What I was told at the onset of the project, and the way I was being trained to support the product called Hyperion, I was led to believe that this was a high pressure, high performance demanding project with a lot of customer interaction (which, for the non-IT folks reading this, is a very big deal – especially considering that I was less than a year into the industry)
But a couple of months into my project, this was pretty much how my days went:
8.30 am – Reach Diapro and Swipe In
8.30 am to 9.00 am – Done with Breakfast and Newspaper
9.00 am to 9.05 am – Check Official mails to see if any work/task has been allotted for the day
At this time this is what’s going through my mind - “As expected – No work has been allotted for today!!! Heck, for the last 3 months, I never had any task allotted to me. No reason why today should be any different!”
9.05 am to 10.00 am – Orkut/Browse the Internet
10.00 am to 11.00 am – Pull my friends from their cubes. Justification – “Coffee Break”
11.00 am to 12.30 pm – Orkut/Browse the internet (By now I’m thinking – “Why the heck don’t my friends scrap me more often! Maybe I need to make more friends. That way – someone or the other will scrap me!”
12.30 pm to 2.30 pm – Extended Lunch break
2.30 pm to 3.30 pm - Orkut/Browse the internet (By now my thoughts are – “Even those new friends I made are not responding. What the heck is wrong with these people???”)
3.30 pm to 5.00 pm – Once again run around and pull people from their cubes - “Coffee Break”
5.00 pm to 5.30 pm – ***Work*** (Which by the way means - Check a few log files on a couple of servers, and update an excel sheet with the data found in these logs)
5.30 pm to 6.00 pm – Keep looking at my watch
6.00 pm – Swipe Out and then make a mad dash to catch a seat in the bus.
Yeah … I know you’re probably thinking – “Woooooooooow … He got paid for doing nothing … And he’s complaining about it!!! How bloody stupid!!!”
But, trust me, its fun when you’re jobless for a day or two. Maybe a week or two max. Even a month or two – although is pushing the envelope – is bearable. But, in my case, it had been 4 months and I was completely jobless!
It was really beginning to be a hit on my ego and more importantly – my morale.
Sometime during the 4th month, I raised my concern with Vrunda. She promptly referred me to Pak who - by the way - was her manager.
That meeting (encounter is what I’d like to call it) with Pak is something I will never forget. I feel, to this day, that it was the one “trigger” incident that eventually led me to leave Diapro.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Back to Square One – The same old Cubicle
After what seemed an eternity of ogling at hot babes, I was back in my Chennai office which by the way was infested with “medically certified” girls (i.e. I refer to them as girls – only because the doctor says so!).
Heck – there was no point in bitching about it. I had to live with it anyways.
Savita had somehow managed to get to office by around 10.30 am. After introducing her to the rest of the Chennai team, meetings with Pak, etc, we decided to take the rest of the day off – just so that she can relax and settle down. In effect I was extending her the same courtesy she had extended me on Day 1.
You see – after all – I can be a good host if I want to be.
:)
Another 15 days, and the transition is done. It is the last day of Savita’s stay at Chennai. I was also happy to be rid of her. Now, no more “someone” looking over my shoulders and bossing me around. Now, I was all by myself and I was the sole “offshore” member in the project. Boy – Did I feel on top of the world or not!
After Savita left for Bangalore, Vrunda – who was my manager for the project (Porrotta Systems Baseline Support) – was the person I turned to for any info and help. She was a very pleasant lady and was all the more happy to help me out.
I also took help from Savita on an on-off basis. But, somehow, atleast I seemed to think so, she wasn’t very keen to help me. It was as if she had “ridden” herself from the project and didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.
Anyways … I was doing well in the project. A month passed, another month passed, and so did another. By now – I had gotten really bored with my project. Let me explain why!
Heck – there was no point in bitching about it. I had to live with it anyways.
Savita had somehow managed to get to office by around 10.30 am. After introducing her to the rest of the Chennai team, meetings with Pak, etc, we decided to take the rest of the day off – just so that she can relax and settle down. In effect I was extending her the same courtesy she had extended me on Day 1.
You see – after all – I can be a good host if I want to be.
:)
Another 15 days, and the transition is done. It is the last day of Savita’s stay at Chennai. I was also happy to be rid of her. Now, no more “someone” looking over my shoulders and bossing me around. Now, I was all by myself and I was the sole “offshore” member in the project. Boy – Did I feel on top of the world or not!
After Savita left for Bangalore, Vrunda – who was my manager for the project (Porrotta Systems Baseline Support) – was the person I turned to for any info and help. She was a very pleasant lady and was all the more happy to help me out.
I also took help from Savita on an on-off basis. But, somehow, atleast I seemed to think so, she wasn’t very keen to help me. It was as if she had “ridden” herself from the project and didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.
Anyways … I was doing well in the project. A month passed, another month passed, and so did another. By now – I had gotten really bored with my project. Let me explain why!
End of Bangalore Days
Around 10 pm on 14th of Jan 2006, I and Savita head to the railway station for our trip to Chennai. And as is obvious by now to you – I ended up having to pay for the cab.
(If I ever find the guy that invented the concept of “Chivalry” – I’m going to KILL HIM!!!).
As per Pak’s plans, we were supposed to continue the rest of the knowledge transition – another 15 days – at Chennai. His reasoning was, this would give Savita a chance to visit Chennai, as well as set up your machine and the software you’d need to get going.
Let me tell you this - I had tried every trick in the book to try and stay back at Bangalore. I mean, why wouldn’t I? I had a luxurious room at my command, I was in Babe heaven, and I was siphoning off Rs. 200/- every day via my little “autorikshaw fraud” scheme!
A couple of things I tried were, volunteering to stay back at Bangalore to aid Savita, as she was a “girl” and probably wasn’t very comfortable with having to stay at an alien place. When that didn’t work, I tried painting a very gory picture of Chennai to Savita –saying stuff like – “Its freaking hot there … You’ll end up all black by the time you come back … Heck – what will happen to your value in the marriage market if you end up all dark?”
You know – the works. I did convinced Savita that Chennai was a place she better stay away from! But at the end of the day, Pak - who was our boss – had the last word in the whole deal. And sadly, he didn’t buy into the idea!
Anyways, back to the story. So - it’s freezing cold on the morning of 15th when I land in Chennai. Me and Savita get into a cab – which by the way, is an Ambassador that I’m pretty sure is older than me – and head to our respective homes. To be more precise, the itinerary was that I’d drop her off at her guest house and then head over to my house.
Her guest house turned out to be some sort of a shady spot. I swear … The second I saw the place - I kind of had the feeling that “These guys probably rent rooms by the hour and not by the day!”
But, I didn’t raise this concern of mine with her. For all you know, I was just being hypercritical - It was 5 am in the morning, and every hotel (except the 5 star ones ofcourse) would have looked shady – to me atleast - at that time.
And I was also aware that in the event of me raising my concerns - I’d end up having to search for an alternate hotel for her, or worst come worst case – letting her stay at my place for a couple of days till Diapro gave her a better place!
I definitely didn’t care that much about her to have to take so much of pain!
At the time of leaving, she says – “Hey Sharath … My phone is on roaming, if you don’t mind – can I use your spare SIM? I’ll pay for whatever I use.”
If you’re wondering what’s the deal with me carrying multiple SIM cards – I use two different SIM cards - One for sending SMS and the other for making calls. The reason is pretty simple – both the SIM cards gave me good rates for the function I was using them for!
I was sure I’d not get a penny out of her. So, I gave her my SMS walla SIM. That particular one did not have STD facility activated on it, and SMS’ing was free anyways. So, I was sure she couldn’t loot me – atleast not much anyways!
Sly me eh!!!
(Remind me to pat myself on the back)
All that done, I head over to my house. Once I am there, I get the next jolt. The Cab guy charged me Rs. 500 /- for the trip? It was company money, and ideally I shouldn’t have had any issues with him trying to loot me, but instincts suddenly kicked in – and I lashed out at him for trying to cheat me. I was like “Maybe you should hold a knife and ask me for the same. I’d gladly hand over the cash. But, other than that – I don’t think you’re getting anything more than 300 from me!”
Finally, I ended up paying him 400 bucks. And this was partly because the cabbie started swearing and cussing, and the neighbors’ lights started coming on thanks to all this hungama!
What a wonderful way to start my day eh!!!
(If I ever find the guy that invented the concept of “Chivalry” – I’m going to KILL HIM!!!).
As per Pak’s plans, we were supposed to continue the rest of the knowledge transition – another 15 days – at Chennai. His reasoning was, this would give Savita a chance to visit Chennai, as well as set up your machine and the software you’d need to get going.
Let me tell you this - I had tried every trick in the book to try and stay back at Bangalore. I mean, why wouldn’t I? I had a luxurious room at my command, I was in Babe heaven, and I was siphoning off Rs. 200/- every day via my little “autorikshaw fraud” scheme!
A couple of things I tried were, volunteering to stay back at Bangalore to aid Savita, as she was a “girl” and probably wasn’t very comfortable with having to stay at an alien place. When that didn’t work, I tried painting a very gory picture of Chennai to Savita –saying stuff like – “Its freaking hot there … You’ll end up all black by the time you come back … Heck – what will happen to your value in the marriage market if you end up all dark?”
You know – the works. I did convinced Savita that Chennai was a place she better stay away from! But at the end of the day, Pak - who was our boss – had the last word in the whole deal. And sadly, he didn’t buy into the idea!
Anyways, back to the story. So - it’s freezing cold on the morning of 15th when I land in Chennai. Me and Savita get into a cab – which by the way, is an Ambassador that I’m pretty sure is older than me – and head to our respective homes. To be more precise, the itinerary was that I’d drop her off at her guest house and then head over to my house.
Her guest house turned out to be some sort of a shady spot. I swear … The second I saw the place - I kind of had the feeling that “These guys probably rent rooms by the hour and not by the day!”
But, I didn’t raise this concern of mine with her. For all you know, I was just being hypercritical - It was 5 am in the morning, and every hotel (except the 5 star ones ofcourse) would have looked shady – to me atleast - at that time.
And I was also aware that in the event of me raising my concerns - I’d end up having to search for an alternate hotel for her, or worst come worst case – letting her stay at my place for a couple of days till Diapro gave her a better place!
I definitely didn’t care that much about her to have to take so much of pain!
At the time of leaving, she says – “Hey Sharath … My phone is on roaming, if you don’t mind – can I use your spare SIM? I’ll pay for whatever I use.”
If you’re wondering what’s the deal with me carrying multiple SIM cards – I use two different SIM cards - One for sending SMS and the other for making calls. The reason is pretty simple – both the SIM cards gave me good rates for the function I was using them for!
I was sure I’d not get a penny out of her. So, I gave her my SMS walla SIM. That particular one did not have STD facility activated on it, and SMS’ing was free anyways. So, I was sure she couldn’t loot me – atleast not much anyways!
Sly me eh!!!
(Remind me to pat myself on the back)
All that done, I head over to my house. Once I am there, I get the next jolt. The Cab guy charged me Rs. 500 /- for the trip? It was company money, and ideally I shouldn’t have had any issues with him trying to loot me, but instincts suddenly kicked in – and I lashed out at him for trying to cheat me. I was like “Maybe you should hold a knife and ask me for the same. I’d gladly hand over the cash. But, other than that – I don’t think you’re getting anything more than 300 from me!”
Finally, I ended up paying him 400 bucks. And this was partly because the cabbie started swearing and cussing, and the neighbors’ lights started coming on thanks to all this hungama!
What a wonderful way to start my day eh!!!
Monday, December 10, 2007
Auto Thief
On the first and second days of my stay at Bangalore, I was traveling by Auto to and from office to my guesthouse. And the scary part was that, I was paying anything between Rs. 100/- to Rs. 150/- in either direction.
Obviously, I saw the economic unfeasibility of this and I thought that I would rather use the company bus service to commute to and from office. Please take into consideration that – I knew that this meant that I would have to stand for 1+ hours’ as the Bangalore Diapro busses were packed to the brim with employees.
With this in mind, the first thing I did on reaching office - on Day # 3 - is send a mail to the the Pividus team. For those who’re wondering who they are – they’re the financial ops team @ Diapro.
The mail was as below:
Hi Pividus Team,
My name is Sharath Kumar R (Emp # 111500), and I am currently on relocation to Bangalore. Since the referral guesthouse provided to me is at a distance of 12 kms from the office where I work, I am forced to rely on autos for travel to and from office. This is causing me an expense of Rs. 100/- to Rs 150/-, in one direction, every day.
To avoid this overhead in relocation expenses, I would be happy to use the company bus facility for commuting to and fro office, provided that the same is reimbursed under the relocation policy.
Kindly provide the necessary approvals for the same.
With Best Regards,
Sharath Kumar R
And this is mail I got in response from them by the end of the day:
Sharath,
Please go ahead and raise a requisition for using the company bus facility in Bangalore. But, please keep in mind that, for all purposes, it will be treating as an employee’s personal expense. Hence, we will not be reimbursing the costs toward the same.
Hope this clarifies!
With Warm Regards,
Pividus Team
I don’t know what to call it. Was it surprise? Was it humiliation? Was it a feeling of being extorted?
I don’t know!!!
Here I was. Trying to be a good employee and help the organization cut its cost. And there the organization was. Trying to pull a fast one on me by saying – “You can travel by the bus – But we aren’t going to reimburse you the cost incurred for the same!”
All I know is that I knew I wasn’t going to try and do the company any more favors.
So, for the next 2 days I continued using autos to commute. That’s when an idea struck me. “Why don’t I use the company bus anyways? That way I can save up on the cost of autos – but in the end I can claim for the same!”
I know – It wasn’t the most ethical of things to do. But hey, I never said I was a Gandhiji. Diapro was a fuck all pay master. And I could do with every other penny I could wrangle or wry out of Kemzi’s fat pocket.
But, there was a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig problem. Since I used to commute via the company bus in Chennai, I knew that there were often checking squads that boarded the bus to see which employees were traveling for free. Ok … Lets give you a little bit of background into why this was/is being done.
At the time of joining Diapro, I was paying Rs. 800/- towards using the company bus service. Within 3 months - it rose to Rs. 1150/-. Another 3 months later – it went to Rs. 1350/-. As most of you would’ve guessed by now, our salaries were still the same as it was 6 months back. So, obviously every one was pissed off. I mean who wouldn’t be? In effect, we were paying nearly double the amount for commute. And that too in less than 6 months!
When we raised this question to the Diapro management, this is what we were told - “Since the cost of Petrol had gone up, the travel contractors had raised the request to hike prices. Since Diapro is a stern believer is moral practices we couldn’t be oblivious to their requisition. Hence we decided to hike the costs.”
This infuriated the employees even more. As Diapro management were trying to “not be oblivious” to the agony of the contractors, but were “completely oblivious” to the agonies of their employees who were equally badly hit by the increase in petrol costs and inflation in general.
As a general effect of this unhappiness amongst the employees, some of them had decided to beat Diapro at their own game. In other words, they decided to dupe Diapro and their contractors.
What these people did were – they unregistered themselves from using the company bus services, but still used it to travel everyday to work. What they did in effect was - they were saving themselves Rs. 1350/- every month.
All of a sudden there was a mass cancellation of subscriptions to the bus service. But, the busses were still running at maximum capacity. It took a couple of months for Diapro to realize what was going on. And to counter this, Diapro got its employees in the travel department to “raid” the bus and check whether everyone onboard had a valid bus pass. Although, people reading this might feel that Diapro beat the employees in our game – you’re mistaken. There were a million loop holes these Smart Alec employees exploited and got away scot-free, the simplest of which was – “I forgot my Bus pass at home!”
:D
And just a disclaimer – I was one of the employees who continued to pay for the company bus service, but regret – to this day – that I didn’t pull a fast one on Diapro by following in their footsteps.
Ok … Now that you have a background of the same, let’s get back to my story.
So, one of the first things I wanted to do is to find out how often there were “raids” on the route I took. To ascertain this, I gave Srivatsan a call and, after the initial chit-chat, I got straight to the point.
Me: “Dae Machi … Do you have “raids” here often on your busses?”
Srivatu: “Raid??? What do you mean raids?”
I proceeded to explain the entire thing I explained above to him.
Srivatu: “Nothing of that sort happens here machi … the busses are way too crowded to permit anything of that sort to happen!”
Me: “Hmmmmm … Interesting …”
I went to tell him what had happened earlier in the day with the Pividus team and what I had in mind. Srivatsan was a near and dear friend. In short – he was my confidant.
Srivatu: “Sure thing machi … You should do that. I mean – what else can I say. You tried to save the company some money, and in return they tried to stick a rusted rod in your arse and give it a twist as well. They deserve it man!”
Me: “You sure I won’t get into trouble – RIGHT?”
Srivatu: “101% sure. There is no such thing as raids in Bangalore. That much I guarantee you!”
I was happy. “Easiest 2500 bucks I ever made!” was what was going on in my mind.
But oh boy – was I in for a nasty surprise!!!
(More on that later)
And, with that, I started using the company’s bus service for the rest of my stay at Bangalore.
In my defense I only have this to say - I'm morally grey !!!
Obviously, I saw the economic unfeasibility of this and I thought that I would rather use the company bus service to commute to and from office. Please take into consideration that – I knew that this meant that I would have to stand for 1+ hours’ as the Bangalore Diapro busses were packed to the brim with employees.
With this in mind, the first thing I did on reaching office - on Day # 3 - is send a mail to the the Pividus team. For those who’re wondering who they are – they’re the financial ops team @ Diapro.
The mail was as below:
Hi Pividus Team,
My name is Sharath Kumar R (Emp # 111500), and I am currently on relocation to Bangalore. Since the referral guesthouse provided to me is at a distance of 12 kms from the office where I work, I am forced to rely on autos for travel to and from office. This is causing me an expense of Rs. 100/- to Rs 150/-, in one direction, every day.
To avoid this overhead in relocation expenses, I would be happy to use the company bus facility for commuting to and fro office, provided that the same is reimbursed under the relocation policy.
Kindly provide the necessary approvals for the same.
With Best Regards,
Sharath Kumar R
And this is mail I got in response from them by the end of the day:
Sharath,
Please go ahead and raise a requisition for using the company bus facility in Bangalore. But, please keep in mind that, for all purposes, it will be treating as an employee’s personal expense. Hence, we will not be reimbursing the costs toward the same.
Hope this clarifies!
With Warm Regards,
Pividus Team
I don’t know what to call it. Was it surprise? Was it humiliation? Was it a feeling of being extorted?
I don’t know!!!
Here I was. Trying to be a good employee and help the organization cut its cost. And there the organization was. Trying to pull a fast one on me by saying – “You can travel by the bus – But we aren’t going to reimburse you the cost incurred for the same!”
All I know is that I knew I wasn’t going to try and do the company any more favors.
So, for the next 2 days I continued using autos to commute. That’s when an idea struck me. “Why don’t I use the company bus anyways? That way I can save up on the cost of autos – but in the end I can claim for the same!”
I know – It wasn’t the most ethical of things to do. But hey, I never said I was a Gandhiji. Diapro was a fuck all pay master. And I could do with every other penny I could wrangle or wry out of Kemzi’s fat pocket.
But, there was a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig problem. Since I used to commute via the company bus in Chennai, I knew that there were often checking squads that boarded the bus to see which employees were traveling for free. Ok … Lets give you a little bit of background into why this was/is being done.
At the time of joining Diapro, I was paying Rs. 800/- towards using the company bus service. Within 3 months - it rose to Rs. 1150/-. Another 3 months later – it went to Rs. 1350/-. As most of you would’ve guessed by now, our salaries were still the same as it was 6 months back. So, obviously every one was pissed off. I mean who wouldn’t be? In effect, we were paying nearly double the amount for commute. And that too in less than 6 months!
When we raised this question to the Diapro management, this is what we were told - “Since the cost of Petrol had gone up, the travel contractors had raised the request to hike prices. Since Diapro is a stern believer is moral practices we couldn’t be oblivious to their requisition. Hence we decided to hike the costs.”
This infuriated the employees even more. As Diapro management were trying to “not be oblivious” to the agony of the contractors, but were “completely oblivious” to the agonies of their employees who were equally badly hit by the increase in petrol costs and inflation in general.
As a general effect of this unhappiness amongst the employees, some of them had decided to beat Diapro at their own game. In other words, they decided to dupe Diapro and their contractors.
What these people did were – they unregistered themselves from using the company bus services, but still used it to travel everyday to work. What they did in effect was - they were saving themselves Rs. 1350/- every month.
All of a sudden there was a mass cancellation of subscriptions to the bus service. But, the busses were still running at maximum capacity. It took a couple of months for Diapro to realize what was going on. And to counter this, Diapro got its employees in the travel department to “raid” the bus and check whether everyone onboard had a valid bus pass. Although, people reading this might feel that Diapro beat the employees in our game – you’re mistaken. There were a million loop holes these Smart Alec employees exploited and got away scot-free, the simplest of which was – “I forgot my Bus pass at home!”
:D
And just a disclaimer – I was one of the employees who continued to pay for the company bus service, but regret – to this day – that I didn’t pull a fast one on Diapro by following in their footsteps.
Ok … Now that you have a background of the same, let’s get back to my story.
So, one of the first things I wanted to do is to find out how often there were “raids” on the route I took. To ascertain this, I gave Srivatsan a call and, after the initial chit-chat, I got straight to the point.
Me: “Dae Machi … Do you have “raids” here often on your busses?”
Srivatu: “Raid??? What do you mean raids?”
I proceeded to explain the entire thing I explained above to him.
Srivatu: “Nothing of that sort happens here machi … the busses are way too crowded to permit anything of that sort to happen!”
Me: “Hmmmmm … Interesting …”
I went to tell him what had happened earlier in the day with the Pividus team and what I had in mind. Srivatsan was a near and dear friend. In short – he was my confidant.
Srivatu: “Sure thing machi … You should do that. I mean – what else can I say. You tried to save the company some money, and in return they tried to stick a rusted rod in your arse and give it a twist as well. They deserve it man!”
Me: “You sure I won’t get into trouble – RIGHT?”
Srivatu: “101% sure. There is no such thing as raids in Bangalore. That much I guarantee you!”
I was happy. “Easiest 2500 bucks I ever made!” was what was going on in my mind.
But oh boy – was I in for a nasty surprise!!!
(More on that later)
And, with that, I started using the company’s bus service for the rest of my stay at Bangalore.
In my defense I only have this to say - I'm morally grey !!!
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