Tamizh Murasu - Nachunu Illai

As I alighted from M21 this evening, I happened to see "Tamizh Murasu" hanging from a clip in a tea kadai. I thought of buying it to see if it indeed contains news and if it was atleast half worth the hype created by the ads.

The first page had a huge picture of the lightning that struck yesterday night in Chennai. Then there was some other news in which the headline covered half the page and 60% of the article continued in page 2. There was very little "NEWS" that was not biased. The center page had pictures of couples taken at Gandhi Mandapam (remba mukkiyam). Gossips filled up 3 more pages. Last page as expected had a picture of some heroine i guess.

Perhaps they know they cant do good business with what the newspaper was being filled up with. So you get something free. Today it was a face wash sachet. Namma makkal thaan freeya kodutha yetha venaalum vaanguvaangale. The tabloid format is definitely a plus but they cant sustain anything with the stuff thats inside. They must do much more to overtake Malai Murasu and a couple of other papers that have had a name as good evening papers.

"Tamizh Murasu - Nachunu illai, sappaya irukku!"

An Interesting(?) Difference

Tennis lovers all over India including a few in Singara Chennai would have treated themselves to the US open last week. Agassi showed age is not a factor and played incredible tennis that made FedEx emote (he rarely does that) after winning and so did Shane Warne across the Atlantic; ironically both in losing causes. Amidst the tennis action, I observed something entirely out of context. It’s the "Ball Boys and girls in action" at the US Open. Not sure how many of you noticed the ball being hurled 78 feet across the net - A huge contrast to what happens elsewhere.

Take Wimbledon – it’s a neat roll of the ball nice and straight over the grass. If the ball was to be passed to the other end, it would be in two steps - first to the guy at the net and then from there to the other end, always rolled over the grass. Imperially British. The Queen would have a word with some of these guys during the presentation ceremony on the second weekend. Any other place, you would find something like this only.

But not at New York! Here it is just a huge hurl across the net. I was obviously surprised at this action having watched Wimbledon only a month and a half before. When a player gets the ball, it’s a one bounce whip to them after a mere wait with the ball in the hand that's half raised. Characteristically American. Back in London, it would be a wait with a hand up, and after the player's ack, a neat one bounce pass. What a contrast!

Great Grand Slams, Great tradition, a petty difference :-)

Vaazhkaiye alai pole... Naamellam Java/Cobol melae!

Having been in the IT industry for more than a year now, hundreds of funny forwards have come through about the industry at large. However I was in for a live demo of one such forward last week in a meeting. It was friday evening and nothing would irritate anyone more than a meeting. I've read forwards about the long discussions where people end up deciding nothing after digging up crap and finally, a round of mud slinging. The actual issue would have been forgotten in the melee! For me it happened such a way that a simple decision that the team members took in the morning was blown up into a lengthy discussion. Of course we ended up at the very same simple decision. No mud slinging was reported by anyone. Hail IT!

So funny that once when the lead laughed for a joke (of course crap only) everybody would burst into laughter spotting a great chance to release the ha ha ha-s that had been concealed until then. Life in IT will indeed be boring without these comedy times. But there are things going on that are downright bad. This is what that makes one repent for the decision he/she has made to join this industry.

For example: Its the arrival of a new project. The difficulties faced by the team in using a technology/language unheard of till then will be conveyed higher up the ladder with so much Additive White Gaussian Noise (Figure of Merit is a big ZERO) that the manager will end up reporting the company's pioneering experience in the same technology/language to the clients!! Something like this will happen...

Team lead to members: hey, we've got this new project to be built upon using "____" technology using "____" language etc.,

Members to team lead: what? we have not even heard of that. we know even you do not know about this. then? (enna sinna pulla thanama irukku?)

Lead to APM: we cant do this (stating the reasons)

APM to PM: we have only limited resources with very little exposure to do this.

PM to Senior Manager: We have resources with sufficient exposure. If we could train them well, no wonder why we can't successfully execute this project!!

Senior Manager to Director (or whoever his boss is): We've got excelleng trainers in this technology that if we could dedicate them for this project for a month or two, we can win more such projects in the future by way of successfully executing this.

Boss to Clients: We've been pioneering this technology with great success. We assure you we can develop this applicatin for you very easily... bla... bla... bla...

After all, its all money that matters.
Something like this is definitely happening somewhere or the other. Well, someone's gotta do something about this somewhere a.l.a NHRC in Kaakha Kaakha.

Eventually, its the programmers headache. Slugging it out during the day time with special trainers hired for this crap and working late hours to finish ahead of the delivery date alongside the funny team meetings, fights with onsite etc., It has become the order of life in IT. Indeed, "Vaazhkaiye alai pole... naamellam Java/Cobol melae"