UNEMPLOYED....

Today was the last day at work....It feels somehow strange....I feel as though I have left behind a part of me in those cubicles and corridors........It's actually strange....I had waited for this day since around one and a half years and when it finally came, I was feeling a bit of melancholy instead of absolute elation........Today I realized how much my team mates loved me....and how much they are actually going to miss me....I am pretty sure that my replacement will be more efficient and intelligent than me but efficiency and intelligence are not the only things that matter in a work place anyways........23 months have taught me a lot about corporate working styles and environments...........so different from college and home lives............I am actually happy that I got some work experience before MBA...........The quality of people I have met at IBM is simply awesome..........I still stand by my statement that IT takes in some of the best brains of the country and simply lets them waste and rot............I mean I know people in my team are so capable that they can do lots of better jobs with equal efficiency.........I got a farewell gift.........A Titan watch.......it is absolutely beautiful...............In many ways IBM will be special for me............It has given me a lot more than my bread and butter.........It has given me a place to sit, internet, time to study, money whenever I needed it, rocking team mates with whom I have spent many many happy moments together............and most of all it has given me the love of my life............had it not been for IBM, I would probably still have been lonely and alone............It has given nice exposure, varied kinds of people to interact, it has given me the required frustration that kept me motivated................It gave me friends and colleagues who have helped me in my work in ways that I can't even begin to explain.............It has given me nice, helpful managers who have never exactly harmed me or put me into any kind of trouble and have always been nice to me............I must say that the overall experience I gained at IBM has actually been too good...........I am writing this with a mix of sorrow, joy and hopes in my heart............I am sad because I will no longer be going to the place I had been frequenting daily.........will not be meeting the people I had been spending a third of my time with and will no longer be a part of those team outings, lunches etc...........But I am happy that I got what I wanted...........I am happy that I am moving on in life rather than getting stuck and I am happy that I am progressing in my career....I am happy that I am going to be a student again.......Hopes of a better job role, more responsibilities and of course more money are always there.............When I had come in to this project (which incidentally was my first and last project at IBM), I had decided that I will good and lovable.............I knew that I was not going to be here permanently.............So I had decided that after I leave, people should reminisce that "There was a guy Soumya Darshan Mishra who was a good person at heart..........." and should not say that "Thank God that guy is gone........He was a good-for-nothing fellow who did nothing for the team..........." ...........I am very happy and thankful that I have been very successful in achieving whatever I had planned to achieve at IBM..............Thank You IBM for all the wonderful days and memorable experiences...........Thank You team for giving me some of the best days of my life...............

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE....

Like people often say...."A lot of water has flown under the bridge since the blah-blah days....etc. etc...."...............So do i say today....."A lot of water has flown under the bridge since the day I made my last post on this blog.............Life has been good in general since the last few days.............Result season finally ended............Some successes, some failures, some so-close-yet-so-far cases etc...........Finally was able to convert IMI and IMT Ghaziabad Finance............will be joining IMT Ghaziabad and slogging in the finance domain...............Quite a few of other NITians are also getting into IMT.............Looking forward to having a happy life at IMT Ghz Finance..........



P:S: Posting this from my new HP DV4-1241TX laptop..............Real beauty of a machinery.............

GROWING UP....

Is growing up actually mandatory???? Do we have a choice???? Come to think of it, why shouldn't we have a choice???? We say that we can change the course of our lives........then why don't we have a choice when it comes to growing up???? Are responsibilities a given when we grow up???? Why can't we give someone else the responsibilities and just peacefully spend time with the people we love???? Why does life always have to be a hurried race???? Why does life have to be so full of worries and problems???? Why doesn't the smallest of the tasks get done without any glitches???? Why does Murphy Uncle come to the picture just when you thought that everything was going to be fine????

P:S: I converted IMI some days ago....So it is finally BYE BYE IBM........Gives me some much coveted solace........
P:P:S: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY........U ROCK........

CRISIS AND QUESTIONS....

Does it always take a crisis to reinforce one's faith in God???? I always believed I had a symbiotic relationship with God....The live and let live types........But why does it happen that I am fervently praying to God to relieve me of the crisis I am facing now???? Why do I have the knack of disturbing God only when I am faced with a crisis???? As far as I remember, I have never turned to him for answers....My conscience and my parents were always reliable and readily available....So why is it that I am disturbing God now???? Asking him questions whose answers I can get with a little bit of a patience???? Does God listen to people like me???? Am I categorically selfish???? Or is it that I am just human???? Does every human being behave in the same way???? Is he happy and confident about life and does not bother God only till the time God throws a crisis on his face to bring back the belief after which he starts bugging God with numerous questions, pleas for help etc.???? Why don't we ever find ready made answers regarding our future???? Why can't we get our hands on a fast forward button for our life???? That brings us to another question here....would life be half as exciting as it is now if we actually do get a remote control for it???? Why don't I have peace left in my life anymore???? Why is it that I have been postponing a lot of happiness for future mirages???? Will I find light at the end of the tunnel???? Or will I be warped into the abyss of my own despair and gloom???? Only time and God have the answers I guess........

SPJIMR PROFILE SHEET....

Life is still dragging on as usual with all the usual s**t of office work, phone calls and all the usual stuff....Life has become some sort of monotony which I expect to break soon hopefully........Was filling up the SPJIMR profile sheet that actually sent me to an introspective mode.....The answers required quite a bit of soul-searching........Let me post the thing here....


Adversity faced in life.
I suffered from a long illness after my Class 10th. A lot of medical tests and medication followed since the root cause of the illness could not be determined and I took around a month to recover. I missed many of the initial classes in my college due to this.
Distinct contributions to the society by you or your family members.
I was a part of the Rotaract Club at NIT Rourkela under the Rotary Club actively involved in blood donation camps, clothes collection camps for orphans, drugs and HIV awareness camps for college students etc. My grand mother had also started an English medium school at our native village.
My formative years..
Effective planning and sacrifices by my parents ensured that I was taken care of well during my formative years. I have imbibed a lot of values, ethics, culture and morals from them. My school and hostel life also taught me teamwork skills, basic leadership skills, sharing, accommodating different viewpoints etc.
Explain a situation when you were a part of a team where the group process and/or intended outcome failed. What was your role, how did you contribute to the process or outcome, and what did you learn?
Every year during our college tech fest, there used to be a computer gaming tournament at an inter-college level and me and my friends used to participate as a team enthusiastically every year. In the tech fest in 2007, during our final year, we had one last chance to win the first place in the tournament. The game we used to participate in was Counter Strike which is a real time army team strategy game. In the early stages of the tournament, we were comprehensively beaten by a relatively weaker underdog team of our college although we were clearly the favorites. The key factors that led to our defeat were ineffective planning and strategy, overconfidence that ultimately led us to misjudge the opponent’s strengths and neglect our own weaknesses, lack of out-of-the-box ideas for attack and defense and ineffective communication between team-members that led us to work incoherently. As far as my role is considered, I should have been a little more prudent and thought about the strengths and weaknesses of the opponents and my team-mates. I should also have tried harder to pull my team together. We failed because we lacked a proper strategy and a foolproof game plan.

Describe an instance in which you took the strongest stand of your value system. What specific values were violated and what was at stake for you?
I believe a lot in fair play and a clean competition where only merit and ethics matter. I don’t believe in malpractices to achieve victory and short term gains. I believe in having a guilt-free conscience. The year was 1998. It was a national level Geo-map quiz being conducted by the Indian National Cartographic Association. I was representing my school in the same. My father had accompanied me to the venue. We were waiting for the competition to begin when my father suddenly met one of his friends at the venue. He had seen him after a long time after having lost contact with him for many years. After exchanging pleasantries, we came to know that my father’s friend was in fact a member of the organizing committee. Once he came to know that I was going to take part in the competition, he immediately offered to help me out with all the answers assuring me a win. The offer was politely turned down by me. I finally entered the competition without any help. Although I didn’t win the competition, I came out of the competition satisfied that I had not cheated and had held on to my values.

Explain a situation where you have brought about any improvement either in your self, work or society.
Improvement has been a continuous process in my life. Small events like practicing in front of the mirror before debate competitions to remove my fear of public speaking, writing non-stop for hours to increase my writing speed during the exams etc. have all brought about small improvements in me. As a part of the Rotaract Club, I have tried to bring about improvements in the society and in peoples’ lives be it whether by donating blood or by donating clothes to orphanages, visiting the children there personally and spreading joy etc. When I joined my work place, I found that the processes for initial training and orientation of new team members required improvements. I tried my best in providing initial training about the project to new members, prepared well documented step by step procedures for crucial tasks to be completed for them to start getting productive soon, trained them in the usages of various tools used in the project, helped them with their queries, spent time with them explaining them about the business of the client over and above my daily responsibilities. This indirectly has also brought further improvement in my self, helping me in my team-building and communication skills.


Give a detailed description of the roles, responsibilities and achievements at your current /last place of employment.(in not more than 300 words)
I have been working with IBM India Pvt. Ltd. since 8th June 2007 till date. My role in my work place is that of an Application Programmer. I have been working in the Financial Services sector since 2007 and my client is a major credit card organization. The software we are developing and supporting is an online dispute resolution software for credit card transactions for the use of credit card issuer and acquirer banks. My job involves a lot of interaction with people onsite and offshore, understanding and working with client banks and providing them solutions as a team, imparting trainings etc. My responsibilities include coding in JAVA, smoke testing the application, daily reporting activities, maintaining the application, diagnosing issues reported by clients and users and resolving them. I have also taken up the responsibility of a Software Configuration Administrator in Rational ClearCase. This role involves responsibilities like code merges and delivery, training people about the usage of the tool, resolving issues pertaining to the tool, preparing documents of reference etc. I have also completed IBM internal online courses for understanding the business and functioning of the banking sector in general and the dispute cycles of credit cards in particular which have helped me gain a good domain specific knowledge. I have also completed online certifications at IBM pertaining to data security and privacy, working and communicating effectively in a global environment, personality development etc. that have honed my soft skills apart from my technical knowledge. The most important achievement at my work, apart from the appreciation mails from my clients and my team mates, is the appreciation award “BRAVO-The Best Of IBM” that I won in April 2008 for my contribution to the project. I have also been rated a “Solid Contributor” continuously for two appraisal cycles in IBM.

HAPPY WOMANS' DAY....

Wish all the wonderful women in my life (my mom, my grannies, my aunties, my girlfriend, my cousin sister, all my women friends) and all the wonderful women in PG (all the women in my virtual life )........A HAPPY WOMANS' DAY........The world would not have been the same without u people........

SOME POSTS FROM SOME OTHER PLACE....

Today's blog post is a collection of some of my pieces from the thread THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS from PaGaLgUy arranged chronologically from the latest to the earliest........Hope they are likeable........

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/chit-chat-your-interests/37440-pursuit-of-happiness-39.html#post1429526

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/chit-chat-your-interests/37440-pursuit-of-happiness-34.html#post1419223

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/chit-chat-your-interests/37440-pursuit-of-happiness-17.html#post1403727

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/chit-chat-your-interests/37440-pursuit-of-happiness-11.html#post1401897