Corporate and the Bad Lessons

I remember the day when I gave the elimination of the TPL and like the other campuses, I made through. Not a big deal though. Much later I realised I was on the top of the list of the selected candidates – like every other. My interview was the first and the longest but this time I made through! I broke the jinx of HR – Technical and HR were combined 😛We were so excited about our new job – me, Kanika and the Joker Harsh – that we ended up eating the chilliest dabeli on this earth! … slurp-slurp-slurp …!

By the time I joined, I had done few things – some exams that made me capable of writing the long blog posts and of course the FIFA World Cup that I religiously follow only to forget the game later. I remember watching the games up to late night – especially the Germans, missing the classic match of the Argentine’s (the 6-0 one…) – was watching Tom Cruise saving his wife at the FR. But I saw German’s winning the mighty Argentines and the brawl in the end, Cristiano Ronaldo’s astuteness to put Rooney on bench for next matches, the crying Beckham, Zidane’s headbutting, Brazil’s exit, Scweinsteiner’s goal in the third place match… I also took a 6-day-tour to my native. Importantly, I gave my final vivas of the 8th semester and became an engineer.

My first corporate job began on July, The 14Th 2007.

Well, of course I am expected to write something about the corporate life. But let me say I have nothing good to write at a professional level but on the personal level, yes! Dad said I got to do this job no matter how much I hated it. Much later I realised why he kept on insisting that. There is too much bad to learn from the corporates and perhaps that’s how the world works. Let me write the bad stuff first. Good ones will constitute of white-lies and will take up another post.

Some bad negative things I saw and realised:

• I learned how to successfully curse people and claim they know nothing, even when you are worse – believe me, its an art.
• Learn how to keep distances from good enough friends – you never know when they will stab your back.
• When not be honest, at least not when it comes to acquiring, quitting and sustaining jobs.
• How people get work done from others and grab the credit away.
• Why DSL is a big-time sucker.
• How smartly customers are looted in the market.
• Politics: How the company’s policy changes for the right-hands.
• Nepotism, being a miser.
• I saw a lot of sycophancy; I can never learn that.
• How being the boss’s confidante *matters*. Who is boss? Let’s leave that to Murphy.
• How bluntness, truth, rebellious nature bounces back.
• Quantity of hours matter over quality of hours, holy shit.

Some bad positive lessons:

• How to exploit company’s resources.
• Being responsible. (Also, how to shrug away responsibility.)
• Tolerating mediocre people – be wise with the wise and foolish with the fools.
• Defending the job of a programmer.
• Immense patience.
• How to say *NO* .
• Why I like 3GL over 4GL generation languages. Yeah, yeah 5GL also exists…Maybe I am a little orthodox.
• Liberty: How to be broad minded.

My bottom line: Going to a place you hate for 12 hours in a day, laughing at nonsense, learning patience, tolerance, cursing, hating, seeing nepotism, suffering boredom, worring for an uncertain future, politics, prejudices, quantitative appraisal…. is not a bad experience at all. And all that when you don’t want to do it.

Life teaches everything. It even teaches you to be bad; just use the lessons cautiously.