The so called Corporate World!!!!

The outside world thinks that IT professionals get paid well. They roam around in the weekends, have lots of western culture influencing them, are ready to pay lot don’t bargain for anything etc.. They have no idea of what is happening in the corporate world!!!!

The same kind of feeling I had during my college days College days are real fun. Everybody would’ve enjoyed in their own way. It was my pre-final year. We had the campus interview fever growing in us. We were preparing vigorously. The companies started coming. By god’s grace I got selected in the company which I had wished.

We finished our project submission on the last week of April. Within two days we were asked to join the company. We were both excited and feeling sad. We were excited as we had at last finished our studies and will start earning very soon. We were sad as all our friends will be enjoying another 2 months of holidays before joining. We eagerly awaited for the great day to arrive.

The first day was very thrilling. Around 250 people were called for that intake. Apart from our college 3 other colleges students had also joined with us. We had our induction program for the first 3 days. We were splited into our technology for training. Around 40 of us were there in my technology.

Training was as usual hectic but my batch was wonderful. Though 40 were splitted into 2 batches we were very close to each other. We still had the college youngster blood flowing in us. We used to bunk training session and go out. We played franks with our trainers. Training was successfully completed and were eagerly waiting to join the practice group. All of us had various kinds of dreams like we would be immediately put in various projects, with lots of coding and reporting to PM,PL etc. Wanted to have all these new and great experience.

The great day arrived. All of us went to meet our PM to find out which projects we were allocated. He told that he has allocated systems, asked us to do some case studies till we get projects. We were given a separate wing. All 40 of us were together. The amount of fun we had is incomparable. It was like a second college life.

Initial we never found it hard. After a slogging training session being free was blessed. All of us were happy enjoying. Nobody used to come and monitor us. Sitting in groups pulling each others legs, talking about their own college stories, watching youtube videos, orkutting etc. It was mere fun. After 2 weeks we were slightly getting bored of it. We started feeling sick of coming to office.

A month later our PM came with a list of names whom they will be allocating into the projects. Only 10 of them were allocated and were asked to report the other branch the following day. All of the others felt bad . Most of them felt sad as their name was not there on the project allocation list . There was sudden split coming between us.

We started missing them very much. Each one of us used to call them and bug them. They would also in turn used to come to our branch when ever they found time. Used to comfort us saying that new projects are coming up, we are all on pipeline(note this corporate words used). Days were rolling by it became nearly 4 months after training with no project. By that time we had almost finished 2 to 3 case studies. Some of my friends went and spoke to the PM regarding our allocation. Everytime after mailing the PM, somebody will keep a meeting telling that projects are coming up and we will soon get busy. It will be so irritating when they ask “what do you guys do the whole day?”. A monotones reply from our side stating that we are enhancing old projects and case studies.

Slowly some people got into the project. Some of them were still behind. The number of training batches given to our technology in a year were only 4. We were the first 2 training batches in our technology. One fine day we were shocked to hear that 2 more new training batches are going to join the training batch. We were wondering what will they do with these many people with no projects. We had a talk with our PM. He splitted us into various domains asked us to attend domain specific training session. Hope slightly started peeking in our hearts. We thought we will be into the project after this domain specific training we will be inside the project. Again luck was not on our side. We later came to know training was just to keep us busy.

The worse things which we have to come cross is that when you go and meet your friend or college junior the first question from their mouth will be “how is your work”. The one standard answer from me is “its pretty much fine now a days. We have a long time for deadline”. The next question will be still more worse. “Hey if you don’t mind please explain me about your technology and the client you are working for?”. I will never know how to tackle. I never knew that I can cook up stories this quickly and will make them believe it. Some of my friends bunk office to go to their home town. They face still more worse problems. The neighborhood will ask them “How come you are here? No work? Does your company pays you for taking leave on weekdays? Are you sacked?”. Its critically hard to face these kinds of situation. Instead of going out and having troubles its better to come to office and chit-chat.

All of my other friends were also settled with work in their own respective companies. Everytime they used to call and tell me about their work. I used to wonder whether they are also in the same situation which I’m going through and simply creating a scene that they are busy with work.

Getting frustrated of things happening around me I applied for another job with change in technology (as my company had various procedures and formalities for changing from one technology to another). The interview was horrible. The panel member was not satisfied as they thought that I didn’t even work for one year in a company. They felt that I’m a fickle minded person. I was not able to do anything. One more option left was going for higher studies. I had doubts whether will I get project work after higher studies or get paid for having no work. Had a discussion with my close friends and relatives. Decided to prepare for higher studies.

Its been nearly 10 solid months in office with no work(bench the corporate world word for no work). After the patience testing is over I’m finally into a project. This 10 months have made me read lots of stuffs. Helped me to learn new things. One of the bigger lessons which I learnt was to make a quick and a proper decision.

Keeping Ourselves Clean and Healthy

We appreciate many things which others have. Appreciating is not enough. We must try to practice and show others that we can do better. This develops discipline and confidence in us.

Daily we come across so many people and find fault with their behavior. But the true fact is we never look at ourselves. It is necessary for us to practice self discipline. This would involve giving a lot of importance on not throwing waste on the road or spitting on the road and making it dirty. We appreciate so many countries for their cleanliness and best roads. When it comes to our country, we immediately blame the politicians and the government for not keeping the country clean. When we are able to look at others and appreciate, we can also try practicing it in our daily life.

The general mindset of people is, we always want a rule to be given. We are able to appreciate movies like Anniyan (which shows the hero wanting everybody to be neat) where we see the hero trying to signify the point of following certain norms in life. As soon as we are out of the theatre we throw the tickets on the road. In case if your friend advises you not to throw papers on the road, you immediately make fun of him. When we ourselves are not able to follow it how we can expect others to do it. When the government imposes fine, we may try to follow those norms in our life

Let me quote an example here. Everybody prefers to keep our houses clean to a certain extent. When we arrange for a party or a get together in our house, we try to place things in the appropriate places. Further more we project ourselves as neat people in front of the guests. The same way we should consider our country as our home. We should have a feeling that all the foreigners coming to our country should appreciate our neatness as the way they appreciate our cultural heritage.

Practicing certain things in life is hard. Anything if we practice continuously for 21 days it shall become a routine. We get chances of travelling in the bus. We take tickets. The immediate thing we do is as soon as we get out of the bus we throw it down. Lets try being patient by keeping the ticket in our pockets/purses and throwing it in a near by dustbin. These kinds of mistakes lead us to dirty surroundings.

We all know that trees are very important and ozone layer is becoming thinner. Many trees are cut down for the making of papers. We can throw our decomposable wastes into a decomposable basket which can be used as manure for the small plants which we grow in our apartments/flats / houses.

There is a team called Exnora which helps to keep the city clean. Most of us know the area Tiruvanmiyur in Chennai or everybody must have been to Bangalore at least once. Have you ever wondered why this area/city is better than the others? Not much of wastes are there on the roads. The streets are clean with many waste paper baskets round the corner. This is one area/city where there are less or even to say no mosquitoes. Why can’t each one of us sit and think of building the city in a cleaner way.

There are baskets available in the market for decomposable and non decomposable wastes. By segregating the garbage at source it is easier to classify the waste. By following certain simple methods, all the vegetable wastes can be turned to manure. This manure can be reused for plants. If you want to make money out of it sell it to a nursery.

Try to tell your friends about being clean and keeping the society clean. When you see somebody dropping paper on the road, don’t allow them to do it. Instead get it from their hand and put it in a dustbin. Do this each and every time when they drop paper. Generally people with common sense after the 3^rd time will not wish to throw garbage on the ground, they will realize their mistake and will not do it (Lets hope so!!).

Please don’t read this as yet another article. Please think about this and if we decide on this, even Chennai can become a world class city!

Hoping that day would come soon…..

P.S: About the title, we are the country. So I put it as keeping ourselves clean!!