$ thought | blog

IRCTC is an online railway reservation portal. I always admired the functionality provided by this portal. It simplified life of millions of people by providing very prompt and efficient services in ticket booking and information. From technical perspective, this is really amazing; how they are knitting all the reservation information and maintaining speed of operation as well. I was always fan of this site, until the black day arrived two days back.

I occasionally travel by train. Most of the times, I take benefit of online ticket booking services from IRCTC. I was surprised by the fresh look of the site. I wasn’t knowing that enlightenment was about to end after I logged in the portal. I couldn’t see the reservation form at all! I thought, something is wrong in the server or network and somehow page is not loaded completely. I investigated a little bit and came to know that, the portal is not designed to work with non-IE browsers. I had to reboot machine to Windows and book the ticket but that was very disappointing exercise in all.

This happened because they designed site for only IE browsers. This is the problem I always wanted to hightlight through my previous posts like this and this.

I have already dropped a letter to concerned officials requesting Non-IE compatible website and waiting for response. Government and Public services portals should be designed very carefully considering there might be consumers of those services from every corner of the country. Everybody might be using different software to access those services and it is not impossible to cater all of them. Just follow Standards (...and stick to them)!

I recently completed my one month in my new company. I hold my temptation to express my first impression of company for more than three weeks. I believe, to be fair you should spend at least a month before writing about new company. I was new to concepts of “Flat Organization”, “Agile Practices”, “Stand-ups” and “Sign-ups”. I was hoping to spend a fair amount of time in learning this process and be a part of it. Surprisingly I found it very easy to learn basics of that. Practicing them was even easier because of “Pair Programming” and other similar approaches.
I am not Odd man standing out anymore. I am a thoughtworker! (Somebody at my work will ‘disagree’ with that! )
ThoughtWorks, is amazingly different than other organizations I have seen, visited or been. Following are the things which come on top of mind when I compare ThoughtWorks with any other companies.

1. No cubicles! – This is a blessing! Everyone sits around tables which mostly look like dining tables. All of your team members, are at a proximity where you can directly call him and have a discussion across tables! This increases a little noise in office but it’s worth it. I learned to work in that now.
2. Very energetic team which is very rare to see. In a technical discussion we always run out of time because of overwhelming ideas to discuss on table.
3. Agile at its core which is practiced very religiously!
4. Resources availability. Company which provides high-end latitudes to everybody for personal use. There are virtually not restrictions for personal / technical growth.
5. Every ThoughtWorker is passionate about what he/she is doing!

Comparing ThoughtWorks with any other company is like comparing apples and oranges! Their fundamental structure is different.
I met few of very interesting people in new workplace. I had lots of technical discussions. The very strange thing was, in ThoughtWorks one of my friends opens and closes the discussions with only single phrase –

“Hey, I don’t agree with you! How about that?”

As I announced earlier, I am going to join ThoughtWorks, Pune development center. For past 18 months, I lived in Hyderabad. This was a wonderful experience. People of different language, culture and attire! One of the best times of my life!

For all the good time I had, I owe thank to following list of people. Shriram (raamya) for his coffee breaks and wonderful thought experiments. You're the man! Akshay and group for helping me in first days @ Hyderabad. Madan and Surabh for providing occasional company!

At last my crew from Akanksha; Rambabu for wonderful political, regional and personal views, movies and entertainment. I had lots of good discussion with you. Kameshwar for his humor and enjoyable discussions. Sridevi, Padmavati for their co-operation and fun. Sneha for her brain biting discussions! Manoj for wonderful times having technical discussion and countless fun parties!

Radio City 106.4 / 91.1 FM for their wonderful music! Aparna (RJ for 'Chalo Chalte Raho' show) for her wonderful talks and entertainment. Thank you for giving me opportunity to speak me on Radio for 90 seconds on 6th December, 2006. I specially enjoyed your show everyday on the way to office. You are my favorite RJ for the year 2006! Gautami (RJ for 'Nato Vastara' show) for her sweet talks and cute behavior. You are a wonderful person with a great smile. I don't know Telugu but just your show taught me to understand some of words! Being a Marathi person, I enjoyed your show everyday on way back to home!

Thanks to Sify for providing me internet services for whole year. Not the best, but you are good provider. Without you, this was impossible to have wonderful discussion with my loving friend Neelesh in USA.

Thanks to Neelesh for talking me almost everyday and talking on lots of topics. Great company dude! Hope to continue same discussions from Pune.

Final thanks go to my movie library person (Anna) who provided me hundreds of movies throughout the year! You made my holidays enjoyable! Thanks to Prasads IMAX, PVR Cinemas, Sangeet, and Raja for showing me great movies for the weekends and holidays.

Altogether, the stay at Hyderabad was wonderful and definitely added lots of memories to my personal life. I learned lots of things which will help me through the rest of time. Tonight I start my final journey towards Pune. Given a chance, will love to be a Hyderabadi! Again!

Thank you for the all persons who became part of life in Hyderabad. I always owe a big Thank to you.

Good bye Hyderabad!