Moved in and settled...

Woke up in the morning and went for a walk to find out where the bus station is. There was not a single human being around, only cars swishing by. So I decided to come back because I couldn’t ask for directions and I didn’t want to get lost. Then I also realized that I was not carrying money enough to catch a bus and I can’t ask the bus driver to stop by an ATM so I could pay. So I decided to take a cab. I called for a cab and left for office. I reached office way before anyone else. I was thinking that I would get late because I don’t know the bus routes. I reached one hour before time. I went down stairs to the café and had breakfast. Went up for a smoke and was back in the office at 8:15…

Funny there was nobody around… waited and then people started coming in… Jonathan called me and Kevin into the kitchen asking for status. Then he said that we have to work separately because the team was complaining that there was too much noise at the back… so I knew that nobody in the team would complain about me… I asked him who complained and he didn’t have an answer to that…

Later we went to Boston Market and had lunch… later in the evening there was another meeting with Jonathan, Kevin and I… he asked me the status on the installations offshore… I told him that I haven’t received any status yet… he said if required he can be on a call… and he said that he stays awake till late in the night… So I set up a call for 12:10… later on Jonathan said that I should set up a call so late so I told him that if he wants a call at such a short notice… it has to be late…

Left from office around 6:30 or so… Kevin Moore offered me to drop me home… on the way we decided to go to Walmart. We did a lot of shopping and the shopping list is as follows:

Microwave
Iron Board
Rice Cooker
Hefty CS (Microwave Bowl)
Eggs
Iron
crispy semi cooked chicken
Ice cream (Vanilla flavor)
Hershey chocolate syrup
chicken fry
rice
chicken noodles
Pringles
split peas
chicken strips
sour cream
bread
Butter
cheddar cheese
4 glasses
food plates
forks spoons and knives

Came home set up everything in the refrigerator and attended the call that was set up at 12:10. today it is just a list of all the events that happened through the day tomorrow reflections.

Moving...

Moved to a new appartment... This is how it went... took a cab from the hotel at 10:30 on Saturday morning... came over to the new apartment... But the person who was already living there had not moved out yet and had not given the key to the landlord's wife yet... The landlord has gone out for some business trip and so his wife is taking care of things here...

So I thought I would take my laptop and go to some cafe... spend some time there and then when his wife gets the key she would call me... on my way there I called Binoy and he said he is in New Jersey and hasn't gone to Virginia this weekend... He also said that we should meet up at Manhattan... But then he is going to leave for Manhattan a little late...

So I called Kiran and he said that he is in Manhattan and that I should come over immediately... So I left immediately... reached at his office around 1.00... we had lunch... then we were leaving for edisson when I called Binoy to update him of my status... that's when he told me that he is also at Penn Station and that we should meet up... he made us walk up and down the 7th Avenue and broadway and bored us to death... It was raining heavily... So I had bought an umbrella before I met Binoy... I had my laptop which was very heavy... I carried it along with me in one hand and an umbrella in the other and basically it was not a very pleasant experience... Binoy was there with Pratiksha and that was the only good thing about the whole thing... Nice girl...

finally we decided that we are not walking any more and going for a movie... Kiran and I went for Scary Movie 4...

I called up my landlord after the move to inquire whether he has the keys or not and he said that his wife does and I also inquired whether she could spare a mattress or not and he said she could... after that we came home... walk to the Penn Station, train journey back to Hicksville and a cab home...

Picked up the mattress from her came in.. we didn't have anything to sleep inside... and it was very cold... the heater I think wasn't working... so wore our jackets and went off to sleep...

Kiran was basically planning to stay with me for 3 months or so... and he wanted to guage how much time it takes for him to reach office from here...

Sunday morning we decided that we go to manhattan then we decided that I don't... then we decided that we both do... after a lot of confusion we finally decided that we both go to Manhattan... from there we went to Pritesh's place... We did our shopping had a couple of beers and then these guys dropped me at the bus stop...

I caught a bus back to manhattan and then a train ride back to Hicksville... and finally cab back to home... came home and un packed... I hadn't un packed until now... i took a bath and freshened up and now I am writing this... don't have any money in my pocket and don't feel like going out... so didn't have any dinner... pretty hungry actually...

I will have to inform Jonathan that I would be late tomorrow because I have to figure out the public transportation out here... I have to shop for food stuff so I don't have to go hungry again...

I also have to figure out where the laundromat is... Lots of work... times are going to be tough... but I have my independance...

There was a VPN connectivity related meeting in the morning. Somehow this guy Nitin Arora who was supposed to be testing the connectivity from offshore thought that the issue was resolved and he actually had the balls to call the meeting off. I raised the meeting request and he had the guts to fire me a mail that the issue has been resolved and the meeting is not required any more and left for the day. Well of course he is not on the project and he was just helping me out... But then when you take a responsibility on yourself... you have to finish it properly... Of course I can't scold him or anything... because he was just helping me out and officially it is not his responsibility... well what the hell I wouldn't have been able to scold him even if he was responsible... But things like these go into the performance appraisal you know...

In the meeting there was another issue raised... Prajyoth said that the IT team told him that they have to know who is going to pay for the licenses... He actually found out the prices of the licenses and sent across the budget and quotation... If you are aware of the Kanbay way of doing things... Kanbay has a corporate MSDN subscription which means that we have the licenses and we can just go ahead and reuse it... of course they are on a per seat basis but then who uses the Visual Studio 2002 these days... I am sure we have not run out of the licenses... Under no circumstances do we need to go out and buy a license per seat... I told them that the licenses would have to be billed to the project... but that is just an accounting issue... there would definitely be no extra cost for using them... except for the out of the league license for Component one... that does require approval from the project manager which has been taken care of...

I fired a mail to Prajyoth regarding the new people who are joining the project so that their paperwork can be started off... new ids would be created for these new people and GP needed the exact names of the people joining so that the paperwork and the id creation process can be initiated... Prajyoth mailed me back the names and the process got kicked off...

I called up the new land lord Raj Chakraborty and I confirmed with him about whether he could get the money or not... I also confirmed with him whether I could move in this saturday or not and he said I could...

I left office early today at 6:00 and came to the hotel room... I watched back to back episodes of Seinfeld, Everybody loves raymond and friends. After that I took a shower and now I am writing...

Later in the night when these guys come online, I have a plan to talk to them regarding the set up issues and the license and installation of software issues... I have to schedule another session of the VPN Connectivity issue... This has been delayed way too much... This needs to be taken care of as quickly as possible... I boast to people that Kanbay is very swift in these activities and is very efficient in delivery... I have to back it up... otherwise it would be quite embarrasing...

Didn't feel like having dinner today so had some pringles... that's that for the day... it was quite a hectic day though...

Adjoined Issues...

Two of the associates that were going to join come onboard yesterday... Madhu and GV Naga not joining. Identified new candidate, Rajlakshmi. called her for interview. She didn't take the technical interview will take tomorrow.

Set up a call at 9:30 tomorrow morning for the VPN Connectivity issue with Vinod More, Martin Miranda and Aasif Ulla on the call. Now these are the networking guys... we have been going on back and forth about the connectivity issue since the last whole week and couldn't get the network connectivity between offshore and onsite going... the sole reason being the communication was not direct between the networking guys onsite and offshore....

Worked on Some use cases... Some issues with reviewing the data model we are writing.
There was some power play... and some dirty politics... there is a struggle for authority going on between these two guys at work and they are really making one hell of a ruckus...

Now this guy Kevin... He is pretty good... I mean ethical... Honest and nice... but honestly... He shouldn't be working for a consulting company... he shoudl rather be working for a product based company... focussing completely on quality of product he is delivering and the code structure... because everything that he has learnt in his life is right and whenever he says something he is right... But sometimes it is too right to be true... at least in a consulting company...

Consider the scenario... We are working on the project... I know the code that has already been written sucks... the code was written by a german company called Info Systems... and the basic principles are not followed... Incredibly complex requirements but some basic flaws:
1. No structured exception handling
2. Only 2 layers UI and database
3. Hard coding everywhere
4. Database being called from the IU layer directly
5. Code has absolutely no structure and no standards are being followed
and so on and so forth. But the point here to be noted is that the adjoined team is not to be blamed. This project was started by the german company and there was lack of initiative and nobody tried took the risk of re-structure the already existing code running code... which was running and not a problem then... but as we all know the requirements change and defects creep in...

So the code was not structured and the defaults creeped in. Complexity of requirements were increasing by the day and the code was becoming more and more difficult to manage by the day... Basically a developer nightmare...

Now the situation is we have written 75% of the code already... which is already a nightmare and out of the 25% of the code that is left out only half is being shipped out to offshore... and to do that much it is going to take the next 6 months... for which I am responsible...

I understand that the code is crappy and everything but what am i supposed to do in a situation like this... I just have to deliver... crappy or otherwise... I cannot change the architecture or the structure of the code at this point and if i have to i would actually have to scrap the entire thing and start afresh... which doesn't make business sense... for me this is a beast... I have to just cage it and deliver it and then it is not my problem...

In a situation like this... I feel the best thing to do is maintain the quality of the code as much as you can hence forth and deliver... deliver like a maniac... don't think about the best practices and architecture and stuff that could have been done or should have been done...

And when i say deliver what i basically mean is get a sign off... At a time like this if you talk idealistic stuff like Kevin does... even though I agree to what he is saying and I know he is right... I listen to him... but he would definitely piss someone off... and such arguments and battles are bound to happen...

Code is not the only thing that is a problem with this project... People are another problem... there are people who are fighting for power... other are scared shit as to what is going to happen with them after the Kanbay - Adjoined Acquisition... some have an attitude not to work... others depend totally on others... there is the hero mentality and there is the quitter mentality... Loads of problems i am dealing with and until the time I am done with this project... I am sure I would be learning a lot...

One thing I discovered today is that the best thing about the onsite business model like Adjoined is that there is not much maintainance cost on the infrastructure... which means the costs are down.. which means they can quote real low prices without making their developers slog.. and without compromising on the profit margin... If adjoined still has tight deadlines... I think there is seriously something wrong somewhere... Of course there is a negative side to it... If the client doesn't provide you with a good working environment... which includes stuff like heating, air conditioning, ventilated rooms, chairs, desks, good machines and software licenses... you have to deal with it...

There is nothing much otherwise... came home late... had a beer... smoked some cigarettes... talked to mom on google talk...

Kiran has come here... and he is probably planning to come over and stay at my place... If he does that.. we would save a load of money and it would be pretty ok... I mean the next 6 months would be bearable...

Of course I would still miss home like hell and I would be dying to get back... But what the hell... at least i wouldn't be drinking the beer alone here... like i did today...

Dinner with Adjoined manager

Well mostly a boring day... just that at the end of the day we had dinner with this big manager from adjoined...

The one new thing is that i got a call from Viraj... she called me twice once during lunch and once during dinner...

well i tried to call her when i came back from dinner... but i guess it got a little late... she wrote a couple of mails to me and i wrote back... and she invited me to meet her in Chicago... which is quite unlikely... I know I am not going there for sure...

Met Binoy

Met binoy today. Binoy said I should consider going taking management as a career. well he said it very carefully and was telling me that it is not that i am technically not sound enough, it is just that i have a natural knack of dealing with people...

Well now i am thinking... even if i am a little good with people... that's not really what i want to do...

Last couple of days were quite the same… I went out for Mexican for lunch and Mexican for dinner and I ate chicken for breakfast, chicken for lunch and chicken for dinner. I went out with Kevin a couple of times.

One significant thing that happened is that I found an apartment. Not only that I went out to Manhattan twice once with Kevin and once with Binoy…

That’s about it… nothing much happening…

As far as work is concerned… I have made friends with almost all the team… the actual work has started… we have formed a team… it is recruited and the team lead taken care of… now we need to identify the quality lead, and the project management software that we are going to be using… we are thinking about the Clarity Tool…

The major challenges are going to be explaining the job to the offshore team, making them do the work on time… since the architecture of the application is quite crappy and there is no structure to the code, Kanbay dudes are going to have a tough time figuring out what to do and do it on time…

Need to finish the first package in 6 weeks.

Time to start charting my career

I think i really need to start thinking about my next step now. The main reason being the change in the profile that i am going through. I haven't seen the face of Visual studio .Net since the last 3 weeks. I don't remember doing that ever in the last 3 years. And it is not that I am not working. In fact I am working my ass off. The main reason being what is the next thing I am going to be doing could be something that is remotely connected to anything technical and I don’t want to be doing anything that is not closely related to technology. All I have been doing lately is writing use cases and managing resources. Resources like setting up environment to set up environment and setting up conference calls.

Of course it is a bit too early to decide though. I am sure I wouldn’t be able to do anything that is related to technology in this project because the structure and the code in the project sucks. The code was initially written by a Russian company and the programmers didn’t have any idea regarding good code structure. There are only two tiers, no exception management, no separate data access layer, lots of hard coding, very tightly coupled code.

The only thing that we are going to be doing in this project is fire fighting and delivering on time to save our face. This is not a very extensible code and the quality of the deliverables are going to suck.

But what the hell I just need to focus on delivery, and get myself a promotion.

Boring sunday...

This sunday was quite boring... did nothing much... woke up in the morning and went for a small workout... there is a small gym in the hotel here... My shoulder still hurts... the ligament injury hasn't healed yet... i discovered that today... well... then i went to the 7 eleven store near the hotel and bought myself a chicken sandwich and a redbull... came back to the hotel and ate it...

later on through the entire day i was switching between watching TV and reading... I was reading the CLR book...

later in the evening i started feeling hungry... so i ordered in a pizza... The pizza was pretty big... I ate half of it then and then later on i ate the rest for dinner... with a red bull that i bought from 7 eleven again...

planning to go off to sleep early...

Well another day tomorrow... Again i have to deal with all those attitudes... same old Jonathan and same old Mark... I hope i win over some more tomorrow...