superczar
Skilled
This was written by an Infy guy in his blog.
Awesome ...just read.
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"....yavaag foreign ge ?" (When are you leaving to foreign?)
The familiar sentence is arguably one of the most frequently asked
questions , losing only slightly to the even more grave one "...yavaag
maduve ?", to someone who unluckily happens to be in the IT Industry
and in Bangalore. There was never a better conversation topic for the
older generation to suck every drop of blood the poor bloke manages to
save despite working as a techie.
It's a wave that everyone wants to be part of, and everyone wants to
show they know. The word computer is now a house-hold name. A good
relief for many topic starved aunties and uncles, but our poor techie
gets stuck like a nail that's half into the wood when it's head
decides to painfully break lose.
The popular following that IT has gotten in recent years has been more
due to the lucrative travel, than what the techie believes is due to
his work. This time it is the uncles who have the upper hand in making
a conversation, owing to some 'extra' knowledge, thanks to 'external'
contacts. Aunties resign to just asking "...yenappa computer aa ?"
(literally means " are u a computer ?", but it is supposed to be "Are
you working in the IT field ?". One must be ready to field a volley of
smirks and barrage of questions, if the victim answers a "no", though
it would be the right answer for such a question. For if you are not
part of the bandwagon, then you'd rather term yourself a foolish old
crackpot and be happy with that, than get a loathesome look from the
omnipresent aunty.
IT has such a popular following here, most do not know what they are
following, but just drift along to be 'seen'. Our aunty gets into her
form, and asks our techie, "you computer, my son also computer" ...our
techie, just out of a ctrl-alt-tab-enter, has no idea how to respond
to this inhuman potrayal, by the aunty, of her son. He just smiles and
says "wonderful aunty, which company ?" and is hardly interested in
what he hears. The aunty carries on.. " nun maga sapoo"...the
indianised MNC becomes "sapoo" from SAP, while our techie replies
back, "i work for GE"..aunty is a bit concerned on hearing that, and
blurts out "is it a good company ? didnt u get in infosys ?"...techie
is at his wits end to explain; aunty is in no mood to understand.
aunty's techie son is blushing ear to ear.
while the general social understanding of an IT company hovers between
Infosys and Wipro, some good souls give respect to "Vorakal" too. So
aunties are generally happy if one is from any of these companies. The
other companies will only mean a detailed interrogation about the
techie's academic credentials, past criminal record, if any, and a
sure minus point as a prospective groom.
It is the conversation between aunties that is the most funny and
amazingly astonishing. Recently one of my cousins went onsite, and i
being the scape goat , who still 'had' to be in India, was the butt of
all discussions.
aunty1 : " foreign ge yaavaga ivnu hogodu ?" (when is he going onsite ?)
aunty2 : "gothilla, innenu swalpa divsdalley hogthaaneno" (He might go
in some days !)
aunty1 : "hmmm...they say only brilliants(sic) are sent onsite"
aunty2 : "that's true !"
I was being murdered inch by inch, neat and clean. My reputation in
tatters.
This is even bearable, but get this, if a techie manages to stumble on
an onsite travel but is cancelled on that last millisecond, then his
future is doomed, for aunties will have a field day disecting him and
nailing him for not working well at the office. I have been most
unfortunate in this case, so much so that if i had got a call to abort
the travel 2 seconds later than what i got, i might have had to jump
off the plane mid-air.
aunties started flowing in from early evening that day, some trying to
stay oblivious of the situation, some trying hard to keep a straight
face, and a few more giving their own versions of my story, which by
the way i never told anyone !...well one aunty even had the nerve to
ask me "did you have a fight with your manager ?"..well i was kind
enough to say "no aunty, project got scrapped ", only to realize that
the aunty had no idea what a project meant, and instead pressed me to
agree that i had indeed done some mistake...finally she let me go when
i blurted out "my manager had a fight with the airlines"....well that
was enough for me to roll over on the floor and laugh at her, despite
the 'humiliation' of not going onsite.
uncles are not far off, and are ever more eager to learn 'computers'.
One uncle was particularly curious to know as to why we guys were paid
for playing computer games !...apparantely he was of this view after
he had seen his 9 year old son only playing games on his newly bought
comp. I knew better than to explain, so i told him that it was because
if we won, the company would get money. uncle's spirits rose, and in
all probability he would have gone home and pestered his innoncent 9
year old son to teach him to play games in the hopes of joining a IT
company in future !
uncles are a little more "knowledgeable" though. One uncle came to me
one day, when i made the suicidal mistake of attending a social
gathering full of aunties and uncles, and asked me as to which company
i worked for, and i answered him hoping he would stop there. however ,
uncle had no such intention and carried on " yaav language ?"...though
stunned, i replied back "c sharp uncle" ...uncle's face glowed and
then he said " nun maga Java , c# bidhoithanthey!" (My son works on
JAVA, C sharp has long fallen from grace) ..In most uncles view,
languages are like company shares, the value of which keeps
fluctuating on an hourly basis.
Though salary is something of a sensitive issue, uncles don't give
didly-squat about that and continue questioning the techie on the
same. I was ripped apart when i told my uncle that my gross was 25k,
to which my uncle in suspended euphoria exclaimed that his son earned
2.5 lakh per month at onsite. Having no room to argue, i kept mum,
when my uncle went off again "why dont u ask your manager for a
raise".... I told him i would consider his advise and ask, though my
manager was bit of a dragon, unlike my uncle's son's manger, who was a
saint just short of a halo!
Even more weird is the funny way in which people take those mails
managers send to techies and their team, as to the good work being
done. one of my cousins who recently joined my company got such a mail
from his manager, and he thought it was a good idea to take a print
out and show it to his father, a folly he still regrets to this day.
My uncle not only read the copy, but made a hundred photocopies and
distributed it as pamplets to his near and dear ones. My dad got one
too, and i had to field some intense questioning at home, since i had
not managed to get one such letter even once ! i had even gone to the
extent of thinking about printing one on my own just to escape the
'humiliation'.
while it's often funny to listen to the weird misconceptions people
have about IT, it gets irritating if it goes too far. It would be a
boring place without the aunties and the uncles, but it would be a
wonderful place, if they knew better than to draw conclusions about
one's work, of which they know so less about !
Awesome ...just read.
************************************************************************
****
"....yavaag foreign ge ?" (When are you leaving to foreign?)
The familiar sentence is arguably one of the most frequently asked
questions , losing only slightly to the even more grave one "...yavaag
maduve ?", to someone who unluckily happens to be in the IT Industry
and in Bangalore. There was never a better conversation topic for the
older generation to suck every drop of blood the poor bloke manages to
save despite working as a techie.
It's a wave that everyone wants to be part of, and everyone wants to
show they know. The word computer is now a house-hold name. A good
relief for many topic starved aunties and uncles, but our poor techie
gets stuck like a nail that's half into the wood when it's head
decides to painfully break lose.
The popular following that IT has gotten in recent years has been more
due to the lucrative travel, than what the techie believes is due to
his work. This time it is the uncles who have the upper hand in making
a conversation, owing to some 'extra' knowledge, thanks to 'external'
contacts. Aunties resign to just asking "...yenappa computer aa ?"
(literally means " are u a computer ?", but it is supposed to be "Are
you working in the IT field ?". One must be ready to field a volley of
smirks and barrage of questions, if the victim answers a "no", though
it would be the right answer for such a question. For if you are not
part of the bandwagon, then you'd rather term yourself a foolish old
crackpot and be happy with that, than get a loathesome look from the
omnipresent aunty.
IT has such a popular following here, most do not know what they are
following, but just drift along to be 'seen'. Our aunty gets into her
form, and asks our techie, "you computer, my son also computer" ...our
techie, just out of a ctrl-alt-tab-enter, has no idea how to respond
to this inhuman potrayal, by the aunty, of her son. He just smiles and
says "wonderful aunty, which company ?" and is hardly interested in
what he hears. The aunty carries on.. " nun maga sapoo"...the
indianised MNC becomes "sapoo" from SAP, while our techie replies
back, "i work for GE"..aunty is a bit concerned on hearing that, and
blurts out "is it a good company ? didnt u get in infosys ?"...techie
is at his wits end to explain; aunty is in no mood to understand.
aunty's techie son is blushing ear to ear.
while the general social understanding of an IT company hovers between
Infosys and Wipro, some good souls give respect to "Vorakal" too. So
aunties are generally happy if one is from any of these companies. The
other companies will only mean a detailed interrogation about the
techie's academic credentials, past criminal record, if any, and a
sure minus point as a prospective groom.
It is the conversation between aunties that is the most funny and
amazingly astonishing. Recently one of my cousins went onsite, and i
being the scape goat , who still 'had' to be in India, was the butt of
all discussions.
aunty1 : " foreign ge yaavaga ivnu hogodu ?" (when is he going onsite ?)
aunty2 : "gothilla, innenu swalpa divsdalley hogthaaneno" (He might go
in some days !)
aunty1 : "hmmm...they say only brilliants(sic) are sent onsite"
aunty2 : "that's true !"
I was being murdered inch by inch, neat and clean. My reputation in
tatters.
This is even bearable, but get this, if a techie manages to stumble on
an onsite travel but is cancelled on that last millisecond, then his
future is doomed, for aunties will have a field day disecting him and
nailing him for not working well at the office. I have been most
unfortunate in this case, so much so that if i had got a call to abort
the travel 2 seconds later than what i got, i might have had to jump
off the plane mid-air.
aunties started flowing in from early evening that day, some trying to
stay oblivious of the situation, some trying hard to keep a straight
face, and a few more giving their own versions of my story, which by
the way i never told anyone !...well one aunty even had the nerve to
ask me "did you have a fight with your manager ?"..well i was kind
enough to say "no aunty, project got scrapped ", only to realize that
the aunty had no idea what a project meant, and instead pressed me to
agree that i had indeed done some mistake...finally she let me go when
i blurted out "my manager had a fight with the airlines"....well that
was enough for me to roll over on the floor and laugh at her, despite
the 'humiliation' of not going onsite.
uncles are not far off, and are ever more eager to learn 'computers'.
One uncle was particularly curious to know as to why we guys were paid
for playing computer games !...apparantely he was of this view after
he had seen his 9 year old son only playing games on his newly bought
comp. I knew better than to explain, so i told him that it was because
if we won, the company would get money. uncle's spirits rose, and in
all probability he would have gone home and pestered his innoncent 9
year old son to teach him to play games in the hopes of joining a IT
company in future !
uncles are a little more "knowledgeable" though. One uncle came to me
one day, when i made the suicidal mistake of attending a social
gathering full of aunties and uncles, and asked me as to which company
i worked for, and i answered him hoping he would stop there. however ,
uncle had no such intention and carried on " yaav language ?"...though
stunned, i replied back "c sharp uncle" ...uncle's face glowed and
then he said " nun maga Java , c# bidhoithanthey!" (My son works on
JAVA, C sharp has long fallen from grace) ..In most uncles view,
languages are like company shares, the value of which keeps
fluctuating on an hourly basis.
Though salary is something of a sensitive issue, uncles don't give
didly-squat about that and continue questioning the techie on the
same. I was ripped apart when i told my uncle that my gross was 25k,
to which my uncle in suspended euphoria exclaimed that his son earned
2.5 lakh per month at onsite. Having no room to argue, i kept mum,
when my uncle went off again "why dont u ask your manager for a
raise".... I told him i would consider his advise and ask, though my
manager was bit of a dragon, unlike my uncle's son's manger, who was a
saint just short of a halo!
Even more weird is the funny way in which people take those mails
managers send to techies and their team, as to the good work being
done. one of my cousins who recently joined my company got such a mail
from his manager, and he thought it was a good idea to take a print
out and show it to his father, a folly he still regrets to this day.
My uncle not only read the copy, but made a hundred photocopies and
distributed it as pamplets to his near and dear ones. My dad got one
too, and i had to field some intense questioning at home, since i had
not managed to get one such letter even once ! i had even gone to the
extent of thinking about printing one on my own just to escape the
'humiliation'.
while it's often funny to listen to the weird misconceptions people
have about IT, it gets irritating if it goes too far. It would be a
boring place without the aunties and the uncles, but it would be a
wonderful place, if they knew better than to draw conclusions about
one's work, of which they know so less about !
