Tech Job 9 to 9 (9 page)

In the
cafeteria, three people came to Vinay and Himesh. They introduced themselves as
Suresh, Ramesh and Usha. They had earlier worked under Mona and were released
from the project. Usha had now become a team lead for another project. Suresh
and Ramesh now worked under Usha. Suresh told him that ABTM module was full of
issues.

“Don’t work in
that module. Why you took that man. It’s full of issues. That Mona is very
horrible. She is a tyrant. I cannot handle the workload. So she said I cannot
perform and released me from the project,” said Suresh.

Ramesh along
with Suresh then explained the amateurish patchwork of a solution created by
Mona.

“If you don’t
agree with her solution and don’t implement it, she will release you from the
project. You fix one bug, and then another bug will pop up from any of the other
entities,” said Ramesh.

Usha told how
she was ill-treated and abused by Mona. Then she explained how she purposely
made her work on Saturdays even if she had completed her work much earlier for
that week.

Usha got
emotional. She burst into tears and cried. She recalled how many nights she
cried before going to sleep.

She said, “Please
do us a favor. Leave the project. We want to punish Mona. We want her to suffer
the pain she made us to suffer. She denied my leave requests and escalated each
and every small matter. She treated us like her slaves. Now her leaves should
be denied, her transfer to Delhi should be denied. Now she should be made to
work on all Saturdays and Sundays.

Both Suresh
and Ramesh nodded their heads in agreement. Suresh, Ramesh and Usha advised Vinay
and Himesh to leave the project.

“Don’t kill
yourself for this. Put your hard work into something else. Don’t get exploited.
They will use you. They will make you as a scapegoat,” said Usha.

They told
horrible stories of what Mona did to them.

One day, Vinay,
Himesh and Ashutosh were discussing about the limitations of existing design.

Everywhere Vinay
saw only amateurish patchwork. He found so many bugs and tears in the fabric of
the code weaved by Mona. He stitched one tear only to find another tear open nearby.
He had never seen such a patchwork in design and implementation in a project so
far.

Himesh had
heard whispers that Mona has asked for release from project. The management had
told her she could be released only after eighty percent of requirements were
implemented.

Employees
usually discussed personal matters in a hushed tone and secretly. They kept
their onsite plans, promotions, transfers and finances under the wraps. Himesh
had heard Mona was trying to get transfer.

Mona started
ordering the team to do things. She would demand three days work to be
completed in half a day. She told them to stretch and work on Saturdays and
Sundays.

Vinay and Himesh
were unable to cope up with the workload, stress, pressure and the timelines. They
got burnt out and stressed. They didn’t want to continue like this. They
realized they would soon breakdown.

And the next three
weeks, Vinay realized the patterns in the workplace. People like Murali, Satish
and Shanthi were drawing salary without doing any work. They were even getting
promoted for being so. Vinay was doing the work for many job roles. He worked
as a team member. He also worked on creating the documents required for project
management report, audit report and various documents and reports required by
the quality group. He felt like being exploited. His salary was just one-fifth
of what Murali got and one-third of what Shanthi received.

“People who
don’t work or avoid work, they are getting promoted. They are promoted to
manager position. People who are hard working and who do the actual work are
released from the project. The feedback given to them is their performance is
not up to the mark,” said Himesh.

Himesh called Usha.
“We need to talk.”

Usha got in
touch with Vinay and Himesh every two days. They would discuss project matters.

Usha advised them
to go on ten days leave and take leaves on and off citing health issues.

Vinay’s mobile
rang. He saw Mona calling him. He didn’t pick up the call. Later in that day
Mona asked him, “I called you in the morning. You didn’t pick up the phone.”

Vinay said,
“No. I was busy with my work.”

Mona said
rudely, “I understand. But with one of your hands, you could have stilled
picked up the phone and answered. We are all busy. But still we should be able
to do multi-tasking at the same time.”

From that day
onwards, Vinay and Himesh ignored Mona’s phone calls. Mona stopped calling
their mobile phones.

Vinay and Himesh
followed Usha’s advice. Himesh took some ten days leave. Vinay went on five
days leave and extended the leave by another ten days. He cooked up various
reasons for the leave, courtesy Usha. They maintained irregular timings in
office. They would suddenly take a sick leave when a crucial training was
scheduled or an important deliverable had to be completed.

Vinay started
getting pressure on his personal front as well. Sana and he were discussing as
usual outside the Garden Park.

“My father
wants me to get married by early next year. They have started with the
matchmaking process and giving my bio-data to matchmaking brokers and
professional organizations. They are looking for a well settled groom working abroad.
They will never accept you. You don’t own a house yet. You are not well
settled. They will check everything. What can I do now? Tell me something. Do
something.”

“Whatever we
can handle we will handle. Whatever unfolds we will leave it to God’s Will.”

Vinay told
Sana about the Bitcoins he had.

“How much will
it come?”

“I had only hundred.
One Bitcoin is now thousand two hundred US dollar. At current exchange rate it
would come to seventy four lakhs.”

“Thank God.
Encash it immediately what are you waiting for? What are you going to do with
it?”

Vinay then
told her the marriage plan.

“Our parents
need not know about our marriage until the right time comes,” said Vinay.

That night
Vinay logged into a Bitcoin exchange and converted his Bitcoins into US dollar.
The transaction got completed in two days time and the equivalent money in US dollars
was credited into his bank account.

The next
Wednesday morning Vinay and Sana got married in the Registrar’s office. Himesh,
Ashutosh, Usha, Suresh, Ramesh and Sana’s close friends were present in their
wedding and bore witness.

Vinay and Sana
then immediately went on a shopping spree to purchase a flat. They looked at
both new as well as resale flats. In a week’s time they shortlisted some five
flats in different localities. They soon finalized and bought a 3BHK flat.
Vinay and Sana moved into their new home.

When Sana was
two months pregnant, she stopped travelling to Mysore during the weekends. When
her parents asked, she gave various reasons like project deliverables and tight
project timelines. Her father and mother would then start to come to Bangalore.
She would immediately pack up her things in a hurry and move in with her
friends for a day or two till their parents leave Bangalore.

Vinay was
getting fed up with this. When Sana was in her sixth month, he told her to
announce to everyone.

Sana
immediately called her mother, “Ma. I’m six months pregnant. Can you please
come over here?”

“Who’s
pregnant? What are you talking about? Who? The What? I don’t understand
anything,” came her mother’s reply.

Sana then
slowly explained her marriage to Vinay and what she and Vinay had done, to her mother
and father. She told them to come and meet her. Her parents started
immediately.

Vinay told his
mother, “Ma. I need to tell you something very important.”

“What is it
Vinay,” asked his mother.

“My wife is
six months pregnant.”

“What? Whose
wife are you talking about?”

“It’s my wife.”

“We will start
immediately now,” came the reply from his mother.

Vinay’s and
Sana’s family met in their house.

“How dare you
can do things like this? You think you can do whatever you want and expect us
to simply accept it? We declare this marriage null and void with immediate
effect,” said Vinay’s father who was a lawyer.

“We have
registered our marriage and our marriage is legal and according to the law,”
said Vinay in a low tone.

“Oh so you
have grown up so much. I would never imagine you doing things like this,” said
Vinay’s mother.

Sana’s father
told her, “Pack up your things. We are leaving now.”

Vinay
interrupted, “She is my wife.”

Sana’s mother
was in the kitchen making coffee. She brought coffee. Everyone took a cup.

“So you think
you can have your way around. This is unacceptable behavior. We will first take
some rest and discuss this matter in the evening. I’m just tired with the
travel,” muttered Vinay’s father.

Both Vinay’s
and Sana’s father took their things and went into different rooms.

Sana’s mother
and Vinay’s mother started talking with each other. They had known each other
before and had met in many occasions. Sana was tired and she went to bed in her
room. Vinay also went into the room.

In the evening,
everyone gathered in the hall.

“What is the rent
you are paying for this flat?” asked Vinay’s father.

“This is my
flat,” said Vinay.

“Is this your
flat? How? Did you get home loan? How come you didn’t tell us about it?” asked
Vinay’s father.

“There is no
home loan. I just made some money out of my Bitcoins,” said Vinay.

“I don’t get
this Bitcoin thingy and all that. What else are you hiding?” asked Vinay’s
father.

“Do I look
like hiding something?” replied Vinay.

“Oh yes. I’m
surprised with everything to do with you,” said Vinay’s father.

“What if
anyone hears this out?” asked Sana’s mother.

“We have a
respectable family background,” said Sana’s father.

They finally decided
to arrange a hurried marriage function inviting only very close friends. Their
marriage function was attended by Himesh and Ashutosh.

Usha had
planned her moves well. She had earlier tipped her colleagues in Dochamk Bank
that Mona was trying to put rookies and less experienced people into the GF
project and make them as billable resources. So the leadership team from Dochamk
Bank had tightened their filtering of candidates who were attending project
interviews for GF project and they had strictly put the eligibility for a
candidate at minimum four years experience to be billable. This had eliminated
Vinay and Himesh from officially working on the project. They could work only
as shadow or non-billable resource and support other people with their work in
the project.

Usha knew very
well Vinay and Himesh were very hard working. She knew Mona would use them as
her workhorses to complete the GF project in time. So she had also
psychologically instilled the fear about Mona into Vinay and Himesh. This way
she had eliminated both of them as Mona’s dark horses.

Usha started
with phase-two of her plan. She casually passed comments to her colleagues in
Dochamk Bank associated with the GF project. She told them the GF project team
was not fully loaded and they were most of the time sitting in cafeteria and
chitchatting. She also added Mona was working in a relaxed manner and she found
her usually working for six hours a day.

Mona was left
with no useful resource. Ashutosh had already got a deal to join an SAP project
within Holtezent after three months. Raghu had already confirmed his release
date from the project. Vinay and Himesh were not getting involved in the
project work. Shanthi was useless. There was not much contribution from Anil
and Puneet. Satish was working as the Support lead for the CDSTP operations
team.

Her dream of
getting transfer to Delhi came crashing down. Now she would be required here
till the completion of the project and that meant for next one year at least
she cannot get transfer.

Both Vinay and
Himesh asked for release from project. Since they are non-billable and shadow
resources, Murali agreed to release them soon. He doubted they would be made
billable anytime soon in this project as client was not taking one year
experienced people for this project. They were asking for minimum four years
experienced professionals. In Holtezent, billing rate was a flat rate of twenty
US dollar each hour. The rate was the same for everyone no matter how many
years experience they had.

Himesh
overheard a conversation between Mona, Raghu and Murali.

Raghu was
saying, “No Mona. We can’t release you now from the project. You are the
critical resource. We can’t pprove your transfer request to Delhi. We need you
till the completion of the project and until the three months of warranty
period after Go-live of the project happens. Also client wants you to roll out
at least two regions every two months. They have escalated to higher management
saying project team is not fully loaded.”

It also
indirectly meant Mona would end up doing all the work herself.

Later, Ashutosh
told, “Good luck to her.”

Himesh laughed
and said, “We escaped from her.”

Vinay asked, “Why
Mona wants to leave the project? I have heard a lot about her. People say she
is an expert. They are amazed with the way she works. Then why she wants to
leave? All these modules of this project are all created by her single-handedly.
She was the one who interviewed me.”

“Why she wants
to leave? You want to know? Or rather why she was allowed to work in this
project in the first place? She has created this nightmare. It is only fitting
if she stays and completes this project,” said Ashutosh.

“I don’t
understand. Are you saying she should not have been allowed to work here?”
asked Himesh.

“Little
knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge at all. Her designation is
Architect. She has written many blogs about Architecture called Architect’s
Universe. She has written hundreds of technical blogs in many web sites. But
does that make her an Architect? She thought she is an Architect but she never
was one. She can never become one. She can be only a namesake Architect.

An Architect
pulls together different discrete solutions and weaves a solution. But can
anyone do that? Can anyone become an Architect? If she has worked eight years
in Holtezent, does that make her an Architect? She can acquire whatever fancy
designations she wants but can only be a namesake for fancy designations like
“Lead Architect”, “Solution Architect”, “Technical Architect”, whatever.

She sticked
together separate amateurish solutions with whatever little knowledge she had and
composed a half-baked solution out of it. She dominated and dictated people
what they have to do. She enjoyed commanding others ordering them to do things.
She tried to impress her seniors and belittled her peers.

People said
she was an expert. They said she was a “mini boss”. She basked in the glory.

She should
never have been allowed to work as an Architect for this project,” explained Ashutosh.