Thursday, March 4, 2010

A Strange Day Serendipity - part II

[ Please read the part 1 if you have not read it yet..]

So it has been 2 hours since I read that surprising email from my sales force head. Like I said before I don’t even remember what I did for the past 2 hours except that I met Akhila and we are planning to have lunch today after the presentation. The day is still going to get better!!

The AC hall in B block looked almost like a ballroom all packed with white faces, some old ones gobbling the cafĂ© day sandwiches, some rosy chicks giggling and some tall ones sitting in the front row and flipping through the A4 printouts. I am all set and suited up for the presentation. The first 30 minutes, I have no idea what I said, in fact I don’t remember a word I uttered, but I can tell you from the reaction from the faces, I am here for a big fish today. I am sure. My cell phone rang twice in between the presentation. I know it was from MK. I cut the call. Why should I attend? I wouldn’t be surprised if he had asked me to put him on speaker and taken the control of the presentation had I attended the call. Good I did not.


Guess what? Looks like MY first proposal meeting turned out well. The air in the conference room is overwhelmed with satisfaction and admiration. But I have to wait for another 2 hours for the results. That entitles me for a 2 hour lunch with Akhila. She was also there in the presentation watching me with a lot of excitement. Think she did not have much to do on first day.
So.. here I am sitting with my once-upon-a-time-dream-girl over the lunch table and still thinking how to start the conversation. A strange day indeed.
” You know Ram, I always liked your quietness when we were in college” she broke the silence with a clean sweep.

Now this is the moment most of the guys lose it.
“Seriously? I never knew you liked it!” I fumbled.
As you might have already guessed it- I am bad at this. I am very bad that I lost my book “21 days to become a romantic guy” on the 7th day when I was already behind by 3 days of stuff to catch up.
But still I am observing something in her eye today that kept telling me “You are adorable!”
Again, what a day this has been so far?


There were already 5 big guys standing next to my cubicle waiting for me when I entered the office after the lunch– all of them are either managers or department heads – I know the name of only 2.


“Hey Ram. Congrats man. We got it finally. You pulled it through. Customer has personally congratulated you and you know what? You are travelling to the UK this weekend. Hope you don’t have any issues? Get geared up man. This is really a good news”.
A pat on my shoulder.

“Thanks Nandy. How long is the assignment?” I mumbled as my brain was struggling to process this sudden surge in the information coming in.

“6 months is what is decided now. But you know how it works. It might get extended by another 2-3 months. What? you don’t want to go or what?” he smirked.


To tell you the truth, all I have been waiting until this moment was to get a chance to go to Delhi some day and work in the head office for 2 -3 weeks like how Karthik did.
Man... Free accommodation, free food, additional allowance, places to visit and more than anything else I don’t have to see MK’s face and I can even ignore his calls. That’s pretty much what my carrier objective so far. But not anymore. See how things turnabout in one day. I am expected to travel to the UK tomorrow and will have to spend almost a year there. As I walked back to my cubicle still trying to get my head around this whole thing, I couldn’t help noticing Akhila looking at me with a beautiful smile on her lips. It can’t get luckier any more, can it?


The terminal was not crowded much. Even it was, I wouldn’t have known because this is the first time I have ever been to the Bangalore international airport. I told Akhila not to come but she said she wanted to meet my parents and this would be the best chance for her to meet them. Looking at the way she is talking to my parents, I kind of think they already started liking her. Something to consider seriously, may be once I come back from the UK.
I am about to get into the terminal for check-in now. I said bye to Akhila. She almost had tears in her eyes. Kind of strange for a 2 days old relationship isn’t it?
I went to my mom, gave her a big hug and was about to touch her feet. The moment I bent down, I could hear a big thud and it was followed by a very bad pain on the center of my forehead. Sh**.. what the heck is this?...
I managed to lift my head up, and there is Karthik standing with a wet bath-towel tied around his hip and laughing at me like a jackass.
“Da... Are you okay?” he is still laughing. I am trying to find my glasses on the floor.


“Don’t worry. You are not late for anything. Today’s presentation is anyway postponed. MK wanted to do it on his own when he is in the UK next week.”


“But why is he…?.... “. I murmured, still trying to find where my mom and Akhila are gone.


He continued - “Dude MK just called me. He in fact tried calling you twice half an hour ago it seems.. guess you were in deep sleep, you cut his call.. Anyway he wanted me to update you about the presentation. And one more thing – that rookie he was talking about yesterday... the one who is joining us today?!! – “Rajesh” is his name it seems. We have to orient him today. I hate this stuff man.”
I am almost getting into a concussion now. Still trying to understand what he just said.


“Man... you just fell off from the cot.. nothing else… What happened to you... Are you okay?.. I told you last night it’s not a good idea to go for the night show. Look at your face now…”, he couldn’t control his laugh. So did I.
Good that the meeting got postponed; I am yet to start with the presentation. I am happy at least I did not miss Rajnikanth’s movie yesterday. It really turned out to be a strange day!!!

[ This story is dedicated to all the software engineers with 1, 2, 3 or more than 3 years of experienced, working in a startup or medium scale or large companies, working with stupid or funny or smart managers, working for customers from the US or UK or Europe or even Pakistan. I pray god at least your dreams will come true one day. May god be with you. Amen ]

:-) :-)

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A Strange Day Serendipity - part I

I am not sure if it can be called an ‘achievement’. May be ‘accomplishment’ is a better word to describe. Actually it depends on how you see it. Anyway here is the fact. As I swiped my access card this morning to enter the office, I stepped into my sixth year here in this company. I know there is nothing to get excited about this,.. really nothing. I am at least smart enough to know that I will be totally let down if I expect something that would cheer me up here. But it couldn’t have struck my mind even remotely when I swiped my card this morning, the kind of things the day is going to bring to my table as it goes on. It all started with my manager leaving an unusual but an overly cordial smile while walking by my desk. Trust me! That IS strange for the standards of our relationship.

A team from the UK is visiting my office today to review one of the most important project proposals of the recent times. You know, after working in the sales force department so long and working on different project proposals for different customers, I kind of believe that the new projects are not as much important to the customer as they are to the vendors. So be it. For me, it is just another day. That’s the only ‘motivational’ thought, I figured, would get the ball rolling when you work in this kind of a startup company and especially when you work for someone like Moron Kumar. Sorry.. Mohan kumar. Not some kind of a prejudice or anything but I can tell you, the former is more apt and more popular. Except the courier guy and the name-board I don’t remember anyone in the office addressing him as Mohan Kumar.

It is hard to believe what I have ‘sacrificed’ last night for putting together a presentation for the proposal discussion scheduled this noon. I was burning my midnight oil on this presentation and very importantly I could not go to Rajnikanth’s new movie which got released yesterday. Yes. To me, that is ‘sacrifice’ and ‘important’. Something I never wanted to happen again in my life after that fateful summer holidays when I was admitted in the hospital for typhoid. I was in my 5th grade then.

It is my responsibility as the narrator to help you get the clear picture of who MK (Moron Kumar) is and what he does before you get your own opinion. Surely it is not something I like doing but it’s my duty here. Whatever!!
MK is a kind of a manager that no one would ever want to work for but everybody wants to be the manager of. He is as much skillful in pleasing his managers as he is in making his subordinates’ lives miserable. I have been writing the responses to RFPs and creating presentations for him for almost 4 years now. Not once would he let me talk to the customers directly or lead the presentation. None of the documents I have written so far have had my name on them after they reach his inbox. Most of the times I end up sitting right next to the whiteboard during his presentations simply watching the grass grow. (Well, in fact they are my presentations) And I am the only privileged person to hit the enter-key to pull up the next slide when his eyes turn my side. I know, I can really do better than that…

Coming to the serendipity part of the story, here I am.. sitting in my cubicle in front of the computer looking at this email from my sales force head. It reads,

Hi Ram,
I reviewed the presentation shared by Mohan and it looks just fine. There is a change in the plan though.This time we want you to drive the presentation as MK has to look after some dev progress this afternoon.
Sorry for the late notice. I hope this is not a burden for you and you will be willing to take up the offer. MK would have already shared the ppt with you. I am attaching again. You got another 2 long hours to catch up.
Hope you understand the kind of deal we have in front of us. All the best. Come back with flying colours.

Thanks,
Suresh Shinday
Department head, Sales Force.


What can I say? What better chance anyone could ever get when working for MK? 2 hours went like a flash of a second. I don’t even remember what I have been doing for the past 2 hours except one thing. I saw this beautiful girl Akhila from my college joined my project and going to be sitting right in the opposite cubicle of mine. She asked me (never even spoken once in college) to accompany her for the lunch today as this is her first day in the office. Oh boy! Can this day get better anymore?

[ The serendipity continues... wait for Part II ] ... :-)