Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Not the world's most faithful employee

Yes, I'm not the world's most faithful employee. But then, who is? I haven't been fair to my employer by lurking around for better opportunities or as they say "looking for greener grass". But, who doesn't do that? I'm not The Buddha or Mr. HarishChandra to always be true about whatever I do.

And one fine day I get a cool offer letter from XYZ corp. Yay! Sounds great, doesn't it? Oh wait, you haven't heard the half of it yet. Lets go back a couple of moments from when the mail popped into my inbox. This is what happened - My reporting manager and I are having a nice code review for a feature I've been implementing for some time. We're completely immersed into the review and I'm explaining her on how the code works. "Bing" goes my desktop and an Outlook alert pops up saying, "Offer letter from XYZ" and we totally froze for about a couple of seconds. Now comes the difficult part; behaving as if nothing happened. So we do our expression-less poker face which would look somewhat like this.


But, she's freaked out inside somewhat like this.


And, the best thing was that we didn't talk about it even after the review was over; extremely professional ya know! Uh, not so professional when I realized she had called up my project manager and informed that they were losing a developer (I really couldn't find a picture to portray his grief). As far as XYZ is concerned, they won't have the pleasure of working with me. Will call up and reject the offer tomorrow. I'm staying.

Edit: 
My good friend @Gamer_Rags guessed what my project manager's face would be like. I've actually seen that face today. Thanks buddy!


I really need a disclaimer. Have a nice evening!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Beginning

So here I am wondering what to write on this blog and I really can't find a topic on which I could endlessly blabber about. But, I'm human. I come across new stuff everyday. Good stuff, bad stuff, beautiful stuff, ugly stuff and stuff I shouldn't blog about. Well, now that stuff has a home, it's here. Today I'm going to talk about stuff that has been on my mind and stuff I want to share about my new blog - sort of a curtain raiser. Here we go.

Why a new blog?
I'm not a blog hopper. I knew I wanted a new blog. My old blog on GeeksWithBlogs.net was a totally technical blog and writing personal stuff over there was not really a great idea. The good thing is that that frickin' blog still gets at least 40 hits a day only with 20 posts! Google Search really helps the blog stay alive. The GeeksWithBlogs.net community is totally awesome and I really liked posting out there. But, that's past now. I want my blog to be both technical as well as personal. I want my blog to be a place where I share my views on things that happen to me in my life. And, I want my blog to be a portrayal of myself and not as some XYZ blogger on GWB. Soon, I'll move to a custom domain. That would help me getting my blog a unique identity.

The Technical Side
Well, if you ask me what I do, I'd say "I'm a professional C++/C# developer". But, I'm glad it doesn't end there. I'll try to share every tool I work with, every great coding experience I come across and every interesting software development tidbit. I currently work with Windows XP (Yes, I still work on WinXP), and Visual Studio 2008. I keep using tools like CppUnit, NUnit, NAnt and Compuware DevPartner. My current job includes compiler design and development, but I'll try to avoid any talk about it as it can get really really boring. I remember studying "Compiler Design" during the 6th semester of engineering - it was hell. I'm a software developer at heart. I take pride in what I do and sharing my experiences about it helps me know that I'm learning something new everyday.

The Personal Side
I love/hate a lot of people (the latter being larger in number) for the things they do everyday. There are some super-annoying people and some incredibly awesome people who I interact with everyday. I could ramble about them for hours. And then there's me - the super-annoying incredibly awesome person. All the crazy things I do will be a part of this blog.

The Name of the Blog
Well, I've been looking for good blog names for quite some time now. I could come up with a few including
Websteroy
Royware
Royology
... and I realized how much I suck on producing good names. The search for a good blog name kept me from actually starting the blog. It's no wonder I'm a champion procrastinator. I keep finding ways to not do what I'm supposed to do. So Ellogical is not really a fixed and final name for this blog. I just had to give it a go. Drop in a comment about what you think about the blog's name or if you can suggest some other good name for this blog.

Killing the smileys
Although this blog is a personal-cum-work related blog, this is fairly serious writing and there will be no smileys (I'll try to control myself as much as possible). I use them regularly on Twitter as sometimes 140 characters are not enough to express joy, sorrow, etc. But, here, it's a no-no.

Swearing
I'm an angry person and I'm totally allowed to use expletives out here. IT'S MY F**KING BLOG. You don't tell me what I can/should write.

What next?
Not a bad start, but I really don't know what my next post will be about. I'm sure I can find something to talk about. Till then, have fun. Peace.