Employee Retention

IT has evolved alot during the years, the process of Software development and design has evolved with it. It's evolved to such an extent that, it's more like unskilled labour now, maybe not all IT but definitely the Software development part of it.

1. Starting from recruitment, Engineers from all disciplines can get into IT (atleast in India, where the opportunities in specific trades are very less). Even non-engineers, Science grads apply for jobs in IT and make it as developers.

2. Everyone of them is then put to a standard training session, simple basics. After all the basic is same across all languages.

3. Project assignments are not based on how good a person is after training, it's based on how many should be 'billed' for the project.

4. Code to be delivered for a project, goes to stringent reviews, documentation and the end result of which is 'deployable working code' for the client.

5. The recruitment process continues and fills up a 'bench' of replacements for the developers in various projects. Trainings in specific products and disciplines will be taken up by the 'competency'

6. Every developer is expendable and every developer has a replacement. A developer if he's good, he'll be able to find new jobs, better roles and better pay. There is never a shortage of developers, but there definitely is a cost for a 'good' developer.

So I guess now I've justified that a developers job in an IT company is slowly becoming unskilled labour. People are expendable, so what is the 'Employee Retention' programs in IT companies. And how effective are they?

Is it cheaper recruiting from outside than retaining your talents from within the company?

What ensures that an employee who is retained will stay even after a raise or a promotion?

What's the number of employees retained in an IT Company?

I don't feel like it

What's it? Why do you need to feel like something in order to do the work? They call it work because it's difficult, not because it's something you need to feel like.

- Seth Godin.

He might be the biggest 'gas bag'/'gyan dad' in the whole world, but this line actually did make sense. 'They call it work because it's difficult'.

Everyday I go through this, 'I don't feel like going to work today?' phase in the morning. I work in a project which is in the support phase now. The work is boring, you will have lines of logs and trace files of failed transactions to analyse. Annoying mails to reply to. Design a hotfix for a issue. Hack an existing process flow to fit in 'an exceptional' scenario in their business. It's tough, it's boring, it doesn't have the jazz of the normal development phase. This line has given me a different perspective to the way I look at my work.

But there is this other kinda of 'working' IT guy especially, a species found in typical Indian Outsourcing firms. The ones who fill up an 'imaginary' bench, waiting their way to another project. What would inspire him to go to office. Do his time, check his feeds and have lunch and go home. He/She also 'goes to work', what would inspire him to go to work. This line would not work for him for sure. There is nothing to feel like... there's no WORK!!!

Permanent

It's anyway was not our permanent residence, but we slowly started liking it. It never score a 100 on the her scale, but I bet there were times when she started thinking of it as her own. I'm totally devastated, never saw this coming. What do I have to lose, I have an apartment for myself, I have two great roommates to share the place with. Then why do I feel like I have some big weight on chest.

I wouldn't have felt so bad if it was somebody whom I was not this close. We are not related, we don't even come from the same place. We've not studied together anywhere, but coming to think of it we basically would have the same blood type. I know how hard it was them for them to shift from Pune to Hyderabad. Though I know the place was no where near to a place, next to what they had in Pune, it kills me to see them have to go through the whole exercise again. If it was happening to me, it would have been fine, what do a guy who lives out of a suitcase care about leaving a place, but not them for Christ sakes!!!

It's been sometime... a longtime... since I prayed, sometime since I opened a Bible. I feel like I lost a Wimbledon to Nadal. I feel so not in control of what's happening around me. I feel that I'm being made aware of something cruel, strange and powerful controlling all of us...

OK. I give up, you win... again... but why don't you win FOR me for a change...

Reading Disorder

All my friends read alot, all kinds a books. Fiction, non-fiction you name it, they do make it a point to read a book a month I guess. The last book I read was... Seth Godin's 'Free Prize Inside'... Ok I didn't finish it... So that won't count... Asimov's 'Foundation'... didn't finish... Diary of Anne Frank... didn't finish... I did finish Da Vinci Code... I did finish Armstrong's 'It's not about the Bike'... I did finish the 'Google story' that VnA gifted me...

I used to read alot... I was totally into all the Five Find-outers, Secret Sevens, Hardy Boys Case files, then went into some Crichton... Eric Segal... Tolkien... don't know when I lost interest... don't know when I just stopped giving life to the all words in paperback in my mind.

Got to find my way back to reading... maybe should start with some old Secret Sevens... baby steps... One book at a time...

Running water

(Image courtesy:http://www.cs4fn.org)

Woke up to a dry tap... chances are, I might have to bathe in deo and go dry clean today. Running water, it's just a big confidence to a person in a house. It's not that you are using water for entire 24 hrs in a day but, it's that confidence that you have it at all times when ever you turn on turn on the tap. For all those unseen emergencies, the confidence that a tap with running water provides, is 'assurance' defined.

Need to find a new direction

Feeling like I'm into some sick routine everyday. Some shitty design change, some pending issues, some crappy meeting to sit through. Need to find a new direction... need to lock on to this new direction... been wasting time for a long time... it's now time to make a change

(is it me or do you guys also here the 'Eye of the tiger' song in the background?)

(Image courtesy: barbiismyname.files.wordpress.com)

Just wanted to remind you guys on what my friends were up to. Here

Cubicles

Caught up with 'Wake Up Sid' last Saturday with LSD, there was this part in it where the hero finds a job in the office, and boy was it some office. It was pretty cool, no cubicles at all. The manager had one big cabin, vending machines of course. No cubicles, now that's one office I'd wanna go to work everyday. The big sick conference hall with leather seats a with a flashy projector all is replaced by a big table with a white board and post-its. That's not just it, no dress code, well not that you can walk into office in your undies, but casuals that's the code of the day, everyday. I work in an IT firm, and I still don't know why we need cubicles? You could imagine them as bunkers place horizontally, it looks like some concentration camp of some formally dressed individuals. The place needs some posters, not posters of your HR buddy or the Go-Green campaign in office, let's get some RF posters, Cars, some graffiti, a good photo of 'aurora borealis', a view from the canyon.

Tim Robbins cell in 'Shawshank' had posters!!!. It changed his life in prison. I've decided, I'm decorating my cubicle, not like a tea shop or something... something inspiring... get a RF poster... A Steve Jobs poster... I'm gonna have my own cool, three walled office.

(Image courtesy:http://www.stomptokyo.com)

By the way a few updates. Two of my friends are getting into some serious hobbies. In alphabetical order.

Shveta: A fashion designer by profession, she's now getting her hands into 'pimping up' your old and boring dupattas, tops and curtains. She's into 'block printing' and 'tie and dye', she takes orders for printed dupattas, T-shirts and tops. You have to see the bed sheet that she just did with the whole 'tie and dye' technique- totally El wicked-o!!! and I'm not saying this just because she's my friend. She's really good at this. So if you guys are interested in 'pimping up' your wardrobe a bit. Just add a comment with your phone number or drop a mail to me at itsme[dot]bijou[at]gmail[dot]com. I'll pass on your details to Shveta.

Here's sample of she made.

Now Vasu, I have a theory about Vasu; God must have set course for her to land on earth in a place where there's cheese, chocolate and whole lotta goodness made from ovens. Seems she took a detour and landed in India instead (good for us). She's into big time baking, has an oven for herself and she's chugging out whole lot of awesomeness from this new friend of hers whenever she can find some time. She's decided on sharing her baking skills with anybody who wants to give baking a try. She will provide the materials and an oven, you just have to walk in and watch her at work and you'll get to make your 'own' cake with some help from Vasu. So you guys interested or know anybody who's interested. Drop in a comment to the end of this post or you could get in touch with Vasu on her blog here. You could also drop me a mail at itsme[dot]bijou[at]gmail[dot]com. I'll pass on your details to Vasu. She does share her recipes and pixs of the baked goodies on her blog, feel free to check it out.

Brother of the bride

Am I being a very obnoxiously over protective brother here. She always had it her way, and we always let her have it her way. It was like her secret super power or something, she always had it her way. Be it with chocolates, writing with ball point pens, her time with the TV. .She has veto power on 'Going to School' or in her words 'Lu-KG'. She very much decides on what she 'thinks' is right for her, not what really is right for her. Am I blowing this out of proportion, why is it that I just can't see her as a grown up and responsible woman.

Maybe I'm comparing her with the women around me. I already am guilty of being this over expecting brother, whatever she did was never good enough. I wanted her to be better than me, get the best opportunities better than the one that I got. And to make stuff worse, folks always let her have her way. I slowly became the guy who never could 'handle the truth', ammachi became her Fort Knox. Did I become 'the guy on the other end of the daily phone call'. Did I miss out on this whole transformation from baby sister to whatever she is now.

Now suddenly she's all ready and all to get married. There is a dude of her choice, she gets her way again. I'm not saying I don't like her choices... I just never trusted her choices. Life in 'Palathra' was literally a bed of roses. Tiffin on time, daily wake up calls, pick up and drop to school. The only thing that I think she knows to make is TANG and Maggi. No, I'm not exaggerating, the only other near to cooking (when the remote is not in her hand) thing I have seen her do is, mix the flour, butter and sugar for Amma's cake, and I have my theory that she does this so that she gets dibs for licking the bowl afterwards. Are we caving in to another one her wishes. Would she be able manage a home, be a wife and all.

Why couldn't baby sisters just pupate and then emerge as these a something with wings and all. How the hell am I supposed to know she's no more a baby sister. I don't think Palathra without my pestering sis would be the same. Yeah I know I'm totally flipping out here.

(Image courtesy:www.brisbaneinsects.com)

Caterpillar in the tree, how you wonder who you'll be

Can't go far but you can always dream

Wish you may and wish you might

Don't you worry hold on tight.

I promise you there will come a day

Butterfly Fly Away

Butterfly Fly Away (butterfly fly away)

Flap your wing now you can't stay

Take those dreams and make them all come true

Butterfly Fly Away (butterfly fly away)

We been waiting for this day

All along and know just what to do

Butterfly,

Butterfly,

Butterfly,

Butterfly Fly Away

(From Miley Cyrus: Butterfly Fly away)

Defrosting

It's been a while since I wrote anything; the last post was in Jan, I'm lazy. Saving you guys from yet another I'm lazy post, let's cut to the chase. Since my last post we did finally GO LIVE!!! well kinda GO LIVE!!!

Now days in office are kind of spent on SQL tunning and performance enhancement exercises. Years of fitting shitty requirements by 'hook or crook' takes a toll on the system once your tables get loaded with 3 crore rows of legacy data. It never crossed my mind that with 'more data comes more responsibility to back it up with quality code and queries'. So we are back to the design table, redesigning key objects we froze years ago. So right now we are defrosting. Object by Object we investigate them. Code by code interrogation, query over query we grill them. All this rework for years of haste.

(Image courtesy:1:5:10:365 EcoTip Blog)

Fake sense of urgency

(image courtesy:labs.gerbenrobijn.nl)

I had a very frustrating day in office today. I do totally understand that my project is not an ideal one. It a great specimen for a totally dysfunctional project. A prefect case study on what a project should NOT be. Add a client who doesn't give a damn about the project, you get yourself a project with no end. Frustrated team, bone headed managers, making the same mistake over and over again.

After years and years of scope creeps, no proper requirement gathering or requirement sign-offs. The project has still not seen the light of the day. There's no direction to project, just bogus Go-Live dates. Wastage of resources on weekends in a very desperate attempt to show the top brass a fake 'sense of urgency'.

With just days before the latest or the newest 'Go-Live' date, we are still suffering from scope creep. Everyday there is a new requirement, a new change, that is being added on to the scope. What we end up doing is add on to what we have to deliver and later end up fixing issues caused by proper impact analysis to new changes we take in.

Dear Client,

I know we messed up, we have two of your lines of businesses ready for you ready to use. We'll make amends to whatever we have not catered to on a priority basis in the coming releases. But we want you to start using the product and provide us with your feedback. Lets not complicate the roll out and the transition by adding more to the current scope. The current approach is not helping either of us in anyway.

Now this would work if:

• Our client is from some Bollywood movie.
• We have shown some credibility in what we done so far.
• We were professional enough and not act like greedy mercenaries trying to con the client with 'interim' solutions and 'temporary fixes'
• If we have a good Customer facing team managing customer expectations.
• A good Project Management team.

Is there a way out for us. I don't think so, IT industry in itself is a filthy industry with no credibility. It's a industry where no one owns up a project failure but you'd find many to own up a project success. It's an industry where blame chains play a far more important role than root cause analysis. CRs and Billing rates means more than what the 'Customer really wants'. Deadlines will whoosh past you. Deadlines would like seasons that come and go and never a date that has to be met. And most important, there will always be somebody to blame. So nobody gets fired for the project being delayed for all these years. 'Dud for brains' Project managers will still be managing projects.

There will still be bad days in your project where you still feel like pulling your hair out. So rather than wasting your energy worrying about this. Enjoy the 'free' internet access and occasionally crib about how much your work sucks, as you enjoy the fat paychecks for doing almost close to nothing.

Advantage YOU!!!

Sorry, the Nexus One phone is not available in your country.

A country where every body has atleast one mobile phone to himself, and it's still not available to India!!!

Anyway what would India do with a 3G Superphone when we still are delaying our 3G auction over and over again. We wouldn't even know what to do with 3G if we had 3G. AirTel which sells the HTC Android phones has blocked the Android Market Place app on the phones that they sell. Tata DOCOMO has provided access to the Android Market Place app for their customers but they still have no 3G. There is so much restrictions with smartphone already in the market, I doubt we'd be able to enjoy the phone even if we get one.

The Google Press Event got over, the whole Nexus One wasn't any different from the hoards of rumors and reviews of test phones floating over the internet. I would buy it even when I'm totally happy with my Nokia E51. I'd borrow money and buy one if I have too but I'd wait till the whole 3G services are available in India and unrestricted 3G services that too. I think waiting for a while would be good enough, by then Android will also have a few upgrades, Multi-touch etc. Then I'd buy one of these babies. I guess by that time we'll have a Nexus 2 or Nexus 3, but surely by then I'll own an Android Phone.

Ya pakka pakka... for sure... pinky swear..

23 Red Roses

It was a Sunday.

Those days when church was never to be missed.

It was the coldest bath ever.

Shivering he gets on the Bus.

The flower shop had the 23 preordered Red Roses waiting for me, arranged beautifully in a vase.

Carefully held the roses and called an auto, summoning all his guts... set meter to the place.

His heart clocked beats like Usain Bolt on a final 100m dash.

He pulls out the beautiful greeting card and a letter... 23 lines for every year.

Signed, Sealed.. and yet to delivered.

From the car park... looking up to the top most floor.

The the call is made, the phone never rang this slow.

She picks up... there is a half sleepy voice at the other end.

'Can you come down... I'm at the car park.'

Trying hard not to scream and wake her friends she makes way through the house and opens the door, phone in hand and looks down... he's not joking... he is at the car park.

Lift door opens... beep beep beep... Lift Door Closes.

Must have been the slowest lift in the whole world.

Beep beep beep... Lift Opens... Lift Closes.

'Happy Bday Mollae'

Thanksgiving

Today was Christmas , it was the a Christmas away from home. No mass at my regular Church, no appam and stew for breakfast, no mumma cake for Christmas. This is not my first Christmas away from home I guess, but this is Christmas is different from the rest because, today I never missed any of these today. Todays Christmas was at Vasu's with LSD and Aravind. A good memory, a Christmas with family away from home. More details on this family of mine sometime later. I owe God an apology I guess, I've been not thankful for my life for a long period of time. It's partly to do with not taking some chances that I should have taken (there will never be a post about this). Today I, Bijou Mani Thomas, wants to set the record straight with God.

• I'm not being punished for making the wrong choices in this life.
• I'm lucky. I have the best set of friends that, only I can have. The only set of friends that I can call my own family away from home.
• I have homes that I can call myself, and walk in at any hour, and not be considered a pain in the @$$.
• Today I realized, that losses I have had many, many that I know I'll never get back. But what I've been gifted weighs more than what I have lost. Today I realized, I'm blessed.

Today I'm thankful for this life.

(Image Courtesy: teara.govt.nz)

It gets adjusted

One of the best things about Hyderabad is this awesome means of public transport called 'Share Auto'. It's the Mumbai metros but it's not a train, it's an auto. Profession no bar, religion no bar, education no bar everybody shares the same ride. They do cram 7 including the driver in the auto but it's pretty cool a ride. My favourite seat is the one with the driver, the left one. More butt space and if you are a righty, you get your natural right hand to confidently seat yourself.

From my place to my first stop where I hop on our Red Palio, the share auto ride costs me 4Rs. Most of the time I end up paying 5 Rs to the auto guy. I ended up losing a rupee to the auto guy, because he doesn't have change. Today, one of the most unusual days of all, I had two rides and both of the time, when the driver didn't have enough change he kinda waived the extra rupee off.

It all gets adjusted, we lose sometime, but we gain the same some other time. It all gets adjusted. You miss home alot but you have two places like home you can walk into any point in time. Two families to call your own other than home. It all gets adjusted.

[Movie Review] Rocket Sales Corp has no HR

Good movie, a good watch, and it's not like this is a substitute for 'when there is no AVATAR movie tickets' kinda movie. This movie deserves your attention. Story of working on something that 'makes meaning'.

Here's the whole movie described in the 'Chapter Titles' if it were to be released in a DVD today.

1. Pappu pass hogaya, but Pappu doesn't want to do an MBA

2. Sales Job Hunting.

3. Training Day

4. Complaint Box

5. The Black Sheep

6. We don't sell this configuration.

7. Partners in crime

8. Wrong number

9. The offer- Sir, Aap SIM Cards bhi bhejtae hai

10. Busted

11. The Merger

12. One rupee

A good climax and you got yourself a good no-nonsense movie. No romantic overdose. No 'we had to fit in a song' knda song. And some good casting and wicked acting. I never dreamed I'd ever say this ever ever... but Ranbir Kapoor has made some good choices and can act too. So good movie in all.

Lesson learnt: Behind every successful company there is NO HR.

Here's what Guy Kawasaki has to say about 'make meaning' from his famous 'The Art of Start' lecture.

What matters now

(Image courtesy: neuronarrative.wordpress.com)

I'm on page 51 of Seth Godin's free e-book titled 'What matters now'. It's a collection of micro-essays by Godin and his friends. Jason Fried from 37s, Gina Trapani of Lifehacker, Guy Kawasaki and many others.

A good read, every page talks about one specific topic, hardly 200 words per page. It's free e-book and it's a available here

I, DROID

I got Eclipse installed in my machine at work. Eclipse Europa 3.3x, I wanted to work on Android for long, been lazying around for a long time. Yesterday, it turns out that I could download the SDK (22 MB download). I didn't waste much time, downloaded the SDK and installed the Eclipse ADT plugin for Android. It was kind of a gamble, because the Android Developer site recommends Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede and 3.5 Galileo for ADT. I just gave it a try with the help of this awesome online tutorial here.

Now... I, DROID :)

(image courtesy: Android Development with Eclipse - Tutorial)

Speed breakers... Sleep breakers

It's a very innovative way to prevent you from over speeding and injuring 'others'. If you don't respect to these man made creations on almost every Indian road, it's bound to kill you. And this is the unique service that it provides. It just kills you, nobody else other than you gets hurt. No! you might not know where and when there is a speed breaker, because most of the time, there won't be a road sign or a properly marked speed bump on the road. So always be alert, pay your respects to the speed breakers. Slow down and pass, you might have to break hard that the road should feel that you are sort of bowing down to it.

There is another variant of the same that's found on highways. They come in pairs, there should be atleast two. Now these are what I would like to call 'Sleep Breakers'. It's a highway, you have to 'have to' drive at night, we are human, to sleep is human, to sleep while driving is 'crazy' human. So sleep breakers shake the sleep off you. It's like somebody holding you and shaking you left and right, left and right and snap... you're awake. These usually with some luck, does come with big road signs which say, bump ahead and all. Most of em read as 'Speed bump ahead', which you should normal read as 'Speed bump... RIGHT Heeeee eEeeeeeReeeeeE!!!!'

Yesterday night I had an episode where I nearly took off from the seat off a Bullet for not paying respects to a Speed Breaker. Don't worry, nobody got hurt, I guess we just got a warning. That's all for now, drive safe.

Who do we blame it on?

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

- Barack Obama (more here)

This sentence caught my attention. 'We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes' a small yet simple truth right. So now it's not in our hands, war and violence will be part and parcel of being human. Now who do we blame this state of mankind on. Whom do we blame it on.

1. Free Will- Blame it on 'free will', the greatest gift given to man. That which makes us human is what makes us stupid and violent.

2. God, Religion - Blame it on mankind's belief in some force or power that's beyond his reach. The one thing that he says is the answer to that question about everything. Blame it on his need to have given it a name. Blame it on teaching his children his experiences with this 'answer' of his.

3. Caste and Creed - Blame it on our differences in skin color, language, ethnicity.

I guess we did mess up big time. The whole idea of being threatened by another human being is what makes us animals. God threw in a good helping of free will and logic what messed it up all i guess. Now that would not be true right, other animals have the same gift, except for opposable thumbs.We have intelligent dogs, yesterday I saw killer whales hunting on a grey whale and there's logic in them. There is free will and there's logic in all animals alike, maybe a tad greater in humans I guess. Animals also fight, they are territorial, they still don't have Gods and religion, when they fight, hunt, kill... it's all tagged 'survival of the fittest' or 'Being on top of the Food Chain'. Maybe the reason to all this violence, war and all is still this same thing 'Survival of the fittest', it just is in a bigger scale, a scale which God even wouldn't have fathomed.

Rephrasing Obama: We'll never eradicate violent conflict in 'any' of our lifetimes.

We never can, it's part and parcel of being human, being the animal we all are within. This how it's meant to be. But there is hope, we'll only be able to fight for all this, till we have this beautiful planet to fight for. Since we are doing a good job at destroying our planet too, we might see the end of 'war' and 'violence' in 'this planet' in just a few more centuries. Earth would be considered FUBAR one day. Humans would stop fighting for earth one day, move to a newer planet and continue from where we left on earth.

(Image Courtesy: bluray.ign.com)

4 flights and a wedding

Just got back from a wedding from Gujarat. I went to attend my best friend Anurag's sister, Charu's wedding. Rajasthani bride weds Gujju groom. The highlight of this trip was this awesome 'Garba' on the night of the engagement. Boy! was it wicked, they just rocked the place like anything.

Now 'Garba' is like a Gujju version of the 'Thiruvathira', but the music to which they dance is quite fast and the dancers just dance and don't sing. I'm not pretty sure whether the 'Thiruvathira' dancers sing, but the pace of the dance is quite slow. Thiruvathira is a all girl dance thing while this is like a guys and girl thing. If the whole group comprises of people who really know the steps, it's quite awesome. Throw in a few guys who don't know the steps, you mess up the dance for not just the people watching, you might end up getting hurt or stepping a few toes and really hurting people.

A beautiful memory to remain, here's to Charu's happily ever after. God Bless!.

On a very light note: I haven't read the whole of Gandhi's 'My Experiments with Truth', but there was a chapter for non-detail in school. I remember reading that Gandhi took dance lessons, now Gandhi was Gujju, and he would have learnt to 'Garba'. And if you can 'Garba' you can pretty much pick up any dance. Did Gandhi know 'Garba'?