How things work?

Appraisals are due for me shortly, and by the time I complete this post I'm pretty sure the annual story telling competition in my project shall be over.Whether or not my story impresses my manager is yet to be seen.But after spending close to 5 years in the IT industry, I have some views about our industry in general, that I felt like sharing. Let me try to be different.Instead of being a software engineer, I shall be the layman whose primary job is to put some bricks together, in the form of writing code.And the whole process can be compared to putting those bricks together to form a wall.
The wall building business in India is a service industry that runs on the man * month model. Now lets see what it is...
Say a large American building company Behemoth Inc wants to get a wall built from India, as they dont have enough people to build walls.Maybe that they simply don't want to waste time on mundane things like building walls, as they want to focus their efforts on bigger edifices instead.The marketing division of the Indian company, Patents Unlimited(PUN) somehow finds out about Behemoth's plan and now wants to take up the project.

Surya who is a manager from PUN's R&D group, alongwith the marketing team unit is rushed to meet Dave at Behemoth's center in the USA to bid for the project.Behemoth Inc is primarily interested in getting the work done at the lowest cost possible.
Their discussion goes something like this.
Dave:"If 10 resources working 8 hours a day can build a wall 300m long in 20 days, how many men and how many days will you need to build a wall 600 m long in 25 days?"
Surya:"We shall need 16 resources." (after making some bizarre calculations)
Dave: "But your competitor quoted 12 resources."
Surya:"On second thoughts, we also need 12 resources. We had not accounted for the fact that you already built 300 m of the wall.We just need to extend its length and paint it in the colour you want. And we have experts in our team for all that."
And after many such discussions, PUN somehow gets the project.If that was the manager and the marketing team, then lets see who these "experts" that Surya was talking about : The Team Structure.
Surya himself is a very ambitious manager who has a very clear agenda : Maximise profits, extract the most by investing the least.He wants every member in his team to work only between 9 AM and 6 PM.But is actually a hypocrite when he insists that work is finished even if someone has to sit late.
Moreover, he knows as much about wall building, as much as you and I would know about the moons of Mercury.
In their recent campus hiring spree PUN hired a lot of trainee artistes from the top art colleges in the country, of which Anil and Sunil are alloted to work on the Behemoth project.In their pre placement talk, the HR makes them believe that their work is very similar to that of Pablo Picasso.So these two enthusiastic but gullible chaps are blissfully unaware that their artistic painting skills shall be put to use to paint a brick wall.
Ajay, Vijay and Sujay are three good friends who have about three years experience in the company. They're almost always found together. They come in at their own convenient time, take three leisured thirty minute coffee breaks apart from the lunch break in which they spend in the cafetaria discussing about politics, economic,sports, and of course, ornithology. They also know the golden rule,"Meetings - the best alternative to work." So they make it a point to schedule one meeting everyday in between the breaks.
How could team be complete without some girls in it. So there comes Charitha.Smart, intelligent, good looking but supremely lazy. Every twenty minutes she's on her seat, she takes a break lasting forty minutes, in which she has a cup of coffee and reads two sections from the newspaper.Everybody in the team thinks that she's superhuman, primarily because she makes even the impossible look trivial with her smooth talk.On her part Charitha knows that nothing's impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it.
If that was about Charitha then here comes Sunitha. A nice smile greets you everytime you meet her. A simple girls who minds her work, and doesn't mind going the extra mile now and then, even if means that she is doing Charitha's work.But Surya is oblivious of Sunitha's existence, mainly because Charitha succesfully takes all of the credit for what Sunitha did.
Then there is Anitha.Not a girl anymore.Approaching thirty, happily married and with a three year old kid. Nice lady, but has her own family priorities, and family problems too.Inspite of all these, she manages to do a decent job.
There's also Murali,the seniormost layman in the team.Vastly experienced and is very methodical in his approach, and of course as calm as a lake placid.Focussed and an expert on his job, but has a problem expressing his expertise because he's excessively laconic.He could be the next project leader in the making, only if Surya knew that he was so good.
Just as other Indian companies that build up several layers of redundancy, by way of heirachical designations.This project has a project leader in it, in the form of Sachin. A shrewd guy stuck in between the manager and the team. Leader of a team which he has no idea or intent to handle.That's mostly because he has applied for his H1 visa and is dreaming of settling down in the "first world".
This team also has a new joinee in Sameer who had a lengthy three hour interview, and a fruitful compensation discussion. He came into the team only because Surya supposedly committed him an onsite opportunity, to work at Behemoth center during the integration stage and also was given a handsome joining bonus.
Every now and then Sachin goes to Surya asking him for more resources as he doesn't have enough entry level brick layers.People who can get down to work and get their hands dirty.He also knows that to build a wall of that size in the time alloted he needs 15 resources.
Surya has a well rehearsed answer for this,"As you know we have already made some offers.Now, if the HR is able to convince them, we might have some new joinees within the next week or so."
But deep inside Surya has this devious thought..."The customer is paying for 12 resources.Now if I save on these new joinees, I might as well boost my profits. I can always rip off the customer with my itemised bills, in the form of weekly status reports."
So the project kickoff takes place and the entire team goes for a lavish buffet lunch at the Grand Ashok. Ajay, Vijay and Sujay even arranged a cab for this, ofcourse at the company cost. Except the freshers and the new joinee, everyone in the team is well aware that when working with Surya free lunches are found only in a mousetrap.
And then everybody starts off with their work.
Sachin makes a plan for all the members in his team, putting unrealistic dates for each activity, in such a way that it fits into Surya's plans. But then he totally forgets about the actual blueprint for the wall, the height, the length,the quality of bricks,cement,etc.He knows that the customer had specified how long the wall should be,but not how high it should be. But now he's too scared to ask, as feels he's a bit too late for that .
Murli did everything that Surya and Sachin had missed out in their plans.But he didn't know how much time he had at hand.So he sets about doing a very methodical and correct job, but at his own pace.
Anitha and Sunitha know that Murli is a good guide and take his help to get started. But since they are not as experienced they take their own time, as they had to rework on some sections of the wall every alternate day.
The three musketeers Ajay, Vijay and Sujay lend their hand whenever they get time off from their breaks and of course, their meetings.But the progress is too slow.They even meet Sachin asking him for some training on building such walls.
Sameer is good at what he does, but is eagerly the infrastructure team to deliver his toolkit.They even called him saying they have placed an order with the purchase department, and that it shall take a while before its procured.
The two freshers are full of enthusiasm, but don't know a thing about how to paint a wall. So they start off with building a small wall, on which they plan to try their painting skills. But in the process use up quite a lot of precious bricks,cement and paint too.That's something that Surya has noticed.
Did I forget Charitha here? No I did'nt. Actually she's been very busy working on a patent on a new WOW technique.She convinces everyone that this technique will make them the industry leaders in the wall building business.
Everybody keeps working on their part of the wall for some days when Surya decides to check out the wall.He announces that the CEO of PUN shall be visiting in three days for a demo. This is like setting the cat amongst the pigeons.Everyone starts working like never before. Ajay, Sujay and Vijay start working late nights,and also order pizzas for everyone while Murli quietly murmurs, "Any Time Demo!!!"
After three days, Sachin walks in to find that the wall, is like anything but a wall, and realises that he's in trouble with his boss, the quality asssurance guys and of course, the customer too.In panic mode, he asks Sachin to get the blueprint and the plans of the wall to his office immediately. Sachin smartly says,"How can I have a blueprint before we complete the construction? We are an R & D unit.Even we don't know what the outcome will be."
The deadline has come and gone, but the wall is anything but complete.Sachin meekly prepares an email to Dave which goes something like this...
"We, at PUN are almost through with building the wall that you had asked for. However during integration and internal strength testing we found some loose bricks in the wall. We are working on it and trying to fix these issues. We shall have WOW inbuilt in the wall by version 1.2."
Dave waits for a while before he runs out of patience and decides to send his team from Behemoth to inspect the wall.Ajay, Vijay and Sujay play the perfect hosts and organise a grand party for the visiting customers.Only when the team gets back from their pleasurable "Indian trip" the truth dawns on Dave...."When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys" .He immediately decides to stop the funding for the project.Sameer's hopes of an onsite opportunity came down crashing down with it.
But still he has to pay for the man*month that PUN had worked for.That's where Sachin's good. But he ends up losing the customer, not just for himself, but for PUN too.
If you thought the story ended here, then you forgot the appraisals part of the story, where everyone was rated on a scale of 5.This is how each one fared.
Anil got a 3 because he was upto expectations.Sunil got a 2 even though he did the same work as Anil. If you think Sunil took more initiative, then you are wrong.Actually Sunil had a better rapport with Surya than Anil, and also he had used a bit lesser paint and cement.
Surya felt that Sameer had a lot of potential and gave him a 3,more so because he was a newcomer and couldn't give him anything better.Moreover, he had to help the HR in normalising his inflated pay package and also recover the joining bonus covertly.
Anitha got a 3 because Surya's opinion on her was that she spent more time on sorting out her son's preschool issues, than on building the wall. He even had the audacity to tell her to maintain a schedule for the 3 year old child.
Murli got a 2.When he told Surya that he made the blueprint and also did as much work as two people, Surya replied "We do appreciate that.But that's your job. If you had too much work, you should have asked for one more resource.I would have provided you with that."
The 3 musketeers all got a 3.It was split up as 1 point each for their cab and pizza ordering skills,customer focus during customer visits and of course, their competence at handling meetings.
Sunitha too got a 3 because Surya felt she didn't even exist.
Charitha got a 1.After all someone had to take credit for Anitha and Sunitha's work, and also for the patent on WOW.
Sachin got a 1 only because every manager has to give this for one of his leads, who is there to take all the blame and give all the credit.
As for Surya himself, the senior management felt that he had done a tremendous job at generating income and motivating the rest of the team.So he was given a 1, a promotion and also a new car as rewards.

Don't you think the Indian industry works similar to this? In most aspects All companies are equal, while some are more equal.Don't we see one of us in the characters above? No one's a hero, no one's a villian.But we could do better. If only we knew how to. If only we knew what to set right.If only we knew how NOT to work...If only we knew how to stop worrying and start living.


DISCLAIMER : Characters that appeared in the above post are purely real and many of the events are not at all coincidental.
Oops, I think I jumbled up some words in the disclaimer. You'll figure out the right words anyway.