Techie vs. Manager

M: WTF did you do?

T: What???

M: I am not able to receive messages in my mailbox.

T: Didn’t you read the mails during the last two weeks, we have migrated our mailserver so you’ll need to reconfigure your outlook.

M: Hell, so who’ll do it for me?

T: (Wait till USA elects its new president, will ask him to do it for you). Hey, its easy. Just read the instructions at this link I am sending you and follow them.

M: You people have no other job? Don’t you see how important I am to the society? They even pay me money to talk crap. Now what will I do? I’ll miss all those important mails.

(T: I know, all those mails saying “Forward this to 10 people or else…”)

M: It was so much better earlier.

T: It’ll be the same, just a few steps and you’ll be done.

M: What two steps. You think I have all the time in this world for all this crap? I have so many important things on my mind. And now I have to worry about this too. What if I…

T: Ya man, its truly sad.

M: What?

T: The shift and all. I think you are all fucked up. Probably, you could call one of em meetings and decide if, how and when to do the configuration. Maybe we will have to engage a consultant to get the changes to take effect. I feel sorry for you.

M: But…

T: Hey, listen. You have a lot of important things to do. Why waste time here. I myself have a couple of programs to write. Cya.

M: Hey, what did you say was the link…?

This is just a fictional account, inspired by reality, of a few conversations I had with my fellow Xlers when we shifted to Google Apps. The whole irony of the situation was that I was talking to people who say they have engineering degrees and over two years’ work experience in IT firms.

That night I prayed to god to save the souls of all my friends who had joined the famous Indian IT companies.

Cypher

I just re-watched matrix a few days ago and it was a refreshing experience. The movie has some amazing one liners, which, of course, this time round I knew. Nonetheless it was enjoyable. Matrix is one movie that gets a person’s mind rolling about reality and fantasy and how they could be so much more intertwined. I often wondered what would I do if I were given a choice like Neo. I am pretty sure I would not choose the red pill.

In fact, I am of the opinion of Cypher who almost successfully foils the movement of Morpheus and co. Why bother with all that trouble when the matrix is so much more better. Moreover, in real life, there are higher chances of a person like Cypher succeeding. I no longer believe that good wins in the end. In fact, good stands not even a remote chance in front of the mighty evil. Oh, and in real world its not they vs. us, its not machines vs. humans, its humans vs. humans.

So why, as Cypher would argue, mess around with those electrical impulses that are so comforting just to know the horrible reality? Beats me, what about you?

Sad and Eventful Day

I lost my senses, did not know what to do and how to react. This sort of thing had never happened to me and it was frustrating to know that it was me who was, in some sense, responsible to get into the soup myself. Add to this, were the junta’s taunts “If it can happen to systems society secretary, it can happen to anyone”.

Some of the most gruelling hours of my life started when yesterday evening, my computer started working slow. I tried the usual restarting and stuff but it did not work. And then it happened. It was as if Duryodhana himself came to earth with a mood to challenge Krishna. I ran fsck -a. Linux told me that this could be fatal but alas “vinashkaneen vipreet buddhi”. I did not heed the warning and ended up screwing up my grub. What was to follow was a three hour internet search for a solution. There were many but none worked. In the end, I ran another fsck and in the process blew up all my data. Can you believe it, ALL MY DATA?! It was like the end of the world. I knew that the judgement day had come, god would emerge and separate the good from the bad. I waited for some aakashwani. I waited some more.

But nothing happened! No, the world continued to run. I told my story to people around and they seemed not to notice. How could everyone be so indifferent, so stupid? And then slowly, it dawned one me. There is life beyond computers. Do you hear that? THERE IS LIFE BEYOND COMPUTERS! It dawned on me that even if I did not have my computer functional, I and the world could continue living normally.

Now that things are normal, it all feels like a dream. As if it never happened. But, the data loss is for real and the insignificance of it continues to haunt me.