Well... I am a li'l over a month old in IBM now... so thought I'll kinda summarise my experience here so far.... A message to any other IBMer who happens to stumble upon this blog: I ain't gonna reveal any IBM proprietory stuff here... So relax n hopefully enjoy the ride!
To begin with IBM's a really cool place to work in.... and I mean it literally too. It's freezing inside, with the labs being maintained at close to 15 degrees celsius. So we actually feel comfy when we are out in the sun... no kidding! But taking the other meaning of "cool", yeah it is a great place to work. Before I joined IBM I had painted a very boring picture of IBM in my mind and I am glad I have been proven wrong. Team members... old or young... do know how to have fun! The environment is such that you do feel like working.. n looks like IBMers strongly believe in "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"... so it's fun to see people working, but also parallelly listening to music and chatting with loads of people thanks to Yahoo! and MSN and now Google Talk, not to mention Sametime, an internal IBM tool for chatting with IBMers worldwide... And it's fun to see the scene when a person busy chatting suddenly realises that his/her boss is standing behind him... He he... Immediately all chat windows are closed and people revert back to the actual "work" window with an innocent look on the face.... Yep! I do that too...
Once a month there's a big birthday party with cake n all, for all the people who's bday happened to be that month. This was really unexpected and also sooo much fun... The last time we even had a Mad Ads competition... First prize went to a team for advertising "Curtains for windows" while we bagged the second prize (Ahem Ahem!) for our innovative ad for "A chair that makes u work"... Of course I have to mention that we were forced into participation... kinda IBM's way of ragging new joinees.
Training sessions are fun too... It's great to see the trainers actually taking an initiative and taking necessary efforts to ensure they can teach us properly. It's not like a boring classroom session where you start nodding off. Of course here I must mention a certain training session involving some of my friends who actually started off a NetMeeting session towards the end of it and the whole batch joined in...
The food is good... really. And there's an ice cream counter too, selling products of Kwality Walls. Pizza Hut will be opening a counter soon. And the description of any software firm is incomplete without the mention of the fukat ka chai/coffee. Yep! Each floor has two pantries and you get a large variety of tea and coffee, ranging from cappuccino, cafe au lait to espresso and regular tea to lemon tea, masala chai, etc. The pantry is also equipped with a microwave oven and a refrigerator.
Here's a piece of warning for all new joinees of IBM. Please check the spelling of your name in the database. There are so many things that depend on that that it's a huge pain if there's a goof up. Saying this from personal experience. It takes ages to sort this whole problem out and if you don't do it in time.. you don't get your money. Aha! Now that will make you sit up and take notice of what I said... he he
Another thing I must mention is the full form of IBM. We know it as International Business Machines but for all proud IBMers, it is I Blame Microsoft. It's actually fun witnessing the Microsoft bashing that goes on and believe me, no one spares Microsoft here. Pata nahi logon ko itna khunnas kyon hai, but it's still fun to see/ hear it.
Must add that IBM is a very process oriented company. For every small thing there's a process to be followed. One month and I'm still confused and need to take help from my colleagues.
Anyways, guess I've bored u guys n gals enough... especially any non IBMer who might be reading this.. so before I get to hear "Boo"s... I'll say Auf Wiedersehen!
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Sunday, August 07, 2005
The ship that never sinks........ Friendship
Today is Friendship day... And after so many years of my life, suddenly I have sat down to ponder over the importance this day holds in my life... and the phenomenon it celebrates.
Ever since we are toddlers in a kindergarten, we are told to make friends. We are told to share our tiffins with them, play with the same toys and in general be good to them. At such a tender age, this Hallmark holiday really holds no meaning for us and the depth of friendship that we really feel within, is merely the tip of the iceberg. As we grow older the meaning of friendship gradually changes.
As a 5 year old, a friend was someone I could play with; someone whose house I would visit with my Barbie dolls every evening and have a blast as we enacted fairy tales and other stories involving princes and princesses with our dolls playing the protagonists. As I grew older, this definition of friendship changed. A friend was someone I could laugh with, talk to in a low volume amidst a very boring History lesson (for the record, I have nothing against history... just took an example), share my dabba with, play pranks with and all in all have a lovely time.
Of course, as everyone knows, friendship is not about merely having a lovely time as I mentioned earlier. But we begin to comprehend the real meaning of friendship only as we mature. The word "friend" encompasses a relationship that probably no one can possibly capture in words. It is so beautiful, so pure. Barring your parents, probably no one will know you as well as a good friend.. and perhaps with regard to certain things, even better than your parents....
I got a few very beautiful smses today which I felt were quite apt for this post, because it captures what I'm trying to communicate here.
A friend understands when you say I forgot, waits forever when you say 1 minute, stays when you say "Leave me alone" and opens the door even before you knock...
Love says: "If you ever need anything, I'll be there"...whereas friendship says,"you'll never need anything, if I'll be there."
A true friend is someone who can listen to you even when you are not uttering a word, who will be with you through thick and thin, someone who will guide you when you go astray and will love you and accept you for who you are.... no strings attached. But friendship is no one way street. One needs to reciprocate too. Indeed, as a friend of mine rightly said, "Friendship is a sweet responsibility"
Moving onto the first Sunday of August, popularly celebrated as Friendship Day. As the buzz hit my ears, I too got down to the tradition of making or sometimes purchasing (whenever I was too lazy) beautiful friendship bands, cards n gifts for my friends to make them feel special on that day. Year after year I carried out this tradition. Then as we matured, all of us began to feel that this was rather childish. So we came up with new ways to celebrate the day, like going out for coffee, watching a movie together or sometimes just hanging out together in our college canteen.
Sometimes I wonder... do we really need a special day to actually celebrate friendship? Do we not celebrate it each and every moment we spend in the company of a dear friend? We laugh and we cry with them... But then I feel if we can have "Father's Day", "Mother's Day", "Teacher's Day" and the ever so popular "Valentine's Day", well what's wrong with having "Friendship Day", considering friends are such an important part of our lives.
I could go on and on about friendship, even more so because I'm currently in a very pensive mood as my best friend will be leaving for his higher studies in a few days time but I guess I shouldn't torture all the readers as well... So I'll just end with a very cute write up I had come across on friends. This is actually something that is written on a little show piece I have and I read it almost every single day... and it never fails to bring a smile on my face...
Friends share the ups and downs in life - understand the "I don't feel like talking" moods and stories that need to be shared over and over again. They help during the hard times, celebrate the really great times, ignore the crabbiness and join in the silliness...
Ever since we are toddlers in a kindergarten, we are told to make friends. We are told to share our tiffins with them, play with the same toys and in general be good to them. At such a tender age, this Hallmark holiday really holds no meaning for us and the depth of friendship that we really feel within, is merely the tip of the iceberg. As we grow older the meaning of friendship gradually changes.
As a 5 year old, a friend was someone I could play with; someone whose house I would visit with my Barbie dolls every evening and have a blast as we enacted fairy tales and other stories involving princes and princesses with our dolls playing the protagonists. As I grew older, this definition of friendship changed. A friend was someone I could laugh with, talk to in a low volume amidst a very boring History lesson (for the record, I have nothing against history... just took an example), share my dabba with, play pranks with and all in all have a lovely time.
Of course, as everyone knows, friendship is not about merely having a lovely time as I mentioned earlier. But we begin to comprehend the real meaning of friendship only as we mature. The word "friend" encompasses a relationship that probably no one can possibly capture in words. It is so beautiful, so pure. Barring your parents, probably no one will know you as well as a good friend.. and perhaps with regard to certain things, even better than your parents....
I got a few very beautiful smses today which I felt were quite apt for this post, because it captures what I'm trying to communicate here.
A friend understands when you say I forgot, waits forever when you say 1 minute, stays when you say "Leave me alone" and opens the door even before you knock...
Love says: "If you ever need anything, I'll be there"...whereas friendship says,"you'll never need anything, if I'll be there."
A true friend is someone who can listen to you even when you are not uttering a word, who will be with you through thick and thin, someone who will guide you when you go astray and will love you and accept you for who you are.... no strings attached. But friendship is no one way street. One needs to reciprocate too. Indeed, as a friend of mine rightly said, "Friendship is a sweet responsibility"
Moving onto the first Sunday of August, popularly celebrated as Friendship Day. As the buzz hit my ears, I too got down to the tradition of making or sometimes purchasing (whenever I was too lazy) beautiful friendship bands, cards n gifts for my friends to make them feel special on that day. Year after year I carried out this tradition. Then as we matured, all of us began to feel that this was rather childish. So we came up with new ways to celebrate the day, like going out for coffee, watching a movie together or sometimes just hanging out together in our college canteen.
Sometimes I wonder... do we really need a special day to actually celebrate friendship? Do we not celebrate it each and every moment we spend in the company of a dear friend? We laugh and we cry with them... But then I feel if we can have "Father's Day", "Mother's Day", "Teacher's Day" and the ever so popular "Valentine's Day", well what's wrong with having "Friendship Day", considering friends are such an important part of our lives.
I could go on and on about friendship, even more so because I'm currently in a very pensive mood as my best friend will be leaving for his higher studies in a few days time but I guess I shouldn't torture all the readers as well... So I'll just end with a very cute write up I had come across on friends. This is actually something that is written on a little show piece I have and I read it almost every single day... and it never fails to bring a smile on my face...
Friends share the ups and downs in life - understand the "I don't feel like talking" moods and stories that need to be shared over and over again. They help during the hard times, celebrate the really great times, ignore the crabbiness and join in the silliness...
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