The Butterfly Diaries 07 - The Ersatz Elevator

There were elevators and then there were ersatz elevators. One never knew which was which till the door opened. So it was with our attempts to get into projects.

One might think I wasted the entire time since the completion of my training in the grip of the vices of the vile village. But in between these bouts of hedonism, I did make earnest attempts to find that elusive elevator to take me on the ride of corporate success. Every third day, I would be at the desk of our business unit human resources lead and every tenth day at the door of the business unit head’s cabin. So much so they fled at the very sight of me.

My schoolmate was the first one in our home to get into a project. It was a mainframe one, like that of most of our other Open Systems colleagues in the America business units. It looked as if the training stream mattered little more than one’s initial or birth month in staffing. So much for me being sad about missing the Internet stream.

As it happened, the first project opportunity I got was in the Internet stream. Some cool new technology called TIBCO it was and Perl. I was on cloud nine. More so when I learnt the lead was to be a stud boy flown down from Pune. But then there was a catch – no one including him had any clue about the technology. Nor was the software installed on any of the company systems. All we had to learn by was some complex documentation. But that did not deter me. For fifteen days, I toiled day and night trying to understand all this alien mumbo jumbo back in an age before AI, when freshers didn’t even have internet access. When I felt I was finally making some headway, the blow arrived – the project did not come through and stud boy returned to Pune. This had turned out to be an ersatz elevator.

Meanwhile my other friend the Malayali got into the only Open Systems project in the batch. I had to wait for another month before the next one came. Again, an Internet stream one. And an interesting technology and domain – loyalty management. I spent the weekend mastering JavaScript, the technology needed there. My first task was to go over the images on the website and adapt them for different browsers. I started on the task with gusto and raced through the first few of them. I worked till midnight, returned early and worked till midnight again. By the middle of the week, I had not even crossed halfway, and I was to finish this task by the end of the week. My long-term staffing on the project depended on it.

When I was worrying how I would complete the task, a new problem arrived. My mother was unwell. I had to return home. The project folks were kind and told me family was more important and not to worry about the project. But when I returned, I found I had been replaced with someone else. All my hard work had turned out to be yet another ersatz elevator.

After one more month, one more elevator door seemed to be opening – this time the technology was VB Script, something related to what we had been trained in. And as usual there was a catch – it was internal. I still hoped if I did well on this one, I would be able to showcase my skills to get a project. But alas! That was not the case. No one even checked if the app we built worked. It was just a routine task to keep benched folks occupied.

None of my three attempts at cracking the code to get a project had been successful. All of one’s attempts to get a project were probably like the best-laid plans of mice and men -meant to go awry. I may as well put time to better use mastering the various computer games available on the local area network along with Mr. Zest and the two Internet stream girls.

And then it happened. One of our intense gaming sessions was interrupted by a cough almost right over our shoulders. We turned around and stared into the face of our business unit head.

“This is not school. When you are in a job, you need to behave like professionals. I am disappointed with you,” he said. “Come to my cabin in an hour.”

We were scared. Would we be expelled? We slunk into his cabin in an hour like frightened mice, our heads held down.

He turned to the two girls first and said, “You have been assigned a project.” He gave them the project contact and dismissed them.

He turned to us next. “You guys need to leave day after tomorrow morning. Go home and pack.”

What? The girls were being let off without even a reprimand and we were being fired?

“You have been transferred to Bangalore,” he added after a pause.

Phew! The much-awaited elevator had finally arrived. I would never find out if the computer games had been the button that had summoned it.

I would be back where it all began – the city mentioned in my first offer letter. Full one year later.