Peoplesoft days at cognizant …. a lookback ;-)

Last year around this time i was part of the ESA product team in cogni. I was working in the timesheet module and remembered today the most screwing incident that happened in timesheet and thought of writing it here

In IT time is money and all the clients are billed with respect to the amount of time entered by employees in a timesheet. The sheet is approved by the manager for project hours and by HR for vacation hours before submitting to the client for final billing.

Some how that day there was a major bug (email me if you wanna know what it was ) in the system.All timesheets were getting automatically approved .

To fix the bug we had to delete all the entered timesheet and then automate the resubmission process. My task was to take care of automation of resubmission process and i remember my routine was something like this.

Thurday 12:30 pm : Total panic in meeting room , people in hyperactive state (obv coz timesheets getting auto approved).

Thursday 1:40 pm : I am told i have to write the auto submission process (the way i want to) and in as much time as i want , but it should be ready by 6:30 pm (common dialog in IT industry)

Thursday 6:45 pm : I am done with writing the patch, and then they review my code and say i need 2 rewrite it to make it run more efficiently  (they ( cant take names  here ) say it was taking too much time to run))

Thursday 7:30 pm : Morale down , totally irritated coz nobody gave proper instructions before starting the work and they expect me to redo. I start the redo process from scratch.

Thursday 11:20 pm : dinner of  1 sandwich and glass of juice and back to work

Friday 1:20 am : totally exhausted but loads of work remaining.

Friday 4:30 am : I need some help from DBA who are in US when i call them , they say its time for them 2 leave office as its their end of day (onsite people aren’t supposed to work overtime )

Friday 5:30 am : I leave for home , on the way 5 dogs chase me , thankfully my bikes faster than them

Friday 9:00 am : back in office , resume the work

Friday 6:00 pm : codes reviewed and passed. After the big shots made me do all the changes , there was again hardly any change / improvement in the performance. (but u cant ever say no to bigshot egos ).

Friday 7:30 pm : the code is run, will continue running till morning

Saturday 12:45 am : go out with a dedicated colleague who;s giving me moral support and we have dinner of eggs bread and juice.

Saturday 5:00 am : Codes still running, me and my colleague playing cricket with managers two stress balls (they always need 2 (one is not enuf ))

Saturday 7:30 am : I leave office, my task is accomplished.

Monday 11:30 am : I have to give a detailed explanation why i am late in office, at 10:45 am and not by 10:00 am.

Lesson learned: “In the corporate there arent any friends. People will use you to the maximum and will be with you till the time they need something from you. “

…. screw or get screwed .

iN pUrsuit oF hAppynEsS

This is truly one of the most inspiring movies I have watched in a long time. Each time when i am feeling down , or looking for motivation , I turn to this movie.

These are my favorite lines from the movie when Will Smith , the father has a conversation with his son about following your dreams.

“When you have a dream, U must protect it. When people say to you , that you cannot do something , Its coz they have tried to do it, and they couldnt. Just coz they couldnt, doesnt mean you cant. You can , and you can and you can, if you have the perseverance for it”

Their own world

I was working on a project and as part of the work i got a chance to visit the YMCA school for the deaf . I was amazed to see the kids there. Each one of them was so immensely talented and each one of them was enjoying his/her life to the fullest.

You could see that spark in their eyes, the confidence in their body language and the enthusiam on their faces. Inspite of their disablity to hear and talk, they can play music , they can draw stuff which will make any artist feel proud, most importantly they can face any challenge with a smile on their face.

I must say the teachers there are doing a great job having respect for every child and their talents. They treat each child as special and they are really special children.

These are kids who aren’t bothered about  what the world is up to and  they aren’t after all the crap things we able people are after.

These are kids who live in their own small world and how happy and contented they are with each day in their life. Its these kind of children who will grow up to be heroes in life some day.