2007 ...as it happened

1. January and February .....though we didn't feel it while we were doing it....when we think now, i can say that we worked like anything and put in lots of efforts in this period..department restructure, peoplesoft migration and new portal upgradation are three things that i remember...

two more things which i would like to keep remembering happened during this period....most of my friends still tease me about this..first one.....my project director called me on one weekend ..Saturday late evening and asked me "which server were you working today" .....he had assumed that i had worked on a server today and there was a server crash because of that...that was like hitting flat in your face.....
next one ....hmmm really proud of this one .....my PD this time had few good words for me and my junior especially after we had slogged for an important activity...he wrote that was "dedication to the core and it was beyond his expectation"....so this was the period when i was called 'dedication to the core' by my colleagues....though most people wouldn't have agreed ..especially my own manager....


2. march and April........travelled to mumbai as my junior was getting relieved and i was asked to support mumbai region...had nice time without doing any work or taking transition from him in mumbai...roamed all over mumbai for 3 days.....

pity... i can also remember that during this period India lost in cricket world cup...can see many of my friends with broken heart....

4. may and June.......... during this period me and my office friends travelled all over south tamil nadu (what else to do..particularly when most of us didn't get opportunity to travel overseas...)...

trip will be in memories for most of us...we travelled in big groups and had blast and fun...yercaud, salem, devakottai, trichy......and then relatively small group went to allepy, ernakkulam, kottayam...

5. July and august.........couldn't remember doing any work during this period...sort of siting in bench....can remember there was a server crash once...and there was high stress cause of that....nothing else....and appraisal happened..

went on a small trip to thekkadi, theni, surli falls......with my parents

6. September and October.....after effects of appraisal, i had started looking out for other opportunites and had put in my papers by august end.....
took time off and spent some time with my parents and relatives.....

7. November and December....new company, new roles, new challenges.....i was sent to an important assignment in my new company....very tough especially since i was new and i was trying myself to prove my abilities....November month, high stress and pressure

December....festival time and not much work in office...Christmas with my family...flat decoration and furnishing..

to summarise.............

the year 2007, January, February and November has been very hectic in profession....

there were lot of trips and spent a lot of time with friends and families....that is good....

no major achievements or recognitions this year....though i got a promotion..glory be to god....a promotion and ace award (2006) at my first year in this company...

job change....hard and tough challenges in profession....also i did realised that i was missing my friends a lot ....and i still miss them....though i was always a guy who is not much attached to relations, emotions and feelings......so i had changed in character..

just a week left in 2007........hope to be a better person in 2008...yes i would definetly..

....and christmas message

...so he is back with us, yes my elder brother..he is just 15 months older to me and he is back after more than 2 years since he left india...felt good as i stood in the airport waiting for him, couldnt see any change in him as he walked out from the lounge...ok.. he is kind of pet to most of my relatives here in my native...and already many relatives were calling me in my mobile at midnight to reach him..very optimistic, religious, casual, very tough, very ambitious and i had learnt the importance of upholding values in life from him.....though i cant ever be as ambitious and tough like him.

already he has left to my native and i can imagine the kind of reception he gets from my relations there.. everybody is very fond of him, and I should admit that i would never get that kind of reception anytime from them...

what else, not much work in office, and yet to make friends here at my work place.....usually very slow starter in making friends. i was involved in whole lot of purchase for my house last week....now my Christmas tree has got some additional decorations .....choclate hangings, teddy bear, choclate santa....and whole lot of choclate decorations..

month of December is always special for all Christians...as people try to share their happiness and joy around...remembering Christ...

do you know immediately after Jesus was born in Bethlehem ..the first message about his birth was delivered to Shepperd's....an angel of the lord came before them and told them where exactly they would be able to find him.....specific instructions were given to them about the place and child.... amazing isn't it ...the message was not sent to any high priest, or religious leaders or kings....and sheperds were the first to visit the new born king.... remeber in all manger decorations in christian houses you will see sheperds standing around new born baby....and i like this particular sheperd statue carrying a lamb in his shoulder....


While shepherds watched
Their flocks by night
All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around

"Fear not," he said,
For mighty dread
Had seized their troubled minds
"Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind,

well i have got few stuffs in my fridge to finish before my parents come and see it ............and i have to do it without my usual company....and this one is imported...couldnt make what is it ..right ..thats good...

remembering Titanic ...

what reminds us when we think of titanic......ship of dreams, love and many more......but there are many tales of bravery, sacrifice and heroism..most of these actions though has been shown in the movie..hardly anybody remembers the sacrifices....these are not just stories but real incidents that happened on that fatefull night..as said by few of the survivors.

engine room crew, nobody in the crew thought of getting away as the ship was sinking..these men struggled and kept the power and lights running as long as possible......

Officers ..many of them stayed on the deck to load and launch the lifeboats..they made sure all the boats are safely away....

wireless operators....captain Smith visited the wirelss room one last time and he said that they could abandon their post now....he said "Its now every man for himself, boys "....they stayed back trying desperately to send distress signals

these peoples risked their lives so that others might have a better chance of survival...they were a part of ship crew and they felt it was their duty to do so....they held on to their job and duties till their last breath....

most inspired story for me when i read about all the valliant efforts of people on board was of the Titanic Band...they were not a part of ship crew and they were not needed to keep the power running or load life boats....yet they stayed in the ship till the very end ..playing light, airy music to keep passengers calm when available lifeboats are loaded...as it is seen in the movie..the band played even when the ship turned on her nose and was sinking...a survivor says he cannot imagine how they ever able to play band at that time..
their efforts might not have saved many lives as other rescue workers did....but they made final moments of many lives ...less tragic by their soothing music ...it is believed that they played the below music though some survivors say it was a different song....

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee.

Refrain
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone.
Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God to Thee.

and there are countless accounts of newly wed husbands, men and old men agreeing to give up thier places for women and childrens.....

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." John 15

i would like to remember titanic for all the love and memories of these brave men ......and definetly not for love between jack and rose............

Come december.........

its that time of the year when you feel chill in the air and you know that the festival time is there..start december, plans have already started in my family for our christmas celebration, after 2 long years my elder brother will be there as well and my parents would travel to chennai for xmas...

ok ..i was out of station for almost 15 days on an official work and very happy to be back in my place now. really dont want to travel anymore till new year....lets see. i went to my church today and found that there is a carol rounds visit to my house on this week, hmm...it would be a great feeling singing all good old christmas song with spirit and joy, and today i started decorating my house for christmas, christmas tree is already in place...with cereal lights, christmas bells, snow flakes formation over the trees(nothing but cotton spread over the tree)...and in the coming weeks would be looking to decorate my tree more...

Evening, went for shopping and got my fridge stuffed with usual food items, it would be only noodles, corn flakes, egg and some choclates...nothing more, i lost all interest in cooking vegetables and now looking for only ready made foods. As it is a practise before any christmas, there are some serious shopping to be done in the coming weeks, a very difficult one..furnishing my house...

Its been a long time since i had a hang out with my friends and couldnt meet anyone yet since coming back to chennai ...when we meet there would be lot of things to discuss..probably would go out for a night show and discuss things in my place...

ok i am going to cook some stuff for my dinner now...watch a movie probably and sleep.....

Continous learning...and a record miss

..Saturday night and i am sitting alone in my flat and writing this post. its been 2 weeks since i wrote anything here..

about my new company and job, i am told many things already to study and research, career has reached a new level where i have to work on high end techniques of multiple technologies and multiple platform. expectations are really high..well..my past experience is definitely helping me..

i managed to take a day off and attend one of my close friend marriage, it was in my native and she was very happy, being there in one of your friends important event of life will make anybody happy..she is pretty close to me and i realise now that after her marriage i wouldnt be able to keep in otuch with her as much as i did before...

my parents were not there in my native and i visited few of my relatives house, most of them are retired persons and i spent a considerable time with each of them as it was more than 2 years since i met them..and i had lunch in my cousine's house, her house is just opposite to my house and my dad had already called her up and asked her to take care of me....well she is about my same age and we are good friends...i did miss to meet one person in my native thats our house servant, i had always managed to meet her when i go home, and few times when she was sick i used to go to her house and visit..it is been a routine since my college that i always go to my native once in 4-5 months...so my next visit would be some where in mid 2008...goodbye madurai..

...i had subbu and few of my old colleagues from fresher batch visiting my place and we went to a falls near chennai...its a place called konnai falls in andhra pradesh..and by the time we returned to chennai..it was rain rain rain ......

well i will come to a crazy record miss, it was on thursday when jegu and thangaraj came to my flat. in my previous company i am an undeclared champion of mokkai..mokkai is a term that is commonly used these days, for a person who speaks on any topics to any person non stop..and it is again very important that the topic should not in any way interest those who are listening to them..... jegu i consider is a runner up to my position...so just imagine when we meet. it started in bed and we kept talking talking talking ..and finally jegu gave up and slept...and i was still talking...and it was 3.30...yes it was a record miss, me and subbu are joint holders of a record..we spoke non stop till 5.00 in the morning once...

jegu has just come to my place, he has got dinner to me also, after finishing that we would watch a movie and sleep .........

still missing .......

the week started well, joined my new company and went through the usual procedures, the HR Manager had an presentation about the organisation and i should say he did extremely well, after this came a bit of shock..i was told that i would be given training on all software concepts for a week... most of them not related to my work profile...may be it would be useful to developers,testers and project manager...i tried my best to get involved in training and then just left it ..i was just going through the day ...

i did missed my friends in my old company a lot, so i decided to give them a visit, as expected subbu was in tea shop and i gave him a pleasant surprise ....then there were other bunch of guys...jegu ..a very busy person nowadays but still always takes time for me ,,,,thangs,shomik... who came down and we exchanged pleasantries. me and subbu went for a drink and discussed the usual politics and other develpments in hexaware..

there was another important incident that happened this week, neeraj...left the company for a better opportunity...though neeraj was not directly reporting to me ....till the day he left hexaware(even after i had left hexaware) he gave me the respect of team leader, even this week i had asked him to look after a producton issue that shomik was not able to solve alone and i was not able to look into it..he was busy with his relieving formalitites and still he took time and solved the issue...though he is my junior i spoke to him whenever i had issues with my manager and he always came with good suggestions..this guy is really matured compared to other guys in his batch...i still remember the advice he gave me in car on our way to airport ....i was returing from mumbai after taking the handover from him...he had left our project 6 month back...

me,neeraj and sugesh worked as a team...the relationship we had between us is more than just a team member....we are known for not sleeping on any open issues and there are numerous issues that we worked as a team and solved.....in my short final address to the project ..all i told was any credit i recieved should be dedicated to neeraj,sugesh,deepa and of course my manager. It is hard to relaise now that we tried our best and always gave more than 100% for the company and still me,neeraj and sugesh had a bad experience that forced us to look for better opportunities..nobody stayed in hexaware...anyways we didnt do anything for charity and this is very common in IT organisation ...

i also missed one more guy..Shomik..the person who has taken my roles in hexaware,....though i have not worked with him much he is an exciting talent ..and often by mistake i called him neeraj... he is feeling very happy now that he is getting so much challenging tasks...even i felt happy for him as i had selected this guy from a bunch of freshers, when my manger had asked to identify a capable resource for DBA.....

ok its saturday night and i am sitting alone in my flat and writing this post...really boring ..still sometimes i enjoy loneliness.......

out of hexaware .......

..i Started writing in this blog to record important moments and memories i had in my work place, after my resignation i was not my usual self, many people noticed that and told me, especially there were 2 senior managers i went to meet the day before my last day, both of them were shocked and told me that i am looking really sick and unhealthy.my usual smile was no more there and slowly many people kept telling me that i am dull.

so what is this all about, basically i am a person with little sentiments,and seperation from friends and colleagues is another thing which happened regularly for me, i have switched 4 companies now in my 5 years of experience....still there is some kind of bond tht i have developed here in hexaware and it was a pain for me to seperate from this bunch of guys. words didnt come to me on my final address to the group and i choked, most people felt i cried though i never cried, not that kind definetly...

there were 2 more persons who got relieved on the same day, prabha and rohini....prabha...she is one girl i know for sure who still reads my boring posts here and kept asking me to write more, i still dont really know what is it in my post that she likes a lot, i become sort of good friend to her recently..and even she felt great about my friendship with her.

so there was usual praises from managers, project leads about our work. one thing that people told in common was i was always calm and ever smiling. and everbvody wished me for my new assignments.......glory be to god...

there are few people i know will miss me for sure, my close friends for i gave very good company to them and i spent most part of my time with them for the past one year..there was another close friend of mine, as i expected she cried as i bid farewell to her, i dont have any friend who had cried for me til this time....ok.. so this is the group i am going to miss in the days to come...i was so attached to them in recent days....

almost a week since i left hexaware, and next week i will be joining my new company...

Dropped the Nuke

..exactly on 23rd of august i sent my resignation mail to my manager, then i went to his desk, his intial reaction was he felt very happy that i am moving ahead in my career, and then there was usual discussion about what can stop me from taking this decision...

As it is always i have kept this news an highly classified information, have not even discussed this with my close firends, i called jegu and subbu and told them the news later after discussion with my manager. It was very shocking for them, especially Subbu as he had slept in my apartment for most part of the week and i discussed everything with him over the night....my past, my future ...except my present. jegu swore never to come to my flat again, this guy is highly sensitive ...

counter offers.... there was a long discussion with the department head, As i stepped into the room i decided not to discuss too much about the circumstances which prompted to take this decision, but later when i came out of the room an hour later i have told everything to him...these people know how to get out information from you...

Transition.....ok we have already identified an guy who would be taking the mantle from me..this guy is full of energy and talent and i had little time in convincing him to handle the job alone...

so what it is like, Putting your papers and working in office..knowledge tranfers ...now i realised the amount of activites and work that i was involved all this period, i have promised my junior that i will tie up all loose ends before getting relieved, he is a fresh guy and i really dont want him to be put under any sort of pressure ....

pressure ..hmmm that is part of DBA..isnt it...

Boom ..another crash....

..long time since i wrote in this blog, its friendship day today and was happy receving and sending messages to my dear friends, i have been staying away from my parents since my college days and i have always enjoyed hanging out and sharing my feelings(or rather mokkai) with friends.. over the years my friends circle has become shorter and shorter..courtesy professional life . Still i would cherish todays memories for every friendship day to come ....myself,jegu,subbu,thangs had a great bash...ealrier we had went to recieve thangs from US and he came directly to my flat.....we had everything aranged ..food, soft drinks,movies...and we took lot of snaps in my house and chatted for a long time in bed ...and slept late night ....as i slept i had a disappointment that one of my dear friend fought with me and never cared to wish me this day .....

work has been hectic this week...another server crash, i have got involved in four major server crashes now ...made a quick stop gap arrangement for all the applications and went to datacentre, this server had already crahsed six months back and me and a sys admin guy had managed to recover ..but today we found that there is very little chances of recovery ...so i called my manager and reported the situation.....he was very upset and he tried to give me a dress down for the incident but i told him we had still lot of options left to manage the setup ....and he felt relaxed...and we did manage to run the setup without much impact.

next day morning ...again i was summoned to my manager desk, he asked about the crashed server backup ..it is very critical for my position to take regular backups. but i never did it and i had to listen to his dressing down now.There was kind of chaos in office ..hrms and few other apps was not working ..even as i was troubleshooting that issue ...they asked me to go immediately to work on the crashed server....we tried whole afternoon whithout any luck to recover the server....i came back to my desk late evening and fixed the hrms issue and another issue in authentication ...somehow i learnt from reliable sources that my manager was not very happy with the way i handled the whole situation and i felt very high pressure within myself ....the whole night i thought about this a lot and finally decided that i am not going to handle this issue anymore ...


So my senior was in charge now as i told i am not going to work on the server anymore...she went to datacenter and jegu was kind of scolding me for sending her to datacenter for this work, ...but things looked better after she took charge, things started falling in place and there was a new server up and running in the evening...but along the process she had to take all the shoutings from my manager ....she made sure there was no major issues or pending work for me to handle the next day as she had planned to take leave ..that was really nice of her...isnt it .

Friday ..and Weekend

Friday ...came early to office today, we had to decommission a peoplesoft server, this particular server was used by the 2 outsourced teams, i was taking backup of the database, and this took a long time as the size of the db was enormous and the server was also very slow..there were usual routine mails for providing access to VSS, database server, my senior was doing most of these works...my department head called me for a discussion around 12 noon ...nothing useful came from that discussion


afternoon me,subbu and jegu went to a hotel near sweetland and somehow managed to bring the bill to 200 ..you get a free chicken wings served when your bill reaches that amount..all dishes were very ordinary...



..it is getting damn boring for me now..i went around few desks asking people if they can give me some work (didn't ask this to my senior and manager ..hee hee)..subbu was doing some research on calling webservice from sql server and i was helping him...but i couldn't understand anything in that..then i saw one of my colleague and dear friend doing Db design ..so i sat with her and forced her to teach me what is DB design all about.. she taught me in a way.. in which i can understand very little...evening a developer came for creating a new interface job between two application, pity he didn't come with release checklist or installation plan ...so we told him to come with that..went home a bit early today and was watching cricket match...

Sachin was hitting all over the ground ..whenever SA bowlers bowled him short balls he pulled them ferociously ....it was a great sight to watch ...after few hiccups india won the match...i made myself noodles tonight and slept a bit early ....very strange for a Friday night ...definitely this Friday night was not our regular boys night ..


Saturday ....had cornflakes a mix of choclate and regular corn for breakfast ..then spent my time watching TV and checking office document...afternoon, didnt feel like going out for lunch and i prepared noodles. As i was getting into a deep sleep in the afternoon ..i got a call from my friend and grrr...didn't sleep after that ...evening subbu and jegu came to my home ..subbu was to do a project for one of his Friend from my home ...after few discussions as requirements was not very clear ..he didn't do the project and he slept in my house....today nobody had any mood to go out or party and everybody left early by 7pm ...... i was feeling a sour throat...dinner.. had hot and sour chicken soup and briyani in a decent hotel near my place ..watched a movie called Platoon and then slept late ....

Sunday ...went to church service..today i went to the altar and gave thanksgiving for the promotion i got ....my parents had asked me to do this and i personally have a strong belief that it was God's blessing that i had performed well in my current job..had breakfast in a roadside shop. i had a lot of cleaning to do in my house this weekend ..gosh ..house looked great after all the cleaning ..of course my servant maid did it ..i am very conscious to keep my house clean.

i have got strict order from my mother to cook my own rice today ....so i cooked rice, egg, vadagam and had lunch ...Voila ...my first attempt in cooking rice came well ... afternoon i was into deep sleep .. ..evening boring... boring...boring ...so i decided to do go shopping ...went to office as i had my gift coupon left at my desk ...reached office around 7.30 ...then i remembered today was sachin's birthday ..had a nice chat with him over phone and i was doing some work related to decommissioning of the server

...i called jegu as he had called me earlier for an issue ..and we both were looking into that issue....now he is in a kind of crisis situation..he just discovered that one of his implementation in recent days got escalated right to top level..just to a level below our CEO ....so there was lot of phone calls between him his TL and our department head ....at last issue was resolved and i helped him send a mail ..that mail was again marked to top level people ...even i had never sent mails till that level ....but our boss asked us to send it so no issues ...

already late for shopping so we had dinner near our office and went home .....back to home by 9.30 pm, watched cricket match ..and slept late around 1.00 am ...

no work ........

As i write this i am hearing my favourite english numbers in office..not much work this week..

Tuesday ....the shock i got the previous day after seeing my salary revision has come down and i am to my usual self ....still thinking about my next step though..today most of my colleagues got the papers ...it was a mixed reaction..few people felt happy ..and most of them felt disappointed...went back home and was watching India vs South Africa cricket match ...i am no great expert in analysing cricket ..but can say captaincy is bad ..India needs a more dynamic captain.

Wednesday ....came early to office and jegu called from outside to join him for breakfast..after finishing few mails i went and joined him for breakfast..came back to my desk and i felt like fainting ...i was trying to sleep in my desk itself and i was not..jegu told he has got some work in passport office ..so i went along with him ...thought i will feel better if i go outside ..it was drizzling outside....jegu had left early today ..as he was travelling outstation...so me and subbu went for lunch ..as usual we got food coupons from an trainee sitting next to subbu....today she understood before even we asked her ....all that we told her was we are going to lunch in top floor ..she opened her handbag and gave her coupons..good this junior is a fast learner..

Still i was feeling sick ..so decided to go home early and sleep ..after reaching home i was not able to sleep ..today i felt something wrong ...felt like i was drugged by someone...then evening i had cornflakes ....and then had some serious discussion with my friend over phone...i was told that the problem i had was because that i woke up early ...after dinner i decided to watch a movie ....

Ben-Hur ...this is one of the greatest classicals in 1960's ....the record this movie has set in getting oscars is till now not broken ...though in1990's titanic managed to equal its record .....so i slept late after watcing this movie ..

Thursday ....so i slept till 10 am in the morning ...that felt good. reached office around 11.30 and not much work today also ...subbu asked us wether we can visit one of our colleague in hospital ..she has just given birth to a boy baby ....so subbu,me and jegu went and visited her ..she was very happy ....this is the first time i am visiting a just born baby..we came back to office around 3.30 ...it was drizzling outside and it was getting very dark .....as i write this blog my manager is standing beside me waching my monitor..didn't care for that ..especially after what has happened in my appraisal ....

Part 5- Trips, outings and more ....

i had the previlege of seeing Neeraj grow from a trainee to an well experienced peoplesoft DBA in a short span of time..finally my manager and his boss decided to release him to an client project..so i went to mumbai to get the transition ..except for getting transition about the setup in mumbai we did everything else..neeraj,sachin and me ..went roaming around mumbai for the three days i stayed there. Though neeraj was my junior still he gave me very good advice to the professional challenges i faced in ISG and i had turned up to him for few issues...


By now most of my friends here in my department were expecting them to be released to other departments.... So we decided to spend maximum time between ourselves ..and thangaraj initiated and organised a tour to devakottai ...occasion being Alagappan marriage(he is another stalwart of ISG)


All the plans we made in the trip went topsy turvy ..thanks to organisers..chennai to salem to yercaud to karrur to devakottai to trichy to chennai....i would rather call this trip an amazing race...many people got elminated and out of 12 people who started the trip only 5 finished the race ...there was an excellent writeup of the entire trip by me,jegu,subbu and sachin i would post that in a seprate post..trip was an success and memories of the trip will linger long...


just one week after we were back from a long trip, we decided to go on a trip to kerala ..God's own country, pity this time we didnt have much people on the trip..just four of us(so no elminations), me,jegu,subbu and kevin...let me try to refresh few memories of the trip ...

We were having dinner at central station chennai..when we found that one of our colleague from hexaware, she is from BI team ...poor girl she was standing before a hotel with huge crowd....she was calling jegu to help her but jegu tried his best to escape ..until i made jegu to help her ...hee hee..everybody was very happy after seeing the travel reservation chart stuck in our compartment...i cant disclose the reason in this post....had to switch trains in combatore junction..and we were on our way to ernakullam.

Me and subbu sat in the compartement door steps and were enjoying the scenic beauty of kerala..meanwhile jegu and kevin were fast asleep ...an interesting thing happened in trissur station ...me and subbu were standing in the railway station and watching shops over there ..as usual i was telling some mokkai story about kerala to subbu and he was listening to me ....with our backs to the train.....train started moving without any notice ..no signal ..no horn ..nothing and it was moving with very less sound and high speed ..somehow subbu turned back and noticed it and we caught the train in running ..lesson 1 never turn your back on a train in kerala ..

Allapuzha..awesome is too little a word to explain the experience we had in this place ..we took a double decker house boat ..with two well furnished bedrooms all for four of us ....we had a special energy drink from kerala ...even jegu took this drink(just one sip), that was quite surprising for all of us ...then watched a popular kerala movie by mohanlal ....had a sumptuous amount of fish ....and then slept on the boat ...next day morning we took bath in the backwaters of kerala ..and then went on a cruise ..everybody took titanic pictures standing with outstrecthed arms on the corner of the boat ...hee hee..

Then we went to Kevin's place in kottayam, there again we went for a swim in a river ..somehow i managed to go till the middle of the river with zero swimming knowledge ..without any notice kevin and his cousine ..pulled me to bottom of the river and held me for few seconds..gosh ..lesson 2 dont get inside a river without knowing swimming ...

back to chennai ..there is a person called naresh this guy is from pune and he has just joined our project ....as usual this guy had the experience what every person who comes from other state to chennai will have..got robbed ...he lost his debit card and lost 16k ...somehow we managed to find the culprit ..it was someone from daaba express ..we had went to this hotel last week and naresh had dropped his card there ...so 6 guys from our project went for a fight with hotel manager ..we took with us few heavyweight guys ..just to show our strength ..they were himanshu and shomik ...so there was high confusion in the hotel and finally the case went to police station ....police asked us to come in the evening..

Subbu went on a urgent work that day and jegu was travelling ..so it was left to me to manage naresh's case in tnagar crimebranch police station ...everything happened so fast ...we took a suspect and within one hour of interrogation he accepted that he took money...this day i saw how police interrogorate ...i dont know what degree of interrogation was that ..but i felt really sorry for that person that day ..and i can still remeber the sounds that echoed when they hit him ...and the bad filthy languages these cops use while interrogating....we stuck a deal between police ourselves and the culprit ...the culprit agreed to pay the money and we decided not to lodge a FIR ..i thought if we are going to lodge an FIR it will be a lengthy process and it will take a long time to get back our money and this guy will also go to jail....

Back to office ..would rather call it a planetorium ..mercury,neptune,jupiter,venus,mars and galaxy ...all these are server name and they kept haunting me with some trouble or other ....

back to my flat ...i had setup a mini galaxy in my bedroom with twinkling stars and satellites and was very proud to show it to my friends ....

Part 4. Dedication to the core ....

As i was celebrating new year ..little did i realise the horrors that were to come. First weekend of 2007, me and neeraj were summoned and were asked to look into an issue that HRMS team were facing, i was having cold fever then and we both managed to support the team in their issues.

I was caught in one of the biggest scandal that emerged in internal systems, KB.NET ...that was just a folder in one of the servers i manage ..server name is isg-mercury..that folder went missing suddenly and i was made to feel that as though a mutli million project got lost because of that.... thanks to few developers ...as usual made some cover ups and managed to get out of the scandal....


Next our bosses decided to purchase a new server B and move all application from server A-B, B-C.....rename B as A and A as B....didn't have the courage to argue on their decisions and went ahead and started implementing.. meanwhile there was a new version of few applications getting released..our bosses considering the impact on business decided to do everything on pongal holidays. i could see lot of hardwork,dedication and commitment from Subbu's team during this period...and me and my senior closely worked with them..

Now hexaware management decided to re-organise their department structure...... simple it might sound..but it was another great challenge that internal systems faced as it had a major impact on all the applications...this was the period where me and my senior faced the heat..

All applications were brought to a standstill ....now Neeraj and me did peoplesoft application and Db movement from mumbai to chennai ....so here we were working all day on department restructure and working all night on peoplesoft application move, we finished the move in the early hours of the next day ....both of us felt elated as everything went as per our plan ...our department head appreciated us and wrote that was dedication to the core..later this became a nick name and people started calling dedication to core ...

But there were high causalities which happened during this period.....i got the firing from my manager and department head on all issues that arised because of server movement and department restructure ..the wounds took a long time to heal...i felt i was accountable and responsible....

Nothing much entertaining during this period except for regular weekend forums we had in hotels and rooftops around chennai and few lengthy engrossing sessions in my flat..slowly my flat started becoming a favourite hangout for all my friends ....

Part 3, Friends and Colleagues...

another 2 months passed by, now i have started supporting three more projects PSASM,eRecruit and Innovation.ISA became an instant hit in hexaware and my manager was so happy about it..infact it earned him an Star award...along with it came more and more challenges.

Techsummit ..was happy to see my friends involved in lot of activities(video shoot outs, paper presentation,hex songs (which never materialised)), though the chennai team had numerous meetings and planned immensely, a team of 5 guys in Mumbai earned internl systems a award to cherish...our department head became so happy...cheers mumbai ISG. I had a small role in setting up a high techh game for the show..

At this stage my manager and PD thought, me and Neeraj ..were taking lots of pressure. We were like a pressure cooker that would break anytime(as usual buildups). So they took another senior DBA with high experience, now that made us feel happy and took off lot of pressure..she was from microsoft family...

Meanwhile as usual the developers for any issues that came in their production application started blaming the new Sqlserver 2005 versions and DB migration ...fights happened now and then for access to the server.

It was almost 2 months since i took the job of creating a additional domain controller for the main LDAP server, and implementing a backup ISA server..

Again my manager decided to take a break from his tough schedule ..and he was scared that server would also take a break ..so he gave me a plain deadline finish the job before 3 days...now that i have a microsoft family in my team ...took help from them and finished the task...away went my manger on a happy family trip. Still he managed to call me once when he was on the trip and by coincidence that was my birthday...so i told him it was my happy birthday and he wished me ...heee heee .

Took my friends and colleagues to wangs kitchen for my birthday, one of my dear friend jegs...ordered Duck roast..i was happy that he chose that dish since it was christmas time and christians usually take duck dishes on christmas ..so everybody was eagerly waiting for a big duck roasted and toasted with good toppings...though the dish didnt turned out to be what we expected ..everybody i feel enjoyed the lunch...we did missed one great fan of chicken on that day ..of course it is none other than thangaraj, he was on deputation in mumbai

had developed good friends in ISG now and they were around me to help whenever i was stuck in a problem .....

as new year 2007 dawned ....

Part 2. Work and how not to work

it all started happening in the months of may-june... Internal systems were planning a prestigious landmark in their project by implementing LDAP login and Internet Enabling.

There were lot of meetings, discussions, target dates .. and I was a silent spectator in all the discussions and developments... my manager and the other DBA were literally sweating with ISA ..the mechanism they used for publishin the application in Internet. Anyways i had the previlige of setting up LDAP to work with Peoplesoft.

After this landmark my manager thought he needed a break and went on a long leave...but what a pity ..the main application and db server also decided to take a break ..and it broke..so i was into a crisis managemnt team discussion and everybody was searching for a backup as we had a perfect Business continuity process in place... alas ..to our horror we realised then that the backup was being taken in the same server....

Still we managed to recover applications within the critcal recovery time ..thanks to development team and logshipping(forgive me cant explain about this)....would like to mention few names here .....Subbu,jegu,Srini who made that possible. probably this incident made us know each other more, and we started hanging out .

GALAXY ...... i never realised this name would mean so much in my work in hexaware. So here we were working on a plan to move all sql2000 db to sql 2005. From now i started sacrificing all my weekends to GALAXY (bad habit to boast about your sacrifices).

Meanwhile i was all set to occupy a brand new flat that my father has purchased. Sugesh left hexaware and ... i became the Lone DBA in chennai with one of my dear friend managing things in Mumbai.....Slowly we started feeling the pressure of the Job....

Part 1, Life in Hexa

It all started way back in April 2006, i had just finished 2 rocking years in an small company in chennai, when i got a offer from hexaware to join internal systems ...

After finishing the formalities the HR person took me to another person named Thiyagu..so this person was the department head and as he was on the way to his lunch ..... he took me to the cafeteria, there he introduced me to my colleagues who were in the middle of their lunch, had to shake with my left hand with everyone....

Started fitting into the roles of another DBA called Sugesh... man he was an amazing character to talk about...two months rolled by and suddenly Sugesh comes and tells me i have got an on-site assignment.....2 months into joining an project here i was getting ready to go to onsite.... really thrilled ...

Pollachi ....so this is it...pollachi is the onsite for Internal systems ... so my manager asks someone from development to accompany me as i was new ....but huh none of the developers are interested in going to this onsite.... later this assignment played an important part in getting ACE award ....great news.