Chapter 8 – The on-siters abroad!
What I had witnessed till now was just the tip of the Ice-burg. Staying in US, I observed the great disparity about what we feel about the on-siters in India and how on-siters actually stay in other countries.
There is something about the on-site air. It is really amazing to see how the Indians who never cared about manners in India become so civilized at the bus stops and traffic signals there. They don’t litter around and they don’t enjoy fighting in the streets. Most amazingly! They even lose their natural habit of urinating at open places.
But they don’t become an American either. In fact, those who enjoy long on-sites become a crusader of protecting the ‘Indian culture in an American way’. They want to earn like American but spend like an Indian. They want to enjoy an American lifestyle but don’t want their children to grow up like Americans. They want to like American food but are unable to do so due to the lack of spice.
However, this on-site lifestyle was not my biggest issue. The most dangerous part of my stay there was to face the client ‘face to face’. In India it was easy to confuse the client by dropping an e-mail. There we knew that the reply would arrive in 10-12 hours as per the American working hours. By then we would have discovered a fix. But now, being at the client location, I had to do to create a confusion of the same magnitude with the client standing on my head.
My immaturity in client handling led to some hiccups at first. It happened once that a bug fix by me crashed their entire system and there were concerned Americans all around me. It was easy to handle one American by an e-mail. But I had not yet learned the art of handling twenty, that too, on a live footage.
My American manager, Steve declared a post-lunch emergency meeting. I was given the task to analyze and report the cause of crash. It was a scary moment for me. Never before had I felt the fear of proving myself a fool in front of the client.
I desperately checked the log files, the core dump and configuration files. I searched for a weak spot to cover my sin. But everything clearly pointed to my mischief with the system. If it were India, I could have easily placed the blame on a junior. But being in client location, I had no place to escape.
My sin was a great one. If proven correctly, the consequence could have been massive. It could have lead to the cancelation of my on-site. Or worse! It could have cost me my project or even my job.
But despite my best effort, I found no escape from my eminent disaster. So with a heavy heart I went to have my last on-site lunch.
I have a strong belief that God comes to rescue whenever he see his child in pain. And he creates opportunities to guide his true believers towards truth and light. It happened with me as well. That day, while taking my meal, I overheard two Desi on-siters at the cafeteria.
“I still can’t believe it man. After crashing their entire network how you could pull it off so easily?” said one
Hearing this, the other guy looked offended and denied the allegations. (An Indian nature)
“I didn’t do it. Listen!! I, being an experienced Software Engineer (Indian), it couldn’t have been my fault. Also, they, being our Client (god), it couldn’t have been their fault either.”
“Then whose fault was it?”
“It was the system’s fault. As I analyzed the logs thoroughly, I found that the system was behaving erratically with the new configuration changes and….”
As soon as he uttered those words, I caught the idea as well. Why shouldn’t I blame the crash on the machine? I know that it was difficult to prove this. But I had no other way to handle the crime.
If my words can influence my manager in India, then why shouldn’t I try my caliber at an international forum like this? In this age of globalization one should be able to ’influence’ managers universally without regards to region, caste or creed.
As I thought about this, I found my tension going away. I became relaxed and confident. I came out from the cafeteria and moved straight towards the meeting room. I swear guys! I didn’t know what I was going to do. But I knew that I had the ability to cook up one nice story for them. As I open the door, I saw a bunch of Americans anxiously waiting to be ‘influenced’ by me.
“May I come in Steve?”
“Yes, you may. So I guess everyone is here now. Go ahead with your findings Rohit.” commanded my American manager, Steve
Without wasting time or diluting my puffed up confidence, I started my great story
“As I went through the log files, I was surprised to find that the crash happened just after I integrated my fixes with the system”.
No guys I was not cutting my throat, I was only displaying my level of commitment to the Americans.
“Hmm”, the Americans sighed
“At first I thought of taking the responsibility for the crash. But then I thought of confirming (confusing) it further.”
I looked at them for a moment and continued
“Then I went through the core dump generated from the crash and I saw that….”
The suspense for the crash was growing among Americans. I could see it in their eyes. It was time to turn the tables and blame it on the faithful machines.
“I saw tha, the crash happened before hitting the code modified by me. Also, as the code was fully tested. I had no doubt that it could have been responsible for this crash.”
“But Rohit, when I went through the core dump, I found that it did hit your code.” interrupted an intelligent American, Peter
Oh no! The American had caught me. What could do now?
Don’t worry folks. It is common in the software industry. Sometimes, you can find intelligent clients as well. All you need then is some good convincing skills. Since these foreign clients are highly outsource dependent. They have less understanding of the code. All you have to do then is to make them believe that you are correct. They should feel your bluff deep inside and take it as truth.
“Yes, Peter! It did hit my code. That is what I meant. The log files and core dump both indicate that the code modified by me was hit.
But did you see the core dump after that? My function called a system function and the code crashed at that point. Why? (Because I passed wrong parameters to the function) Because the system didn’t have enough memory required for that function. The system’s memory had exhausted.”
I had played my trick well. By then, the Americans were already looking confused. They looked at each other’s face and thought of while. Then Steve suggested
“In that case, I think we can just clean up the system and restart your software”
Oh Shit! They would make it crash again. To stop them, I replied desperately.
“Yes, we can do that, Steve. But first, I will make some changes in my code to make it utilize the memory more efficiently (to make it call the function correctly).”