I seriously don't know from where to start??? I
still remember the very first day when I came to Mumbai to join TCS
the first wind that given thrust to my career plane. We
[Siddharth,Pramod,Gourav,Kamlesh (all my ILP mates)] reported to TCS
RMG(resource management group which has the responsibility to assign
the projects to new/experienced employees of TCS). We came to know
that we were allocated to project IE State Bank of India. We were
supposed to report to SBI Global IT center Belapur Navi Mumbai.
On
3rd March 2011, I joined SBI project in mumbai. Our Project lead
Vishy had taken our interview and we were welcomed aboard in SBI TCS
Team. There are a lot of teams which work collectively in order to
give support to SBI. Some of the teams like PSO, PSO Arc, GL Team,
Loans , Deposits, GLIF, NDVP, Con-fig, Testing etc etc. All teams
work as a single body in order to support the huge banking system of
SBI. I was selected in PSO team. Siddharth, Pramod and Gourav also
were selected in PSO Team.
SBI project is just like a temple of knowledge. You
can learn a lot of things like .Net,Unix, Shell scripting, Perl,
Oracle SQL, PL SQL, Cobol, PHP, Databases, CGI etc depending on the
team in which you are allocated. I was allocated to PSO Team so I got
to learn about UNIX, Unix Shell Scripting, Oracle SQL/PLSQL. But for
learning things you have to be self motivated and give your 100
percent.
I still remember the words from my lead that “In
SBI there is a lot of things to learn and only sky is the limit for
the learning”. He told me that I am supposed to monitor and give
support to the SBI Systems which drives 20% of India's economy. He
told that for my job I should be efficient enough in Unix as it is
like a bread and butter for the project. I felt very proud from
inside and puffed my lungs with air. After our Interview with vishy
we all were introduced to the PSO Team. I was introduced to the
monitoring team, module leads and other team members with whom I am
supposed to work in coming days in SBI. Vishy told pointing to
monitoring team that this is the hot spot from where issues popped
out and were resolved. I was told that PSO team has six Bogs in
place. I can choose any of the bogs and sit with the team mates and
know the system in a precise way. I went to Bog 1 and meet Amit Ji
and Venus. What a personality??? Venus always used to be in happy
mood. He always have some story with him and ready to make everyone
cheerful with his talks. He was the guy who introduced me with the
system on the very first day. Amit ji was having a very calm and
serene kind of personality. He was really down to earth and have a
enormous amount of patience. I am damn sure I will never gonna meet
such kind of person in my whole life.
The best experience in SBI is the PSO Team. It was a
awesome feeling to work with such a team. I felt like my college days
were back. Everyone use to support everyone. We not only used to work
together but we used to share our every good or bad, happy or sad
experiences. We used to share our celebrations / frustrations /
angriness / funny franks. One day I got very much frustrated with
something in the project then I met one of my team lead Jaiwant. He
is a person with very good leadership qualities. He acts like a
catalyst for the person whose life became slow and steady because of
some office or personal issue. He had the solution for everything. He
used to motivate people a lot and finally pump them with all kind of
positive energy. Every another people whom I met in SBI have unique
quality. For Instance Nishikant / Rahul Hooda [ Tech Guru] , they
have everything in their database. Whenever any issue came in SBI
systems they just smile and give the fixes in a very calm manner. I
have never seen in my whole career that these people were tensed
because of any issue in SBI. They don't have pressure word in their
dictionary.
I had to travel daily from thane to belapur for my
work in SBI. It was difficult though but somehow I managed it for six
months then I planned to shift to some where nearby to office. But
the decision of shifting to belapur was not easy as I have to leave
my college friends and start of from level 0 alone. After making my
decision ahead I started searching for an accommodation near by
Belapur. Then I met Kitty[Krishnamurthy] that is what the whole PSO
team used to call him. He was a nice guy and he was about to shift
somewhere else in belapur only. I felt like shifting to belapur
nearby to office will be beneficial for me. This is the reason I
shifted to belapur and had kitty,Ravi, Darshan and Nithin as my new
room mates. Belapur, Its a very calm place in hearts of Navi mumbai
far away from the crowded roads and streets of Mumbai. Unlike Mumbai
it had a very calm and peace environment. Whenever I felt bored I
used to stroll around the creak area of belapur with my office
colleagues. Belapur has lot of options for a guy who is kind of
foodie. It has a great destination for person who enjoy having
variety of Indian cuisines . Sri krishna, Surash, Sugrash, Calypso,
Center Point, Turning Point, Biryani Guru, Kinara, Lazeez Garden,
Vandana etc are the list of top places where foodies want to hang
around and have a blast. Thats all about Belapur.
Coming back to PSO project, there was a lot of cons
attached to it as well. We have to work in shifts IE 24X7 project. We
as a team work in three shifts IE Morning,Afternoon and Night shift.
Only Project Managers, Team Leaders and Module leaders have the
luxury of coming in general shift. Talking about work life balance at
work it was not at all possible, the only reason is that our daily
routine used to be based on shift schedule [Our shift time table] and
planning out any thing was not that easy. Even if you were willing to
involve in some extra curricular activities apart from office hours
that was not an easy go. People working in PSO team not have the
luxury of enjoying on so called holidays like Holi, Diwali,
Christmas, etc. We also used to work even on national holidays like
Republic day and Independence day. I still remember although having
plans for diwali, I ended up working in night shift on diwali.
Nothing was in place like leave policy, release or transfer policy,
appraisal policy, work around in shifts etc. I should not complain
but even getting a leave approval was not a zap of knife. You had to
plan your leaves in advance IE before 3-4 months ahead only. Getting
a leave was just like a Rollo coaster ride which used to have a lot
of ups and downs. So in PSO not only work but every other thing was
the challenge. Just imagine how a person is going to feel if he
drafts one request mail to someone and eagerly waits for the reply.
But finally at the end he gets a reply after 2-3-5 months. How could
anyone is going to keep a track of mail which he has sent 2-3-5
months back.??? That was really frustrating and irritating. Every
other day people will be getting blasting for one or other reason
without being known about the gravity of the situation. I have seen
a lot of talents getting killed in PSO not because they were not
willing to do anything its only because there was a lack of proper
platform,support and motivation.
One thing about PSO project is that its a awesome
place if you want to get settle, then this project is like a heaven
for you. Since every work is dependent on the job checklist which is
followed throughout the day, there was a little probability of any
issue coming in normal work around in our project. Sometimes we used
to devote our full day just monitoring the SBI systems without the
intervention of any issue. We have the luxury of going to breaks for
1-1.5 hours after the arrival of afternoon shift team since there was
an overlapping of 3 hours for morning and afternoon shift team. The
project is heaven for those people who are not bothered by
monotonicity of work.
After
spending two years of my career in PSO team, I started planning to
move on. There was a strong urge inside me to change the environment
around me. I posted my profiles on job portals and started getting
calls from other firms. Having worked for 24X7 project and knowing
all the process and technicalities of such project, I just had the
basic expectation from new job. I was in search of more challenging
profile which would involve a lot of learning and motivation. Now I
never wanted to repeat the job of 24X7 support project. Yes for one
thing I will be really thankful to SBI PSO, the technologies that I
worked upon IE UNIX,Shells and Oracle. This project gave me a very
strong foundation for my Technical skillet and was really helpful for
building core blocks of my career. After working for PSO you will see
a Unix pro inside you. I appeared for many interview and got selected
too. But the mere expectation of not working in shifts kept me away
from many offers. Finally I got an offer from one product based firm
in Pune.
Last
day, I really felt bad I was about to leave PSO team, the place where
I learn so many things. I hope to work with such nice team in coming
future. I am really uncertain about my team with whom I will be
working in near future. I am really anxious. I am really going to
miss my every single moment I spent in PSO team. I still remember the
last PSO party in J9 lounge. Finally I got released from services of
TCS on 5th April 2013. Right now I am looking forward to work for
gemalto, a firm dealing with digital security in Pune.
Thank
a lot for going through my blog. Bi Bi and hope to meet you soon with
new stories.
Chandan Singh