December 20, 2011

  • Never Ending Daydream - Trouble

    I haven’t really updated this in a long while now. I wrote some of these but lack of cooperation from some of my colleagues and friends made me thought about this whole process for along time. Now that I have not much contact with most of these people, I am going ahead with this anyway. I will avoid using last names and will only use last names unless and otherwise necessary. You will soon read in this the danger of using a last name.

    Enjoy.

    Previous Chapters.
    1)     Never Ending Day Dream-The Journey.

    2) Never Ending Day Dream-The Journey-Part-2.

    3)     Never Ending Day Dream-The Journey-Part-3.

    4)  Never Ending Day Dream-The Early Days.

    Never Ending Daydream.

    Trouble.

     

    Life inMilwaukeewas much simpler than I thought it will be. I got easily acquainted to the work routine. Work was not easy at all for sometime as I needed to learn a lot about the ways business gets translated to computer programs inUnited States. People were brought fromIndia,Pakistan, and China etc. But the American managers just thought that those who are brought from outside knows how software development process works inUSAeven when those folks left their mother’s nipples. I spent hours after work to understand the flow of data and flow of process in a completely new area. Luckily we had one of the best supervisors from the client side. She trained us for two weeks and then sat with us the whole time to the migration of an EDI application from Mainframes to DEC platform. I had no prior experience with DEC platform so the training was needed. I called her Susie; she was pretty and wonderful to talk to. One day she told me to do an analysis on a set of programs and I was going through those programs and found the way it was written was horrible. There were no comments indicating what the logic was. So I spoke aloud.

    “Who in their right mind will write COBOL programs like this?”

    Susie said “Go to the top of the program and look”

    I browsed all the way up and saw it was written by a S.Miller. I told “S.Miller some crazy guy”

    The Susie smiled and told me… “Riaz, my name was Susan Miller and after I got married the last name changed” She patted on my back and told “I agree that was a crazy way of writing a program, but it works and never broke in the last 5 years”

    I told her “It is a good lesson for me, never judge anything by appearance” She smile and said “Not just anything, anyone too”.

    We left for lunch and I was with Susie talking about her planned visit toMexico. I always wanted to visit places and she gave a good explanation aboutMexicoas he husband was born and brought up inMexico.

     When we were coming back to where I was sitting we could hear Peter and Gowda talking. Susie was taking some print outs she printed earlier. The talk between Gowda and Peter was about how life inIndiawas for Gowda. Gowda was from a middle class family and had a quiet life that’s what I can say in a nutshell. Suddenly Peter asked “You had a good life back there and how did you ended up with a dirty Muslim like Riaz?” Susie immediately rushed and told Peter “Never use that kinda language here” I told her “Never mind it, apparently he did not heard what you said earlier today”. I smiled and continued to work. Peter never apologized and I never sought it either. Once more I was proven right about the way a person will be with just one look. Gowda later in the evening asked me what I thought about Peter, I told “An asshole is an asshole is an asshole and will be an asshole the rest of his fucked up life”

     Two weeks later me and Peter had a major argument about the way a project needs to be managed. Peter is old and experienced in programming. I am also experience in programming but I am a far better person as I know management very well and he never liked to be proven wrong. Time and again I have proven him wrong and the grudges went on and on and exploded. Keane manager Jim summoned us to the branch office and told us. “If you want yell, then yell at me or come here and yell at each other. Never fight in a client office.” I apologized for my mistake and went out silently.
      While standing outside lighting up a cigarette, someone said “Hello there”

    I looked side ways to see a pretty looking lady standing there and blowing smoke up into the air.

    I replied “Hello there” and went to her stretching my hands and said “I am Riaz Ahammed” She smiled and told “I know” She shook my hands and said “Katherine” she blown out the smoke upwards so that it won’t hit my face and told “I’ve heard about you issue with Peter, he is a jack ass, never mind him. Looks like you folks are doing a great job there. You are way ahead of schedule and Susan sent some impressive feedback about you. I work in the same project but I don’t go to client sites”

     I smiled with a great relief inside and told “I don’t know how to thank you for relieving my tension. You sure are my guardian angel now” Kathy looked at me and said, “You are different than all other foreigners I found around here. Just stay out of trouble” She looked at me again and smiled and while walking away she continued “That may be a bit too hard for you. Good to meet you at last, see you later”. Kathy faded away into the big Park place building. I stood there for a little while and walked back into the building with a thought. How different am I than all others? Is it a good thing to be different or is it bad? When washing my mouth in the restroom I looked at the mirror again and deep in my mind said “I will never be able to stay out of trouble because I am trouble”.