Prior episode
(THE PAST continued)
A recap of the main characters who have appeared till this episode:
- Vignesh (Vicky) - Team Lead. Hoping for promotion; competing with Karthick
- Bob - Vicky's client
- Gokul - same team as Vignesh; Senior Software Engineer; married
- Merv - same team; hired by Karthick; Associate Software Engineer
- Karthick (Sir Karthick) - Team Lead
(THE PAST continued)
While Vignesh’s phone was ringing, Merv noticed the instant messenger blinking.
Andrew: Looks like it’s stuck in the database
Merv passed the information to Karthick.
Karthick: oh
Karthick was someone who could talk on any topic for hours but judging by his response Merv realised that even he didn’t have any suggestions.
Andrew: DBA says database is fine. Some problem with the code
Merv: Ok
With the DBA (database administrator) saying nothing was wrong, it meant they were on their own. While looking at dependencies on this job, Merv was shocked.
Merv: there’s an SLA of 11am
Karthick: oh
An SLA (Service Level Agreement) was a binding legal contract between Lestitude and their customers. An SLA miss can lead to monetary damages and even lawsuits. And if Lestitude missed an SLA because of MegaSoft, the consequences would be drastic. Merv went through everything once again in the hope that something would strike him; but nothing did. With no ideas popping and his head aching, he stepped out of the cubicle again. He wished Vignesh were around because he would definitely have ideas. After trying Vignesh’s phone one more time, he took another break. This time he picked an umbrella from the stack that was kept at the entrance to DC3 – every DC had an umbrella stand with MegaSoft umbrellas that people could use while they walked between DCs.
On the 3rd floor of the food court was a dormitory with 20 beds and a few shower rooms as well. Merv swiped his ID card to obtain access to the dorm. The dim light from the passage that led to the shower rooms was sufficient to identify the occupied beds. Merv had never slept in the dormitory but he had used the shower a few times. The usage of the dorm had dropped drastically after there was a strict policy of governance on dorm usage – in case someone used it frequently, they and their boss were questioned.
Picking a towel from the neatly stacked lot, he stepped into a shower room. Merv always felt better after taking a shower when he had these headaches. He adjusted the shower for warm water. The orange box was still running in his mind and he wondered what could be wrong?
The code had never changed, volume of input hadn’t increased, there were only four places in the code that the database was accessed and they were never modified in the last few months.
As he enjoyed the shower, it suddenly struck him.
Vignesh taught me this. Why didn’t I think of it before?
He was careful not to run into the dorm for fear of waking the two employees who were sleeping peacefully. He swiped his card to exit the room and dashed down the stairs. Thankfully the rain had stopped. Merv didn’t ping anyone; he checked the code and the database to confirm his reasoning. In his excitement, he quickly modified the code and tested it. The problem didn't crop up in development with the faulty code because the database had a lot fewer records.
Merv: we should include the new column in the four queries
Karthick: oh
Merv: the database was changed to add this column but this code wasn’t changed
Karthick: ok
He called Karthick and explained the problem. Immediately Karthick began lecturing about databases. But Merv was so excited that he didn’t allow Karthick to talk for long. He told him about the modified code that he created before disconnecting the call. With the help of Andy he got the new program executed in production. The SLA deadline was two hours away. After 58 minutes the orange box turned green. Karthick pinged asking him to go home. The time on the computer read 20:40 and the mess where he ate dinner would close at 9pm.
The roads inside campus and outside were contrasting. There wasn’t any water logging in the pathways in office but the roads outside had ankle deep water even though the rain had stopped an hour ago. This was supposed to be the grand IT highway but though companies were mushrooming on the main road, interior development was very slow. The Andhra mess with an asbestos roof was halfway between office and his home. The mess was packed to capacity even in this rain except for one vacant seat in the centre table. On seeing Merv, the mother of the household put up a big smile. She always liked to see Merv because he was one of the few customers who talked to her.
Another call to Vignesh yielded a different response – the mobile was not reachable. Merv wondered where he could have gone for so long without informing anyone.
Monday morning Vignesh tried to start his day with a happy face. He reminded himself of how lucky he was; he reminded himself of the poor man in the underpass. There were 40 unread mails in Vignesh’s mailbox and many of them had a similar subject line. The first one was from Merv who had solved an issue and fixed the code; he had kept Vignesh in the loop. The second one was a reply of thanks from Sir Karthick:
“Thanks Merv for researching the problem. I will talk to the client about this.”
The third one was a reply from their client. The client appreciated Karthick and added a note for Vignesh on the last project that was successfully validated a few days earlier. On reading the mail a second time he noticed that Merv was not mentioned; the original mail from Karthick didn’t include him either. The next mail was from their manager, sent today morning, appreciating Karthick and Vignesh and also had their SPM, the Senior Project Manager, in the loop. The final mail on this thread was from their SPM who replied immediately. He was known to stay connected via his Blackberry from early in the morning to late at night all through the week.
A few minutes later when Merv came to office, he excitedly updated Vignesh about his learnings on Saturday.
“Ya, I saw the mail. Karthick was in office?”
“No. He logged from home.”
Did Karthick intentionally not include Merv in his mail to the client?
Karthick soon walked in, shook Merv’s hand and announced, “Well done Merv. The clients were very happy with your work. You ensured there will be no future problem. Good job.”
Merv felt proud as his team mates turned around to look at what was happening.
“Well done. Keep it up,” Karthick repeated.
This is what they call on the spot appreciation! ‘Give credit to your team; put the spotlight on your team; appreciate them.’ What crap; hog the limelight yourself and extract maximum benefits from the situation. This was a coverup.
Vignesh’s mood turned from cheerful to angry; he was furious and as if on cue, someone started clapping and everyone followed suit.
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