The one drawback of being in the IT industry

We have all heard of the good things about IT, how it has created job opportunities for many, how it has changed many lives, and so on. But there's one side effect when you have the label of "IT" on you. Some time around last month, while i was at home minding my own business, My dad comes to me with the phone and tells me that one of his friend wants to speak to me. I was wondering why a person who I had never met before wanted to speak to me. Turns out, he had computer trouble and wanted me to fix it. Since he was a friend of my parents they couldn't say no to him, and since they were my parents, i couldn't say no to them. So i had to get off my lazy butt late on a Saturday afternoon and go check what was wrong with his computer. On the bright side, he did have a good looking daughter who was roaming around the house in an extremely short pant, but that still didn't make up for the fact that i had to leave my place on a Saturday afternoon. Wait, may be it did.

That was incident #1, Incident #2 begins when i was leaving my house at 3:10 for a 3:30 movie at inorbit. I was already running late and then while going downstairs, i meet a neighbor who asked me if i was working at a call center. I don't know what it is that makes them assume that any all youngsters whose work timings are not 9 to 5 work at a call center. I promptly said that i work at TCS, not a call center. Then he says he just got a new computer and wanted to know if i can check it out. I was trying to cut the conversation short and had no intention of checking out his new computer. I tried the "walk away while you talk" tactic and ended the conversation and was off to inorbit. In case you're wondering, I didn't make it in time for the movie and had to wait for the 6:30 show.

The reason i am posting this today is that the same guy#1 called up today saying he couldn't log into any sites and i was force to go check it out again. The reason was his net was not working. When will this end? Do i have to mess up their comps for them to stop calling me?

How to write a letter

This weekend was one of those where there are no plans at all, the type that’s spent wasting away at home. I stumbled upon a link to this Google group we had during our college days. We used to have a lot of fun posting messages to that group during our exams, everyone used to stay online for hours, replying to each others posts, fighting, and having a battle of wits. Among those posts I found one with an apology letter that we wrote to our profs. We were caught for not writing notes, throwing paper balls when the profs back was turned, and making a lot of noise. The dean barred us for giving the exams unless we wrote a letter apologizing to the prof. So there we were, around 20 of us, sitting on the stairs of the auditorium, writing our first apology letter. There were another 2 letters we wrote later in the year, but this was the first. All of us chipped in with the best words from our vocabulary, and the result was - One really professionally written apology letter, I am not even sure that the profs understood it completely. Click on the picture below to read it.

There were times where we had around 200+ posts every week, with people ripping on each other for any stupid reason. To give you and idea of the stuff that was usually going on in the group, heres one incident. There was this one time I was pissed off with a "Mr. X" and thought he was being really self centered and had a little of the "I am better than you" attitude, so I made a couple of stupid jokes on Mr. X. Here is a sample of the jokes.

Q: Why did Mr X cross the road?

A: He wanted to proove he was better than the chicken

A duck and Mr X walk into a bar

Duck: quack

Mr X: quack quack i can quack more

Q: What did Mr X say to the apple and the banana?

A: I can talk and u cant.. im better

Ps: Mr X isnt a bad person, we are still friends and meet up on weekends.

College days were fun. After reading for around 2 hours, i still have a lot more to complete. Reading the posts brought back all the memories of the last 2 years.