This blog was inspired by my conversation with old friend Deepa during my ‘coding-days’ . I was pouring my heart out about my experiences in my job post-MBA.
I was itching to write this blog and the final push came from my conversation with a ‘techie’ (sic)
I was the guy with laptop (that sets you apart from the miles of PC-cubicles) and a DID line and for some time the species didn’t come near me afraid to tread the last mile to my desk. I sit in the development area because I have to primarily interact with Sr.PMs. I don’t know what is my job here. For lack of a better term, I can say that I am doing ‘Business Development’. I ogle at google all day trying to get market info, ‘communicate’ about our group’s offerings and discuss the opportunities with the sales guys. I am paid for browsing and talking over phone. Once in a while, I get to propos(al)e , that too ones at a very broad level where it is just crap about his company and our company. It is just like meeting your neighbour and telling ‘kya haal hain, khana hogaya kya?’ neither he is interested in telling him about his diet nor are you getting any more knowledgable out of the conversation. But the conversation has to go on because you gotta know that each of you is alive and is friendly towards each other. This is exactly the purpose of the document – no stuff but a long way of saying hi. Once business flows the rest would be taken up by the delivery team.
I sit late night partly because of the work load partly because old habits die hard and partly because I don’t have a ‘social life’ (read GF/family). So one of those days when I was sitting late, the ‘species’ came close to me and asked what exactly I do, and why do I need to sit late – after all the marketing guys don’t need to sit that late. Then it struck me hard that species is called techie and I belonged to it yesterday (read 2 years ago) and now I am an untouchable according to that species. While I took trouble explaining the techie about my job, the expression on his face took me back to Barista when Joseph(sales guy in my earlier company before my MBA) was telling ‘how about you do…..’ and while we nodded we smirked inside noting to share the joke with our gang- that this guys just blows hot air.
This techie went back to his desk with a clear feeling, that I have no work to do and I am paid for browsing and speaking over the fone and attending endless meetings. I draw myself back to my own world like a puppy hit by a stone by a naughty boy wanting to shout ‘my work is also real work’. Now if you have been reading intently, you will notice that I am contradicting myself – first I call it gas and then work…..this is exactly what I meant by painful transition. I am a techie at heart and marketing (sic) guy in my mind.
So much of what we laughed about the sales guys during our ITC (my earlier company) days is more a professional hazard than lack of brains on the part of the sales guys. Look for instance, I am doing BD for a group which works on IPTV, Set-top Box, handset testing, network customisation, device layer interface, value added service over mobiles, games porting, enterprise collaboration…. Let me take a breath…the list goes on. Now for a guy who has to scan the market for ALL these services, if you expect him to know the underlying technology either he will die reading the stuff or the technology would have become ancient enough to be considered to be of stone age.
I have my way out. I move around PMs discussing what projects they are doing, note down few key things, make few ppts and docs and that is all I know about the technology. And when the techie in me comes back, I am ashamed of myself and try to do some reading on technology. E.g. the amount of reading I did for understanding Set-top box would have been enough to clear 2 papers during my engineering. Then there is an hiatus and I am cud-chewing on the same old jargons. I have an excel sheet of jargons so that I don’t slip. It helps that I am a tronics engineer, atleast I can recognise the odour when it is 100% bullshit. They haven’t started yet, the ‘techies’ would try to convince me ‘that a lotus notes form is complex java bean which would need a thorough programming to just put a field on to it and for changing the colour you may need evoke an agent remotely’…..’Bullshit’ I can cry out now, but dunno when would I actually end up believing that stuff and allocate 2 resources for a month to do that charade….
Anyways, there are tools against this happening. I remember ‘jyoti’s friend’ using it. Maybe I may need to use it sometimes… or better still keep myself updated. That’s why I am sitting late… the species next to me wont understand it, but that is the truth of life…..
‘Some marketing guys do work!’
‘Bullshit’ you may be tempted to cry out, but you wont dare to do that, because at the end of the day, you know he brought you that job….
