The UBS team will always be close to my heart. If the UBS project can be considered as a grand Monument, The first set of people who started this can rightly be called the foundation. The strong foundation consisted mainly of Ram,Kumar,Satish, Ekram and Mani. I joined this project in November’2004 as a rookie.
2004!
I still remember my initial days in the project, Sankar was my first manager and he really spoke in managese(The language of Managers). I was scared of Kumar in those days. Satish and Ekram were more fun to work with. Prashant, Sathya( now Sethyo) and Sarath were my first set of mentors and all I did for few weeks was Housekeeping and this was a full day activity. 2004 went by and I was totally disinterested in my project. I remember my first team meeting during which I literally dosed off. I had some good lessons during my initial days in this project. Sometimes we just hear something which nudges us on the right path and thus becomes the right advice. It could just be a bit of common sense said in a way that it resonates with something in us. Its nothing new,but because it connects with us it holds the meaning for us. I got some of such advice from people during my initial days. Satish advised that ‘ I need to learn to say no’. Kumar advised me that ‘I should never ask/query about the something more than once’ that I should keep a record of everything I learn. Ram advised me that ‘As a professional,I should learn to keep my word and not give excuses like a college kid’. Might be very simple things but I think these advices helped me steer my career.
2005!
This year was the most significant year for me and for the project. Ram assigned Kumar to be my mentor and Kumar motivated me with constant chats and got me working in this project. We started with QC support and I rose to the occasion. I got active in this project and Ram became our new manager. Kulkarni joined our project. We acquired L1 support and many fresh faces walked into our project. Sethu,Vidya,Kesini and Avinash joined. Even though there was hardly a gap of 3-4 months from my date of joining and the junior group. I was looked up as a senior in the project for the first time and I belonged to clearcase L2 team :). I went more serious at work and became more dependable. I embraced FIRC support and QualityCenter support was growing. Harikanth joined for QC support and Ragahvendra and Vinodini joined for ADT support. Our team was growing steadily. Sethu and I shared a bond called ADT.
2006!
This was the year of FIRC and I became more senior in the project. Abilash and Pravin joined in the team. This was the year when I built my strong reputation in this team. I was closest to Harikanth at this time and Abilash too. Pravin was more of the silent types but Me and Sethu were never in same shift due to ADT but still our friendship was going strong. At work, I became most actively involved in this year. A few people came and went like Manjesh and Sunil and Senthil and Syed Pasha. Deepak kumar also joined and gave us a hand with QC support even though he was an expert in Unix domain. Also, few people left this project at this time. Satish left this project and went on to manage our sibling project called SDS Unix. Kumar replaced Mani as the onsite co-ordinator.
2007!
This year was boring at first cause there wasn’t anything new. FIRC had started to get on to my nerves and with many people leaving our team and joining IBM.. I had an urge to move on. It was 3 years already and I wanted something new in my life. UK happened to me. A fresh wave joined our offshore team. San joined few months before Sheela, Sujatha , Prabhakar joined our team. some 30 days or testing experience came to my rescue and my reputation in this project was a huge add-on, Veronica readily agreed for me to handle LoadRunner. Everything fell into places and I landed in London! It was a tough job at London. I had close to 15 hours on product training and 25 mins of Knowledge Transfer and was supposed to replace a 12 years experienced guy in this role for 2 years. After a couple of weeks, I picked up at a brisk pace and hardly took a couple of months for me to get totally comfortable at this. I because close to Pravin only after I went to London.. I think. Many more people joined our team when I was in London. I didn’t know most of the people by face but only knew their chat Id’s. Ram left the project exactly after a month I flew to London and Ekram replaced him as our manager.
2008!
Kumar flew back to London and Satish came to London. Ekram left the project and Kumar replaced him as the manger. Few more faces came into project and I knew them only by ID’s. I became very comfortable with my LoadRunner and was working 9to5 and very content about being in London. SK and Sudhi joined this project and looked very promising. The project had grown to its max this year and with recession and a huge loss for UBS came the first ramp down for this project.
2009!
My LoadRunner project got offshore at first and then that role was permanently closed. I got absorbed as a L2 person in the newly formed L2 team. With more ramp downs on their way, This year was all about our teammates getting placed in different projects or different new companies. I read more ‘good bye’ mails this year than ever before. The l1 support team now being referred as the Service desk was transitioned to a team from Perot. The end was coming!
After completion of SD transition, The team was left out with Me, Kulk and Satish. Satish, the last stone of the foundation will be moving out this week. I daresay consider myself and Kulkarni as the remaining pillars of this Monument. One pillar will be roll on Dec22 and Kulkarni will be the last man standing with ruins all around him.
A year back, I couldn’t have comprehended to the fact that this project will end in such a way. Every start has an ending and every end leads to a new beginning.
“Disclaimer:
I have a really really really bad memory and I have missed many people and facts in this. Please excuse me for having edited few facts liberally to fill up holes in memory.”