A tribute to Prabath

On 1st July 2004, I joined Virtusa as an associate software engineer. On my first day, while I was sitting in the library to receive an on boarding kit from HR, I was joined by another guy who joined on that very same day. He was quite a character - agile, shy and quite friendly too. He was Prabath.
I joined in to a project on my third day and Prabath joined the same project a couple of weeks later. I got to know him as an innovative go getter who couldn’t be stopped by any thing. What frustrated others motivated him. He took on what others gave up. He was an achiever in all possible ways.
We both got promoted to software engineer and then to senior software engineer and got assigned to lead roles on the same dates.
Prabath was given the hard job of leading a scattered and mismanaged team and was held responsible for their technical deliveries. I was given comparatively the easy task of coordinating onsite and offshore work. And for Prabath it was this role that brought out the marvel within Prabath. Not only did he coop with the immense pressure that he was pushed to, but he had the band with to help me out as well.
I have witnessed leads that were commended as the best of the breed, but in my perception Prabath stands out of them clearly. Most leads were either techies or friendly “managers”. But Prabath was more than the both. He knew what he was doing and he knew how to lead others. He is a true role model for all the new engineers. He stood by the team all the time and never let the team spirit drift apart, no matter how much pressure he was put on with.
I personally know had I been through what he was put through; I would have quite long before. But he held up and finished the project in true style of a great lead.

It snowed..

Remember?

Incompetent Managers Cost Businesses Too Much.

Canadian business author Laurence Peters proposed in his 1969 book "The Peter Principle : Why Things Always Go Wrong" that employees in hierarchical organizations are promoted to their level of incompetence. There is such pressure in American business to move "upward" that employees continue to win promotions until they reach a level where they simply cannot do the work required of that position.

These employees end up desperately unhappy, struggling to survive and at the same time costing the company money in lost productivity, lowered morale, and less innovation.

Need I tell more?

My new cubicle

Drive to Edmonds under water park

Our client office shifted to a new location which is a bit far to walk from my hotel. To top that the raining season has started and it rains from dawn to dusk on most days. Weather is pretty cold as well…
So I rented a car again on yesterday. Not a fancy one… A KIA Rio Station Wagon. It just serves my purpose of traveling 3miles back and forth every weekday and going for groceries on weekends.
But after getting the car… I felt like exploring the surroundings. So bought few maps and headed west to see the Edmonds under water park. It wasn’t the type of park I expected, but was a large bay area for scuba divers. There was a docking port right next to the “park”

Waves

Learning to capture