I'm Screwed!

Friday, March 04, 2011
Yeah, you read the post title right!

Well the reason is my PG degree is been issued. Then why am I being such a drama queen, you ask? The problem is my final mark sheet has wrong entry of marks. How screwed up is that?

All this started when I wanted to change my boring brilliant developer job profile into something interesting & creative. I thought I would fit so well in Branding & Marketing. But I was an Electronics & Communication Engineering graduate who is currently working in IT for Airlines. Go ahead, say it. FYL (Go Figure!)

I needed an entry ticket to move into marketing.  So, I started looking up for diploma courses from few good B schools that provide fast track courses since I could hardly wait to finish it off & get my hands on something creative. I did find one of the top B school providing one year PGDMM (Marketing Management) courses. I enrolled myself. It was a distance learning program and so I had to attend classes every weekend.

The term exams went by & the marks were out. Fret not dear ones. I cleared the external miraculously, but only to find the internal marks (Assignments & Case Studies) were fed wrongly into the system.  The online statement was showing all wrong entries of marks. I reported the discrepancy (Spare the IT jargon, can’t help it! *Eye roll*) to the center staffs. They too found that the register entry for the assignment marks (quite high scores) don’t match with the online ones. Like any other educational institution, they too asked me to escalate the issue to the director, center in charge and who not. I was mailing & calling them almost every week left, right, center! Result - It’s still messed up.

My next semester too came to an end. I freaking passed again. Oh, whoever said “Miracles never happen twice”, Screw you! And I so want to stick my tongue out (:P) to whomever said “Misfortunes never come single”, because the internal marks were properly fed into the database this time. But again I kept on nagging them for the mark change.

I grew tired of it after sometime & it slipped my mind. One fine day last December, my mum said “Hey, didn’t you finish your course 6 months back. When are they giving your degree?” That’s when I realized the unfinished mission of nagging them. Crap. So I re initiated the mission. They said I will be getting the certificates in February & the marks will be changed.

Last week of January, It was my mum again who told, but now with a sterner voice though “When are you planning to collect your degree certificate? You want me to consult an astrologer & see when the stars are just right to get it?” (Somehow my mum was super interested in me finishing off the degree. Well, can’t blame her. My parents paid for this course too. I know, I suck!) I called the center & had to narrate the entire history since the in charge was replaced by a new lady. She sweetly said she will get back to me and I promptly called my mum & conveyed the status.

I received a call from that-same-sweet lady that the B school has sent me my graduation certificate. I was so excited and called my mum and said “Athaaaaa Naaaaaaa Degree Vangiteannnnn” (Mum, I got my degree) only to get a response “What about the wrongly entered marks?”. I was like *Blink* *Blink*. All I could do was look up & say "Enna Koduma Saravanan Ithu".

I called the director again only to find that marks can’t be changed & he very coolly dismissed saying “It happens”. Huh, just you wait. I have plans for you Mr. I sweetly called my mum with big puppy dog eyes & told her what the director said. All she said was “Give his number to me, I will deal this.”

Buhahaha. Well, You asked for it, Now you are screwed Mr. Director. =P

Wipe That Smirk Off Ur Face...

Thursday, March 03, 2011

This blog is dedicated to those fellow developers who look down at documenting. 

It is perhaps a platitude that developers are mere binary thinkers. The only thing that they care to think about is whether the flag is set or not. Does my program compiles successfully or it doesn’t? Is the production system up or crashed? Are the clients satisfied with the code change or they’re not? It’s all just Black & White in their world.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a developer too, and have been so for the past 5 years. Somehow my fellow developers feel that it’s all bull to document & to follow quality process. They don’t consider it to be what they call as ‘Real Work’. It’s all a waste of time & effort for them. They whine & crib endlessly about the volume of documentation to be done & process to be followed. Simply working mindlessly, figuring out logic based on the functionality alone doesn’t define ‘Real Work’. 

This isn’t even the worst part. They freaking smirk & look down at people who do these stuff. They think documenting & following process don’t require any talent. Well, I agree. Yes, I do. Documentation isn’t rocket science. Then why in the bloody hell can’t you do it when a High Schooler can do a better job in it than you.

Developers are so lazy bummed that they make the company hire technical writers to do this job. Now, this is where I come in. This is why I too feel the pain when people smirk  at Tech writers. Yes, apart from being a developer, I’m now a technical writer for yet another company’s development team. Hah... I know I'm sucha Kick Ass!  B-)


When you develop all you gotta do is figure out the logic, put the right syntax & make sure it works under all cases. But when we do documentation, however, none of these same binary flags being set successfully are present. Instead, measuring the success tend to be more subjective, & require your judgment, rather than simpler logical conditions. We have to make sure that these documents contain sufficient information, so that when you aren’t around, another fellow developer can understand the case & clean up your mess!


Now, let me spell it out for you. Say, you are assigned with a production problem. I know that you will figure out the code that causes the bug.  The more likely changes are the coding was done by someone who is now happily married and vacationing at Hawaii.  Well, let’s face it. Even after finding the cause of the bug, without proper documents you are still in the middle of the freaking desert! Hah, this doesn’t end here. It gets better and better as your oh-so-totally-not-busy onsite manager would’ve have already sniffed known  that you have landed yourself in knee deep of crap that he keeps ignoring your calls. In my experience, I can bet 1000 bucks that these mishaps find their way to you mostly during the holiday season. Beat that!


So, now that I have rested my case on why documents are more important, I personally think that documents prepared by the developer themselves are richer in content & insight than those prepared by the tech writers (Doesn’t apply for tech writers who are developers too. *Wink* *Wink*). For a developer to do no documents is trouble free. For a developer to fill out a Word template for every single deliverable called out by a process is also easy, in the sense that it doesn’t require much judgment.


But to come up with just enough documentation, though… that is hard! This is one reason why CMMI-based process effort frequently goes astray. I wish my quality facilitator reads this blog. It would be awesome. I bet he/she will be super impressed with me that she will let me go without any findings in the next audit. A girl can wish, you know... ;)
 




P.S: And HELL NO, you don’t look this Delllllllicious when you smirk. Humph.

Color Me Muddy!

Wednesday, March 02, 2011
No offense to people who lurvvvvvvve mud packs & mud baths.

I’m not a person who thoroughly enjoys the revolting relieving experience of being covered in mud, especially on the way to work. And I’m not so excited about the fact that my black dull looking super glossy two wheeler body now looks like a Hyena’s hide (Black & Brown spotted one, that is). Not to mention my so not pedicure legs!

It is always a mystery how in the freaking world the roads of Chennai are always pitted dotted with so many muddy puddles even when the temperature is 33o C. It was 9ish in the morning and I was happily enjoying the sun on my face and driving to work on my pretty little two wheel drive.  I was driving along deep in my own thoughts when a car splashed past. Large sloshes hit the sides of my bike. I braked my bike to inspect the damage, when an damned auto-rickshaw merrily splashed an extra coating of muddy water on my bike & me too this time. My clothes were ruined, for one thing; my confidence defiled, for another; and my bike badly needed a water service, for yet one more.

Many may consider me mean for grinning, seeing yet another guy muddied even badly than me just across the streets. To top it, the spot where he stopped his bike, had water dripping from the fly over above. Huh. :D He looked damned pathetic than me. Okay, so now that my defiled spirit was boosted in confidence seeing the state of a fellow victim, I pulled the bike’s cleaning cloth from under the seat & managed to get rid of the mud paint. Though I couldn’t bring my vehicle to its original state, it now looked reasonably good for the security guards to allow it inside the company’s parking lot.

Couldn’t do much to the mud on the feet though! It had to wait till I reach the company’s ladies room successfully hiding the embarrassment from the sweet security woman who checks our bags for removable data storages. But who the hell cares, bring it on I say to all those mud-splashing-mad-driving-maniacs!
P.S: I couldn’t take a picture of myself getting splashed with mud.  I considered loading the picture of my then muddy two wheeler, but it wasn’t pretty.

Doodl[e H]obby

I'm starting a new blog to feature few of my sketches. Check this blog.