bad luck

One of my dear friends, who is getting married on 27th February, just finished 1 year in his current company on 11th Feb. I was asking for a party from him on this occasion. Somehow he denied for party. At this time we were not aware what destiny had for him tomorrow. A day after this, I was in office and I got a call from one of my college friend who told me that Sapient has just laid off several employees. My friend was also in this company, so to worry about him was my natural response. I was not aware about the fact that my friend was also on bench from last 5 days.
I called him to know about him, but his phone was going busy. I tried for around 1 hour, just to get same response. Later on I got a call from him, and the thing which should not happened, had happened. Sapient had taken a step of retrenchment, and axe had fallen on around 600 employees, and of those unlucky employees 3 were my friend. My friend about whom I am writing was consistently in project for last 360 days. But unfortunately when Sapient had taken this step he was on bench. Neither their past performance nor their bench duration was taken into consideration.
Luck has its own share for this friend of mine, who is with me since 2001(starting of 1st year in college). Very talented and sharp guy, who finished his engineering with more then 70% marks, struggled with me after college to get a decent job. My struggle was finished in January 2006 but his struggle prolonged for few more days. We appeared together in MBT's interview in Noida, while I was asked some normal questions from engineering, he was grilled in concept of physics from school level. Later on he completed his PG diploma in embedded from C-DAC Mohali, but unfortunately he did not get a job from there as well. In one company when he was short listed, the company did not get project for which they were recruiting these people. Later on he get through ABB, and selection in ABB itself tells his level of knowledge. After hopping from Mumbai to Bangalore he came to Gurgaon for Sapient, to receive this award for his hard work. Average of 10-12 hours per day was his routine in this company, which gave him this reward. He will definitely get a better job from this and I am sure for this, but his faith has been shattered by this incident. And to make the matter worse this incident took place when it was least expected, just a fortnight before his marriage.
He has got an offer from his past employer by the time I am writing this blog, which might turn into blessing in disguise. Hope for the best for him.

funny, isn't it

It took almost a month for me to decide what I should write. Still at the time of writing as well I am not pretty clear about whom or on which topic I should write. The reason for being idle for this duration was my daily struggle. The area in which I am currently living has severe water problem, area is known as DLF phase -3, where water comes only for 30 mins in morning and 30 mins in evening. We have a water tank on the ground floor which fills from the supply water, and once the supply water is off, we route water from this tank to the tank on the roof, as per our need. The mechanism written here must be looking very simple to you all, but it is as complex as it can be. Let me take a scenario, Supply water timing is 7.00 AM to 7.30 AM, and during this duration we are also getting light supply, then to route this water from tank at ground floor to tank at roof, after 7.30 Am as well light should be there. And further in the winter season I need some more time to heat the water to be used for bathing purpose. So It would need at least 75 minutes of continuous light supply.
Now to make the matter worse imagine a situation when light goes at 7.30 AM and comes at 9 AM, or light goes at 7.00 AM or goes at 7.45 Am. So it becomes very tough for me and my flat mates to take bath daily :) . So not to find myself in midst of such scenario, I used to get up at 6 Am in the morning, to make the proceedings easier. one or two times my friend went to his office without taking bath, so remaining two of my friends thought that they will wake up at 05.30 Am in the morning. And will start their daily rituals. The day they decided to wake up at 5.30 Am in the morning I applied a alarm of 5.25 Am, and thus finish my bath first. Now again the load shedding schedule has been changed and light goes at 5.30 Am. So now Our wake up time has again been shifted.
Every time I wake up at or before 6, I starts thinking is it really necessary to wake up so early. That's why I used to go to bed early in the night, and was not able to write blogs. This complete struggle changed me in such a way that now I started planning in advance, as now in the evening only I fill a bucket, dip the immersion road in the bucket, and plug in the switch. So the only task remained for morning is to switch on the plug. How many times did I not ask my flat mates to change the flat, but as this is near to their office so they are not comfortable in moving from this place, and thus all my hues and cry about changing the place goes in vain. And on Friday evening when I have got some time, when I am not in a situation when I need to wake up early on Saturday morning, I am burning midnight oil to write this blog. This is the place which we call as Gurgaon.