This came out as an offshoot from a message I sent to Rooney. I was imagining the software engineer to be a knight [let's ditch the brave qualifier for sometime]. There are many things, which are similar. Let's start right from the crack of the dawn of a typical day of a typical software engineer…
Warning: Appalling stereotyping gonna start, please bear, else swear and pack up yer gear! :-D!
Scene: The shambles of a personal tent where the software knight [ new term coined, right belongs to me… me… me… 😛 ] lays to sleep for the night. Sleep doesn't feature in his daily duty. He realises it's a precious commodity, but still not precious in terms of sleeping for long hours, but only to catch it as and when possible.
The war horn emanates an animal cry, as his mind gets perplexed by the nasal twang of Himesh Reshamiyya, in the gawd-early hours of the morning. Immediately, as if woken by a cold shower of dog pee [No, don't ask me if it's warm or cold… These were the two things I could think of that really irritates me as when I hear his songs], he jerks his head to shout as the guy playing the war-horn :-D. Being the software knight, the alarm has _got_ to have a snooze facility. He sets it to five more minutes, hoping to finish off the hot-babe-loves-knight dream. Unfortunately, only the nasal twang of Ze Reshamiyya remains his head.
He climbs out of his bunk to watch the war scene unfurl in front of his eyes. He comes outta his personal space into his room-mates' [Bangalore has become so ruddy expensive that one can't afford to stay alone anymore] and sees the war in full flow. His fellow warrior already was donning the suit and getting ready to enter the war. Suddenly he realises that sleep was a bit too much. He has to serve the King, that's his ultimate duty… And in return get farms and land and war spoils…
So, he gets ready. His mind still shaken by the ruddy alarm. He curses the war horn and the trumpeteer [Read: Rohit Barker]! And he enters the knight's bath. That's a 6'*3' room which features a tap held high in the air, from which water flows. Expecting a stream of warm water, kept there by his aides, he turns on the tap in full blast. Instead he's welcomed and greeted by a sharp shot of coldness. After giving out a yelp, he turns around to see that one of the taps is kept closed. He pondered about how the ingrates of roommates would do it to him…. So, he decided to turn the shower in full blast, with hot water this time, to realise that his roomies have used up the precious hot water and have left the place as well!!
Anyway, getting late for the chariot [bus], he decides to complete his ablutions with the cold water, and adorns himself well with loads of scents and ….
End for 12-06-2006. Time 1900 hrs. Will continue tomorrow!!
I was always of the belief that the term that is most appropriate for us s/w professionals was “Software Coolie” 😀