Benchmarking the Bench...

It was almost midnight but the celebrations weren’t even close to stopping at all. People congratulating each other, hugging each other cheers all around the hall in which we guys were sitting .No don’t think it was some college farewell or some party going on, this is the scene a year back when we guys were selected on campus for our first job. Wow man what a great day 4 us, selection in a big MNC and all …first job, through campus …when half of the college was still jobless, we guys were few chosen one ,very few to be very frank (53 out of 900) who appeared 4 the selection process and got through with flying colors.

Now when I write this blog, a year later the scene is totally changed. Unlike the new Vodafone add says “change is good” 4 me it is not the case .Wish it was that way, but unfortunately it is not. Big companies, big cities, big dreams that is the way it all starts, but Start that is what we are still waiting 4.Ya u haven’t read it wrong, 1 year and still waiting 4 a start how’s that possible?...but as u must have heard adidas punch line “impossible is nothing”…god knows why I am coming up with brand slogans so often, may be this also is one thing common in generation next with big dreams and bigger firms to work with and enough money in pockets to splurge out on such brands. So what is that I was doing so far in one year? I was on “Bench” - Yes that’s the word, I am not sure if it has been still added in dictionary so far, the way Bangalored just got added last year, so 4 those who do not get it let me tell u, it’s a term 4 people in software industry who have been hired for sole purpose of increasing headcount and bagging new bigger projects and hence even being on job r not actually into client projects. So our accomplishment after a year now is we have benched mark the bench.

Things never started on a bad note for that matter. Coming to Silicon Valley of India, joining your 1st job, superb lush glass offices and a very professional office environment. Then starts the painstaking training sessions and a whole metamorphosis from campus to corporate. Things were looking to move forward in a right direction. But gradually luck has its own track to follow. Thankfully after trainings we were in safe hands with very concerned and professional seniors. Till we were put into some live projects we needed to have some hands-on. So we have a thing called I.P coming into picture. I.P is the Intellectual Property projects 4 the company and not the Internet Protocol as many of engineers tend to think at the first go. So there we were working hard on task at hand. This was the chance to learn and prove our mettle. That was the time when our learning curve was going up up and away analogous to the Bulls raging the markets these days. But then what ever goes up has to come down. But never expected it to come down in this fashion coz we never had reached 18k first of all and now it was coming down with a crash. Wish the I.P projects were ever considered as a property coz at the end they never were. And this was a disheartening realization.

So now we are at Bench as they call it. Contributing to at least the headcount 4 that matter. Hope is the only thing which remains coz now when we see people whom we counted upon, mail us referring to articles like “On Bench” which appeared in a Leading Newspaper recently, we get confused to take it positively or negatively. Positively coz I was amongst the one who had left a biggie firm with such practices to join a smaller one thinking that they must be having some good High-end work in store 4 me. Only Optimism in this scenario where even the Captains and Vice Captains r putting down there armor are some new projects in the pipeline. But God only know when we get to see some output from that pipeline….its a wait too long it seems …. I at times get envious seeing other companies winning some big projects with big scopes of everything in it. But then I believe as it happens in our bollywood movies there will be a “happy ending” to this as well & if not, as SRK says in his new venture Om Shanti Om “picture abhi baki hai mere dost” …so mere picture to abhi kafi baki hai …so I will end with this positive note coz one thing I know is that there is a greener pasture for me, the dream which I have seen, coz this was just a step to reach there..Just the need of the hour is to go 4 it ….and I can surely say something that life has its own experiences in store 4 me. So be it not the way we wish, but there is learning in some form or the other for each of us to take from this experience so why bitch about it… :)

So this is it about my first blog. I hope u enjoyed reading it, coz this was just an experience which I wanted to share, and being a novice in blogging phenomenon I just gave it my best shot. I can hope to do better in times to come… :)