Happy New Year :)

Finally the year 2009 came to an end… n there rose a brand new year in all its grandeur and splendor.. but I’m yet to experience this new high.. or maybe it just happened too quietly.. no bang.. not as yet at least :)..

All this silent reception because for one, I’m away from home..still very much in Jo’burg since my return got extended.. when you are not in your own country, even the universally celebrated festivals seem alien to u.. n more importantly I put in a lot more hours at work all thru the festive season than I ever imagined.. the strange part of this entire thing is, when you and your team are slogging it out the most, your very essential counterparts all over the world will be on leave.. quietly enjoying their vacation far far away from their workstations and mailboxes.. but now-a- days, you have the smart people, who keep checking on their mails very regularly even while on leave.. they are the ones who very politely let you know they have read the ‘High Importance’ marked mails by promptly sending you the ‘Read receipts’ :)… first of all, they make you wonder, why they ever took leave if they were so keen on being up-to-date and then painfully get on your nerves by not responding to you.. what’s the idea – I know they have read the mail, they know they have read the mail but then, neither they nor me know whether they have understood the mail.. well, not until they get back at least, when the storm has come n gone..

But that’s the least of my worries :).. lately in the new software world, documents have become the next big thing..at least my manager thinks so.. she keeps drumming about it at least 10 times a day.. be it as a part of SDLC or not, documents are important.. one of my friend’s new year plans almost got tossed out of the window due to a certain ‘capabilities document’ not being ready :).. so, for quite sometime now, my work has involved churning out documents by the dozen.. be it statements of work, project plans, estimates, business requirements, design specifications, templates and not to forget the loooooong explanatory emails.. even if the project doesn’t see the light of the day, it should be documented somewhere why it was disaster even before it started.. I do see a lot of sense in this method to the effect that everything important should be put down on paper so that the next unfortunate being who happens to get dragged into the same mess as you, can be initiated into his role in a lot easier and quicker fashion.. just dump the documents on his head and say – everything’s in there, you just have to use Ctrl+F :).. but that’s just it..there’s nothing more to it.. and I so wish there was a better way to do this, than end up with some workplace-related injury caused due to over use of fingertips on a not-so-ergonomically designed keyboard :)..

But apart from all this, all I now pray for is that the projects that my team and me have been juggling around with in the air for such a long time, see sort of completion n soon.. I still remember the kick I got when the first program I wrote gave the output it was supposed to.. but somewhere along the way, such kicks have become harder to come by since everything around me has increased tenfold..n you keep expecting so much more from everything and everyone..sometimes you wish, everything was in your hands.. but the good part is, when everyone and not just you, puts in so much effort to make something work, it usually does.. :).. it’s been that way till now in my world at least ;)... I so adore the ‘team effort’ principle :)..

So with a lot of such hope and anticipation, I look forward to the still new 2010.. Cheers…