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  Vinay heard about another project within Dochamk Bank for which recruitment was going on. He heard it was called GF project and somebody named Mona was the technical team lead for that project. After Murali’s promotion, he was made as the project manager for the GF project. Murali had earlier got the updated CVs from everyone who got released from the CDSTP project and emailed all the CVs to the client for their evaluation for the GF project.

  After many rounds of interview by the client, Ashutosh, Puneet and Shanthi got selected for the GF project. The client had told Murali that Vinay, Sana and Himesh could not be made billable as their experience did not meet the minimum criteria but the client had agreed they could work in the project but could not be billed for the hours they work for the project.

  Vinay, Himesh and Sana were put as non-billable shadow resources. They had only one year experience but client had asked for at least four years experienced professionals. So Murali could not make any of them as billable. There were many problems associated with being a non-billable shadow resource. People would not get the variable component of their salary which was twenty percent of their salary.

  They could also be told to leave the project anytime and sent to bench.

  “What is bench?” asked Vinay to Ashutosh.

  “Bench is the term used to refer to the period where a resource is without a project. Holtezent maintains a pool of resources in bench which provides the buffer needed for ramp-up and ramp-down as and when required by the clients. The buffer also supplies resources, those who are willing to be part of a project as non-billable resource just to learn and acquire the skills used in the project. They are referred to as Shadow resources. These resources hope the project experience would highlight their CV and increase their prospects of getting into potential opportunities in future.

  It is up to the people in bench to proactively look for a project and get into it. For every month in bench or being non-billable resource, they would not receive twenty percent of their salary,” said Ashutosh.

  “Why there is a bench system? Could not someone work on a project forever?” asked Himesh.

  “Clients like Dochamk Bank don’t need to hire permanent employees to do the IT jobs. They don’t need to pay gratuity, retirement and pension benefits and make provident fund contributions for these temporarily hired contract workers. They just recruit Holtezent employees into their project and once the work is completed, they would just release the Holtezent employees. This allows the clients to expand and contract their operations as and when required based on their business requirements. This way they save huge amount of money and Holtezent also earns lot of money through this arrangement.

  Holtezent charges for its employee’s services and the infrastructure provided to the client. It also charges office space for each employee and transport charges for the employee for each working day. The salary Holtezent pays to its employee is just one-fifth of what it charges to the client for the employee working for the client.

  The risk in this system is put on the Holtezent employee, wherein if the employee is unable to get into a project for more than three months, he would be asked to leave the company. It is more of a hire and fire system without pension and retirement benefits. It has the constant risk of an unstable job due to temporary nature of IT projects,” said Ashutosh.

  Chapter 18

  Mona was twenty nine years old. She was a lean and tall girl and unmarried. She had a wheat complexion and long faced. She had an air of authority about her. She was aggressive and usually ignored juniors and new joinees to the team if they tried to give any suggestions for the project.

  Mona started to give knowledge Transfer shortly referred to as KT. Many KT sessions were scheduled during that entire week. In each KT session, Mona would explain the different modules of the project.

  This was the first day of the KT. Mona would usually give a one–sided monologue.

  Mona explained, “This project is called Global Funds or GF project. There are a total of two thousand requirements, hundred for each entity. There are twenty entities. Each entity is associated with a geographic region. It was decided that the first three months would be spent on laying the groundwork, creating the framework and the required foundation for the project. After the foundation work is completed, it is planned to roll out the system for each entity every two months.”

  “An entity refers to the software configurations, files and code base specifically created for a particular geographic region. Different geographic regions have different requirements like language, currency, different file formats and the set of countries that are grouped under that geographic region.

  Some examples of entities were NA for North America, LAtim for South America, JAPA for Japan, IN for India, MEA for Middle East Asia, EU for European Union, SEA for South East Asia and Benelux for Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg,” explained Mona.

  “The Management team, consisting of people from both Dochamk Bank and Holtezent leadership, had decided to follow Waterfall software development methodology for development of the software for each entity. They had decided to complete each entity one by one and deliver in a sequential manner,” continued Mona.

  “What is Waterfall development methodology?” asked Himesh.

  “Waterfall is a classical or traditional way of software development. There are different stages like requirements gathering and specification stage, high-level design and low-level design stage, development, unit testing, integration tests, system testing and user acceptance testing. Development for each entity should follow these stages,” explained Mona.

  Mona had created fifty percent of the framework and the foundation work till date.

  “There are four main modules in this project. Application Transit Module, ATM for short, Business Transit Module BTM, Application and Business Transaction Module ABTM, Statement Sender Module SSM.

  ATM will receive all the files from different applications within Dochamk Bank. BTM will receive different files from external business partners of Dochamk Bank. ABTM will do the transaction handling for these files. And SSM will send these files to other applications and business partners,” said Mona.

  “Read through all the project documents. From Monday I will start assigning you work. I have high expectations from you all. We don’t have time for learning. I expect everyone to put extra hours and work on Saturdays and Sundays if need be. By Monday you should be up to speed. There won’t be any hand-holding and spoon-feeding. And you have to be proactive and take the initiative rather than being reactive and waiting for me to tell you each step what to do. If you can’t perform, just don’t waste my time and leave the job,” said Mona.

  Mona assigned tasks to the entire team. Every day morning she would call for a status meeting at 9.00 AM. People were more and more getting scared to attend that meeting.

  In the meeting room, Mona would start asking the status from each person. She would ask how many tasks were completed and how many tasks were assigned yesterday. Mona would go in a Round-Robin fashion starting with the person standing on her left side and ending with the person on the right side. Everybody had to meet their daily target. If anybody slipped from their daily target number, they would get a bash and insults from Mona. Mona would tell them to work till late at night that day and complete the work. They were to call her and update her about the status before they leave the office at night. Some people even if they had not completed their assigned work for yesterday, would report their status as completed for fear of her bashing. It was a horrible numbers game.

  It was a Friday evening, Mona told Vinay to stay in office for a few more hours to help her edit some report. Ashutosh was sitting nearby. Sana had left early to receive her parents coming to Bangalore.

  Vinay thought why Ashutosh didn’t leave office yet. Mona rarely spoke with Ashutosh. She usually didn’t directly assign him any work instead she would indirectly do that through Vinay and Himesh. Vinay thought it to be strange.

&
nbsp; “It’s nine already. I can drop you at your home in my car. I will drive through that way only everyday,” said Mona.

  “It’s alright. I will take bus,” said Vinay.

  “Oh come on. It’s nine. I will give you ride,” persuaded Mona.

  “Shall I also come with you Mona?” asked Ashutosh.

  “Ok. But I cannot drop you exactly at your place. I’m going through different route,” replied Mona.

  ‘That’s all right. I will get down at sixth cross. And from there I will take bus,” said Ashutosh.

  They started out of office.

  “Mind dropping by my house. It’s just around that next turn,” said Mona.

  Mona drove her car inside a large penthouse. She then took them inside her house. It had one floor and was a huge five bed room house. It had a big hall highly decorated with expensive decors, a huge LED TV on one wall, a big dining table which can seat ten people and a modular kitchen.

  “You stay alone here?” asked Vinay.

  ‘Yes. I worked in US before for six years for Holtezent and then I came back here. My parents are in Delhi,” replied Mona.

  She served coffee to everyone.

  “I’m well settled. Money is not a concern anymore. I have lots of money. I don’t need to actually do a job. I just work still to get myself occupied with something with what I know already. I have very good contacts in Holtezent. If you are looking for career progression or salary hike, it’s pretty easy for me to arrange. Think of the possibilities,” said Mona.

  “I’m looking for a shift to SAP line of work within Holtezent,” said Ashutosh.

  “I know the Vice President of SAP department in Holtezent. He is actually my family friend. I could help you with that. And Vinay what are you looking for?” said Mona.

  “I’m not looking for anything specific right now. I’m just content with what I got,” said Vinay.

  “What about onsite? Or salary hike? Or higher position? Oh come on. You have got just one year experience. You may not even know what you want. You and Himesh are my dark horses. With both of you, we could realize our project targets and impress our client. Just think of what I can get you, a double promotion. You can become a lead Architect or Technical Team Lead. Think about it. Work harder, prove yourself and the possibilities for you are endless in Holtezent,” said Mona.

  Mona served dinner. They chatted for few more minutes. Vinay and Ashutosh thanked Mona for the dinner and then went to a nearby bus stop to wait for their buses to come.

  “Why you came along Ashutosh?” asked Vinay.

  “Hmm, to study how high-class people live. What do you think? No. I just came to see if I could find any ladder for my SAP aspirations,” said Ashutosh.

  “You are looking for a Godfather through Mona. You are being very proactive man,” said Vinay.

  “Proactive and reactive are the much overused and abused words in IT. No I’m a reactive guy in general except this case,” laughed Ashutosh.

  Chapter 19

  In the cafeteria, three people came to Vinay and Himesh. They introduced themselves as Suresh, Ramesh and Usha. They had earlier worked under Mona and were released from the project. Usha had now become a team lead for another project. Suresh and Ramesh now worked under Usha. Suresh told him that ABTM module was full of issues.

  “Don’t work in that module. Why you took that man. It’s full of issues. That Mona is very horrible. She is a tyrant. I cannot handle the workload. So she said I cannot perform and released me from the project,” said Suresh.

  Ramesh along with Suresh then explained the amateurish patchwork of a solution created by Mona.

  “If you don’t agree with her solution and don’t implement it, she will release you from the project. You fix one bug, and then another bug will pop up from any of the other entities,” said Ramesh.

  Usha told how she was ill-treated and abused by Mona. Then she explained how she purposely made her work on Saturdays even if she had completed her work much earlier for that week.

  Usha got emotional. She burst into tears and cried. She recalled how many nights she cried before going to sleep.

  She said, “Please do us a favor. Leave the project. We want to punish Mona. We want her to suffer the pain she made us to suffer. She denied my leave requests and escalated each and every small matter. She treated us like her slaves. Now her leaves should be denied, her transfer to Delhi should be denied. Now she should be made to work on all Saturdays and Sundays.

  Both Suresh and Ramesh nodded their heads in agreement. Suresh, Ramesh and Usha advised Vinay and Himesh to leave the project.

  “Don’t kill yourself for this. Put your hard work into something else. Don’t get exploited. They will use you. They will make you as a scapegoat,” said Usha.

  They told horrible stories of what Mona did to them.

  One day, Vinay, Himesh and Ashutosh were discussing about the limitations of existing design.

  Everywhere Vinay saw only amateurish patchwork. He found so many bugs and tears in the fabric of the code weaved by Mona. He stitched one tear only to find another tear open nearby. He had never seen such a patchwork in design and implementation in a project so far.

  Himesh had heard whispers that Mona has asked for release from project. The management had told her she could be released only after eighty percent of requirements were implemented.

  Employees usually discussed personal matters in a hushed tone and secretly. They kept their onsite plans, promotions, transfers and finances under the wraps. Himesh had heard Mona was trying to get transfer.

  Mona started ordering the team to do things. She would demand three days work to be completed in half a day. She told them to stretch and work on Saturdays and Sundays.

  Vinay and Himesh were unable to cope up with the workload, stress, pressure and the timelines. They got burnt out and stressed. They didn’t want to continue like this. They realized they would soon breakdown.

  And the next three weeks, Vinay realized the patterns in the workplace. People like Murali, Satish and Shanthi were drawing salary without doing any work. They were even getting promoted for being so. Vinay was doing the work for many job roles. He worked as a team member. He also worked on creating the documents required for project management report, audit report and various documents and reports required by the quality group. He felt like being exploited. His salary was just one-fifth of what Murali got and one-third of what Shanthi received.

  “People who don’t work or avoid work, they are getting promoted. They are promoted to manager position. People who are hard working and who do the actual work are released from the project. The feedback given to them is their performance is not up to the mark,” said Himesh.

  Himesh called Usha. “We need to talk.”

  Usha got in touch with Vinay and Himesh every two days. They would discuss project matters.

  Usha advised them to go on ten days leave and take leaves on and off citing health issues.

  Vinay’s mobile rang. He saw Mona calling him. He didn’t pick up the call. Later in that day Mona asked him, “I called you in the morning. You didn’t pick up the phone.”

  Vinay said, “No. I was busy with my work.”

  Mona said rudely, “I understand. But with one of your hands, you could have stilled picked up the phone and answered. We are all busy. But still we should be able to do multi-tasking at the same time.”

  From that day onwards, Vinay and Himesh ignored Mona’s phone calls. Mona stopped calling their mobile phones.

  Vinay and Himesh followed Usha’s advice. Himesh took some ten days leave. Vinay went on five days leave and extended the leave by another ten days. He cooked up various reasons for the leave, courtesy Usha. They maintained irregular timings in office. They would suddenly take a sick leave when a crucial training was scheduled or an important deliverable had to be completed.

  Chapter 20

  Vinay started getting pressure on his personal front as well. Sana and he were discussing as usu
al outside the Garden Park.

  “My father wants me to get married by early next year. They have started with the matchmaking process and giving my bio-data to matchmaking brokers and professional organizations. They are looking for a well settled groom working abroad. They will never accept you. You don’t own a house yet. You are not well settled. They will check everything. What can I do now? Tell me something. Do something.”

  “Whatever we can handle we will handle. Whatever unfolds we will leave it to God’s Will.”

  Vinay told Sana about the Bitcoins he had.

  “How much will it come?”

  “I had only hundred. One Bitcoin is now thousand two hundred US dollar. At current exchange rate it would come to seventy four lakhs.”

  “Thank God. Encash it immediately what are you waiting for? What are you going to do with it?”

  Vinay then told her the marriage plan.

  “Our parents need not know about our marriage until the right time comes,” said Vinay.

  That night Vinay logged into a Bitcoin exchange and converted his Bitcoins into US dollar. The transaction got completed in two days time and the equivalent money in US dollars was credited into his bank account.

  The next Wednesday morning Vinay and Sana got married in the Registrar’s office. Himesh, Ashutosh, Usha, Suresh, Ramesh and Sana’s close friends were present in their wedding and bore witness.

  Vinay and Sana then immediately went on a shopping spree to purchase a flat. They looked at both new as well as resale flats. In a week’s time they shortlisted some five flats in different localities. They soon finalized and bought a 3BHK flat. Vinay and Sana moved into their new home.