always been the 2nd option

U Turn...

2010-04-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

Almost 2 months now, lots of discussions, lots of compromises, lots of support and lots of confusion(as usual)...

Hi Manager,

Please accept this mail as a notification that I wish to separate from the Organization . I would like my resignation to be effective as soon as possible. Kindly take forward the process of my separation from the project and the organization.

Thank you for the opportunities for professional and personal development that yourself and team has provided me during the last year.

My Service Agreement period of 15 months with the Organization has also completed on 15^th December, 2009.

Thanks & Regards,

Mayank Daga

All I did was Caching of Contacts...

2010-02-15T09:56:00.001-08:00

Goodbye mail to IT...

Limbo

- (often initial capital letter) Roman Catholic Theology. a region on the border of hell or heaven, serving as the abode after death of unbaptized infants (limbo of infants) and of the righteous who died before the coming of Christ (limbo of the fathers or limbo of the patriarchs).

This is a word which will now be a part of my Life forever, this is another word which in some way defines the state in which I have lived throughout my life- a state of confusion, like an infant, unsure why the world it has entered is the most sought-after thing, whether he was better off without the horde of egoistic, stubborn, selfish human race… always wanting to jump off and join the crowd and at the same time hoping to go back to the caring arms of God.

But then if one has entered this world and has to live through, so why not give it your best shot, why not take back some memories, why not do things in life which would make it feel like Heaven?

I remember the day when I had received the offer letter from Wipro and was to join in a week, not sure whether this would in any way help me in whatever was already planned for the future, not sure whether I would have the guts to leave a luring IT job for a design start-up sometime later on, or should I be a good son and share the responsibilities of handling my Dad’s business, in simple words knocking on one of the doors, not knowing whether you are Knocking on Heaven’s doors.

And even after spending almost a year-and-a-half, roaming around the place (Heaven/Hell), the question is still the same… Is this Heaven/Hell?

Things that happened:

- Got a very nice guide, to show around the place- My Mentor

- There were not many STOP signboards- roam freely, find your way

- Strangers were helpful as well, will even go off their way to help you find yours

- Work required wandering and wondering, thus exploring new and interesting places- Tickets

- After sometime you could easily understand the paths and it was more fun wandering with destinations- Features

- Opportunities to setup landmarks, got a chance to add your name to the Hall of Fame, places where your name will be embossed forever- PPM Caching :P

- You were rewarded with Champagne for your good efforts, sometimes a Cheaper one though- The Bug Buster Awards (cheaper- the ones printed on A4 size paper ;) )

- The mood of the hard days work was lightened up by sharing a mug of Beer at the end- The Tea sessions

- The God would listen to you and try and fix things by herself- The Manager :P

You might be wondering that all the things listed above are positive (though that’s not the way when someone’s talking about an IT company) and though strange, there really weren’t many things which I disliked in these 17 months. Maybe it was because for me the stay was too short to heed the glitches, maybe I cared too less for the end result, maybe because I am the privileged, getting a chance to explore the place hidden behind the other door, to go and see for myself if it is Heaven or its Hell.

Starting with barely clearing my FCG exams after training, coming to Pune… Avaya, changing names of softkeys to Tata, Birla, Ambani and trying to rename the forth as “Daga”, remember the assignment to change the promptline which took me 2 days to finish off, breakages in Power Management screen (it was the first time my Manager had come over to my desk to ask an explanation for the carelessness), endless efforts to make Local Conference not work (wasn’t able to reproduce it for 10 days), switching off Tom, Jerry and what all to receive a 481 response from CM for preserving Media, staying late nights to finish off Caching of Contacts… its all been a string of memories I’ll cherish forever.

Now is the time to check out the other side, other door, the one I have always avoided. Now is the time to move to Tiles from Tickets, Casuals to Formals, Coding to Accounting… another Adventure…

But only thing I hope is for the Media Connections to be preserved… Local Conference to be setup once in a while… cause all I have done here is Caching of Contacts… Hope we have a successful GA!!!

Thanks,

Mayank Daga

The fuss over the Beard or the Clean look

2009-12-12T04:55:00.000-08:00

Taking it from a friends statement on his life and replacing it with a word more apt for me-

“I am CHAOS personified”

Walking out of the gates of NIT Surat for the last time and entering a world I tried and escaped from, all my life.

A similar feeling- When it was time for Pre-boards exams in 12^th, because all I feared was that hanging out with friends would reduce, will miss the lunch time gossips, will die without having a glimse of the girl I had a crush on, pressure of expectations, sudden fact of not being good at studies hitting you hard when you see the results and above all- to justify my decision of taking up Science despite of tremendous pressure from family and Extended Family.

A similar feeling- When it was time for the tests for National Institute of Design (NID), my only attempt to try and pursue something of my interest before I am pushed into either my dad’s business or to take up a run-of-the-mill degree course such as Engineering (I thank ONE of the FEW right decisions taken by me to quit Biology, else I would have ended up having more options where OPTIONS is directly proportional to CONFUSION).

A similar feeling- When I came back after appearing for my All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) and called up all my friends to check if they had fared as bad (and they had not), staying back home locked up in my room when all friends were enjoying a free day after a long time, random surfing of institutes providing Design or Mass Communication courses, my last resort to run away from home.

A similar feeling- When the 10 days workshop at MICA (Mudra Institute of Communication) was almost over and I was giving a presentation on my Action plan for next 5 years (at 2 AM), though I knew I never had the guts of achieving any of the listed goals. This was the place I first felt like a true cartoonist, a chance of meeting people who were already making jingles, few who were already working for journals, and getting an appreciation from such guys actually helped me come up with the idea of DODO (a cartoon character) and his story. But the fame of being the only cartoonist among the 30 odd people was momentary.

A similar feeling- When after the first year in Engineering itself, I thought that the course would in no way help me to achieve what I wanted (though I am still not sure what, but I am sure it’s not related to Engineering, whatever it might turn out to be), still hoping the next three years would pass better than the first or the way Steve Jobs would put it-“Trusting that the dots would connect someday”.

A similar feeling- When after my 2^nd year all my friends were trying to get an internship/training into some technical organization and I called up some friends of mine and got an internship at “Mudra Advertising”, running around in crowded streets of Old Ahmedabad persuading Electrical shop owners to allow me to take pictures of some particular kind of tube-lights, catching strangers in parks/gym and interviewing them about their health habits, meeting owners of the restaurants where a particular kind of newly launched mineral water brand was served, to allow me to talk to their customers. After sometime I was loving it but then it was over and I was back to Engineering.

A similar feeling- When after the 3^rd year I realized that the part of being an organizer of a college event was over and I am no more expected to put up any banners and break my leg doing that, not to decide on the designs and the look of the event, not sitting cross-legged in front of a manager of a expected sponsor and persuading him to agree to our demands and heeding to none of his, not having any juniors cribbing about the work I gave them but at the end appreciating the final outcome.

A similar feeling- When suddenly you receive a mail from a school friend of yours about her getting engaged the next weekend and then it strikes you that you are as old as her and its about time to take Life as seriously and accept your parents still taking your decisions about life. The fear of seizure of the aimless wanderings and meetings I so loved.

And now it’s a similar feeling where I am almost a year experienced working in an IT company, have managed to fool myself and others in believing that I am doing good work and I am getting good work. There is again a fear of losing the trust you developed among your colleagues, a responsibility which forced you to get up at 8 in the morning, a desk which you decorated with some of your designs, some certificates and a toy basketball game, the 2 tea times with colleagues where you gossip about topics ranging from your manager to the hot chicks in Infosys.

I might not have learnt much in these “similar feelings” (because I still make the same mistakes of developing an attachment with all I meet and feeling sad after loosing them) but these sure are a few moments in my life which I find worth capturing because I just hope there’ll be less chaos at some point where the dots would actually connect and bring out the wannabe ROCKSTAR in me and I might forget all these and lose an opportunity of having a good laugh at myself. Till that time comes I still wish to keep wondering about less important things in Life-does CLEAN SHAVE or a BEARD looks better on me. ;)

Lalu, Mannu & Bush on a LOCAL CONFERENCE with VoIP

2009-12-05T20:42:00.000-08:00

This was written long back… but as I am inching closer to completing my “Service Agreement” with Wipro these are the experiences I’ll remember forever.

19^th March 2009

7823_22.bin & 7823_final.pcap

Solved my first ticket(actually the closest to solving one in all my tries). It was regarding a conference call( they call it Local Conference.. I wonder why ;) )

Scenario-

Bush on his last visit to India heard a lot about Lalu turning around the fortunes of Indian Rails and Bush in his last bid to save his ass (after his Afghanistan blunders) wanted to follow a similar model in US with the trains there making huge losses every year. Thus he calls up Manmohan Singh to arrange a conference call with Lalu.

Now Mannu first calls Lalu with an invitation for conference without Lalu knowing that Bush is going to join along. Then Bush receives his invitation from Mannu. Then Mannu suddenly presses the ‘Join’ button and Lalu, Mannu and Bush are put on a conference call.

Leg M, assume its Manmohan Singh- has 3 codecs G.729, G.726 & G.711A(the initiator of the conference)

Leg L (Lalu Prasad Yadav)- A handicapped leg of the conference with only one codec G.729

Leg B(George Bush)- Has only one codec- G.726

Codec- Assume it to be a language… M understands English, Hindi and Bihari (yes Lalu and Mannu have been chaddi friends, it was only when Mannu decided to be a finance minister and Lalu decided to do a finance ghotala, they had to part ways)… L obviously is a Bihari and B understands English(and maybe some Urdu from his Pakistan connections but we’ll ignore it for once) … So M acts as the interpreter.

Client says- When the conference is established after sometime B speaks in English but for some reason M ignores him and replies in Bihari.. thus B is unable to understand and goes off the conference

In Layman terms-

The client believes that Manmohan does not wish to give out some internal policies to Bush and abuses him instead, in bihari. But Mannu does not know that Rabri Devi (Lalu’s wife) had done her MS along with Bush and thus he knows a bit of bihari. Thus Bush feeling insulted and frustrated leaves the conference immediately.

My observation- M is a nice guy(everyone knows that) and understands the criticality of the conference and thus passes appropriate messages to both the persons.

In Layman terms-

Mannu is a smart guy and is also a close friend of Rabri thus knows about all her pre-marital affairs and thus continues talking to Bush in English avoiding suspicions by Lalu about Bush-Rabri affair.

I spent 10 days understanding the behavior of these people and for me all were nice to each other… understanding how vital it was and continuing the peace conference… but the client being adamant on his point wanted me to visit his office 20 kms from my place and test it along with him so that I could see what he had reported as an issue.

Ketan( my Team Lead ):You have this last day for the tests here, else you need to visit their office… and that’s one hell!!!

Me: Sure I’ll have my final tests along with Sourabh( my other TL ) and let you know.

Testing Session with Sourabh: It’s working fine( the conference is not consistent In Layman Terms- Mannu is a b@$t@Vd and insulting Bush)… What were you doing???

Main ghabra gaya… Sahem gaya… ab to watt lagi

Had a chance of running a few more tests before Sourabh could return from lunch… I was unable to reproduce the scenario, i.e. I was unable to see any problem with the conference, as observed by Sourabh

Observation(First in Layman terms):

But suddenly Mannu bored by long conversation between Lalu and Bush and realizing that this would continue for long, goes back to his reclining chair by putting the phone on SPEAKER so that he could easily help interpreting. But to his surprise Bush felt insulted by the indifference shown by Mannu, takes it personally and leaves the conference immediately. And this is when Mannu actually ABUSES Bush.

Frustrated with switching between handsets every now and then, LUCK BY CHANCE I put the Initiator( M ) on speaker… AND the voice path goes down between B and L. So the problem was when the initiator changes the device… in this case from handset to speaker.

This issue had been raised 6 months back by @V@Y@ to my organization. It was tested by both @V@Y@ Development team and my team… I wonder how every person testing this always switched the device and I in those 10 days of testing never for once did so.

That’s DODO J…

Lesson Learnt-

Trust your bad luck… cause that is the only companion you’ve had all your life.