My Life – The new season, airing now!

And we are back again, broadcasting live about my life. Nothing much has really changed over the past 8 months that I was away from this blog. I have become very very bored with mundane life, my employer has become one of the most famous IT companies in the world with all the scandals rocking it, I still dont have a lady love, there isnt any work at office, my roomie is still as unhelpful as ever in keeping the house clean. In short everything going on around me, the events, the conversations, the scandals; everything bores me a lot.

Yesterday I broke all protocol and called in sick via sms. The best part about this is that I really dont care what my Team Leader or my manager will think about me. As the situation currently stands, I havent done any productive work since the end of January, and no good work seems in sight for the near future. So since the past three months, office to me just means sitting at my desk, attending a couple of meetings and browsing all day long. Sometimes when I get really bored I leave early.

One of the better things to happen in recent days was that somehow I got passes to a fashion show in Hyderabad. Beautiful women walking the ramp in high heels, naked arms, legs and shoulders…… it was fun!

700 on the GMAT – Snaphots from hell

I took my GMAT yesterday and scored 700. I have fallen short of my own expectations, by a long distance. A detailed debrief shall follow soon.

The other side of midnight

I havent been blogging since a long time now, I guess its because I cannot express myself properly anymore. I start writing a new post and then after a while I stop, stare blankly at the screen and discard the draft.

Office has become a hopeless charade and I am keeping up the act pretty well on that front. I wake up every morning, and if its a weekday, I silently pray “Oh God, not again”. The entire rigmarole of waiting impatiently for cabs, hanging out of buses and running after trains, starts on Monday and does not abate till Friday evening, when I am securely home.

Everyday I silently argue with my inner self and convince myself that there are far worse evils in the world than my insecurities. And then I carry on, trying to find solace in checking email, glancing at the system clock often, waiting for the dusk, to return back home and sleep, and to continue the same act all over again the next day. Its been a long time since I was proud of my own self, its been long since my self esteem got a boost. Encouragement from friends and family doesnt push me up anymore. I am my own worst critic, I somehow always manage to puncture my ego. Maybe I am expecting too much from myself.

I am now a volunteer for the social arm of the corporate I work for. Our group visits a childrens shelter every weekend, spending time with the children, playing games with them and organising activities. Its a break from my own selfish existence. Its at such times I finally realise that I may not actually be the centre of the universe. I am afraid to think what all those children must have gone through. We shall be taking ice creams for the kids tomorrow, and cant wait to see their expressions when they realise that we actually bought what they had wished for during our last visit.

Sleep, is slowly becoming my best friend. It carries me to another world altogether, where there are no competitive exams to write, no project managers and team leaders and no jostling and pushing for the elusive seats in buses/cabs. I can sleep at any time and at any place now. Snatching a few minutes of bliss at my office desk, or sleeping for two hours at 9 AM after having woken up at 6, is now becoming quite common for me.

Aha! a solution

Now the Gujjars are violently protesting, burning buses and causing mayhem so that they be declared backward and granted the privilege of the quota system. Considering that our country is now growing increasingly backward, and more and more communities are demanding a backward status, I propose that the reservation quota be made 100% and all the people of India be declared backward so that the benefits of the quota system are reaped by everybody and there are no other violent protests in the future.

The stop payment of my Reality Check

A friend’s sister is currently trekking in the Himalayas, surrounded by snow capped peaks and cooking over a log fire at her base camp. Trekking, camping, bungee jumping, white water rafting are a few activities that I have always dreamed of doing, but could never turn these dreams to reality. Trekking in the Himalayas is something I would definitely do, regardless of the fact that my manager wouldnt ever give me the required 2 week leave. I should have done all this in college, but I was always held up during the vacations, clearing my multiple backlogs.

The age of mediocrity

The farce called ‘the appraisal process’ is finally over, in which I had to evaluate myself over vague factors, and give lengthy remarks which sounded more absurd than the definition of those factors themselves.

The age of mediocrity has finally taken over. I dont have the motivation to actually do something creative. That spirit of proving myself is lying dormant. It does kick into action once in a blue moon, making be believe that its not actually dead.

I do not know what I am doing in my life except wasting time at office. I do not have anything worthwhile to do while I am enclosed within that matchbox’ish building, that actually houses the offices of one of the top Indian IT companies. I hit various female profiles on orkut all day, hoping to find unlocked albums, or surf blog links that I unearth from the these profiles. In short I am a total nikamma guy who doesnt even have the will to progress further, somehow I am very happy with this stagnation, just because I am in my comfort zone.

The history of my future….

Where I stand today: a software engineer, 23 years old, riding on the Indian IT wave, working for foreign clients, working according to the timings of the said foreign clients, earning an Indian salary, doing no creative work, average money, below average satisfaction, zero self respect.

Where shall I get if I continue like this? I would most probably become a project manager when I am 35 years old, shall occupy those cabins lining the glass walls, have a zero personality, and shall sit and devise new methods of torturing young recruits and shall take pleasure in dashing their high flying dreams to pieces. I shall be thinking up ways of decreasing project costs by recruiting inexperienced (lower salary) staff in place of the more experienced (higher paid) engineers. Is this the life I was made for? No sir, absolutely not.

After almost 20 months into my first job, I have come to terms with the Indian IT scene. I want to opt out now. A couple of years ago, I thought that the technical field was where my calling lay, but the truth was harsh and I am glad I hit on it without wasting too much of time. The scope of personal development in the field of IT, is very very limited, and I know I definitely dont want to end up like the charlatans in those glass cabins, lugging around laptops and throwing around phrases like ‘we have plans for you’, ‘you shall progress if you stay with us’, ‘the future is very bright’ at youngsters who come into this industry with starry dreams of fat paychecks and exciting careers.

Now where do I go from here?
I hate the state of indecisiveness, but thats precisely the state in which I was till last week. I knew that I wanted to study further and have a better job profile. But the weighty question was, what should I do for achieving my ultimate goal of an exciting career? Since the time I left college, I planned pursue MS, after a job stint of two years. The two years of work experience that I had planned for myself, is nearing its end and now I am not sure that I want to continue in the technical field. I have gathered that after my MS I can either try to get into Google (a very remote possibility), or become a college lecturer (not my style) or get back into the same domain again (never) or settle abroad and get into a company that actually values knowledge. I have realized that engineers mean very little to companies as they are available dime a dozen. The scene from the Jublee checkpost to Madhapur (IT guys on the bikes in the dense vehicular traffic, IT guys rushing towards cabs and pushing/shoving to get in) closely resembles something similar to the Factory areas in Faridabad and Gurgaon where factory workers rush to their workshops on their cycles, carrying their lunch boxes; and hang precariously out of public transport buses.

I have been often confused if I should pursue MS or an MBA, but now after almost 2 years of believing in “I was made for the technical” my thoughts have drastically changed to “I was made for the practical” and being in the industry has shown me that technical people are not practical, they are too idealistic. I am interested in the development of my personality, I am interested in public speaking, I am interested in meeting new people, I am interested in traveling to new places, I am interested in leaving an impression on people whom I meet. I am interested in giving my best performance and being paid for what I deserve. Money is a materialistic equivalent of my talent, innovation and achievements and I dont want my talent, innovation and achievements to be undervalued. Being an MS would give me some of the opportunities that I crave for, but I tend to believe that being an MBA would give me a better chance of achieving my desires. Hence I decided that I want to pursue an MBA degree instead of an MS.

I was never sure if MS was the correct path to my future, I dont even know what led me to believe so. I knew that I needed to study further and I knew I liked a bit of technical stuff (which I am really unsure of now); this clubbed with the fact that some of my peers opted for MS, and the possibility of getting a decent college abroad (having scores of hot gals) after scoring above average in the GRE; is the most likely reason that I decided on it. Now I have ditched my MS dreams and resolved to work towards getting into a good business school, and maybe get back into the IT industry albeit with a different job profile.

This decision was made in the past one week and I am really grateful to two of my friends in particular, who made sure that I didnt stay in a state of indecision forever. They didnt help me make my decision, but they helped me realise what I actually want, on the basis of which I decided what I ultimately want to do.