Welcome - Services ishtyle

K is new to the company. He had heard a lot about the company - the amazing jumbo welcome for the joinees which made it to the headlines of most newspapers (for the sheer madness of the idea) and amazing work culture in the company which made some agency rate this company as one of the 'Best 5 IT workplaces in India' (just goes on to prove how misleading surveys could be - reflection of just a minority's opinion).

Unfortunately for K, his previous 2 companies were product based. Having had a real warm welcome and a 2 week period of liesure in the product companies (am serious, 2 weeks to just get accustomed) his first day at the services was like a punch in the solar plexus.

The PM tags along K and introduces him to the PL. K is handed over to the PL, like a chicken to a butcher. PL introduces K to the team and outlines his tasks :
1. Go through the requirements
2. Understand the platform (a custom platform designed by the client)
3. Learn SQL Reporting services
4. Start understanding the current design
5. Start DB design for the next phase
6.Since the team is already slipping, start helping them fix bugs

K took it all in his stride, it sure was surprising to see that he was not overwhelmed by the number of tasks. So K got to work and casually asked me how the work was; 'Not more than 10 hours in a day', I replied. 'Is that a good thing or a bad thing', he asked me. 'Oh, that's a very good thing, people work for more than 14-16 hours a day in some of the projects', I replied. I guess that's the first time I sensed a little bit of panic - having been used to strictly 8 hours of work, in which only 6-7 hours was productive K had every reason to panic.

With the release date close by and the fear of not being able to deliver on time looming large the good times came to an end. There were no more 10 hour days, K got his first taste of the services. With the test bombarding the dev with defects, the next 2 weeks were very hectic with all of us stretching to meet the deadline. K turned out to be very good juggler, managing all tasks with elan, albeit at the cost of staying back late into the night.

On the day of the release it was utter chaos, with the dev still fixing bugs and checking-in the code and test taking build after build and testing it out. The release finally happened late in the night with a list of known issues and unresolved bugs. As we all sat exhausted, thinking the worst was over, we got a stinker from the client. To call it a stinker would be an understatement and would not do justice to the stinkin abilities of the client, a stinker whose stench would put a skunk to shame. As we all sat disappointed I casually asked K why he quit the product company to which he replied 'Designation Change'.

I smiled inwardly as I reflected on his reply.