the YOUNGEST Child

I will have a chance of getting all your parents’ love and they wont say a ‘No’ to me often if I am the only child to my parent. This was what I thought during my childhood days especially when I had 3 siblings elder to me. And to be frank, I was not the pet of my dad or mom during my childhood days even though I was youngest. It was not their fault. My mouth was always wide open crying. I never let anyone interfere in my life. Even in my kindergarten stages I studied all alone. I was more lonely than a single child during those days.

I was self-fulfilling. I can play cricket alone - by bowling to wall and hitting back when it came make or by batting with a ball hanged from the roof, or I can play cards all alone with 6 hands. But its always better to play with many instead of all alone. To have daily evening cricket session or to play cards with all my family members were always better. So my “only child” theory fails. Being alone, unless it is self imposed, its boring and more importantly irritating to me.

But being the youngest was always fun. You can do all mischief and just point your fingers at your sibling. You are the safe. Just like ladies, tears are always for your rescue. (When I was even 12 years, my dad had given an offer of giving me one rupee on each “non-crying” day. I seldom let my father lose his money.) While playing cricket, I never lost more than 3 matches in a row or to phrase it in better manner – my bro hated me crying on ground, why to get thrashed. But off-grounds he always enjoyed making me cry. To cry was always my best weapon. Most days I would cry and would sleep just to skip dinner. My dad was always on my side, though he knew I was not innocent. There is a syndrome found widely among the youngest kid – Monday morning stomach-ache; I was not different.

But with time things has changed. I completed my studies and became salaried. I became more attached to my family like never before. And I started to face the youngest-child crisis. Even when I am going for a shopping, I need to report to mom. At the age of 10 or 15 its fine, but at 25!! If I am doing more than usual, I have to report to all my siblings and get permission from all of them even though final decision was always mine. And the worst according to me is someone else making budget for me. On the other hand, for my elder bro, things are just opposite. He is matured, responsible and whatever I am not. Everyone at home, rely on him like anything.

Now I feel, I should not have been the youngest. I don’t want to be under shades of anyone anymore. But what do to, I have enjoyed the same shades for more than couple of decades and I cant always get best of all. And I am happy about being the youngest.

We are the hardworking Software Engineers

When I was young I have heard someone saying, the laziest people on earth are school teachers. They had summer vacations, 2 set of other 10 days vacations, all 2 days weekend-off, class timing not more than 9:15 to 4:00, same syllabus for atleast 5years and more importantly no risks at all. But the best part is most of them will be complaining about their ‘hectic’ life. 

Time has changed, professions have changed, and schedules have changed. Teachers have to work on Saturdays, vacation classes are common and their life got more hectic but they are no more complaining.

Then who has replaced teachers of past decade??

 I believe it's people like me, “Software Engineers”. We usually have 5 days week. We just have to sit and relax in air-conditioned rooms for 9 hours of which normally we work for not more than 6 hours. And the funniest part is, we are doing something any high-school pass out can do; but we talk to others as if we are  working on rocket science. Salary, we can`t compromise on that, we need a 100% hike every year.

There are many common things I have heard or observed from many of my friends who are holding the designation.

1. If we reach office by 11:00, we are early. But we will stay till 7:30 in the evening. (Obviously girls cannot work after 6pm, it is late. Yeah, they can roam on a weekend till midnight, that’s a different scenario)
2. We don’t know why, all our seniors are dumb. Senior Software Engineers are dumb, Team Leads/Tech Leads are dumber and Project Managers are the dumbest.
3. We know how our seniors reached there- playing politics and favouritism.
4. At work, we have a “Use Me” tag; all works no one wants to do, will always come to us.
5. If we work on a night, we had a hectic day and need a compensatory-off. Same rule applies if we work on a weekend, even if it is for one hour.
6. Fridays are days for fashion-show at office, don’t miss it. (I loved my bus ride to Electronic City)
7. In a discussion, always use some random terminologies. For example, I once told my Lead, “The method you have implemented is based on greedy algorithm. This is a particular case of knapsack problem and we need to have a proper backtracking”. And my Lead immediately waved a green flag to my new algorithm.
8. After all these great works, there comes the appraisal. Everyone whom we hate will get a grade change or better hike, and never for us.
9. And finally we are bored with our work and no hikes too. We are going to try our luck with next employer

When it comes to person life, we again have some strict rules.

1. We can’t wake before 7:30 though we prefer 8:00. But on weekend, we cannot wake before 10:00. We hit the bed after 12, not even got knows what we do till that time.
2. We can wear only branded items, be it a shirt, jeans, shoes or whatever it is.
3. Volvo is the only bus we can get in. While travelling we need to hear songs from our phone and will be having a thick Novel to make others think we are reading a lot.
4. Multiplex is the only place apart from your laptop where we can watch movies. A movie ticket can never be cheaper than 250 bucks.
5. Bars are something which is no more matching us, we will visit only pubs.
6. We meet more friends in Facebook or GTalk rather than in person. We cannot live without internet for sure.
7. We can give treats with food-coupons like Sodhexo and Ticket coupon but cant buy you a Paav-Baaji by paying 15bucks.

If I have missed out any, please add them below.