As I see myself: life

Showing posts with label life. Show all posts

Random Rambling
Aug 27, 2007

Life seems to be on the run. Just a month ago I used hog like a horse and slumber like a sloth all through the lovely week and go out to explore the countryside (or whatever was left of it in coimbatore) on the weekends. Now I lead a friday to monday life. The rest of the time just flies by.

Wake up on a monday morning with those legendary monday blues at about 8am. Get ready and go through the rush hour to office. The next thing worth mentioning is the beer bash on friday. The missing pieces in between are filled by me sitting in front of a computer, me drinking coffee and me banging my head all the time trying to figure out how in pluto's name do these software professionals survive, let alone make millions by just kutting all day long!!!

I had had enough of the software life. One full year filled with copied codes, reproduced assignments and sloppy professors. I expected the industry to be a lot better considering that we Indians make a lot of dollars doing IT development. And the industry was an awesome experience, at least in the beginning. I walked into NetApp to a great welcome. My manager walked with me upto my cubicle which already had my name plate on it. I had a free laptop with internet. New found friends took me to the pantry where food was free. I was told that on fridays beer was served, free ofcourse. The software industry employs some of the best looking girls too. And for a rough and hardened mechite like me this was paradise. I totally freaked out the first few days utilising every freebie that I could get. But suddenly I realised that I missed something amidst the partying. THE WORK!. What exactly do these software guys do to live that way? Well, they just code and code and code and more code!

In BITS I heard my computer science 'engineering' friends talk about development work happening in the MNC's in the nation and felt that they would be working at the fore-front of cutting edge computer science technology someday soon. They also talked about something called "testing" in a much demeaning way and I got the impression that it was just people putting in x=1 and x=0 to test whether a code is working or not.

Indeed even within the industry I found 'engineers' talk the same way about development and testing jobs. But soon I realised that these so called engineers do the same things, whether its development or testing, whether he's a fresher or a manager with 30years experience. They all do the same things. They all code and code and code! The interface might change, the exterior might change, the pay package might change, their timings can change, but their core work does not. They just code.

Well, 1 month into my internship and I have firmly decided never to go back to a pure software industry and work with software 'engineers' (they love that term in these companies!)

Engineering, in my opinion, is the useful manipulation of the laws of nature. Engineering has physics as its most fundamental building block. And that is how we were taught in school. If you are good in physics you can become an engineer. A computer science problem, even in its most primitive basic format cannot be remotely related to physics and hence it cannot be related to engineering.

I got into a little trouble when I started discussing this angle with my manager and asked him why he was not called a computer scientist instead of a software engineer!!

I am happy that I made a job with a core manufacturing firm where they have real engineers who practice engineering in the real sense of the term.

The trouble with living life from friday to monday is that you get these niggling seconds in between your orkut and free juices where you let your thoughts ramble randomly. And when you sit down to write a blog at the first chance you get, you are lost and those random sentiments desist to form a chorus. What results is this aphrodisiac poop that you have just read.

Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 10:49 PM 4 comments

Labels: fun, job, life, random, realisation, software, work

My first instruction!!
Jul 5, 2007

Getting settled in your cube or office
If there is no chair, borrow one from a conference room. Then contact the Workplace Resources people; they will get you a less fancy but more adjustable one. It may take them several days though. If your conference room chair disappears in the meantime, just go borrow another one. You have the right to sit down.
If you don't have a computer yet, twiddle your thumbs a few times, then go to lunch. In NB, there is the food court, but it's kind of doubtful, although the restaurants on the upper floors are ok. Better yet, wherever you are, just ask your co-workers to suggest a place to eat. Or look for write-ups of local eateries on the web. If all else fails, get in your car and drive around aimlessly.
If there is no name tag on your cubicle, just wait. One will show up in a week or two. If you just can't wait, ask your manager to ping the process.

I guess working in a new company has its advantages!

Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 4:44 PM 0 comments

Labels: fun, instruction, life, rules, work

The moments that defined me
Apr 26, 2007

This is where it all begins.....my BITSian life!

A trip of epic proportions A trip that brought out more stories in a single fortnight than the rest of my BITSian life put together. The credit goes to Maddy and MLM travels.

The "Kukka" posh b'days!!!