Manish’s Scribble Board

First of all congrats to Shivani Sugandha and Aman Arneja for getting selected ( or offered a post of FTE ) in Microsoft. The interview progress was very rigerous and only two out of 27 people who got shortlisted after the written exam were able to make it.

These two students deserved the offer, but what irked most was their attitude towards interviews. A guy called Ashwin P faced more than 8 hours of interview in total of 5 rounds. Guess! They said “Sorry”. WTF! If these people didnt have to take him, just say him Goodbye in the second ot third round itself. Another very shocking outcome was that of Ayush Sinha. I expected him to get through, but maybe the MS guys thought otherwise.

I met a Senior Test Manager of Visual Studio Team where I perused my internship. His name was Dinesh Bhat, though he didnt recognize me in the first instance, some minor hints made him go back two months and recollect the information. His weirdest reaction was when I said “Sir! Remember, you made the plan for movie Outing - Indiana Jones”.

Well, its time for party, booze and celebrations. Those who couldnt make it, its time to move on. Microsoft is not the only company where one can make his/her carreer.

Lots of developments have been going on of late. I dont even have time to blog on any of them. It has been a daily routine to leave room in the morning and return back around 11PM to sleep. Some of the most interesting events are MobiVision workshop, Rock’s placement, Rock On, RH MIT Campus Placement. Let me start one after another

MobiVision Workshop:

Its a special event in itself,only a few colleges in India have this kind of event. Its more into Mobile Programming. The two platforms being taught are Python on Symbian and Android from Google. The first day the turnout was more than 240 combining both the rooms. One room had Symbian lectures and other had Android. The Symbian part was a bit easy as python is a scripting language wheras Android is on Java which is complied language. The layout is to be designed through XML which is something quite tough to teach first timers. Three days have passed and hope this enthu is alive.

Rock’s Placement:

One of the most happening event of late. Our own Ankur Bansal got placed in CSC with a nice package. This was one of the most relieved moment as many of us were sceptial about his future. CSC made a heart winning announcement to pick up all 17 students who were shortlisted for interview.

Rock On:

One of the most exciting and awaited movie at this time. We had our PeP test on 31st and then headed straight to Aashirvaad theatre at Udupi. The hall is not A/C and it was really a tough job to sit for more than 2 hours in such a stuffy place. We watched the whole movie sweating and sweating. The movie was quite slow but awesome. Arjun Rampal’s acting as a failed guitarist stole the show. Kudos to Shankar Ehsaan Loy for their mind blowing music. All its music tracks are always on my lips

RH MIT Placement:

Racked Hosting visited MIT on 30th of August for posts of Designers, System Administrators and PHP Coders. The nearby college NMAMIT or more famously NITTE were also invited for the placement. The results were really depressing, such a horrible performance. They did return back without a single selection though two people did perform well, but still not considered upto the mark.

Tech Tatva ‘08 is back with a bang, the most awaited event of the year. Whether it be people who want to show off their skills in technical field or be people who want to enjoy half days, Tech Tatva caters the need for all.

As usual there are many categories in which events are being organized. One of them PARAM which contains events in Computer Category is being organized by Shubhendra. It contains 4 events most of them new or redefined to meet the needs of changing time. Here are some of the snapshots of the posters prepared for the event. Credits goes to Abhinit and Aavik.

I have been given the responsibility of organizing CodeBytes which is a classical coding championship. It will contain one screening and a Lab Coding round. Screening round will contain debugging questions in objective and subjective format. The Lab round will be more of code efficiency oriented with more stress on code efficiency and optimality rather than just solving the problems by hook or crook.

The NiteOut event has been replaced by Jour which means Day in French. In this event people will be asked to prepare a fully fledged application for realtime practical use rather than just solving puzzles. The 6 hour restriction has been relaxed to 18-20 hours. Take your time and give us something productive!

The last but most important event is MobiVision is a unique event in itself in the whole country. People are asked to present ideas to make our mobile more intelligent, useful and productive. We are even organizing a Pre-TechTatva workshop for teaching the participants about Mobile Programming. Two platforms are being picked up right now - PyS60 and Android.

So guys, here is the news. Sorry for being late, I was having my day after getting into this company.

Rolling back to Thursday, the day on which Schneider came to our campus, lets start the story. I was too reluctant to sit in it at the beginning. Since I had my DWDM assignment from 10:30 to 11:30 I didnt feel like writing the test as I had not even attended the Pre-Placement talk.

The paper was really mind blowing, 70 questions total which consisted of 56 technical and 14 aptitude. The technical questions were really above the capability of normal computer science students, most of them unheard till date. A paper called Database was included and it looked that this company is in Database management. Only questions of OS and Algorithms such that we could think of giving a try. I didnt try aptitude much, now its a guess that I had just crossed the minimum cut-off.

The  first technical interview was as smooth as butter Being fully relaxed answers strike your mind at a better rate and that too perfectly. In some questions “Havn’t heard Mam!” , “Dont know” were my statement as nothing else could take its place. Second technical was something I never dreamt of! I couldn’t even understand half of the questions asked. :P  At that stage I was having a feeling of being kicked out.

The last round was HR ( I never expected to clear previous two), where I showed my real talent, don’t know how this talent came out all of the sudden since its my first HR interview. This maiden HR interview was better than all of the technical interviews I have given till date. I really think that the guy was impressed.

I got a job in Embedded Systems department of this Electric company. It has a two year bond which I have to sign during signing of the offer letter. This is completely a new branch for me and I hope to perform my best in the coming days.

This time it’s chance of Jharkhand to enjoy the taste of political instability. Multi party system was introduced in India to give the representation of the whole country, since national parties were felt to be inadequate. This could have been a good theme at the time of Independence but not at this time. We have seen so much of unrest in last few years such that it makes me think twice.

Most of the political instability is faced in states which are small in size of have very small seats in Assembly. Since these states have limited Assembly strength, according to an act passed some years ago, these states should not have more than 14 ministers. This is the main cause of unrest in most states though I strongly support that act.

Jharkhand is a state which has made news to some very unexpected developments. Once the Governer called up Shibu Soren to form the government even though it was clear that he didn’t have to majority. Sometime an independent becomes the CM of state. This was the first time in history of India. Shibu Soren has asked Madhu Koda to resign to make way for him. Shibu Soren is facing punishment for massacres, still he wants to become the CM. I can only say WTF!

Years passing and watching all these political drama, I have become more staunch supporter of two-party system. It can stop bribes, cash-for-votes like scams and many more dirt privailing in our current politics. Buying an MLA/MP for cash has become a common news even though anti-defection rules are in place.

I dont have much to say, this post was just to bring my heart out on the feeling which I cant express. Having lived in Jharkhand for so many years, only god can save it one day.

Before starting I would like to state that its a flame post, read it only if you can digest properly.

All my fellow readers might be knowing about the much hyped Microsoft internship which was offered to me last semester.I screwed up my academics (to some extent) to get this prestigious opportunity. What was the final outcome of it? Read on…..

When I arrived at the office, I was nearly taken away by the impressive building, the superb lifts, cokes and coffee machines. We had night cab drop and food allowance. Everything looked so impressive! Slowly I came to know that this India Dev Center is just a place where M$ dumps all its useless and crappy work which they think “The Redmond guys” should not handle at all. Its nothing but cheap labour !! We are paid CTC of say 9 lakhs, but look back a little. We are being underpaid badly and that too without an overtime pay. Isnt this cheap labour? (I repeat again) What work is being handled here? Visual Studio Tools, SMS UI, Wordpad UI and product experience groups. This may be daring work to some extent, but not at all core job from any angle. The whole Visual Studio is being build somewhere else, Wordpad is built somewhere else, just the UI testing is over here. IE is built at Redmond, but testing work is sent here. WTF!

I always had thought that India was one of the top countries when it comes to IT sector. Is it really true? Narayanmurthy had clearly said that until we improve out hardware proficiency, we cant advance at all, and I firmly stand by his statement. NASSCOM and all these Indian organization rely too much on foreign companies rather than starting their own business without external help. They don’t dare make M$ angry and this was the reason why they backed OOXML for Indian stand at ISO.

Again once I wondered why all big MNC’s choose India as their destination? They cite “Good Brains, Nice Workforce, Good English Speaking Professionals”. I agree with first and third but not with second. It should be remodelled “Nice Cheap Workforce”. We have lax labour laws in our own country and people are made to work hours and hours after office timings for completing their work. Can this happen in the US and European countries? I can only say that whatever the big MNC’s say, India and developing countries are nothing but a place to cut costs, cheap abundant labour makes it simpler. They would never go out of their slavish mentality and keep all their core development in top-secret centers which cannot be a developing country at any cost!

My last line is “Work for an MNC if you want, you would be lucky if you had freedom and got a prestigous work in real sense (not in sense of salary)”