Rumblings on job...

Yours Truly works at an i-bank desk. Clearly, a blog is not the best place to voice an opinion of one's job. But I can safely say that the kind of money one makes at an i-banking desk is enough to increase inertia to very high levels. Inertia against switching to a delta-higher paying job. Inertia against starting out on one's own.

Very few people amongst those who graduated from my batch currently seem to be satisfied with their jobs. Others are barely satisfied, if at all. And I don't think it is because of the nature of their jobs. Fresh out of the college, especially one as revered and coveted as IIMA, people have expectations, and not all of those are realistic. The college life presents far more academic or intellectual challenges than most jobs I have heard of. The challenge in real life, I realise, is more in the manner of being able to manage everything and doing a great job of it. To expect some pathbreaking earth-shattering task in one's job isn't a wise thing to do.
I sit on my chair for hours (long hours compared to government jobs, short hours compared to my peers in London, HK or NY). I do number crunching and wafer crunching simultaneously, sipping Real Juice intermittently (or Tropicana, even though Frooti is my favorite). I prepare presentations and spreadsheets. I hear tales from my friends across seven seas and realise how far seperated impressions can be from reality.

Anyway, I am just back from a well-timed one week vacation at home, followed by an adventurous trip to Khopoli. This town is located some 70 kms from Mumbai and makes for an interesting a-few-hour-getaway. A hired Sumo (of the automotive kinds) cost us 1800 Rs and it took us around an hour and a half to navigate through the traffic laden roads of Mumbai to reach this place. Hiring the taxi itself was a learning experience. Having received his entire sum in advance, the travel agent started showing dubious signals. It didn't help that we were dressed more like tourists than local residents. After some angry words, open threats and many excuses, we were given our money back and we struck a deal with another agent.
The photos of the trip are here.
It was a huge waterfall. I would put the estimate at around 150 feet, though even a figure of 175 wouldn't surprise me. We managed to get almost right underneath it, though a really enterprising girl amongst us actually ventured into the vortex area of the waterfall. For a few seconds, I really was scared. What if I slipped? The presence of what looked like a bunch of skilled swimmers didn't completely alleviate the fear. But all in all, it was an experience I hadn't had before. One of us had a really really amazing tumble. Am in the process of getting that video uploaded.

It is high time I shared some of the new blogs I have stumbled into of late. Some are pretty interesting - for instance, there is a female New York Taxi driver who is publishing a book. And her blog is alleged to receive thousands of hits daily. At least initially, the blogs are very informative. Both because the cultural setting is very new and because a lady in that setting is not a common occurrence. Then there is Brewhaha, which you must absolutely visit if you are in Bangalore. Also in the list is www.whatay.com, the new avataar of Domain Maximus, a popular blog.

The last one reminded me of my own programming days. For long, programming in all its forms has been my most preferred mental activity. The pleasure of seeing the correct output even in the face of most weird (but valid, nonetheless) inputs has been surpassed by only the most primitive of human activities. Those were my days at IIT, when a new programming task meant staring dazy-eyed at the monitor and emptying many a wafer packets. Many of my friends complimented me on my skills in this arena, and one of them very recently did. I was very pleasantly surprised. From trying to solve a sudoku using basic principles to emulating a pool game in the most simplified versions, I have tried many tricks. My deepest connections with the inside of an operating system developed when we did kernel coding for SE Linux. While I will resist spewing technical jargon ( both because it would be rude and because I have forgotten half the jargon myself! ), I must say the experience was exhilarating. I landed my first summer internship (but which I declined a little while later) because I was able to write insta code. I also thoroughly enjoyed teaching a class of ~50 students. And the best moments were when we got the sadistic delight of crashing the students' programs by giving input that landed in the gray zone of validity, weirdity and insanity. Sorry everyone who was at the receiving end. I intended no harm!



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