Kaleidoscope

I think I am one of those few lucky people who have gotten a chance to work in ThoughtWorks. ThoughtWorks is a global consultancy firm that specializes in delivering excellent custom software solutions. But I am not going to talk about ThoughtWorks like I am delivering a sales pitch to a client. I am talking about ThoughtWorks purely from an employee perspective, based on my experience here for 3 months. I began my journey here as a grad, fresh out of college. We had a 6 week training period in Bangalore. Before that, we had to undergo a month of online training. The first book I was asked to read was "From journeyman to master - how to improve your craft" Right at the beginning, ThoughtWorks trained me to look at my work of developing software as a craft- which requires knowledge, skill, creativity and patience to master. I was so happy while reading that - it felt like I was stepping onto the right path. Then my 'ThoughtWorks University' began. I had a...

At Thoughtworks, we have a 6 week training session where employees from all over the world land up at Bangalore, called ThoughtWorks University. I have been here for a week now, and this time round we have around 10 Chinese grads too. I am really having a whale of a time with them :) They are all really simple hearted folks, with a lot of  'wide-eyed' innocence and all of them are really intelligent. And I just love their features. Atleast the girls' in my batch are exotic beauties, all petite and full of charm. And the guys? Totally cute ;) The first day, I barely got their names- and it was seriously impossible to communicate. Apparently, the Chinese find it very difficult to understand the Indian accent. Besides, all the current grads are from Tenzing and other Chinese small towns, so they dont really know English that well. So most of the time, no matter what we said, they just laughed and nodded. All the Chinese have such smiley faces, and they are so thrilled to simp...

My four years in engineering taught me a fair bit about life too. Here's some of them: Making mistakes may not be the easiest way to learn something, but these lessons last longest.  Somebody knows the answer, you only need to ask. The sanest people lose all rationality when swayed by emotions. Try not to let your emotions rule you. People change. If you can change like them, great- else move on. Your efforts will not always be tangibly awarded. The process matters more than the end.