Fun @ Work

VIRIMA: VIrtual RIsk MAnagement

This is a small caravan that we are building; not just for the sake of travelling but to travel for long distance (reach some great heights). Hope this caravan would one day be valued more than a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW.

Praveen

Not all IIT passouts are extra-ordinary; not all IIT dropouts are stupids - but Praveen is an exception.

Sandy - the Panda

An apple a day keeps doctor away

A bCard a day gets a resume a day
Will make the best use of anything that he has; not just the bCards.




The QA Team - No code is 100% bug free. Even if it is 99.99% clear code these guys would end-up finding that .01%. These buggers would even find bugs in a bug tracking tool. So let me not invite problem by writing something about them. The all time villains for developers while building a healthy product.

Nandu

A villain for all technical obstacles; a hero for many new thoughts


[Shekar]
'An ambassador for EM @ CCD'. A good critisist. For him what matters is the latitude of attitude and longitude of apptitude.


[Karun]
An eagle's eye while looking at the market's requirement; a tortoise's move while writing PRDs. Baby steps while implementation. "Stronger is the foundation, taller in the Success".


Welcome to our Work culture


Our QA testing

QA discussing bug with Dev team

Dev team fixing

QA behind Dev to fix bugs

Sandy @ work

Is he looking for some good UI design?

OMG!!! what he is looking for?

Praveen @ work

Team meeting

sorry Praveen

Clean desk policy

Strictly followed

Finally the Stress Buster...

Owned my dream aquarium

I should have to thank my roommates to make one of my dreams come true. Since school days it had been my dream to maintain an aquarium. I did have one; of course a small one. And today, I have an aquarium worth some thousands J – with a branded water filter, quality sand, a wooden trunk and at least eight varieties of water-plants. At present there are about seven pairs, three different varieties.

It had been more than ten to fifteen years that I had maintained a fish tank. Quite a lot of gap… All of a sudden a huge one now. It was all because of a laundry guy who delayed pressing my clothes, at Chennai.

I was supposed to get my pressed clothes in an hour since when I deposited them. But when I went there my clothes were lying in a corner.  Didn’t argue with him, in-spite I was in hurry to a friend’s wedding reception. Gently reminded him about my clothes and peeped into the aquarium at the very next door. I was talking to shopkeeper about the fish varieties and tank prices. To be frank I was doing a time pass. He showed me a bowl – quite attractive tank (a round tank which we see in many movies with Gold Fishes) and within budget. It actually cost 180 rupees but without me bargaining he said he can give that for 120 rupees. Went back home – took bath – dressed up and without any second thought went to the same shop and owned the tank. Left it at my roommate’s house at Chennai.

A month later, the tank reached my room at Bangalore and I think at least a month later I bought a pair of Gold Fish. It was a good looking Golden-Silver breed. I don’t know the exact family name. That night we took a lot of pics of them. Unfortunately, one of them survived only to pose for the pics. The next morning we found one dead. Not even 12 hrs. We didn’t know the exact reason. Was the water bad? Was the fish already sick? Was it… that? Was it… this? Finally, my roommates concluded that it was because I was staring at them with my naked eyes L

September 17, a lazy Saturday evening. We guys actually planned to go to the Auto Motor exhibition at the Palace Grounds, Bangalore. Went crawling in the city traffic. From BTM, we almost reached Corporation Circle. But as usual we changed the plan and took a roundabout instead of a straight road. For a while we thought we are getting back home. All of a sudden the aquarium flashed for me and we landed up in an aquarium at Koramangala. Beautiful fishes – lots of varieties and sizes. The lowest costing pair was guppies – 40 rupees. I thought I will end up buying some pair within 200 rupees. From 200, our budget went to 4k. Came back home!!!

Then started the war within me – a war between [AFFORDABILITY, MAINTAINABILTY and WORTHABILITY] against [LIKES]. Mind vs Heart. Mind became senseless when the heart started beating ‘Fish-Tank, Fish-Tank…’ instead ‘Lub-Tub, Lub-Tub…’.

We visited the same aquarium the next evening. Selected the tank – opted the 60x30x30 one instead of little smaller, good looking but a costlier, 3-piece one. Selected some plants for each of our choices – ended with some ten to twelve plants, eight varieties. After some analysis we opted for medium quality sand instead of a high quality which is once set, is set for ever. An assistant there was helping setup all of these and without asking he had installed water filterL. Finally, he said that the tank was ready and gave us the bill. Now it is all butterflies all around my head. Without the fishes the bill showed 6800 rupees. I couldn’t say no for two reasons – 1. It is already setup for us. 2. The set up looked awesome without even water and fishes. Since that guy didn’t understand my Hindi, I let my roommate bargain. The max we pulled him down was to 6k and little further with 3 pair of light orange guppies as complements. Along with 3 pair of complementary fishes I now have 2 pairs in two more varieties (family of Cichlidae and Barbs). Waiting for a pair from Tetra and Loricariidae this weekend.

Challenging Cake Cut and 3Cs

For almost all my birthdays, Iam blessed with loved ones around me. They make it unforgettable.

Be it the Dovetonians, Hackers, Netizens, TCSers or friends@CDM - all have always made each of this special day of mine an unforgettable one every year. Adding to this, now it is VIRIMAns. 

This time it was little different. These guys made a naughty-nasty plan to keep me off the desk. I don't know where they bought the candles from...!!!

3Cs is not just Challenging Cake Cut. It is actually - this time I got 3 surprised birthday cakes.

First one with Dovetonians, second one at my cousin's house and the third one at office.

My other unforgettable ones where...

... during my 2nd, 3rd and final year at Annamalai University. Generally by 12AM, they start the cermany with 4-5 bathings seasoned with eggs, tomatos and waste foods. Then, cake cuts and at times some notorious gifts. Once it was a small toy car that they made me ride within the house @ MSR Bhavan. During the day its the girls-team - the Twinkling Stars - a torture @ terrace, in the evening at Mother's Hall and finally at Sriram's house in the town.

...while at VIT. I get BDay bumps at my roomate's back! Poor guy!

...@TCS Trivandram while in training. T-123 made all arrangements with in the center.

...@TCS Pune while with Morgan account. As I was going for guitar classes then, I m so fortunate that my roommates would threaten me to play Happy Birthday tune for myself. My last birthday while in Pune was unforgettable - 3 surprise cakes. 12AM with roommates, in the evening at Vijay sir's house (a real surprise) and the next working day with my team mates (though the team was declared dissolved since that April 1st, but still the team gathered for me). My team mates were so confident on me (but actually misunderstood me) and gifted me a book related to guitar!

...@ Mother's Hall. Really blessed to have cut birthday cakes a couple of times at the Mother's Hall in Chidambaram center - a Divine Grace!

Effective Criminal Management

Just blogging one of my most unforgettable moments when I was in TCS – Bangalore (working for Ameriprise Financials with OB8). Ameriprise is a Financial Institution (AMPF) that spine Off from American Express (AMEX) since 2005. TCS has relationship with AMPF and AMEX. TCS associates at offshore, working for these customers together celebrate a grand function called ‘Sangam’ every year. I think it was the last quarter of 2009, when Sangam for that year was celebrated. I was then half a year old in OB8.

Amongst the events the ones in which our team is known for is – Badminton (Sunder), Throw-ball (Sadhana and Harshali), Cricket (Vinay, Rajesh and Sowndar), RFP (Kunal and Ashok). The one event for which the entire OB8 became famous was for cubical decoration. And this cubical decoration is all what I am having blogged.

We were a team of around 35-40, a mixer of all age groups – some married old people (if I mention the name Asha will kill me), some young folks (if I don’t mention the names Sundar and Sownder will weight-lift me) and some handsome guys (hope I get a treat from Ashok and Saroj). But what use… it was hard to get a theme for our stall. All the other bundles started off and were in good shape… and we had only about 3 or 4 days for judges to come. We all would look at each other and then at the watch, when called to the board room to discuss about this. At one point we thought of withdrawing.

Pan waala Kunal was our newly charged in PL then. Kunal and few others discussed for a while and came up with a mind blowing theme. They correlated life cycle of documents in AMPF with life cycle of a prisoner. Not only that. These guys redefined the term ECM as “Effective Criminal Management” which was originally “Enterprise Content Management”. (ECM is the technology domain for Document Management).

The analogy is as follows,

• 1.    A document being scanned – a person caught by policemen.
• 2.    Indexing the document – person being photographed while holding number board
• 3.    Document stored repository based on its business kind – person kept under section pertaining to the crime
• 4.    Meta data of the document maintained and document awaiting next action – person details maintained at the FBI office.
• 5.    FileNet, IU and other repositories where the document will be finally stored – person in prison
• 6.    Stored documents can be viewed by an application called OFM (Online File Manager) where the view depends on the type of user – person can be view if Only Friend or Family Member
• 7.    Document archived – Life imprisonment
• 8.    Destroy document – prisoner sentenced to death

Sinto Pinto (Mr Sinto Anthony, the master mind of the scene) joined the criminal minds. We bought lots of thermocal started constructing fence for our jail (three cubes of our team mates). After we had put that across – it looked like those wooden compounds that we see at hill station. From outside – it looked as if those three cubes where covered with snow. From no angle it gave a feel of JAIL.

Sinto drew numerous cartoons, like policeman, 3-4 models of same kind but with different posts and grilled jail gates. Harshali, Rajesh, I think even Ashok and Saroj also started cutting thermocal models. As each model was getting ready – Shruthi, Elja and Asha started painting models one by one (went back to school days). Those few days, the cube which Saroj and I shared was the workshop – no one could see the floor-carpet. It was themocal cuttings, paint brushes, Fevicol, a mini messed up stationary shop. People use to come to our desk as and when they get bored, and start painting any incomplete models.

Asha surprised everyone with many small thermocal trees which she made at home in one night. I believe her daughter and husband were kind enough to help OB8. Saroj and Kunal placed their reservations immediately. Hope they took it home after the event. As most of it was getting on track – Hima, Sudeshna, Sadhana, Asha, Prasad and Rajesh were kind enough to come on weekends to put that all on intended places. Ofcourse, criminal and the master minds were also there.

We were all set for the judges to come. Kunal and Ashok walked them through the jail explaining the analogy. But we clearly made out from the judge’s face that they were not happy with the theme as it was pessimistic. But the judges proved us wrong. In couple of days, after all the events are over (if I remember it right, it was 18^th Dec 2009) the grant finale was held at Good Shepherd Auditorium (the one near MG Road, Bangalore). Our team occupied two rows (one behind the other) somewhere in the middle. As the comparer went on announcing the winners and runners, we suddenly heard something and didn’t believe it until we heard the second time. We looked at each others face. What we heard was, “The Best Creative Stall goes to OB8 from Amperiprise – The Effective Criminal Management”. Our entire team filled up the stage to receive the award. As a team we achieved something great.

Some highlights on the model…

Policeman model was the first one to be created, I think at least six or seven of team mates would have painted that one model, in parts, when they find time. The funny thing is, we named that model after Gaurav’s name. I still remember people said, “hey, I am going paint Gaurav’s shoes…”, and someone else replied “I just painted his cap and badge, wait until it gets dry…”. I remember we also named prisoner-models after Rajasekar, Praveen Adiga and Alveen. Actually it resembled them and hence named so (not created intentionally).

 

The one model that lived, enjoyed and suffered for at least one year was – the model named after Alveen (my poor onsite counterpart). Saroj was our TL (for me and Alveen). Looking at how that model was at my desk, he would understand how well my day started off with Alveen. If the model is on the desk with a shining thread around the neck as a medal then everything is good. If the model is kept hung with that same shining thread then something should have gone wrong (either he should have blasted me or I would have got nicely from him).

The Jail Window for OFM/IU and indexing analogy models were the other two highlights. A model also carrying a white numbered-board has the number format same as the ones that are followed for documents. The caption Only Family Members caught every ones eye as it every much correlating.

These kinds of activities are only part of IT. Our BAU (AMPF’s BAU and deliverables) should not be affected. In spite of most of us were completely into this activity for that one week there wasn’t any escalation from clients. It was all because of those who had less or no time spend on decorations. They balanced our works. A team that had (has and will have) all mixture.

Hats Off to OB8 members

An article on Bala motta maadi ground !!!

An article on Bala motta maadi ground . Enjoy reading...chennai  (Not to hurt anyone)

Long standing Tall batsman

Ivnathanga kokku .... out panrathukulla vidinjidum.. sorry.. irutaidum.. nanga evening thane vilayaduvom...

batting mattum illa fielding, bowling, jumping, rollingnnu ellam pannuvam.. enna ellam ozhunga pannuvam .. oppposite teamku romba kastanga..

intha thadava 3 over than.. appuram retired hurtnnu sollidanum.. (Bradmannnu nennappu)

Old chucker

Athan chucker soltenla.. vera yaaru avnethan.. Pappa.. who doesnt know to bowl except oorutals...hits the leg stumps.. sorrynga legs and not the stumps.. (Shoaib Aktharnnu nenappu)

Batting sumar than.. thidirnu.. eppavthu suthi matna undu.. appuram eppavume oru super player matriye suthitrupan.. Captain vera..

yaarum captain iruka virupa milla enruthu theriyama.. than captain apdinnu nenachitruppan..

Hello Captaina namba VijayKanth Mathiri irupparu ninakatheenga... avar kai size than namba paiyan...

Faltoo opener

Ithu Santha.. open panrathoda seri runla opene agathu.... fieldingna... ball pakathuliye nikrathu.. catchla illa.. bodyle thadukrathu.. grt fieldera (Rhodes nennapu)

anna innumum opening mattum than pannuvennu solvan.. ketta.. kadaisile ada varatham...

ennamo opening panni apdiye 50 pottu vara mathiri....yaravthu sollungapa avan kitta...

Solid opener

Ithu Senthil ...Enga team opener... ennaku therinju senthil nanaum vera teamle irunthe illa.. But Santha mathiri illa.. 20 runs solid opener.. excellent bat pad fielder

ball pakathula vizhuthnnu batsmanukku theiryathu.. thavi vizhunthu pudichruvan.. yenna one pitch out irruku...

Solid opener.. than.. ana solida irukka mattan.. patha.. stump.. ..iyoo.. oru stump size thanga..

Commoner

Ivan Rajesh P... avlava solrathukku onnu illa.. pinna enna panrathu.. regulara practiskkum.. varathilla.. matchkkum varathilla...

Eppavthu varuvan.. epdiyum aayiram thadav solliyum balla kizha adihuravn.. ennaku therinu ivan ipdi than niraya out ayirkan..

Bowling la suthama varaathu.. fielding ok...sethuklam teamla ..averagea aduvan...

Last standing batsman

ithu namba Panay.. kokku long standinggna .. ivan last standing.. epdinna..

epavum lastathan aduvan.. illla illa.. appa than eraki viduvom..ellarum out aydivanga.. ivan mattum last batsmana irupuan...

avanukku romba kastam.. oru sachin tendulakar lastla aupranglennu... enna panrathu purinjikka matengra...ne ten runs koods adikka matedannu..

fileding super.. but ippa back out aytan.. back pain enna mathiri...bowling eppavthu..

Fighter

Ivan .. yuva... ivana mathiri oru all team la eppavum irrukanum..Fight panrathukku illanga.. decision avanga pakkam thirupatharku..

argumentnnu vantha udirathe illa...Epdiyavthu pesi... decison avanga pakkam vaangiuvanga.. nan avan teamla iruntha jolli.. illana.. onnum paan mudiyathu..

adutha balla aada poiduvom... bowling super.. batting average.. fielding.. kastam..ball porathe vedika pappan....

Owner

Finally enga ground owner .. Big Daddy .. Bala...thaan vilayadnumna.. oru oorye sethukrathu..

Ennaku therinji motta madilai guard.. padnnu. pakkava kit oda irangauvan...

ana paravala .. inga maatum than run adipan...Real groundle.. onnum panna maaten..

Ninth padikum pothe ..full kit vechirrupan.. school teamla vilayadrennu sollte iruntha.. iruntha.. irukka.. (dei avan substitue avthu vilaydanana illaya -- ?????? )

But home ground nala ... advantage.. bowling super... batting ok.. fielding.. mantham..

ball vanthu kaiyla uzahanum.. catch pudipan...

ivan thanga real captain.. amanga vijayakantha mathiri than irupan..enna color mattum white aydichu...(David Boon nnu soliklam.. )

Finally. ... unga BBC Radio jockey... PV

Nan epdni na....... kalathula vanthu paarungla... :)

cut.....