Pamban Paalam!!!! Engineering masterpiece

A place that aroused a lot of interest in me.. I always wanted to go and see this bridge... I went... aanal not in train but by car ..

Mera number aayega.. will do the train journey also once.....

But ippothikku intha ninaivu mattum!!!

The other part of the bridge too..

Is that all???

Today 'M' came an addressed us. We thought that since we were done with all our deliveries he was coming and addressing us. But it turned out to be the same old Manager routine. Came in gave some Fundas.. Repeated teh same lines 10 times in 3 different ways.  Ya and kept on reiterating the fact that he knew some really big shots .. ya obviously we don't know them.... and more asking us to work better and harder..

And on top of that not even a thank you or an appreciation for all the work done. Come on .. that was pathetic.. Do we kids need to teach you the basics of man management ... is this what managers these days are made out of?? This seems to be a problem predominantly with the current genre of managers at the top of our account... 

People really lost their enthusiasm and the drive to work after the meeting...

the question is will these &^%$&*($$ managers ever change. Will they ever stop being opportunistic and look at the humane side of things. . 

over the past 1 year , infy has not taught me anything good. But yes it has taught me  HOW NOT TO BE. i will always keep this in mind...

Thank you all !!!

Is it the beginning of the end of the fairy tale?

A mid June afternoon, my always energetic DM said that we are opening shop in chennai. and I was excited. was it a new Beginning for me? i hoped so....

On the morning of  16th august 2005, 40 confused souls landed in a partially constructed building, in Mcity  and started off work. 38 of them unhappy  of working in such a lousy place.  Little did anyone of them realize on that day that those would turn out to be the best days of their life. Powered by VNP  , driven by Nitin the floor turned out to be a heaven for everyone. What ever be the amount of work or whatever be the pressure.. Come hell what .. all of us were in office with a smiling face ready to roar for the day. We worked hard, Enjoyed every bit of it, got to know each other and became a family. We set examples that great things could be done by little known people and posed as a serious competitor  to Bangalore. Eyes were raised but we were appreciated. we came in good light.  the icing in the cake came when the delivery head walked into the floor and was stunned by the attitude of the team. he said ' U guys have some thing magical in you' and the whole DC looked upto us for inspiration. We were proud champions confident of turning around things , be it whatever it takes. It was a really a fairy tale start. 

That was the day we hit the pinnacle of success as a team. We thought we were here to stay and conquer. And i was the most happiest man around to carry the brand where ever i went.  But destiny  had some other story written for us.

Getting recongnized is easy but maintaining it is what is tough. Soon to this happy family came intruders , from every nook and corner. From within the organization to aliens( I prefer to call so). Probably this was when it all started. Every one came with just one motive 'Make hay when the sun shines' .  The intention was good .. fine accepted. But how was it implemented? The modus operandi was an utter disaster. 

We as a team in the early days, set the tone for what would be  wonderful growth. every one wanted to take advantage of the situation. they ignored the fact that they were taking too much more than what they can digest. the greed to grow made people forget the core values.  The essence of values was lost. every one forgot what had to do. but they were focussed on one thing - the goal. even if it takes to break the law and not do their duties.  And these rule breakages were cleverly overshadowed by some fake successes and results. 

What we wanted as an organization was not a Shah Rukh khan or a vijay who would show too much out on screen presence, but a Raghuvaran or a paresh rawal who could guide us and pilot our way through. 

Powered by greed, driven by unethical methods  , these intruders slowly began to spoil the name that we had set. I was too agonizing a time when you are surrounded by 25 people determined to bring you down and you had to fight a lone battle. The whole of London and edinburgh were against us, with me and suresh doing the saving act every time.  Fueled to this was a brave act by some of my colleagues who went to the extent of campaigning against us. this was primarily driven by their need to be in power. ufffff.. i hate this greed for power..

Seeing and hearing all this i thought I am not in the heat of things. I thought me with a couple of other folks could turn around things when i go back.  But destiny again played its card by sending our godfather Prasad to US. Delt with a blow, but determined to make an impact i landed in chennai. I thought I could turn around things. But probably i was a bit too optimistic. Little did I know that things had gone terribly out of control and to bring it back to normal is not a one man job. It should be a collective vision driven from the top. But the question is where is the top. 

in the 5 months after prasad's absence , there were small power centers created, each wanting to control the place. in this fight for power they had missed out the essence of project management. Essence of man management. All they concentrated was on limelight. How do i Stay in lime light and what should i do to achieve this.  In this greed, without their knowledge they broke the basement of the floor. The team that we had initially built started to break apart and that was it.. there were minor ego issues that began to crop up among these kids. what will these poor kids do , after all they were just 1.5 yrs old. And in all these confusions who took the biggest hit - the work and delivery. Quality was down . Codes were not running. you name it it had it. but to teh outside world these DAMAGERS , kept on showing that they were doing good and infy kept rewarding them. But at the ground level things were worse.  to add to this was these people were also rewarded by the company for their SO Called gracious act. 

The information spread like wild fire and it had become a talk of the town that whatever happens in M city was just bullshit. We had been turned into items of mockery.

having seen all this , I thought I could do some thing. But Even I am human too. The Selfish part of me took over and I started looking more at my career and life. I confined myself to just my work and let others do their work. Yes I was partly successful. I got my MBA admit but  at the end of the day I had let my home ground down.  Now when I am outside chennai , People ask me - what guru , Your people are like this .. so bad and they start off. It hurts!!! Mind you it seriously hurts... and I go about defending them. how long will I do that?

When i Look back, the people in Mcity are really good. I have been with them all along and i understand what they want. They are hard working, committed. If they stand one to one with their counterparts from other places, they are definitely better, but when they need to fire as a team , they fail and that too miserably. Its all mayhem

When i sit back and think about it where they failed. It just points me to one thing. GUIDANCE.  these people were/are not guided well. given some help they are bound be achieve , but no one in this greedy place has the time to groom them and make them better people. Every senior is just bothered about how to save his $%$, leaving these little ones to suffer and letting the reputation of the place we built to drains. The downfall of this place has been so much that what ever rescue act one does , the chances are  remote to come back to normal. Leave alone coming back to those best days when were were challengers. We were like soldiers fighting in a battle field without a General.

but Will they ever make that attempt is the question.  My heart sincerely prays that they do it but reality is not always whatever you want. Having seen them for the past 2 years , i have lost my slightest hope in me that we can recover. with these people around i just pray that i doesn't go worse than this. 

But now its time for me to leave. I leave this battle field with a heavy heart and a deep scar on  my heart that I could not do anything to improve the place that has given me so much today. It would always stay as one of the troughs of my life that I could not do anything to help out my people.

I am Sorry RBS_MCT .. I have Let you down !

5 years on.......

Its exactly 5 years since i left REC -A Heaven on earth . I prefer to call it so. Left the gates of the place 0n the 16th of may with tears .. All set to embark a new journey.

We set out with our offer letters ( for some of us ) to explore the outside world. hardly did we know how the world outside the gates of the great institution would look like. But as kamal said in Anbe Sivam 'Adutha Nimidam olithu vaithirikkum athisayangal yeralam' , we were ready to face it.

Personally for me , these 5 years have been a real roller coaster ride. A lot of funfilled momments. Exciting challenging.. name it I had it.. lots of new friends ..lots of contacts but yeah at the same time some bitter friends too..

Stepped into the wonderful world of Infosys. Wanted to become a chemical engineer but ended up becoming a software engineer :-( . but now i have no cribs about it. Infosys has been a good experience. Got caught in the very first month for the fault of possessing a Question paper and came to a situation of almost getting terminated.. Thank god P chandra was kind to us. Flunked in the training and again was back to square 1, was about to be thrown out of infy ( those days u fail in training u were out of the company) . but luckily cleared the re compre and was back in business..

October 1 2003, got into RBS.. turned things around for me .. came onsite. did what i like the most - Travel like crazy . But what turned out to be the key was my move to teh most dreadful place for many of us - M city .. I simply love this place .. it has given me everything including my recent MBS admit ..vso All smiling..

In these 5 Years i would say i have come a full circle. Had my share fo ups and downs , lots of travelling and yes lots of fights with some of the craziest characters on earth( i will post about them later)

The same has been wth my friends. Every one from our Rubygang is now well settled ..each of them have fouht their own war. One of them has just won a war that he fought for 5 years - Yes he is an IPS officer...

One thing I am really proud of our gang has been that till date all of us have been in touch with each other , still maintaining the respect and affection we had for each other when we were in college. Hope we stay the same for the years to come.

After 5 Years , i have put down my papers on the same day i left REC 16th May. As I set to embark my new journey of a student again , I am ready to face my "adutha Nimidathin Adisayangal' .. At the same time my I-pod is also reminding me ' Meri sapnon ki raani kab aayegi tu ' :-).

Yes.. They have grown up

Today has been an exceptionally happy day for me.. Y??? 

My kids have got promoted.. Kids?????

 Yes i prefer to call my juniors kids. 7 of my 26 kids who started their career in infy in Mcity got their role change. Today they are all beaming with joy and confidence on becoming Programmer Analysts. I could see a sparkle in their eyes today when each of them saw their mails. The same sparkle that eye saw in their eyes 34 months back. 

They have fought all odds all the away that too all alone without much help. To say in 1 word they are ' Go-Getters' . Tell them the work and the time lines , they get it done no matter whatever it takes. No matter whatever the outside world says about these kids , they have proved their prowess time and again.

Congrats to you all!!! Keep doing this and make others fear you...

Hats of Kids!!!

The Chennai Traffic!!!

the word Traffic sends shivers to everyone. Especially those returning from office in the evening after a tiresome day at office...

I am a regular traveller by bus who off-late changed over to train .. why Traffic.. where.. its everywhere tambaram pallavaram airport , kathipara ( the nemesis), Guindy.. Fine kathipara and airport have a flyover thats getting built,i can understand the reason for the jam.. but why in other places..

on peering from my bus window i did some observation.Its not the vehicles that cause the jams and the slow movement of traffic, but its the pedestrians and the people who are not on any vehicles who create the problem. Especially those morons ( i will term them so ) who wait for the bus at bus stops. instead of standing in the bus stop they stand on the roads. If afterall you want to stand on the road , why do you need a place alled a bus stop with a shade. These ' utterly socially irresponsible creatures' stand on the road occupying the space almost equal to the space of 1.5 buses .. ok worst case at least 1 bus. now that you have occupied 1 lane of the available 3 lanes at a crucial lunction, where will the busy traffic go. they just have 2 lanes to cruise thro and it ends up with the traffic getting jammed. its not only at guindy or tambaram. its all over ..

other set of non sense creatues .. its really horrible when you get stuck in traffic early in the morning. reason... again the same .. we people dont want to follow certain rules... they have a subway built for them but they still want to cross jamming the traffic.. its irritating when these lazy idiots dont want to walk 100 mts to take the Subway.

people dont seem to understand the problem and correct themselves or even make an effort to solve the problem. But in turn day by day they worsen the problem. I happened to ask a couple of people standing on the road . bang i got the answer ' Ungalukku enna teriyum, Summa velaiya pathuttu ponga thaambi' . its sick that these people dont want to change.

when will our citizens on chennai change. I try to follow these small things and advice people in my work place too... .. its a first step .. can we as responsible citizens help this cause.. will any one understand???

i hope so they do..

Here I go....

So At last here i go...

  This blog was created almost a year ago and has been predominantly dormant except for some snaps...

After going thro a lot of blogs.. i have  come to a conclusion.. why should i not .... 

So this is going to be my dashboard.. all the contents in this blog are purely my views..No Offence intended at any one( off course some times at some morons and moronis)..  else its going to be my experiences or opinions on general matters.. 

So its always going to be IMHO ..

I will make it a point to have one post every week.

so here I go.... from today ...