Sunday, December 28, 2008

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As the year draws to a close, I have realised that my leave balance for the year is intact. The compensatory offs (in return for working on holidays) and the balance carried over from last year was enough for me this year.
I even wasted a couple of leaves by applying for them and then going on those days anyway. (Because I have been accused of "taking liberty" with my leaves by the powers that be).
As has been oft said by people around me, this ITDonkey is a chicken of the species. :(

Saturday, December 27, 2008

CC

My bank has reduced my credit card limit to 5000 rupees, stating "security reasons". I wonder if its for theirs or mine. Not that I had gotten around to exploring what the "earlier" limit was anyway.
They are just playing it safe with IT guys, I believe.

On another note, the manager is considering exempting "married" people from the miserable night shifts. So, Anushka and Anushka, if you are reading this...
And does he mean that "single" people dont have a family??

Sunday, December 14, 2008

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If the grapevine is to believed, banks will now begin classifying IT guys as subprime.
Righttt....After being knocked off the marriage aspirations list of Indian girls, yet another one for the ITDonkey.

Which reminds me.... I have got an alarming propensity of doing the absolute wrong thing when being observed. I was watching the marriage video of a close cousin today, in which yours truly makes 3 appearances of about 2 seconds each. I am yawning rather loudly in 2 of them, and have my mouth full of food in the third, which I had stopped chewing from the shock of finding the camera directly in front of me.
Old ladies watching the video will come to logical conclusion about how I got to my present shape by only sleeping and eating.
Well old ladies, you are wrong.... endlessly sitting motionless and tapping away at a keyboard has got as much to do with it as is anything else.
Anyway, in their eyes, I would already be subprime, and not someone worth recommending to their grandnieces. Not that I expect or even want to find a partner in this manner, but feels bad anyway. In the same manner when the bank says I wont be eligible for that car loan I didnt ask for.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

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A quick update...
I have officially now got 4 bosses.
Thats right....4 people for 4 underlings.
Infact, a post named "Associate Project Lead" was just created to accomodate the new guy, which has already started creating friction between the three earlier bosses.

As of now, I plan to put up an unofficial hassle index for each of them, depending on how much each one of them hassles me.

Current standing in descending order :
Top Boss - > The leader.
Old lead - > Tolerable, to some extent.
Newer tech lead - > Doesnt interact much.
Newest process expert - > The middle order doesnt let him interact much.

For updates, watch this space.

And this is before the Z.O.P. brings back another team lead from the US by the end of December.

Which reminds me, Z.O.P. is not a client move, but our own initiative, as we move from an hourly billed project to a fixed price project.
I have absolutely no words to express my immense anger at the moment.

Monday, December 1, 2008

The Z.O.P.

So it has happened. Almost that is.Became a direct victim of the credit crunch. Even as I type this out, a meeting is progressing at 8.30am CST (8.00 pm IST) announcing the bad news to the offshore team mates.
Starting January 2009 year, we will proceed towards a ZERO ONSITE POLICY. (Z.O.P.)
What it means is that they wont have people located at client side at all. Every single thing will be 100% offshored.
This happened after the management decided to pay a visit to our call centre wing. And suddenly realised they dont have onsite personnel at all, and were functioning just fine. In multiple shifts, across all timezones, including a couple of overlapping night shifts.
"Aahhaa!!" said they... and out came the calculators.
"Analysing our current relationship with the customer , it has come to our notice there are some gaps in value proposition we offer them.." , a bespectacled man must have droned to an audience of bean counters.
"For every resource we bring back , it will result in a saving of 75% , and if a corresponding resource at offshore is given 1.2% over and above our current investment in resource , it would result in the nett savings of over 5.97823 %.. " , all very exciting figures, if you are an MBA in power , like the above gnome eyed fellow.

The management must be terribly excited. "What a fantastic idea!!!" , they must be thinking.

What would be implied though that we can subject the software guys to fantastic amounts of misery , and convince the customer that there is value in that . So that fat cats like us can continue to get fatter.