my job

the other day was cribbing that i haven’t written anything about my job. frankly, i haven’t had the time. this job is intense, extremely high pressure and at any given point of time there are at least half a dozen people bothering you with different things. the hours are long, and sometimes i’m made to work on weekends also, giving me little time to do the things i like to do, such as blogging. today my boss is on leave, so i’ve managed to take a few minutes out.

currently i’m a ‘data monkey’ and spend most of my life writing sql queries. there are a hundred different people who have a hundred different requests and me being in charge of the database have to design the appropriate query, pull out the data, put it in the appropriate format and give it to them. trouble is not too many of these people have used sql themselves, and thus don’t have even a faint idea of what it takes to pull data out of a complex database as i’m doing now. and expect me to meet impossible deadlines which i can’t. and i get badgered from all directions.

every day i wake up and ask myself why i’m doing what i’m doing. i find no answer. two paychecks have been deposited into my bank account, but have made no difference to my life, despite them being fairly substantial. the kind of work i’m doing i know i don’t want to do after this particular assignment is over. i’m not getting the time to do anything i want. i dream of excel sheets daily. this thing seems to have consumed me completely.

the other question i ask myself is, “if not this, what?”. and i’m afraid i can’t find an answer to that also, and that is exactly what keeps me going. i’m getting a fair idea of what i want to do and who i want to be 10-15 years down the line, but i have no clue what step to take right now to get there. the long term goals are the same as they were 7-8 months ago. which was when i decided to chuck my second investment banking job and try for this one. something has gone wrong somewhere.

people say it’s a problem with me that i’m not liking this job. “there are so many others who are uncomplainingly doing the same job”, they point out. “you don’t have the right kind of attitude”. maybe. maybe there’s something wrong with me. or it could just be the case that i’m not fitting in properly. need to figure that out, but don’t have time to stop and think.

my working style is very different from that of most others i know, and this job doesn’t seem to be suited to my style. i’ve talked to my bosses and asked them to cluster work and give me rather than giving it in bits and pieces. “i’m a compiler, not an interpretor”, i’ve told them. no avail. they say they’re the bosses and i should listen to them.

Most people are like Sri Lanka. At least the rest of my team is. When there is a target to be chased, they go all out in the first 15 overs and try to finish off the match by 25. Wonderful method. I’m more like Pakistan in 92. Keep wickets in hand, settle down, reach 100 in 30 overs, 150 in 40 and by then you have enough momentum to get to 250. Difficult to do it efficiently though, when you have someone behind your back who keeps telling you after each over that you’re behind the asking rate.

And yeah, of late Jayasuriya has been getting out early and sri lanka seems to be losing…