Friday, April 21, 2006

Lets have a Kick Off !!!


P&G- an offshore group of geometric, a bunch of fresh, talented and
Enthusiastic guys and gals, a group where fun knows no bound an ideal
mentoring of some seniors, a pleasant company of some nice colleagues, in other words, a complete family.

I was exhilarated to see a bong mentor as Pradipta Mukherjee when
Akash, my team lead, a nice guy, charismatic personality and most
importantly a guy with whom Planks equation (E = h x frequency) seemed to be satisfied, introduced me with him in P&G.I was about to start working in my first ever real life project ( to be more specific, before that I had been enjoying the luxury of leading a trainee life), I wondered, TCE being a PLM product, how it will help a company (P&G) which is in the field of consumer goods or in a market of soap, toothpaste, etc, etc. My excitement crossed the threshold when I saw first page of Prototype in MDO kickoff meeting-- A page with some pics of baby napkins. Even in my remote imagination I could not able to co-relate assembly and parts (learned during TCE training lecture) with baby napkins and baby soaps.

Sometime I can’t resist laughter when I do a flash back of those days
when I, along with Vipin and parul were interviewed by Tony king for P&G ODC. He asked in the interview "Will you mind if you are required to fly to USA with a short notice?"I didnt realize the carrot hanging in front of me but the string is tied with my tail only...No, not a problem, it would be my pleasure to go to USA..That was my instaneous reply. Going one step further to reveal my corporate immaturity, satish Mulley told me and Vipin-"I am planning to take both of you to USA by October."I interrupted him immediately and said “Will you mind to postpone the trip by few months as I need to take a vacation for my sister's marriage in the month of October?"Hah...

Well, I was among those few lucky ones (was I??) who cleared the
Interview and induced in the P&G ODC (Offshore development center). I inherited my machine from Satish Mulley (I didnt know who he had inherited from), and hence I got the same OS installation, same TC40
Installation, same TC3.0 (didnt know how many versions of TC installation he had), same Oracle, same Tomcat, same Web logic etc. initially I considered my self lucky to get a complete machine and no head ache for any further installations. But I warn you all, never accept a machine with maximum software installed. If possible get a formatted one and do all installations yourself. That machine caused me hell lot of pain and I forgot the count of un-installing and re-installing software. So I got the same machine, same OS, same TC but my SE (surrounding environment) kept on changing. We were privileged to work at many sites (Don’t confuse with on sites) at Geometric, like 3rd floor Red fort (changed location twice in this floor only), 1st floor, ground floor, STPI and Agra fort. The changes were so frequent that sometime the security guard at the gate would ask me if I was shifting location again, when I would be going to Gym with a bag.

In Geometric, flanked by a good number of batch mates from IIT and company of some of the colleagues like Amit Teli and others, made those earlier days alive. It was like going back to college, and it was the feeling that made working at geometric so excited and rejuvenated. Under mentoring of Pradipta, I finally learned swimming and yes Team Center enterprise also. Akash had a very good quality of making me involve in project related discussions, whatsoever it would be, with out bothering me as a fresher. As a result we developed an environment where fair exchange of ideas could take place.

Unfortunately our group saw some attritions which included Akash, but
by that time they had done enough so that we could shoulder the responsibility of continuing the tempo of P&G. We did not want the let the P&G spirit die. New gays and gals...Oopps ladies joined our group and with their support and enthusiasm we made P&G even better than it was before.

I can’t remember a single day when I stayed back till 3AM in the office
for project related work but the day when Vipin and I were busy in deciding various aspects of Divyagarh outing. We let our creative juice
flow, we let our imagination to imagine, and finally came up with a nice schedule for the outing.



Divyagarh outing- amidst hot humid and rainy weather, we started our trip to divyagarh. Sport, music, drink, and of course ODOMOS (censored), it had everything an ideal outing should have. The captivating view of Divyagarh beach, an enchanting view of natural fountains and clouds in the surrounding exotic valleys ( on our way),Vada paw and drinks in a Tapori and enthusiasm of everyone were some of the factors which were like ice on the cake and made the trip very special and memorable. Right from the beginning of the trip I made it clear that we would return by following day early morning as I had some personal work to do at Pune.Everyone was curious to know what my personal work could be, but I was determined not to reveal it. I realized for the second time that I pos a strong determination (first time when I cleared IIT JEE), when no one could fetch out a slightest clue about my personal work. Even Nitin tappe surrendered after making me drunk with 5-6 pegs of Vodka and realized that I would not reveal it. I wish Arvind was there with us -- but in that case Shivani would have missed "Main aur meri tanhayi
award.


P&G ODC is incomplete with out mentioning about its twin sister, NPO.
Consisting of some of the charismatic personalities like Naveen San, rather Naveen da, is the best team leader I have observed so far. Ironically I was not in his project. so may be I am wrong :-). Helpful, adorned with good sense of humor and soft spoken, and most importantly always ready to go for a sutta, make him a nice person to be with. naveen da working with Saurabh ( jhansi) and Saurabh working under Naveen da must be a great experience for each other. Jhansi (My batch mates would wonder who is Saurabh) is an amazing person. Be with him for one day, you will come to know darkest and brightest side of life. When I met with Ashutosh nandan, another guy used to work in NPO,I wondered if he is addicted to cigarettes or cigarette is addicted to Ashutosh, was another nice guy to be with.

In short, it was a great experience and association with P&G. Now when
I have moved out of it and though I feel bad for not being with it.All the best to this group. I have learned a lot from this group and I will always miss my association with it.