Adieu BS team

Friday was my last day in the GL Blackstone team. I will now be on bench and will have to wait for the next project. Leaving the current project after 2+ years evoked mixed reactions. I was happy that I would be free from the monotony and from a dickhead client; however I was also feeling kind of low because I will be leaving the team. The guys were great and I enjoyed working with them. Just like in any long relationship, there were times when things were little tense and there were times where everything was hunky dory. All in all, it was a good team experience.

I learned a great deal while working on this project ... this was my first big QA break. 3 years back when I decided to change my career path (from TW to QA), I never knew that I would be getting such a high profile project so soon. Thanks to my lucky stars, I was free at the right time. Both the QAs in the team had resigned and I also got free from my previous project just in time. Initially, things were bit rough since not many people trusted me as I was relatively new to QA field and the project (and the client) was little challenging. However, soon I took to the task like fish to the water. I worked really hard for the next 20 months. It practically became my life. I never had the time to do anything else apart from the work. I so wanted to prove myself that I can be a good QA. I think I did prove that I was good enough ... however all that hard work and pain in the arse kind of a client led to my burn out. For the last 6 months the poison was slowly and steadily started to engulf me. One fine day, I saw a stinking mail from client and I simply snapped. I decided that enough is enough and it was time to say to hell with it. I asked for my release as soon as I finished reading that freaking mail.

People do question my decision of quitting at the time when it was about to get even bigger. I was supposed to go New York for long term and had I continued, it would have catapulted my career to the next level. I left all this ... for one reason only – peace of mind. I know that if I am good enough I would get better things in life and career sooner or later. However I can’t loose my sleep and life over it. I work to live ... not live to work. To me, stuff like pride, self respect, and happiness are much more important. Anyways, no point in looking back and analyze what went wrong or what could have been. Life is too short to stop and think. Here hoping for better things in life ....

Few world events

H’uh ... its been long ... isn’t it ...

Anyhooo ... well nothing major happened in my life ... life is as mundane as it can be ... I wake up ... go office ... come back home ... sleep ... and so on and so forth ... nothing special happened in last 7-8 days ...

However, quite a few historic events occurred in world history ... like the successful launch of Chandrayaan-1 (Moon Craft). It was a very proud moment for India as it launched its first ever unmanned moon mission and this week it entered into lunar orbit. With a budget of less than $100 million, it was one of the cheapest space missions. This mission created a world record by successfully launching 10 satellites in one go. As a result, it shattered the previous record of a Russian rocket that successfully launched eight satellites last year. Do you know that India has 11 national communications satellites in orbit – the largest for any country in the Asia-Pacific region. India also has 7 remote sensing satellites in orbit, the largest number of any country in the civilian domain. Almost a third of the global market for remote sensing images at a resolution of 5-6 meters has already been captured by India. Mind blowing isn’t it? India is in an elite list of selected countries that has such sophisticated technologies. India’s space organization, ISRO (setup 35 years ago), has a yearly budget of mere $1bn as compared to NASA’s $17bn. Moreover, due to various sanctions because of nuclear tests, nobody helped India in such sophisticated technology. So the achievements are all the more impressive.

Another first ... America elected its first ever colored candidate ... that was huge. The whole world stood up and took notice of that event. The euphoria in India (especially among the Indian media) was unprecedented. It was like we are having an election and electing someone from minority. At one point of time ... I just had it with all the hype. I know that was a big deal in USA ... but c’mon ... he is after all just another president and being an Indian we should look at that with Indian perspective. Let us not forget that Obama’s rhetoric against outsourcing should not make us happy ... after all Indian resurrection in last 15 years is greatly helped by the outsourced jobs. Obama is not too happy about the nuclear deal either ... he wants us to sign the CTBT, which effectively means we would surrender our right to conduct nuclear test. So his pre election speeches are not very good for us. I hope those speeches are just that ... speeches ... he doesn’t act on them

On a more serious note (ahahahaha) ... India won the Border-Gavaskar trophy by pounding the Aussies to a humiliating 2-0 series victory. Team India is taking long strides and if the consistency continues, we will be the kings of all the three forms of the game. Yippie !!!!

Well still trying to recover from seasonal cold ... have taken 2 days sick leave and hope to join office tomorrow. Sitting idle at home is not fun ... thank god I still have a job ... ahahahaha

So long ... see you all soon ... cheers

I am perfect ... NOT

Few things that I should change (keyword is SHOULD – whether I will do anything about them or not is another story ... probably another post ... LOL):

• I’m very selfish. I only think or do only those things that are beneficial to me.
• I don’t think about others feelings or welfare that much (if any). Seldom have I done anything good for others. Charity or going out of the way to help others ... I guess I don’t know about such noble deeds.
• I just don’t care about what others think about me or expects anything from me. Well not caring for others is not a bad quality, but if you know me you will know what I’m talking about. I have taken this so-called bad quality to a whole new level.
• If I don’t like anything, I just DON’T like it. I don’t even try to look for reasons or justifications for doing so. Even if I try to look at it from different perspective, I would still hate it – even if hating it hurts me.
• I can’t pretend. Even harmless pretension is an unknown thing for me.
• I’m very blunt – in fact, I’m rude. If something is on my mind, you will hear it. And while doing so, I don’t mince words.
• I am a pretty shallow kind of a guy. I know that I’m not perfect, but I always want perfect things.
• I’m temperamental. I tend to get angry at things that bother me and I can be pretty scary when I’m in hulk-mode.
• I’m lazy. Although I’ve paid a very heavy price for it, I still am as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.
• I am the hardest person on this earth to please. If something good happens to me, I scrutinize it to death ... so much so it soon becomes a non-event. Well this is not my fault ... life hasn’t been too kind to me. In 29 years of my existence, I’ve seen/gone thru some pretty hard things. I just can’t believe that some good thing can actually happen to me.
• I don’t forgive and I never forget.

There are a million things that I would like to change or do differently, but if I can change even the ones that I just said, I would be a better person.