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!
8 comments:
Hmnnnnnnn......
Looks like IBM has also taught how to thread the ( rather thin ) line between speaking the complete truth and speaking the offending truth :o)
Although much is unsaid...what is said is equally true...rather its 100% true
But much need to be said.....abotu people who go in infinite loops, about people who hardly care, about people who think they own the place, and about people who never let people have their dessert in peace.
So i think i may do somehing about this missing info.....
Accidently came across your blog.
I never ever had good impressions about IBM until I participated in IBM Developer Works Live Workshop, focussed on to promote all their Suite of products.
Your composition provides some real information indeed with an impressive style of writing. In fact after reading I wish I could work in IBM too but we din't see IBM in our campus.
Anyway all the best for your journey with IBM. Btw am working at Accenture Bangalore, just to unearth my anonynymity.
hmmm life like's this at IBM.With people always chatting with their friends.n u being a chatterbox would be chatting more.But u never chat with me despite being a chatterati!
anyways nice positive description,u could have mentioned some cons also.
hmm... I think most software co's would match the description.
Also Microsoft Rulz !!!
hmmm....
this post of urs has changed my perspective abt IBM...hope all of this stays the same until next yr (thts whn i'll join IBM)
-sudnya
Hey, I'm a final yr guy placed in IBM. Your article was pretty useful and insightful! Pls do update more...I'll hope the rosy picture you've painted of IBM remains so in your future posts ;-)
u have sorta taken out the sad parts of being a process oriented company, but then i guess u like coding
nice prev post on friendship.. tho as a ship.. it tends to go across the horizon.. making u watch all the way till it dissapears
Ur blog was a nice read and ya, this post on IBM proved interesting too though I wanted to know more before I step out of this college life and land into the professional world.
I have a complain - I never came to know in which city you are - Is it Bangalore or some other place? U have to speak about the city as well in another post of yours - I have shown u a reason to post. Waiting!
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