Over a year ago (2nd August 2004), Prasanna joined our company - month after I did. I knew him when we were up in Kandy but hadn't seen him for several years. He just got married when he joined in and was also fresh out from campus. I didn't know how good Prasanna was until I started to work with him. Over the first few weeks all I noticed was that he's punctual on coming to work as well as leaving! He came sharp at 9 am and left sharp at 6.
But with time passing by and getting to work with him closely I realized how good he was and how effectively he manages the 9 hours he spend in office. He always made sure that he puts in 8 productive hours to the project. His technical skills were surprisingly high for a fresh campus graduate. There were quite a few occasions where he surprised me with his skills.
Unfortunately for him... it wasn't the expectation of our project leadership. They expected long hours of work from every one and they never realized the potential of this naive engineer. All he required was a very little mentoring to become one of the best software engineers in the company. Had he received that I'm pretty sure he would have one day become a great architect.
Over time he realized his contribution is appreciated neither by the project leadership nor by the company management. He started to put on extra hours which were the only visible expectation. But unfortunately the perception was set firmly and it didn't seem to change. Over time he got discouraged, frustrated and heart broken because of this and decided to leave the company. When the project leadership realized his value, it was too late. The company management never seemed to realize it.
Today is the last day of Prasanna at our office. I wish him all the best at his new office and hope he'd receive the appreciation he deserves there.
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