Of Conferences and Coffee

“It’s so boring ! When will he stop? “I whispered to Parag as I wrapped my duppata closer to myself and shivered , “ And why do they have to keep the AC so low ? Are they trying to recreate Antarctica? “

“No, silly it’s a new experiment they are trying at mass freezing ! They freeze us and then use our DNA to replicate us and use us as soldiers in the Cambodian civil war “whispered back Parag, doodling with his pen as always.

For those of you who are still trying to figure out the background in spite of the title and the thread of conversations, Parag is my colleague and we were unfortunately caught in the middle of a highly boring software testing conference paper presentation where the speaker unfortunately thought he was Kem Carner’s sibling.

With Presales as a job profile, the onus of making our company presence felt at various testing conferences falls on me. And with Parag as the branding manager, he is also unhappily roped in building the brand image externally and it is our respective jobs that brought us to this place where, in between interesting industry and testing insights we have pseudo Kem Carner’s spout testing fundas in Siberian climate.

Conferences provide an excellent respite to our normal desk jobs and are generally filled with interesting things like freebies and non interesting things like mediocre versions of James Bach and Kem Craner. But all these are only secondary to the main attraction yeah you guessed it ...The Food ... It’s an excellent way of trying out various cuisines at different places without loosening you purse strings. Of course, you need to be the 'unabashed about free grub' type to enjoy the experience. So you can go back and make a note that while the Leela Palace serves excellent Malabar fish curry, its Italian side is relatively weak and the veg stuff at Le Meridian is pretty decent. Small nuances, which help you, know what to order where, especially if the obligation of footing the bill falls upon you.

But while the food is great distraction, there is nothing like a steaming hot cup of coffee after a chilling section (I say chilling primarily in the milieu perspective, of course there have been some very excellent sessions that give you intellectual goose bumps). The knowledge of the fact that there is coffee or tea out beyond the confines of the Antarctic zone , especially when the agenda in your hand says coffee break in bold as the next item , is highly distracting and has the effect of making you squirming in your seat wishing the speaker were less garrulous .

That’s the precise reason, I end my presentations if they happen to be scheduled before a coffee break with “I know that the only T on your mind does not stand for Testing but is something with milk and sugar it, so ladies and gentlemen, I herby end my presentation. Thank You and enjoy you break.”

Makes sense..Right ?!

Copyright (c) 2007 Neha Shinde

Did you hear that ?

I keep hearing it ! .. In the bus, on the street, on the campus, in the autos, in malls, in the multiplexes, on my occasional visit to the theatre and sometimes even in the church. Now before you derive a very scary connotation of my ranting and start dialling the local priest’s number , let me clarify my point ...I am talking about these unbridled maddening mobiles ringtones that have the very annoying habit of ringing almost everywhere and anywhere.

There is nothing like a mobile ringing unremittingly to drive you wacky , especially when the owner has left his phone behind and is blissfully unaware of the noise mayhem it is creating for those in its unfortunate vicinity. I experience it so often at my workplace. I am deep in thoughts on developing a strategy that will garner an overwhelming response for my Road show’s or how can I best leverage on our existing analyst relations, when suddenly out of nowhere the place booms with ‘ I am a Barbie girl in a Barbie world ‘ and to make matters worse the racket is right behind my workstation and the owner of the blessed thing is a 5 .11 swarthy man ! geeeez ... Identity crisis anyone !

Funny as it sounds , it’s extremely bothersome to be caught at the wrong end ... and sometimes the ringtones are not all that appropriate ... I remember when we were in a meeting once , debating on why Independent Software Testing is all that a big deal with a valued client when without warning one of our Delivery Managers phone rang joyfully ‘ Give it to me baby ... uh huh uh huh ... Give it to me baby’ much to the horror of all of us present . And no, the client did not give it to us .. The business deal, of course ! But nothing beats the time when it was a lazy afternoon in office and our floor was trying to digest the heavy but unsavoury afternoon meal served at our cafeteria , when out of the blue a tough voice boomed ‘Phone utha , abbe saale phone utha , kutte phone utatha kyon nahi ! ‘ Needless to say every one of us picked up our phones to appease the livid voice , while the guilty party dashed into a conference room to escape our collective glare.

But my misadventures with this instrument is not limited to the office alone , where I must confess I have seen most mobile bloopers. There was this instance in church ( yes, you heard it right , church ) , when the pastor had just finished delivering a powerful sermon on how we must live our life for others and not be self centred and selfish , when Madonna in full throttle began to croon “ Papa don’t preach ! ‘ The disconcerting song was traced to Abbey in the last pew , who was all red in face and for the next one month was the subject of aggressive counselling by all aunties and uncles and elders and pastors and deacons in the church. We, youngsters learnt a valuable lesson that day: Change your mobile tune to ‘God is good all the time’ on Saturday night ! A rule that I still abide with :)

But all said and done. I sometimes feel what would life be without these omnipresent mobile tunes .Maybe church services would be conducted more smoothly , meetings would have less glitches, movie watchers will not have unwanted music mixed with the ones they paid for, maybe workplaces would have less noise pollution and maybe Mukesh Ambani will share his vast wealth with me ( ok ok , forget the last one), but come to think of it , life would be a little more silent than what it is now and maybe in spite of all my cribbing , I would miss that laugh a mobile blooper guarantees. So folks all I can say is ... Bebo, bebo, ye, bebo, bebo, ye, ikaw ang aking ... oops nopes that’s not Latin , just my caller tune from Black Eyed Peas.. I am getting a call ....so like I was saying enjoy while the music lasts and bear with the little nuisance it brings along with it ....After all what’s life without a song !

(c) Copyright Neha Shinde