Category Archives: Nothing official about it

Surprisingly too many on the same boat

Life is like that, Nothing official about it

I used to pity myself for continously going through some kind of troubles, especially for whatever I have been going through for the past 5 years. Also I used to feel that this sorrow multiplied many times as I went through them almost alone.

Now that I am a manager, as part of the job I am ‘officially’ expected to interact with lot many people than what I am used to. As I spend more time, I get to know lot many things about these individuals – not just about their professional lives but bits of their personal life too. Few of them carry their personal baggage to work and feel depressed time to time. It might sound strange, but yes I often have to get them out of that and help them concentrate in their work. In the course of time, I got to know one thing – each heart has its pain.

One girl lost her father at a very early age and her brother has a serious medical problem. Another girl, recently broke up with a guy and was weeping over him through the weekend. Yet another guy lost his reputation at office and has been going through some rough weather. He has a girl friend and would like to get married soon, but his parents want his sister to be married first. That means another two years for his marriage. There is an indifferent guy in the team. When I spent time with him, I learnt that he got a seat in an US university for higher studies. But as time would have it, India exploded nuclear bombs which costed his visa.

Not all of them are from my team. But it is kind of consoling to know that I am not sailing alone in this rough waters.

There are some advantages too

Nothing official about it

For the past 4 weeks, I have been doing night shift. In the beginning, it was difficult to cope with it. Especially whenever there were escalations, as a team lead, I was called to the office thereby making my working hours more than 15 hrs a day.

But then as days went by, I found that it is better to come in the night. There are definitely advantages. There are not lot many people in the night, in fact out of around 100 people in the project, only 5 come in the night. So it is quite calm and you are left to do your work in peace. (Of course there is a danger of falling asleep). But most importantly I can skip those scores of unproductive meetings. This for me is a major relief.

But from Monday, I will be back to day shift.

Production support

Nothing official about it

In this 8 years in IT, I was never in production support. For the first time, I am into it and I can tell you, I don’t like it. I am in a two member production support group, supporting an application in California, USA. Also I am managing 4 member team supporting two more application for the same client.

This week, I came in to office at Thursday night and left home only on Saturday morning (Okay, I did sleep in the dorm for few hours). When I went home, I was dead tired and fell asleep. Some time later when I wasn’t even aware that I am alive, my pager starting beeping. Ideally my team mate, who is in day shift, should have responded, but he didn’t. So the issue got escalated. With escalation, the pager was continuously beeping. My sister woke me up to face the music. After few frantic calls, I got the situation under control. To resolve the issue, I came to office in the night. Instead of having a candle light dinner and a dance on a valentine’s day, I am here sitting and fixing the issue (I don’t have any one to go out is another issue, never getting escalated).

Night shift

Nothing official about it

As part of production support, I have been coming in the night shift from Monday. The application is not a critical one (atleast in my view), yet I have to come in the night. Whatever I am doing in the night could be done during my day time and given back to the client.
There are enough of facilities for those who come in the night – there is a dorm where one can rest/sleep; night snacks are provided around 1h30; house drop in a car; little bit more money. But there are other negative side-effects of coming in the night, importantly the psychological factor. One feels left out of the main crowd. The managers are indifferent as well.

In my case, I feel that I have fallen out of grace and that hurts a lot.

The bull returns

Life is like that, Nothing official about it

After my unpleasant return to India, first it was, ‘Simply sitting and monthly getting’ and then ‘Cleaning up other’s shit’ as a troubleshooter. The project manager was pretty impressed with my performance that he wants me to handle two of the most troublesome applications in the project. I have been already handling a small Vantive application and for the past 10 days I have been having a knowledge transfer of a JAVA/JSP application. If the plan goes well, I will be billable by the end of the month.

In the mean time, my previous VP (Vice president) called me couple of times to invite me to work under him. At the same time my current project manager says, he needs me to handle these two applications. It feels good to be in demand after being kicked between the poles. I have decided to maintain the status quo.

Late night training

Nothing official about it

Due to bad organizing, I had to attend a training, two hours after midnight. Just now the organizer at the offshore end realised that the trainings are also conducted at a more comfortable timings.

The training is on a time entry product called Niku. We will have to get the training from onsite people and train all the offshore resources. Hopefully our training and successive offshore trainings will go well.

Lessons for team-leads

Nothing official about it
  • A team member will be angry because you shared his glory and will hate you
    because you pointed out his fault
  • A TL should know how to, when to, where to use Please, Thank you and F–k
    you
  • A pat at the back is not very far from kick in the ass
  • Everything you say can be and will be used against you
  • If an asshole is on top, you should be prepared for what comes through it

    • Feeding others ego

    Nothing official about it

    It has been crazy and busy at office for the past 10 days. Our project’s onsite manager (one who decides who goes to onsite), wanted a tool to help him track the time entered by all the resources. It should read data from the time tracking tool and present in MS-Excel format. One of the team member who wanted to go onsite, convinced the manager that he could do it. Even after three months, he didn’t complete it, but got his dream realized. When I was asked if I could do that task, I took it up without knowing any of this background (as I was new into the team). I discussed with this guy and we came to a conclusion that it would take around 7 days to finish it (I still didn’t know that he took 3 months). Call it betrayal, but this guy informed the manager that it would take only 2 days to complete. I have read jokes about managers being morons, but this is my first encounter with one. Instead of confronting the team member, the manager came back to me questioning my capability. I got pissed off. I wanted to reply in action. I finished it a day before.

    A major release fell during the same time line and so I was busy, busy, busy. Once I met the target, I shot out a mail to the team member giving a piece of my mind. Talk about proof of being a moron – the onsite manager sent a mail to my immediate manager that I should apologize for the mail as it had affected the team member’s morale. He didn’t have an ounce of sense to grasp that this guy cheated him for three months and I finished it in a week along with overseeing a major release. I refused to apologize for the content of the mail, rather I said sorry for the tone of the mail. A great company to work for!