Hum bewafa hargiz na the.... par hum wafa kar na sake.....

After 6 months of code conversion, testing and documentation in IBM. I decided to move on. It was a hectic phase of 6 months especially the long drive to work and monotonous nature of work dint help. It was a challenging role but something so different to what I am used to and within time lines.

No complaint about the nature of work. But the team was down sized to 25% of the initial strength suddenly because the client is a pauper now. We were notified about the release date just 5 days in advance. When we were recruited, we were told this is a very long term engagement and all that gas. But the IT industry runs only on projections and expectations. They don't come true always. Its not specific to any company but the industry in general is in a shaky position and its time to look for a safer bet.

Last week when the rumors of massive layoff's were doing the rounds, I thought I will explore the job market again. Its by God's grace things opened just at the right time. I got a call in a day and after a series of interviews I got an offer. The rolloff news came out just the day I got the offer. It was a very easy decision to make.

By the way I am moving to an organization called mu-sigma. I have been offered a position of Senior Business Analyst. They are into analytics. It is related to the DW/BI work that I am used to. But, I expect this role will help me move up the value chain. Looks interesting and challenging.

All said and done, its all about the projections and expectations. About the real outcome, time will tell. At the moment I feel it is a calculated risk.

Now, when I look back I feel am I really such an unstable person? I have resigned 3 times in 18 months. I feel I have just been as stable as the market has been. I have chased good work and only when the company has given me no choice I made the big decision. I guess the title of this post sums up my position on my current commitment crisis.

Commitment will be back when the employer's are capable of sticking to their commitments. It takes two to tango after all.

Ssup?

Last month or so has been really monotonous. Work has been the same. Comparing different outputs and fixing the defects in the code we developed. It was alright for a week but now its been a month of doing the same work. It has got pretty boring. Perhaps I need a long vacation.

Because of the hectic schedule I am lagging behind with the arabic classes. I have still not learnt the 90 verbs(have to finish 120 by this saturday). I had a poster in my room long ago which read "secret of getting ahead is getting started". Think its my starting trouble that has kept me where I was a month ago.

Looks like my current project will complete by march end. Then should start looking for a new assignment. Lots of rumours have been doing the rounds these days about the layoff's and stuff. But I guess continuous learning and being a bit proactive might help. Eventually whats gonna happen is destiny. We can only prepare.

Thats it for now. Life is slow and my blog's getting boring. Lets hope life gets more interesting and so does my blog.

Mad mad world(not quite)

Last year or so has been a roller coaster ride for almost everyone. It began with words like recession and subprime crisis. A black man ran for the white house and and we have him there.

One of the biggest software companies in India is in a mess because of fraud. Funniest part is its name....Satyam(meaning truth).

We saw the biggest hiring spree a couple of years back. Every IT company announced in its quarterly result. We added 10000+ people this quarter. Now we hear things like 10000 people fired per week.

We saw Australian cricket team lose both test and ODI series at home. Looks like its rein as the superpower is coming to an end.

Every conversation is depressing and hovers around these depressing topics. I'd like to believe its a wake up call. We learn to live within our means accept the change as a new beginning.

Its just the cycle of life. Everybody has humble beginnings. They grow with principles and efforts. They stagnate and someone else takes over. God tests in good and bad times. We need to stand up to the test. Have the courage and patience in bad times. We need to be thankful in good times. But cheerful at all times.

I want to stop thinking of this fear/depression I see all around. I want to learn/improve professionally and personally. Its a gloomy phase. But have to be prepared to make hay when the sun shines. Sun will shine sooner or later. Every night is followed by a day. Lets chill and wait with hope and belief.

2009 a new start

It was a year back that I decided to move to a new job and a new country not knowing what to expect but with a positive attitude. Its been a year after that and times have changed. In the process I learnt a lot. The learning has been fun.

Changing my job twice in the same year has taught me one golden lesson "no matter how much you change things will always be the same". Last year we used to get interview calls every week but now all the job portals have gone empty. Last year every company treated its employees like the boss but now its the "take it or leave it" attitude. But one thing has remained the same, work has kept me really busy. Hardly have time for myself. And the worst part is we need to remain busy to protect our jobs. We have to adapt and most importantly enjoy every moment as it is. I think its time to learn as much as possible so that it can be encashed when better times return.

One more thing I've learnt is that nothing is permanent. Everything finishes one day or the other. The biggest empires and civilizations have been razed to rubble. Thats the cycle of life. Who was a superpower yesterday is nobody today. The same holds good for all of us. We have to do our best to enjoy the journey and we can expect results only from God. I believe better times will return. God is with those who are patient (Innallaha ma as sabireen).

Changing times

As we see the world shrink into a global village and technology bridge the geographic boundaries, The emergence of the poorer countries challenge the super powers of the last century we are also witnessing other changes that are very disturbing. Especially the events in Mumbai in the last few weeks have been an alarm of sorts. Even the beast within the human race has become more advanced and ruthless.

Its sad to see people use religion, nationalism, etc. selectively to accomplish their selfish goals. Before I look beyond our border I feel we are not honest with ourselves. Our government is playing to the galleries when it says the same story after every blast. They have been busy covering up their own intelligence flaws. We all know there are insurgent groups within our country who exploit human emotions and play the divide and conquer policy. Some of them are hand in glove with the political parties. We need the common man to understand these tricks.

All of us especially the educated types need to participate in the public life and help the ignorant mass understand these games. The educated crowd rarely votes and are often taken for granted by the political parties. We strongly need the educated and the financially sound people to take more social responsibility especially in educating the others.

I believe our education system is more focussed towards producing many doctors and engineers who are completely driven by their material goals. We need a system which focusses strongly on value based system. Which would make our society shun the social, economic and class inequity. A society where there would be peace and justice in all spheres of life.

It is very easy to be critical and have an opinion about every other person but to change the system a we all need to work on changing the way each of us percieve ourselves and whats around us. What we see around us is a identity based politics and in a country like India there are a million identities and a billion people. You could be a hindu, muslim, christian or any other faith or any sect/caste within it. You could speak any of the 1000+ languages/dialects but we all are the creation of the same creator and have to return to the same end. We need to focus on the values that focus on truth and justice in all spheres.

In short our politics should move from identity based to value based. I feel we are indulged in a lot of mudslinging but never take responsibility about anything. We as a people as a human race need to come out of it. We are at the end of the day accountable.

Not sure if my thoughts make sense but they always haunt me and Its best I share them through my blog.

Some changes hurt

I started jogging yesterday near my home in one of the parks on rose garden road. I entered the park for the first time yesterday but I have driven through rose garden road forever. I actually dint know its real name till recently. I used to call it the shady road. because of the trees on either sides and they give shade to the entire road. At times even when it rains the whole road is protected from the rain. It is one of the most beautiful sights in Bangalore.

Just when I returned home after the jog I read an editorial in the paper which spoke about the damages the metro rail projects would cause. It dint occur to me till then that the parks along rose garden road would be damaged to accomodate the rail line and even the Jayanagar station would replace one of the parks. I always felt so good about the metro project but this thought spoilt my mood.

Now Bangalore is all set to graduate from the garden city to a concrete jungle. Im just hoping against hope that the damaged yet to be caused is minimised.

Feeling blue

First month at this new job has been a pretty tiring and hectic experience. I got into a datawarehousing project for a US based finance organization. I have been part of similar projects earlier but this one is different in its own way. Frankly speaking its been a boring experience so far. Main reason being the connectivity issues to the client network. Though the work is good it takes ages to even type a simple query and get the result.

The only interesting part in the last month has been the trip to Dharwad last week to attend Altaf's wedding. The trip was very refreshing. I visited Hubli Dharwad for the first time. The Bangalore wedding's are very different. In Bangalore everything is pretty commercial and things happen in a jiffy. Life in smaller towns is still like the Bangalore I knew as a kid.

After the wedding all of us decided to take a day off and go to Dandeli for river rafting. But no water was let out of the dam and the dam thing got cancelled. It is the second time my river rafting plan got cancelled. Anyway there is always a next time.

Of late, I have been a bit confused about most things and the distance to the office and long working hours have also made the situation pretty stressful. Even the newspapers these days carry pretty sad stories like the US economy crash, terrorist attacks and dirty politics going with it. In between all this depressing stuff I enjoyed the Mohali test victory. The Aussie dominance had made test cricket boring.

This post is very mixed up like the thoughts in my head. Hopefully before the next post I get things sorted out and write something more meaningful.