Life in the Software Industry: Sleepy Days, Sloggy Nights

Here is an account of how I saw things working in the software industry.... an excerpt from my diary, about 2 years back...
Excuse the dated comments on Dravid, but it gives an added flavor to the script... :)

You could compare my day here to the One-Day matches from 1971. The day starts on an extremely lazy note – quite opposite to what I prefer – when the batsmen are very watchful, and keep the bats straight, no matter how badly the other team manages to bowl. The idea is not to lose wickets, lose the sense instead.

People turn up at 10-11, they do not feel the need to divide work between the group, there are people sitting idle, there are people working a bit, lazily. Minds are just warming up, axons are slowly bundling up to shine brighter. Not until the lunch arrives does the mind become active enough.

Post-lunch is where you see some activity. The run rate is extremely low, though wickets are intact (nobody has lost his cool), its like 25 runs scored in 20 overs. The buzz builds up and slowly you manage to keep yourself busy till late evening. In between, you take breaks, look at some great girls around, and then more than some of those average ones, and then some of the hot aunties, who in their early thirties, dress nice enough to make 'men in their late teens' to look again! Sometimes you wonder whether this is all the choice that you have, may be you deserve better. Something more exciting, interesting. Then I remember that they deserve better too.

By the evening, they have already played 45 overs and are 109/2 or thereof. Time is running out, and now they can literally see it running out. Its already six. They cant work more than 5 hours now! (God! I feel that such geeks should never inherit the earth!)

The slog overs begin, people start running around, and if you take a snapshot at any given moment of time, you would find more people out of their seat than on it! Here also you have 2 types of people. Some like Jonty Rhodes hate the crease (the seat) and would forever be in the middle of nowhere. Then there are others like Rahul Dravid would keep their head even in the slog overs, and their seat, come what come may.

The first to leave are the ones that came first. But they make it easy for others by promising some runs early in the morning tomorrow, the next innings.

Then the sloggers swing. They heave, they swat, they pummel, they whack! Most of the deliveries are beyond their aptitude though. The pace picks up, the rate barely looks up. Finally, at eleven, the stretched 60 overs are up. The score is about 164/9.

“Will they be able to chase it?” asks one of the teammates (“Can we complete the project on time?”)

“Who ever has!” smiles the other.

There begins the long walk to the pavilion.