Chapter 23: Infosys BBSR…

My dad resigned the very next day, we did not know about it for almost a week. It was casual of him to spite his boss by taking leaves, so we were under the impression that he was going through yet another spell.

But when he did not go to office for 5 days in a row, my mother questioned him jokingly if he did remember that he does work, which my dad corrected to “I do remember that I did work”.

That was it; it triggered off a huge fight between my parents, my mom questioning the ethics behind the resignation and my dad justifying the same. He felt that he did not need to work anymore since his son now earned much more than him and sufficient enough to support himself and his parents. That cooled my mom down a bit, but I guess she was more concerned about him staying at home and bitching all day about his siblings that she actually wanted him to work.

My tickets were booked for Bhubaneshwar, and I was all set to start off working as a software engineer for which I would be groomed and trained in the Infosys campus in Orissa.

After meeting my family and friends, I was finally all packed up to be a software engineer.

I reached Bhubaneshwar a day in advance, and had to take my own accommodation, it was at this hotel that I met my colleagues and we became roommates soon after. The first person who I met and immediately bonded with was Ambuj… an engineer from IIT roorkee, he was the second person to check in along with Anuj Gupta, (they both were traveling from Delhi) Anuj was a little shy and took his time to break the conversation barrier… but Ambuj was forthright.

We exchanged information regarding qualifications and other related stuff.... and called it a day.

The next day we were all packed up to head to “Swosti Plaza” where we were put up for the next week by Infosys. We reached the Hotel and were spellbound by the hospitality rendered to us, never before were we treated like this… well many of us did go through the same experience.

Our offer letters from Infosys mentioned that we would be trained in BBSR(Acronym for Bhubaneswar) and the place of final posting would be intimated to us once we successfully complete the training, but the Induction meet held surprises, the HR informed us that there would be a frail chance of anyone relocation to different development centers as the development center here in BBSR was poised for a growth and they plan to absorb this batch here.

I could hear a few stifled sobs, but I was happy… this was the first opportunity I got to be away from home (read from my nosy relatives), handle my own finances and regularly send back Demand Drafts home. Life was taking a turn for me…

We spent most of the week authenticating our marksheets and hunting for a crib that would have a level of comfort as well as be reasonably light on our pockets. It was now that we met Gaurav, his dad had accompanied him to BBSR and was helping him look out for a crib, so we joined forces… the effort paid off after long weekend hunts and we finally had a place in Sailasree Vihar… a stones throw away from Infosys BBSR campus (well if u throw the stone real hard that is).

The rent was 3000 INR per month and the deposit was 3000 INR (we were 6 of us so that amounted to a pittance per head) , we got some furnitures, hired a cook and were all set to work with Infy from a bungalow bordering the Orissa forests.

Days passed quickly, and we were learning one software skill after another in this highly structured course, one thing that I really like about Infosys is the amount of Knowledge that it has and readily shares with its employees, Now that I read back, that probably is the only thing I admire about this company.

The end of the term saw me stand third in the class of 80 Mainframe Developers, and I was happy, to add to my happiness the HR decided to relocate us, as the new building that was being constructed to accommodate us was still underway and far from being completed, we were asked for our preference of location.

I chose Pune and was given the green signal to relocate; I caught the first available train to Mumbai.

My roommates Anuj, Avneesh and Gaurav (both of them) were not lucky enough for a relocation then… but they soon did relocate. Ambuj was satisfied to be sent to Bangalore campus.

Infosys Pune was much larger than BBSR, BBSR had just 3 buildings and could accommodate around 1500 resources, and Pune on the other hand had 14 buildings and could accommodate well over 8000 resources. I was happy to be in Pune as it meant that I could visit my parents every weekend.

That wraps up almost 4 months of BBSR.