Steeped Learning Curve!

Confusions are good in life. There is a saying in Tamil, and when translated it is like this “One can’t fish in a clear pond”. It is true. Unless you are confused, you are not thinking; if you are not thinking you are probably going to be wrong.

There were many things that were happening today. Two most important things that confused me are these:

1. My managers were as usual fucking me with lots of work, so I was thinking on how to handle it, and learnt that I have to search between my legs to find some balls. Will probably be doing in the coming days.

2. I got a chance to talk frankly with a girl, and this time I learnt who I really am, and found out that I am not the person I was imagining. I am searching for some balls, and answer on Who am I really!

I will probably explain these later in other posts. For now, I feel good. I am thinking. I really am, after a long long time.

So far so good! lets see, what the life has for me in the package!

How to handle these people??

I am a Functional Test Automation engineer, I would like to act and think that I am one, and I am striving to be good at it, and I have been good so far. I am dealing with a bunch of people in the recent times where they are of one single thought that I am a Stupid who talks on Automation and could never do! What the heck?

These guys started working on something called BPT, which is a concept and an automation framework. There is an SME (not me) who is assigned this work. Since I am from the same lot, I could not take my mind out of it. During the start of this implementation I told them number of times, that the design that you are about to be implemented is more important than the actual work. They could not understand that!

Test automation is NOT a fancy Harry Potter’s magic wand to create a PETRONAS charm. It is a development project that would help testers to achieve a better quality. The major advantage of any proper automation is to achieve at the decent granularity. These guys have done some thing that is pissing me off to the core. No proper work what so ever!! God help the team and the company!!

No Communication, No Design, No proper coding, and moreover, when someone is telling that these are missing NO Respect to such an advice. Today I learnt the hardest lesson of my life. Do your work, and Shut the fuck up. Even if some one is fucking up something that is out of your purview, you stay shut. It is easy said than done. I don’t know what exactly I should do to get this out of my head. That’s what is my mission now, taking it off my head, and I am going to face a lot of hiccups in that process. Lots of fight within myself, between my conscience and my mind.

I was planning to take it up further level, warn my manager of a foreseen pitfall here, and pitch in and clear it up. But, now I decided to keep my mouth shut. No more involvement in this automation team, come what may.

The most funniest part in the entire thing is the argument that I had with my so called SME (the most amateurish one that any one can imagine). These are some of her lines:

> “You can’t create a complete design without coding, design and coding goes in parallel”  - a developer will laugh his ass off the moment he hears this line.
> “More number of components, I will have to remember them to use them”  - yeah really good one, you are worried that you have to use your brain and memory. super!
> “I cant learn the functionality, just for the purpose of creating test scripts for them” – Perfect, I cant comment on this one!!
> “I will create whatever I can, if the client wants to take it up, then let them, or I can justify why that cant be done”  - fuck the client, I will build the house that I like, if he wants to live in it let him, or let him build his own. (even though I am supposed to be building a house for him)
> “I have my framework and it works for me, if you have a framework, you use it”  - He He He, proves the ego.
> “I cant teach the customer to use the automation scripts, I create it, I use it” – Fuck the world. If, I want to run nude in the streets, I will.

One thing is clear from all these statements, she should be taught on what it is to be in a position to face the client and talk to him at a higher level, the designer level, than at a coder level. She has that excellent possessive and egoistic quality that if you say that something is wrong, she NEVER accepts that, and says that “who are you to tell me that, you know nothing, I am the king in this, and I am the only one in the world who knows this, you are shit to me”.

After seeing that kind of an attitude, I decided no more telling, let her ask this question with the manager when he asks the same question. She is not my sister or a girl-friend. Out of some corner friendship, if I wanted to help, this is one nice response that I got.

HA HA HA, that is going to be fun to watch. I covered my bases. Thanks! Good lesson.

What I hate is what I love

The answer is computer. I have always loved computer and working on it, from 3rd grade to be precise, that is when I saw computer first in my life, when taken on a “field trip” to a computer company, to show us what computers are. Love at first sight. I don’t know why. This is my reason why I selected Computer Science to be my major in High School and Information Technology for my undergrad.

If I start working on a project on my own, I forget the world around me, forget food, sleep, life, everything. All that will be in my mind is this. I enjoy doing that. Even today if I am doing something that is interesting on my comp, oh man I go back to be the same self, to that state of eternal bliss, walking on the clouds, just thinking.

May be this is why I hate it also. Now that I wanted to see something outside of this computer, I cannot. I am not able to see the world without computer, or my world without one. I had created a too far self dependency on that. Every day I open my eyes to see computer and fall asleep seeing it. Nothing else is there in my life. Since this is going beyond limits, I am now starting to feel a hatred towards that. I want to know, what is life without a computer.

Even though I love and I am into computers so much, did I do anything exceptional? Nope. I am one of the 400,000 employees in my company, and one in a few million IT Engineers. What is my specialty? My unique quality? or to put it simply, “without computer in the picture, WHO AM I? WHAT AM I?” I have not done anything so far to define myself to be a human.

To talk about my work! Dude! May be that is the one that made me hate what I love. The same shit, different day! It is a Saturday today, and I cannot think anything but my work. Oh! of course there is work and it needs to be done, but brooding over it for 24 hours makes anyone mad. And, the major problem is the people that I work with. I have a team member, if I say “He does not know what a computer is”, I am not overstating. It is a fact. I ask him to do anything, all he comes back with is a simple, “I don’t know how to do it Krishnan”.

I am not sure what I am going to do, to find a solution for this!!!

Man! I am pissed…

DAMN! I am trying to keep the cool, but might actually burst out any time. I am completely pissed today. Highly unprofessional attitude. These guys should be bent over and fucked royally, wearing a condom of steel.

On the last day, the team member comes and says that, it will not work that way, where she agreed to the same thing some days before, and when asked why she agreed then, all I got was a startling reply, “I was not feeling well then, and I was not in a position to answer properly”

Moreover, I have no time on this project, she had already burnt, all those hours that they had asked for and twice more than that. And the fun part is that, what ever she had worked till yesterday was 100% wrong, and she had to redo everything, and whatever she did is not working also!!

Man I am definitely PISSED!!!

People make mistakes, and can be understood and forgiven. But, BLUNDERS? Heights of Atrocity!!

The MAD living!!

My mood is only on one thing. It is the one, the one that I am waiting for. Its been almost a month. I cannot clearly say here what it is and what it is related to.

I cannot concentrate on my work, cannot sleep properly, cannot eat, almost in a state of desperation. No idea what this state of mind means. I am supposed to be a calm and composed person, but what is it that is driving me crazy? and why?

The answer is simple, too much of self inflicted hatred on one thing, made me look out for the next thing. This is what probed the chain of events. Now that the hatred is blooming day by day with that thing, it is driving me nuts. This is the blocker now, for me to bite the apple that I am trying to reach out.

Waiting. Highly Impatiently waiting. Eagerly waiting. But that's all I can do about it. Wait. This is completely out of my control. I think I have to take this as a next chapter of lesson that my life is giving to me. “If you cant control something that is out of your control, then learn to be patient, whatever your situation is”

The lesson of Lions, the king of the jungle, the lesson of Masters, the kings of the world. They were patient at some or the other point in their life, waiting for that right chord. The right note, the right time, moment. I am starting to practice patience!!!

Om!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Sealed Mouth

I am in a complete catch 22 situation. I have some work to do. It is challenging and I have got to be given one of these. I know I am the right person to do it. My creativity on this today is like, I myself could not believe, that I have so much in me.

But, in the situation I am (currently I cannot say that here!), I cannot commit to the way I want to achieve this work to be done. The major hiccup in this is the time. Ideas are flowing in like the great Ganges. Time is drawing out like a blade. I am sure that these will get me a 1 rating this time, in my annual appraisal, but again in my situation, I cannot commit.

It is hell to have the juicy, healthy fruit in hand but the mouth sealed!!! Damn!

Some more micro!

The sincere proofreader…
I was proof reading the first copy of a marriage invitation when my dad yelled at me: “Do it properly! It is your marriage!”

The great colleague
When I asked my colleague to read my blog, she quipped “Should I review and comment?”

Pinnacle of reluctance
I am blogging during office hours when I have 14 deliverables to be made in 2 hours!