GERMANY

I remember my first day at IBM - exciting, inspiring and a little daunting. Working for a global company like IBM offers amazing opportunities to work and “only work”. However, it takes time to get to know the organization, its processes and the colleagues of course!

It was Sep 8th 2005 I stepped into IBM in Bannerghatta office. There was an inclusive and boring induction program. A traditional welcome was given to the employees by Indigenous IT influencers or you can call them “ HR’s”. Thankfully it was only for 2 days. The third day I went to SA2. That was a place where new joinees used to sit. When I entered the conference room, I saw a bunch of people who were doing some PRODUCTIVE work on yahoo, gmail and orkut. Occasionally, they checked their official emails. They strictly forced me to not join the AT&T account. Within a month I got into a project that was a “Sprint” account.

Now a sharp twist in the path -

There is always a granted condition, applied for “non-commercial use only and it does not warrant or make any representations regarding the use or the results of their correctness, accuracy, timeliness, reliability, or otherwise….” Exactly the same way when I joined the project they didn’t familiarize me with the terms and conditions. After finishing all the joining formalities, the actual scene came to light. I had a one to one meeting with my manager. He said that it was a development-cum-support type of project. You have to rotate your time as per the schedule. That was 24/7. That statement bounced back and forth in my head, in one form or another, for a while. He had offered me a cab facility also. He said that IBM offers a RELIABLE (as they say) cab service called “Hertz”. He also said that the security would be so good that I wouldn’t have any concerns travelling even at midnight. In contrast to traditional security which was the entrenched logic – “going by cab is safe even at midnight”, I was concerned about the security which was genuine. Immediately I responded - I was not aware of the 24/7 timings and I am sorry I wouldn’t be able to adjust my time as the project demands. He was in a hurry and said that we would talk the next day.

I talked to my resource deployment manager (RDM) but he said that he couldn’t help and that I couldn’t change the project immediately. I came home a bit upset about the proposed terms and conditions of the project. I was thinking about the excuses that I could give next day. I talked to my roomie. The most common mistake that we all make is in believing that our idea is a kohinoor diamond - unique and exotic. She also did the same and gave me an excuse related to the Health problem. However it didn’t glitter.

I could not persuade myself to tell about my health at least.

The next morning I went to office without any excuse that I was supposed to portray as “the” conviction. My manager and I now faced each other. It was like a spontaneous exam for me while all the different facts remained uncertain.

Again my manager started advertising the “Hertz Rental Car” services while giving all the facilities options. I anticipated a forthcoming rejection in his voice. Instantly my imaginative alibi occurred to me and I blurted –

“I am engaged”

He won’t allow me for the night shifts of course! Moreover, he is not here so definitely he is also concerned about my security. “Where is your fiancé?” Was his curious question – Now this was the time when I had to search on “Google earth” Although I replied – GERMANY (I just randomly picked). That was a presumptuous infinitesimal, fake reply. Never mind! I had picked a European country not US, lest I had to perform a “quick sort algorithm” to filter the 50 states. That would have been a prolix presentation.

The next question was –
When are you getting married?? – I said within 6 months or later.

He was a bit tensed and said – “Okay! You have to work for 2 months until a resource comes back from US. And I will adjust your time. You need not work late nights”. I didn’t react because at that point I was thinking about how to manage “GERMANY”???
The next day I met a decent and nice person that was JSR and he was aware of the story (24/7) and he told me “Don’t worry they’ll not force you to work beyond your restriction”. He was a technical lead for that project and he introduced me to the team members –

Sastry - A silent yet humorous guy.
Sushil – An Angry young man (sometime).

The information about Germany was then clustered and published across the contextual channels - my team members.

When I came back home, the question that kept popping in my head throughout the day was – the name of the guy in “Germany”. My roomie and I were thinking about the possible permutations and combinations of names.
We had tried almost all the options including the bollywood stars excluding “Newton, Albert Einstein and James bond”, of which some were –

A for Amit (The most common name)
B for – Bhuvan (Lagaan fame – I am loving it)
C for Chandru (a bit classy)
D for Dharmendra (60’s most handsome bollywood man)

And so on….

I hadn’t picked any of these either.
The next day we had team lunch. Sastry couldn’t resist himself from asking me –

“What is your fiance’s name ??”

I didn’t have any answer because till then I had not given any name. I gave a fake smile.
He laughed and said – ohh! You have an Indian mentality so you are not going to tell your husband’s name.
I was really embarrassed however I didn’t react and just smiled again. Then Sastry said, “I’ll call him “GERMANY””. I took a long breath and was thinking - thank god! He himself gave the name. I didn’t have to use any search engine.

Since then, I followed the “Anti Spam policies” and didn’t allow them to spam me with any questions about Germany.

Now my imaginary “Instant GERMANY” was completely safe and living happily in GERMANY as I did.
After a while despite of some mishaps, everything went swimmingly and I got released from that project when JSR came back from US. I had a feeling of guilt, so I confessed that there was nothing about Germany to JSR.
The first part ended here…

In Jan 2006 I joined the AT&T project. And there is nothing special to remember….

After one and half years, I saw the actual presentation of my script - that was the movie “Jhoom Barabar Jhoom”. Don’t you think??? I inspired the first half :-)

I was probably immature at that time and I think I certainly was. Given a chance now may be I would have handled the situation with my manager in a lot different way.
I will never forget that Instant Germany. It will always put a smile on my face and I wish someday I’d get a sporting chance to see the real Germany (of course! The place :D).

Liar!!!