Nov 1 - First Salary

D-Day had finally arrived … First Stop – The TBI ATM at the corner of the street (I hope you still remember that we “had-no-other-choice-but-to-choose-TBI” for our salary account). I had already begun to build castles in the air. I was already thinking – “what will I do with that “extra” lump of cash? Maybe I should buy that Nike shoe I always wanted. Or maybe I should get mom a Saree and dad a Shirt. Naaa … Mom already has more than enough saree’s and dad has way too many shirts! Maybe I should just get myself those shoes. After all – I deserved a little pampering!”

(Selfish me eh!!!)

Still … Deeply immersed in thought, I arrive at the TBI ATM box only to find another 5 people standing in front of me. Basically, I am a very impatient person. And the sight of such a huvge queue would’ve ordinarily made me come back later. But today was different wasn’t it. It was salary day. The most anticipated day of the week. And there was no chance in hell I was too about to let a 5 person queue make me head back. So, still dreaming, I wait patiently in queue. A grueling 5 mins later, I get my turn. Yahoooooo … Finally, I get to lay hands on my first salary.

I punch in the pin code (I ain’t telling you what that is), and hit the button that says retrieve balance. I am eagerly hoping to see the message “Your Balance is – Rs. 14,500/-“, but the stupid machine displays the message – “Your Balance is – Rs. 8,841/-.

What was the old saying??? Ah … yes … “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched!” Well, I got a taste of that right there!

All upset, thinking there must’ve been some sort of mistake, I punched the buttons that would give me the details of the last 5 transactions, and there it was, right in front of me

Last 5 transactions:

31/10/05 – Salary – Rs. 8858/-

My dream world had come down in a jiffy. It felt like someone had hit me on the head with a sledgehammer. Obviously, I was in a mixed state of emotions – Confused, anger, despair, upset. You name it – and I was probably experiencing that!

Anyways … I realized that standing there in the ATM cube and cursing the machine was not going to help me in the least. Maybe, my pay-slip would give me the details of where the remaining 5600 odd rupees had disappeared. (And besides that – the other people outside the ATM had begun to bang on the doors by now!)

The dream Nike shoes I wanted to buy remained what it was – A dream! With a heavy heart and a completely let down feeling, I started my bike and headed over to work.

Stipend Period Ends – Salary Period Starts

I had been with the account for close to a month now. And still, there were no signs of any good work (except these assignments that we were given) coming my way.

By now, I had bought a bike. A brand new Hero Honda Glamour. It’s a nice bike – for city driving. But, for all those bike enthusiasts out there who are looking for a bike that you can use for long distance commute – stay away from this one. You’ll scorch a hole in ur pocket (on petrol and maintenance) and if you’re lucky – you might also get a Slip Disk complaint in the process.

Well, more on that later. Talking about the bike, just so that you know - I had taken a Rs. 20,000/- soft loan from Diapro (on of the perks that we got) for the same. Where else was a person like me, who had just started off his career, go for the huge down payment required for a bike. But, the bike bought me a lot of joy, and I had started roaming around the city a lot – thanks to my bike. And I never regretted the decision to take the soft loan. Atleast not until the 1^st of Nov (that’s when I saw my first Salary Slip).

:)

It had been four months since I joined Diapro, and my stipend period – of 3 months – had ended. This month (October 05) onwards, I was supposed to get salary. Yahooooooooooo … No more 9,500 bucks per month (stipend). From this month onwards, I would be getting 14,800 bucks per month (Oh … That was what my offer letter mentioned. But boy – was I in for a rude shock or what!!!)

Meeting with the Delivery Manager – Samesh Balluri

It was about 10 days since we had entered the account. We had been assigned mentors, and guess what – My mentor was SUJATHA (A few months down the road, when me and Suj were best of pals, she told me that Srikanth had assigned me to Suj on purpose. Just so that we could iron out our difference. The moment I heard that revelation, my respect for Srikanth went up a notch!) …

It reminded me of “Murphy’s Law” – ‘’If something can go wrong – It WILL!!!’’ I mean, I couldn’t find any other logical explanation for that, besides being an exercise to validate Murphy’s Law i.e.

So … There I was – Stuck, I believe is the term! And that too at the hands of a lunatic bungling baboon, who had a special liking for making a fool out of me.

But heck, I was not the sort of person who was going to be intimated by some women who was out of her mind. Another week passed, and still no solid “work” had come our way. We were asked to learn some stuff like EJB’s, JDBC, Weblogic Tuning, etc and complete some menial “understanding based” assignments on these areas. But, they were not the sort of “work” I was looking forward too.

Being a master as plagiarism (thank my 4 years at NITC for that), I’d wait till Ram or Meen completed the assignments and then ask em to share it. Once I had the code on my machine, it was just a matter of mins before I changed the variable names, tweaked the code to be more efficient, add a System.out.println once in between every 15 lines of code (in the name of “aiding debugging”, and ‘Hey Presto’ you had a completely original bit of code ready for submission.

No idea why – but the folks never caught my little trick. Maybe, they didn’t give a damn. But, I prefer to think that - I was successful in “pulling a fast one” on the unsuspecting souls. Either ways, bottom line – It was close to 2 weeks now, and I for one was getting bored at not getting a taste of the action.

During one of those days, the entire team got together for a meeting. It was in this meeting, that I came face to face with Samesh Balluri, the Account Manager for Pespi ODC. Every single person in the account was full of praise for him. He welcomed us freshers on board (obviously – it was about 2 weeks overdue, but heck – I’m just being over critical here).

Maybe its just me, but in life, you come across some people, who for no reason scare or intimidate you. Take the policeman for instance. You know you haven’t stolen anything. But, for some reason you see him and you start panicking. Similar was the case with Samesh Balluri – atleast to me. I still have no clue why I was scared of him. But, every time I see him or run into him, nervousness hits me and I end up all tensed and worried. Maybe it’s the perfume he uses. Or maybe it’s his aura. Or maybe his Yin v/s mine. What the hell – bottom line – I was and still am a little intimidated by him!

Pespi Account – Day 3

Somewhere around 11.00 am we – the “freshers” – were pulled into a conference room. We were supposed to meet a new manager called Suresh. He was supposed to try and allocate us to projects. (Atleast that’s what we all thought as we went for our first “meeting”). It turned out that Suresh wanted to assess our comfort levels in different areas of Java Technology, and thereby wanted to plan our trainings and self learning modules.

He decides to start off with Ram. Now, let me talk about Ram a little bit before I go back to the meeting. Ram, is a wonderful, albeit reserved, person. He makes an excellent techie, a wonderful communicator, and above all – he helps people with their work. The only thing is – he’s a little proud of his knowledge in Java/J2EE (we can attribute it to the fact that he had been working on it for a longer while than any of us in the training batch). But who isn’t proud of his/her knowledge – eh?

Well … Now back to the conference room.

Suresh: “Ram … Tell me something about yourself and also, how comfortable are you with Java?”

Ram: “Well … I am Ram … I did my BTech from MIT (Madras Institute of Technology) … I’ve done GNIIT program and hence, I am very comfortable with Java/J2EE”

Suresh: (jotting these things down) “Oh … Good … Will you need training in any particular areas?”

Ram: (confidently) “No … I don’t think so!”

Suresh: “Good … Now … What about you Sharath … tell us about yourself, and your comfort level in Java.”

Well… Obviously, I had my ego to protect, and I was not about to let Ram steal the show:

Me: “Well … I’m Sharath … And I did my BTech in Mech Engg from NITC … I’ve got an IBM certification in C++ and my comfort factor in Java is reasonably good.”

Suresh: “Any training/improvement areas?”

Unlike Ram, I didn’t have the luxury of saying – “No … I don’t”, because frankly, I needed some help in certain areas. And I definitely was not going to let my ego come in the way.

Me: “Yes … I’d like some help in learning Threads and Swings. Never understood them properly!”

Suresh: (continuing to make notes of all these) “Good … Lets see what we can do about that”

The baton eventually passes on to Meen and then Prema. And in another 10 mins Suresh wrapped up the meeting and we guys – prema included – headed over to the garden for a coffee, and a gossip session on the events of the day.

Pespi Account – Day 2

When I reached the ODC in the morning, my desktop had already arrived. My pride and happiness knew no bounds. Finally, I had my own work PC. Yahooooooooo !!!

I settled down to tweak my system, configuring the mail server, etc etc … A couple of mins later, I hear a lady shout out, “who the hell was using my PC?” I look around and see that the source of this entire ruckus is a short, kindda plump lady standing in front of the machine I was using yesterday.

“Maybe this was Sujatha… The owner of that PC. But from the looks of it, she seems very upset. Maybe I should let her settle down before walking over to say hi … But – hey – she seemed upset about someone using her system … What did I do wrong? I didn’t surf any porno site did I .. Hmmmmmm … No … I am sure about that … Then what could it be???”

While I was sitting at my desk thinking about all these things, oblivious to my surroundings, Sumija had informed Sujatha that there was this fresher called Sharath who was using her system and maybe she should talk to me directly about screwing up her PC.

(Somehow – Sumija didn’t look all that cute to me now!!!)

:P

A couple of seconds later – I’m still immersed in thought – Sujatha walks up and raps me on my shoulder. I am jolted back into reality, and I must say I was shocked to see Sujatha standing in front of me all perplexed and flustered.

I wanted to say – “Hi … You must be Sujatha … I am Sharath and I am new here …” But try all I could, all I did was stare at her like a moron. In my defense - I had a good reason for that.

Sujatha was giving me this murderous look of rage!!! It was as if I had killed her husband and then slept with her sis – back to back!!!

Sujatha: (In a very angry tone) “Are you the fresher who was using my machine yesterday?”

Me: (Trying to sound pleasant) “Ummm … Yes”

Sujatha: “What were you directed to do?”

Me: “Complete a couple of courses on VelociQ”

Sujatha: “And … Did you do anything more than that”

Me: (My mind still racing … Did I by any chance watch porno on that godforsaken machine???) “Well … I don’t think so … Why do u ask?”

Sujatha: “Did you use yahoo messenger?”

Me: “Oh yes … I did … Actually …”

(But before I could complete my sentence)

Sujatha: (shouting) “Who the HELL asked you to use that …”

Me: (It was as if she had slapped me in the face … Esp with the usage of such aggressive language! And by now the entire ODC was looking at us) “I … Me …. Ummmmm … Ohhhhhhhh …”

Sujatha: “You were asked to do a particular task … And you should’ve just done that … Not tinker around with other things on other peoples desktops!”

Me: (By now I had begun to look like roadkill) “I’m sorry … I … I’m really very sorry … I didn’t mean to intrude into your privacy or anything like that!!!” (But what was actually going on in my head was, you stupid bitch … why don’t you just log back into the application. It doesn’t take 2 mins to do that does it!!!)

Sujatha: “Who the hell do you think you are??? You’re just a fresher … Remember that!!!”

I guess it had to do with her talking about me as if I were some sort of scum (referring to me as “just a fresher” – I mean how dare she!!!), but in a jiffy, all the remorse I felt for jacking her system just evaporated. And the next second, I was giving her an “I don’t give a shit” look. I think she must’ve got the hint. Or for all you know – she must’ve thought she had conquered me. I didn’t give a damn!!!

But, I saw her storm towards Srikanth, and because he was a manager, her demeanor towards him was in stark difference to the treatment that was handed out to me. Obviously, she was not stupid to shout at a PM the way she had shouted at me. But, then she had sent the message across to Srikanth – That I was a trouble maker.

But, Srikanth being the gentleman he is, calmed her down, and didn’t even question me about what I had done or why I had done it. I mean – he had understood and accepted the whole incident as a honest mistake, and not as a malignant intention to mess up a computer, then why didn’t that idiot Sujatha?

What the hell, you can’t be friends with everyone can you. And I’m sure I am not going to be friends with this bitch!!! (Boy … Was I mistaken … Because a couple of months down the road – Suj and me turned out to be the closest of friends … But, I’ll get to that in due course)

My friends – Meen and Ram – had also witnessed the commotion (thanks to Sujatha being so loud, I think even the guys in the next building would have heard the ruckus), and obviously they wanted to hear my end of the story. I decided to break the event over a coffee. The three of us grab a cup of coffee, and take a “seat” in the garden to discuss. Obviously, I was pissed. For one, I had been insulted in front of the entire ODC … And that too on my second day at work. And more importantly, a freaking lady had made me look like pink arsed baboo!!! What could be more insulting that that???

Hence, I started bitching away to glory. (I don’t want to get into the details, but I am sure the guys who’re reading this will know what sort of shit men say when they’re upset and more importantly – Insulted!!!) Maybe to boost my morale – but the guys also chipped in their 20 cents. Aaaaaaahhhhhh … One coffee and 30 mins of bitching, and I was back in business!!!

:)

I announce - “Back to work … “ and we three head back to our cubes.

Ofcourse, Sujatha was there at hers – giving me wicked sneers and stares of contempt. But, I couldn’t care less, and now that I think of it, I remember having returned her stares.

Well … Thankfully, I wasn’t reporting to her!!!

Pespi Account – Day 1

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 1^st 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 …

Project Allotment

The very next day Karthikeyan called us – the people who had cleared the exams – for a meeting. “Congrats on clearing the exams … From Monday onward you folks will start work on real-time projects for real-time customers … You will need to report to the Sozhlingannalur office effective tomorrow ... I have the list of names and the ODC’s to which you will start work effective Monday!”

In another 5 mins, I found out that myself, Ram (one of the two guys who passed the exam on Day - 1), Premma (an ugly looking babe with a horribly receding hairline), and Meenraj (a guy who passed along with me on Day – 2) were informed that we would be working for the Pespi project.

Could it get any better??? I was getting to work for one of the largest Retailers in the world.

(Little did I know – I was jumping face first into a Pool of shit!!!)

But as they say – Ignorance is bliss – and at that moment I was uber happy that I would start “working” effective Monday!!!

The Exams – Day 2

This time, I was determined not to fail. And with an extra ounce of effort (translated to – staying up to 3 am in preparing from every nook and corner of the book), I head out to work the following morning.

Another 2 hours … I clicked on the Submit button, and wait for the system to tell me my fate…

You know, it’s a really weird thing - that when you’re anticipating and waiting for an event to happen, it seems to take forever to happen. It was the case with me too. I kept waiting for an eternity (or so it seemed) for the results and finally, it was there:

“YOU HAVE PASSED !!!”

Score: 88/100

I was elated. I had passed…. Yipeeeeeeeeeeee !!!

I let out a yelp of happiness. The invigilator (Karthikeyan) gave me a thumbsup and a grin. I gracefully left the hall and waited outside for my friends to come out.

Again … I saw a sea of upset and unhappy and tear ridden faces (Krithika included). But, heck, I had passed, and at that moment, I didn’t care what the others felt – I was on the TOP OF THE WORLD!!!

Yahoooooooo … Time to hit a pub … Booze myself insane …

The Exams – Day 1

The D-Day arrives, and thanks to a helloffa lot of preparations, I am confident, albeit a little nervous, about crack the exams.

After a gruesome 2 hours of the online examination, I await the results (which is displayed as soon as you submit your paper) – I see the message –

“YOU HAVE FAILED !!!”
Score: 78/100

My mind was racing … “There must be something wrong with the system!!!”. But, then I turn around and see a lot many more disappointed faces in the class. All of them – except 2 – had flunked.

One of the girls called Krithika even broke out crying. Actually quite a few of the girls had a tear in their eyes. But, she was a cutie pie… And because of that I cared about her enough to want to calm her down!!!
U never know when u can score a few extra points with someone. And hey – I had just flunked an exam for the first time – I had to make something out of the relatively “lost and grave” situation didn’t I…



With a bad temper and the shame of having failed an exam – I return home !!!

Training Ends

After a hectic – albeit fun and frolic filled – 6 weeks of training, we needed to clear our exams to be herded off into different projects (or ODC’s as they are called at Diapro).

Just to be on the safer side, we ask Karthikeyan (oh … btw – he was our Point Of Contact for anything and everything during our training days) – “Karthik … What happens if we don’t pass this exam”. Karthik replied, “You get 3 chances to crack the exam. All you people here are very bright. I am sure all of you will clear it in the first attempt itself!”. Not happy with the answer, I decided to push the envelope and asked him “What if we flunk in all 3 attempts?”

An obviously flustered Karthik replies “Well … In that case, there are two options. Option One – your bond period is extended by an additional 3 months – i.e. from 15 months to 18 months. And also, your stipend period extends by an additional 3 months as well – i.e. from 3 months to 6 months. Option Two – you can leave Wipro and your bond amount will be refunded to you”

Wow … What a relief … they wouldn’t throw us out if we didn’t pass the exam. What more could I ask for. (In school, if I flunked in any exams – My mom would cut my pocket money for the rest of the year (financial sanctions!). That was besides getting very nasty and grounding me for good (playing the supercop!). And since I knew this was the scenario at home, I prepared extra hard for every exam I took, and thankfully, never ended up with a flunk on my hands)

Batch Splitting

A week after joining, we were informed that the new batch would be split into different streams. One consisting of Java and associated Web Technologies, and the other to consist of people who would go into C++ and Telecom domains. Thankfully, I got sifted in the first group (no idea what was the logic behind that decision. But I was very pleased with it – given that it was the most happening technology of the time.)

We also are informed that the Java stream would have their classes at the Guindy office whereas the C++ stream will continue their training at the Sozhlingannalur office. It couldn’t get any better than this. Now, I needn’t get up at 6.30 so that I can catch the bus to work at 7.05. I could sleep to my hearts content, get up at 8 and go to training by 9.



Life was just perfect.

20th June 2005

“Auntie … I’ve got to go … I don’t want to be late… Its my first day you know!!!”.

Its 7.30 am and I’m already dressed and ready to go work. Actually, even today when I think about it, I surprise myself. Getting up at 6 o clock without any alarms whatsoever, shaved and showered in a record 10 mins, ironed my clothes and dressed to impress. Wow …

Oh … If you’re wondering what’s the Big Deal? Well – If you knew me from college – Then you’d know. Since you probably don’t – Let me take you a couple of months back – when I was still in college.

Its 8.00 am on a wonderful Monday morning, and the stupid alarm goes off. The first thing that comes to my mind is – kill him!!! But, I settle for turning it off and then dozing off to sleep. Around 11 am I come to my senses, wash up, go to the canteen for a coffee and bun, and wait for our Mess (dining hall) to open. After a lovely lunch, I decide to play Quake 3 for an hour. Anyways the next session is at 2.00 pm. Plenty of time left…

2.00 am – I join my friends and walk leisurely to class and settle down in the last row in class. Our professor (a nice guy called M.L Joy) comes in and he decides to talk about whom all has attendance shortage and what they plan to do about it. He takes out his roster and the first name he calls out is – Sharath Kumar … Roll No. 60. Since it was something I had expected, I wasn’t too shocked. I stand up giving him a very warm smile. He returns the favor in kind. Then he gives us facts and numbers. “Sharath … In this semester, of the 46 classes I have taken, you seem to have turned up for only 20 of them. Any particular reason as to why you didn’t make it to the remaining 26 classes???”

Ooopsss … Now that was something I didn’t anticipate! I start of with my “Sir … I was sick … Grandmother not well …” et al. Knowing me pretty well (he has taken class for us for 3 of my prev semesters. And in each of those papers I had attendance shortage, and every time I had killed an uncle or aunt or grandparents to escape the punishment), he just laughed it off. I guess the rate at which my cheeks were flustering red was fun enough for him. Thankfully there were a few other people who also had the same issue. And anyways, he was a nice guy. He manipulated the attendance records so that none of us had any attendance shortage issues. Thanks sir … I will never forget you!!!

And also, I’m the kindda guy who doesn’t give a shit about how I dress … Trust me – For real - I dress baaaaaaaaaaaaaad …

I have this really sweet junior in college called Annie from college – who nicknamed me “Chappals” (I found that out when I tried calling my phone from her cell – the lil devil had stored me under that name) – which she revealed was cause of the fact that I always wore my bathroom chappals to college, movies, luncheons, et al. And my brother (who also went to the same college as me) used to tell me that his batchmates used to call me a bear -> Thanks to the rag like clothes I wear (also, I must give due credit to my Herculean (read as a big fat oaf) build!!!)

Now, back to the main story… Imagine a guy with that sort of a background - wearing shoes, a well-ironed full sleeved shirt, trousers, matching socks and shoes. Hell – I even a handkerchief in my pocket (you get the picture!!!)

After a rushed breakfast, me, my uncle (and that dappa scooter of his) head out to Diapro’s Guindy office. There I meet the guys from the previous day. I say my ta-ta’s to my uncle and board the Diapro bus heading to their Sozhlingannalur campus. It was like being on cloud 9. I was so ecstatic at finally being a part of the Diapro family.

Well … Before I get too melodramatic, lets move on. Another hour later, we arrive at the campus. Man … It was awesome. Let me take a min to describe the place. Firstly, it was huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge!!! And it was plush with greenery, fountains, so many buildings, so many open spaces, so many cars and bikes. In short – the works! It added to my ecstatic state.

Shortly, after getting our entrance passes, we were hoarded to classrooms where our training was scheduled to start. The classrooms were state of the art. Nothing like what I had seen in college. Shortly, we were told that the first couple of days would be orientation session – read as sessions where senior HR folks would come and blow Diapro’s trumpet, as to why it was the best place to work, and the career growth option provided to the employees, etc etc etc. Basically, a lot of fart !!!

Well … The first couple of days pass in a similar fashion. Nothing major or memorable happened in those days. So, I won’t bother writing about those initial days.

First Day at Diapro

I entered the Diapro Technology building located at Guindy, Chennai on the 18^th of June 2005 for the first time. Like everyone else there, I was full of hopes and expectations. Little did I know that hell awaits me a few months down the road (but more on that latter).

Oh … you’re probably wondering who I am and what I am doing here in front of this tech giants office. Let me take you on a little trip down memory lane.

Hi … My name is Sharath and I am BTech graduate (yet another?) from NITC who was recruited by Diapro Technologies for the “technological” operations in India.

To those who aren’t aware – NITC a.k.a National Institute of Technology, Calicut is one of the most prestigious universities in the country. It takes a relatively lot of preparation to crack the entrance exams that can fetch you a seat in this college. And to add to that – there are no payment seats here. So the only way is an excellent score.

Thankfully, I got a chance to study here. Along with the cream of the country, I too received education on various areas of technological developments that had and would hit the earth.

Sorry, I got carried away with my college life. That is an epic on its own. I will reserve that for my next book. For now let’s continue with this one.

So, to cut a long story short, I got placed - like every student dreams of – in one of the largest IT companies in India – Diapro Technologies. And since after getting placed, our college doesn’t let you sit for placements till every one else in class gets placed, I ended with just one offer whereas my fellow batch mates in other classes were getting 3 or 4 offers. Right now if you ask me – I feel like killing the guy who framed that rule. Grrrrrrrr !!!

So … Back to Chennai and 18^th June 2005. I arrived with my Uncle (my mom’s elder sisters husband) on his old dappa scooter at the giants office hoping that no one else would notice me traveling on this pre-historic wheels. Come on – I was going to work in an IT company. I had a lot of prestige and “demo” as we used to call it college to show!

In simpler terms, I dint want the bike’s age (and my uncles) to brand me as un-cool.

Me and a lot of other guys and girls wait expectantly in front of the office gates hoping that they will call us in and we will officially get inducted into the company for good.

After waiting for about half an hour – a short bald guy comes and announces that “All fresh recruits are to collect visitor passes from the security gates and then proceed to the conference hall on the first floor”.

The feeling was immense if not overwhelming. We had waited so long for this one moment. We all had borne with all the hardships and grueling nature of a 4 year Engineering degree. And finally he moment of truth had arrived. It’s like having an Orgasm. One just can’t explain what it feels like. It has to be experienced to truly understand what I am talking about.

So … We all rush to security guard who is having a really bad time asking every other eager fresher to stand in queue and collect their passes in peace. Eventually my turn comes and I collect my pass and enter the Diapro building. It’s really funny now when I think about it. I entered the building placing my right foot first and then touching it with my hands (traditional Indian hindu style). It was as if I was entering a temple. Then after that, we all rush into the conference hall on the first floor. There I meet a lot of other “freshers”. People who soon would become my closest friends!

Another hour passes and around 11 am an HR lady enters. And a really HOT lady I must add!!! (Pardon me … The College where I come from doesn’t have any good looking babes per se … So whenever we NITC’ian see a babe – we totally loose all gentlemanly attributes and acts like a set of cave dwellers)

She introduces herself as Sanju. Who cares what her name is, is she married/engaged is the question that’s running through my head. And I can bet a million bucks that it was the same thought that was running through every guy’s head there.

After that, she asks us to submit all our documents. I do that with happiness. I am dying to get this over with so that I officially become an employee.

Once everyone submits their documents, Sanju leaves and announces that the TBI folks will be here to help us out with our loans and bonds.

Oh … I completely forgot to mention about the bond aspect of my offer letter. Diapro has a bond clause per se. It states that I have to pay Rs. 75,000/- upfront to the company if I should be eligible for the offer.

It was a commonplace thing for all these companies that recruit in large numbers to ask for a bond from freshers. But Diapro was the only company that asked for an upfront payment. And since it was obvious that most people couldn’t afford to pay upfront, they had tied up with TBI to provide the necessary loans to these aspiring freshers.

Ok … Back to the story … A gentleman in his early forties enters. He introduces himself as Ramesh, a bank manager at one of TBI’s branches in Bangalore. He now tells us that he will explain to us the terms and condition of the loan. Below is a gist of his explanation:

1. Loan will be given at an interest rate of 15.5 %
2. A draft for Rs. 75000/- will be issued to Diapro in ur name.
3. Diapro will encash the draft if we resign before the bond period of 15 months
4. Till the end of 15 months, the Rs. 75000/- will be put into an fixed deposit account and you will get an interest of 4%
5. Till the end of the 15-month bond period, your salary account is going to be with TBI. This is mandatory.
6. TBI will give you a 15-check leaf book. For extra check leaves you need to pay Rs. 100/- per additional checkbook.
7. The check leafs are not pay at par checks. If you use them anywhere else other than Bangalore, it will be treated as an out station check and will take 15 days to clear and also incur a service charge of Rs. 180/- per check.
8. The ATM card provided can only be used in TBI ATM’s. If used in any other ATM’s a service fee of Rs. 50/- will be charged per transaction.
9. Online banking costs extra if you intend to do online transactions. Else, for checking your balance, etc online, it is free.
10. At the end of 15 months, your loan account will be closed, but your salary account will remain. You are welcome to continue with TBI as your banking partner.

After hearing all this, I was wondering – WHAT THE F****!!!

Please understand that this is the year 2005 when private banks like ICICI and HDFC are running from door to door giving everything like unlimited pay at par checks/free online transactions/loans at 9%/Fixed deposit interest rates of 8%/et al.

And then this Ramesh guy comes along and gives us the crappiest of deals, and that too, he has the nerve to make it sound like he’s helping us out.

On doing a quick calculation, I realize that I’ll end up paying 11.5% (15.5% - 4%) on my 75K loan with TBI roughly translates to about 1000 rupees per month. It suddenly strikes me that this is 1000 rupees I have to pay someone else for getting a job.

But then, what can a fresher do. I start thinking, “It’s not all that bad … I have a monthly salary of Rs. 17004/-. Of that if I loose out Rs. 1000/- I still have Rs. 16004/- to live. I have lived with Rs. 2000/- per month in college. I should be able to live a king’s life with this pay!!!”

Poor old me … I didn’t realize that this was a fools paradise I was conjuring up out there!

Finally few more papers have to be signed and then submitted. By then it is 3 pm. Sanju comes in and announces, “You have to report here on 20^th April 2005 at 9 am. You will be taken to another of our offices where your induction program will begin.”

At the end of this, a few of us ask her, “Are we employees yet”. She laughs back and says, “No … not yet … after your induction on Monday – that’s when you become official employees. Today was just a document collection event. We do this to save time and effort on the day of your induction.”

All of us are let down by the fact that we still aren’t employees yet.

With a heavy heart, we head back our respective homes. There we eagerly wait for 20^th June 2005 to arrive.