEAVE ON TIME!!!
* Never put in extra time ' unless really needed '
* Don't stay back unnecessarily and spoil your company work culture which will in turn cause inconvenience to you and your colleagues.

There are hundred other things to do in the evening..

Learn music....

Learn a foreign language...

Try a sport... TT, cricket..........

Importantly,get a girl friend or boy friend, take him/her around town...

* And for heaven's sake, net cafe rates have dropped to an all-time low (plus, no fire-walls) and try cooking for a change.

Take a tip from the Smirnoff ad: *'Life's calling, where are you??'*

Please pass on this message to all those colleagues and please do it before leaving time, don't stay back till midnight to forward this!!!

IT'S A TYPICAL INDIAN MENTALITY THAT WORKING FOR LONG HOURS MEANS VERY HARD WORKING & 100% COMMITMENT ETC..

PEOPLE WHO REGULARLY SIT LATE IN THE OFFICE DON'T KNOW TO MANAGE THEIR TIME. SIMPLE !

Regards,
NARAYAN MURTHY.