This happened last year. Let me list the pathological events in the chronological order :
January:
John announced with much fanfare that he got the funding for a major new project.
But the customer was a gentleman known for extreme impatience and a very short fuse measured on the nanometre scale. In the IT circles, his nick name was 'Software Engineer's Sorrow'.
Our offshore development center was in the inception stage. We had only two employees on board: Myself and John. I was the Facility Manager, Finance Manger and Human Resource Manager rolled together, but of course, was paid a single salary.
"When do we have to deliver this project ?" I asked. But my inner heart, some how, knew that the answer would not be anything a reasonable person would expect.
"We have to finish by end of June, and not a single day more."
"You know that this thing will take at least eighteen months."
"I know, but the customer is Sorrow".
That was a clinching argument. I had no other options left. "Then hurry - Let's go and start hiring people." We had to rope in twenty five software engineers in the next twenty five days. A tall order !
We gave full page ads in the news papers, and started interviewing an unending stream of candidates. Those were gruelling sixteen-hour work days.
February :
"We have done a wonderful job, haven't we ?" John appeared to be pleased with himself.
"What is wonderful about it ? Only two of our recruits have joined till date"
"But we have closed all the positions; haven't we ? the full team will be in place in the next two weeks"
His child-like innocence was simultaneously funny, and plain irritating. It was my duty to caution him : "Don't count your dinosaurs before the eggs hatch".
John remarked that I was a born pessimist.
March :
"The dinosaurs have ditched us ! We have only four people on board." John could not believe the Indian software engineers can be such callous liars.
"I hate to tell you that I told you so, but I did tell you so"
"But they all accepted our offer. They have shamelessly signed on the dotted line. Now why have they not turned up on the day they promised ?"
"Did you try calling them up ?"
"All their mobile phones are switched off. This is incredible"
"Simple. They change their SIM cards every month. To escape from angry recruiters".
"Nam, please help me understand this mess. Why did so many candidates change their minds in the last minute ?"
"They did not change their minds. They were never planning to join us in the first place".
"Then why did they say they accept our offer ?"
"So that they will get a printed job offer on our letter head. Our corporate logo does look majestic, doesn't it?"
"What do they do with the offer letter ? Is it some kind of hobby here like philately ?"
"They can show the letter to their current employer and blackmail them for a raise"
"They will get fired"
"No. More likely, they will get a raise, or promotion, or both. Employers have become so desperate to retain their good workers".
"If they don't get a promotion or raise ?"
"They will show your offer letter to ten other companies and negotiate for better pay"
"And take the best offer ?"
"Exactly. The job market is kind of e-Bay. Everybody is auctioning himself or herself".
April :
We started all over again. More interviews. More offers. More absconders. More swear words from John.
"Half of the project dead line has passed, we are yet to write a single line of code" I observed in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Let us go to some campus and pick up at least a few freshers*".
"They would have been interviewed last year and got placed in various companies".
"You mean, they get their jobs one year before they finish their degrees ?" John had difficulty believing it.
"The next batch of students are yet to join college, but they too have fat job offers on hand. Such is the mad rush for Human Resource in this country".
"Do you have any practical suggestion for me ?"
"You have to plan well in advance. Build the team first, and then look for project funding. Not the other way round".
"Who will pay for them till we get a project ?"
"The bench !" I said, with as solemn an expression as possible.
May :
Finally the team was coming together. But, contrary to the high performance software juggernaut that John had envisioned, what we actually had was a heady mix of engineers from various states. They came in all shapes and sizes, and spoke English in fourteen different accents. John had difficulty in understanding every one of them.
June :
Only twenty percent of the project was completed. The customer was still blissfully unaware. Sorrow had too many businesses for him to track scientifically, so he depended entirely on his bile for keeping everybody on their toes.
July :
The customer suddenly asked for a demo. When he found out that there was none, he instantly blew his top. Dismissed his secretary. Damaged a flower vase. But, in the end, he surprisingly agreed for an extension of the project till August.
After all, even customers can occasionally be reasonable.
August :
One of the team members resigned. Two others went missing without a trace. After waiting for a week, we finally gave up all hope of hearing from them again. The three guys had constituted our Software Requirements Gathering team.
"This has put us back by two months" said John in sheer agony.
"Cheer up. Let the others read the BRD and try to understand it themselves" I said.
"What is a BRD ?" asked John sheepishly.
"Gosh, you don't have a Business Requirements Document ?"
"We were always discussing ways to document the requirements, but never got the time to do it" admitted John.
Suddenly it occurred to me. "John, these three employees were the ones who stayed up late every night to talk to the business folks in USA ?"
"Yes. What about it ?"
"Aha ! That's why they left. You should have rotated the night duties among all the team members".
"When they signed up for the job, they agreed to do night shifts"
"They might have assumed that every one in the team will be doing night shifts"
"How does it matter to them ?"
"In India, My dear John, everything is comparative. If you slog every day till 2 AM with drooping eyes, but your colleagues are happily whistling their way home at 7 PM, people will interpret it as gross injustice. So Rule #1 : When in India, treat everybody equally".
"They did ask me for a change of duty - I didn't take it seriously".
"Rule #2 : When an Indian employee asks for something, listen. Understand. Act. Never ignore their pleas. Demands will not just vanish on their own. But people will".
September :
Since the requirements were lost, every one rose up to the occasion. They started implementing, independent of each other and in their own respective styles, what they thought the customer wanted.
October :
At last, a demo was given to the customer.
It will not help my ego to describe what transpired at the demo, so I will skip to the final outcome : We were asked to scrap everything and rewrite the project from scratch. All the forty thousand lines of it.
November :
When it became clear that the project is going nowhere, a compromise formula was worked out. Half of the code will be retained, and the other half will be downloaded from various open source web sites. Integration of these two halves will take another two months.
December :
It was agreed that all of the code will be downloaded from open source web sites. Customization of the code will take another three months.
January again :
Customization did not work. (Too many clients asked for too many incompatible customizations). It was decided to buy an off-the-shelf software and replace the splash screen with our company logo.
After all, our corporate logo does look majestic.
*Jargon File :
Fresher : A graduate fresh out of college, in the context of applying for a job - as opposed to a candidate with experience. Every young man or woman is entitled to hold this title for 3 or 4 years after graduation.
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