All eager and raring to start “working” I head over to the location specified by Karthik during our meeting. I recalled Karthik telling me that the Pespi ODC was located at 1st Floor, Block I, Right Wing. On entering the aforesaid location, I notice the Words NIKE ODC written in big letters. “Maybe I got the directions wrong!!!” I asked a lady sitting there busy typing code (FYI – She was unattractive) – “Excuse me… Could you please direct me to the Pespi ODC!”
Without even looking up – She said, “Go down the aisle and then take a right!”. Muttering a thanks, me, Prema, Meenraj and Ram headed over to the Pespi ODC.
We were supposed to meet a project manager called Srikanth. A little apprehensive as to what sort of person this Srikanth was going to be, I braced myself for the worst. I stopped to ask another person – who was busy checking his mail - for the location of Srikanth’s cubical, and then 4 of us headed over to meet the great Srikanth.
I had heard a lot of stories of these so called “Project Managers”, and I must add that none of my seniors and colleagues had portrayed this genesis of people (i.e. PM’s) as particularly friendly. Given that I had received this sort of a brainwashing before coming over to work, I was – in the least - expecting Srikanth to be a big burly figure that constantly issued orders to his subordinates and went around sucking the happiness out of every developer that reported to him.
My first meeting with Srikanth is something I will never forget. I went up to his cube. He looks up at me (us actually), and this is pretty much what happened
Me: “Srikanth?”
Srikanth: “Yes”
Me: “Oh … Hi Sir … My name is Sharath. And these are my friends here (pointing to the rest of the crew) … And we were asked to report to you today!”
Srikanth: “Ok (with a completely stoic expression) … And please call me Srikanth”
Me: “Ok … Sir …”
Srikanth: “I said – Call me Srikanth! (Raising his voice a bit this time around!)”
Me: “Yes Sir … Sorry … Srikanth!”
Srikanth: (Smiling).
The rest of the group introduces themselves, and he shakes hands with each one of us.
(Wow … Maybe my seniors just wanted me to be paranoid. If Srikanth was as friendly as he seemed to be, I think I’m going to have fun working under him!)
Srikanth asked us to wait for few mins so that he can check what are the activities planned for us for the day, and we willingly obliged.
A couple of mins later, Srikanth approaches us and tells us – “We need you to complete a few online sessions which are mandatory before you start working. The machines that we have requested for the new recruits (us) have not yet come in. But, the good news is that 3 guys are on leave today, and you can use their machines for the day!”
Wow … He had just said the magic word – “Work ….” Till date it had just been assignments, and tests. Now, I was getting to do work (or atleast I would get to do it shortly).
“ Yahoooooooooo … I had arrived !!! “
Srikanth calls a guy called Ramesh Rajalingam and delegates the task he had just briefed us on to Ramesh. A smiling Ramesh tells us the locations of the machines that are “free” for the day. I decided to pick the machine in one corner of the ODC (because – it was farthest from Srikanth’s desk, and also there was a cute chick – who I came to find out in the next couple of hours was Sumija - sitting there … Maybe I could hit on her!)
One thing I noticed was that people in this ODC were very friendly and all the more eager to help. Everybody was all the more happy to take a couple of mins of their busy schedules and come over to us, introduce themselves and make chit-chat. Ice Breaker – I believe – is the term, and these guys knew to do it in style.
Once we had settled down, I set out to complete the task that we were assigned to do (complete those darned online sessions). It was a piece of cake, and in 3 hours time, I had aced the tests that followed the sessions. No biggie … Pretty straight forward stuff …
“Another 4 hours to go before I can head home. Kya karrae … How do I kill time…” As they say, “An Idle mind is a devils workshop”. It was so true in my case. I decided to browse the internet. (You know the regular stuff. Search for some godforsaken thing using google and then sit and read about it.)
As a bonus, I saw that the machine had yahoo messenger installed. Awesome …… Now, I could tell my friends about how much fun I was having. I could see that some person called sujatha raj was logged in. Hmmmmmm … Must be the owner of this PC. I looked up at the name plate adjacent to the machine and it read “Sujatha Rajagopal”. Well … what the heck – she can log back in tomorrow. And I logged in.
Today, when I think back, I think of it as the first himalayan blunder I did whilst I was in the Pespi account (I’ll get to the “why is such a simple thing a blunder” in a bit).
6.00 pm approaches, and I lock my machine, inform Srikanth that all the courses that he had asked us to uptake were completed successfully. My colleagues also gave similar reports to him and we all headed home.
My verdict – First day at “work” …. Not so bad after all …
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