Softies - The laughing stock

Its about 2 years since I started working in my famed company. 2 years have flown in a jiffy. I've learned a lot about work, co-workers, discussions, conferences, meetings and other inherent bits and pieces of a global company. But initially, I never understood one thing alone - why are software engineers the laughing stock?

About one year back, when we were searching for a house in Bangalore, I got the first hit. We were told by the broker to project ourselves as students or just joined employees of a local bank. The reason? If we dare speak the truth, that we are software engineers, zing! the rent will go up by almost 20 percent. And advance, beats everything, will be up by 50%. This happens almost as a rule.

Speak about health disorders, and the talk automatically revolves around the perils of being a software engineer, when scores of people from other professions - Researchers, Call centre workers, Computer operators, Office workers - are as good and as bad. Talks about infidelity, broken marriages, overwork, and even suicides, murders, you name it - everything centers on techies, and softies, as we are called in Bangalore.

After thinking so much about this, I found the reason why so many people envy softies. Its the same reason why America is at the centrestage of hate of the most of the world. Software engineers, in general, have more money, power and fame. Three things that make people scorn.

A ready made world ..

Blogging was never my passion. But writing was. I've been frequently accused of spamming several mail groups, discussion boards etc. All because of the love for writing! Did anyone say writing is a good habit? Apparently society doesn't think so.

One year back, I never envisaged that I would jump into the league of bloggers - where anything and everything I write would be taken. I'm the God and the servant here. :) The concept of designing web pages sounded real tough, until yesterday. But what awed me was the relative ease with which so many pals of mine are jumping into the blog world. Thanks to Chandoo, I realized, yet again, that we are living in a turnkey world, where lots of things are free of cost, and free of hard labour.

And now, here I am. 2 hours of work with the blog, and an arguably not so bad looking blog is up. I didn't do much coding, except for some tweaks that add the finesse. Taken that I'll be doing zillion changes in future proche, but still a ream of satisfaction has encircled me for the job I've did so far.

One thought alone hits me hard like a brick - a mention in the admission letter that the average slumber we enervated folks would get everyday would be around 4-5 hours. One other odd against blogdom. I'm hoping to overcome it. Lets see how the whole thing goes ...

First try!

This microcosm is infested with bloggers.

Infested is exactly the word. I was finally able to find a unique URL that no one else has picked up after a struggle that costed nearly 100 Rs - considering the salary I'm worth every hour, in contemporary figures. :) And, finally, due to the unavailability of any fancy name - from cloudnumbernine, groundzero, cielo to CivitasDei, every URL is booked - my own name helped. Thank God. Damn we mortals for eating up all free resources!

After a bout of frustration - and tips from scores of my blogging friends, I've finally jumped into the blogging bandwagon. But am already feeling drained.

So here I go.. I don't promise that by reading my blog readers would attain nirvana. Well, to be honest, I don't expect my readers to be that way coz of the simple fact that such people would have better things to do rather than visit my blog! That's about what I'm not going to do. Now what I'll *try* here is to give my Godforsaken readers some time-pass, some fun, to let them see something beyond this otherwise boring world. Remember, I'm not promising this either!