It's Vivek: Working @ Ahmed Plaza

Having been placed on the 'free pool' in these now deadly dangerous recessionary times, while IT companies are laying people off using whichever excuse possible .... the opening (& subsequent call up) from Infotech came like a huge relief.

It meant that I'd have to work at Ahmed Plaza - a small company facility that I'd never paid much attention to on the way to the EC campus. Reported there on 6th July probably. Jayamohan came across as the professional boss .... somebody for whom work came first .... fair enough. I liked his introductory talk though.

Then there were the colleagues .... Mantuno, Prashant and Rahul. Though Rahul wasn't on our project, he would always accompany us on our tea/coffee breaks. These 3 were some of the nicest guys I've ever met. I won't forget the numerous chat sessions we had while having coffee outside the office and often under the Bangalore Elevated Tollway flyover between pillar nos 196 and 197!

The work was mostly forgettable ..... calling up Deepak who was in Delhi & forever reluctant to take our calls, alongside Puneet, whom I somehow never got around to liking. Apart from this there was work on the prototype and .... that was about it.

The memories that stand out are those of the food .... it was horrible. I lost a few kilos in the 2 months I was there. And of course, the announcement of the technology change .... 'the client has decided not to go ahead with xxx platform since they don't want to spend on the licenses' .... effectively placing those of us who had just transferred in from Technologies & didn't want to relocate to Gurgaon/Hyderabad exposed to the vagaries of the free pool once again.

Anyway, all that's over now ..... Sarjapur is a far better place - food-wise; traffic-wise; facility-wise and 'greenery'-wise.

But there's one thing about A.P. that I'll miss .... the fantastic views just across the boundary walls. After all, how often does one get to see stuff like this ....