First day/Preceptions ablaze@Chennai

4.10 PM 22nd July 2008

For the last 750 minutes things are happening with me at their whim. After barely sleeping for 70 minutes blaring taxi horn woke me at 3.30 am. I had no other option but to wake up and put myself into the taxi. I was in total confused state of mind. I had no idea how I am supposed to react. Amidst all the perplexing thoughts I reached airport and found some welcome company soon. 90 minutes in plane were vaguely thoughtless. Even the damsels (airhostess) could not invoke anything from me. 60 minutes of sleep rejuvenate me for the coming times. I landed with lots of assumptions which I have always tried to rein. Certain relationships teach you lots of things like conversing without saying anything and this skill is really helping me a lot here. Starting from getting a taxi to getting a room in hostel non verbal communication is playing a key role in shaping the things up.

10.43 PM 22^nd July 2008 Perceptions ablaze

Things have started to fall in place. In the last 6 hours I have met more than 10 of my classmates and I am glad that I have got a good intelligent bunch of classmates, which is imperative for any MBA batch.

A frequent site of black bucks and deer no more excites anybody here. They seem to be the eternal part of the background. I will not say anything about the infrastructure here as IIT Chennai has truly lived up to its expectation as a top notch IIT. Great hostels, big dining halls, breath taking swimming pool, affable people can make any place worth living.

Lunch time was a glimpse of things to expect on diet front. It was pure southie food with three sambar like vegetables. I tried all three…..”It happens Vikas” that what I told myself….

But lots of options are available and you can get a good northie food at Basera which is a small eating joint saving hundreds of north Indian souls from despair of eating local food which infact is not bad either.

11.13 PM 22^nd July 2008

It is a overwhelming feeling as internet is finally working in my hostel room. With everything configured it gives me a immense pleasure connecting with the world sitting in my hostel room.

It happened...

I still can’t believe that I happened. I was serious about the whole affair but had no idea that things will be that easy. My past gave me every reason for not to believe what happened. Like a true iconoclast I have always believed in breaking all the convention , traditions and this time also I have lived up to my expectations. Defying all the norms we went ahead and showed the people with us the way that led us to where we are. I am amazed to know that even though people around me were over excited but I was not but that in no sense means that I was not over excited. I have truly believed that things are not difficult as they seem they are and this experience has indeed proved my perceptions right in all manner. Even the fear of going tomorrow does not scare me any more because I believe that this whole affair will truly transcend all the boundaries. People say that a new phase has started now but I don’t believe it has as it was started 4 months and 3 days back.

Less than 16 hours have left for me to fly away to the different part of the country but sense of strange satisfaction is still prevailing, don’t know for how long.

Voyage

When I sit and look back at my journey of two years in W&C group, reactions invoked are nothing but satiating.

As a fresh pass out from campus, full of enthusiasm and energy, I got an environment, which proved to be a perfect vent for my high energy levels. I must say that with W&C’s diverse range of project and well-coordinated teams, one is able to find the right place for him. It was an exciting journey and I got exposed to lots of things in terms of technology, profession and lot more.

It was a great learning experience to work a part of WinApps team, which at one point of time was handling 6 different products. This project on the whole encompassed a gamut of technologies like Java, C++, and DBMS along with the SS7 protocols knowledge. I never felt that I am learning is limited by a narrow scope of work. In one way or the other opportunities to learn different technologies always existed. It was up to you on how you make use of them. My big appetite to learn always helped me grab the opportunities. With some brilliant and sharp colleges consciously or subconsciously I have learnt a lot of vital things, which in later stages of my professional carrier would definitely come in handy. Now when I introspect I always realize that lots of subtle things, which I know today, have been imbibed by me from my colleges. Email writing, document creation, client handling are few areas on which I improved with the help of my colleges.

One needs certain degree of flexibility and confidence of supervisor to work effectively and efficiently. In my case I got both the things. I always felt that I have the wings the fly freely and I can make the impact with my activities. There were moments when I thought that I am not learning anything new and my carrier is not progressing steeply. Instead of keeping these to myself I was went to my supervisor and in most of the cases we were able to explore exciting avenues, which could hasten my learning and growth. Sometimes it was in the form of some in-house project using latest technologies and in some it was my movement to the other team working in parallel.

Open communication model, which is followed here in true spirits, is a unique feature of this fast growing BU. I had full freedom to discuss my concerns with anyone in the group. But I must say that to create this kind of culture initiative has to come from the top and it came indeed. Regular skip level meetings gave everyone a platform to share their grievances. I always looked forward to the mails from the top management about the BU performance and other important updates. I thoroughly relished reading all those important and enlightening mails, which perhaps spoke volume about the clear and direct communication model, which was preached and practiced as well.

Aricent rich culture of in-house trainings is always of a great help. It honed my soft skills with technical skills as well and as a newbie in the industry this was the most sought after thing for me. I attended almost all the relevant and some times irrelevant training also and they definitely have made a subtle impact on my skills. W&C rich culture of organizing very specific technology trainings to gave me a head start while ramping up on diverse technologies.
In all the QSM I attended it was always a delight to know that my group has been performing consistently very well. Those were proud moments. I have always taken a keen interest on the things, which on the face are not in the preview of a Software engineer. In this quest I have always got lots of inputs from my supervisor and at the same time the timely mail about the BU performance have also served their purpose very well. Thrust again quenched …



In all enthralling experience till now………