The Butterfly Diaries 11 - Production Problems

It was time for the batting side to bowl. And bouncer after bouncer the client-side programmers bowled at me, making my code feel like the cockroach infested kitchen in my poorly lit childhood home. I hung on to the crease taking on one delivery at a time and finally managed to take the code through the final over.

But the match was not yet over. The real test came when everyone’s code was integrated and loaded into the client environment. The moment that happened all kinds of new bugs began to crawl out of the woodwork. It was another round of slogging to get it all to work together outside the simulation environment.

Then finally the D-Day came, when the final working application was to be demonstrated to the client by our onsite team. Within ten minutes of its start, we began to get frantic calls. The application had crashed, bringing up what we called the tube light message – a message box stretching from one end of the screen to the other like a tube light, filled with one long line of German.

Someone had told me what it meant - something along the lines of “An unexpected condition has occurred during the processing of the requested operation. The system is unable to continue.”

But the exact meaning didn’t matter. What the coming of that message meant was ‘We were finished’.

The crisis brought the leader, who had so long been orchestrating from behind the scenes, to the forefront. The boss lady booked a ticket on the flight to Germany the very next morning to face the enraged client executives. The next three days while we waited for her return were the calm before the storm. For us juniors, all this drama was just grist for the gossip mill. Our heads were not on the chopping block.

The same could not be said of Mr. Easy, who had led the most critical module. Nor of the other leads.

And then she returned. She had managed to buy an additional three months for us to get our act together. But that would eat into our project margin. So, we would not be able to keep the entire team. I wondered what would happen to me.

The next week was a flurry of activity. Mr. Easy was in his seat all the time. I wondered if he was sleeping at the office. Or for that matter whether he was even sleeping.

Over a cup of coffee, he told me, “Never take up a project management role. Our job is nothing but that of glorified clerks – creating sheaves of paperwork to justify failures.”

Finally, boss lady shared the plan with us. The team would be cut down to half its strength over the next month. I was to remain. So were my two friends from Chennai – Mr. Zest and No. 4. But not Mr. Easy, nor my old testing lead.

For me personally, things had changed for the better. Our new lead solved any problem we took to him. And for technical guidance, we had Mr. Dependable and Mr. Earnest, whom the boss lady had brought over from her earlier project. In four months they had almost caught up with Mr. Tough. I myself was not far behind.

Also, there is something about going through a proper crisis together that brings people closer than superficial things such as charm and shared interests.

The next excitement was the arrival of two freshers. I was to be their mentor. For the first time I was not the junior-most member on the team. Their first task was to test the applications.

It gave me a kick when every day the girl, Miss Sincerity, came to me to ask permission to go home. I was becoming somebody, eh? The boy, Mr. Ambitious, with his penchant to step beyond his brief reminded me of my clashes with the senior tester.

I thought everything was going well, when No. 4 came to me with a concerned expression, “Have you made your plans yet, man?”

I was bewildered. What plans?

“This project is going nowhere. The technology is legacy mainframe that has no value outside. There are no plans to send us onsite. We will be stuck here as grunts.”

I had never thought about it this way. Here I was happy at finally finding a place where I belonged and he was thinking of his next move. But he did make me ponder. I was not even sure what plans boss lady had for me post the release in February. But if they were still getting new people, there probably had to be something.

Mr. Zest on the other hand had a philosophical view of things. “We are becoming comfortably numb here,” he said, quoting the title of his favorite Pink Floyd song. He too was getting restless here and was gearing up for his next adventure. He spoke of things such as hitchhiking around the world and working as a coal miner to experience life at its most basic level, that seemed right out of a storybook.

And as the February deadline came nearer, No. 4 told me he had managed to convince boss lady to let him leave. He was shifting to his hometown Hyderabad. Mr. Zest was starting to explore options for higher studies abroad. I seemed to be the only one comfortably numb in my role.