Bench-A piece of furniture, which mostly offers several persons seating
In our life, all of us must have sat on bench, I am no exception to that. I have had an interesting relationship with bench. When i was in kindergarten, i hated being tied up mentally on bench by the stick our teacher used to carry. This hatred carried on till the day i got my 1st punishment,kneeling down for 30 whole minutes made me realize the importance of bench, how people were cozily sitting on bench and teasing me in whatever way they can.This punishment which i got in 1st std started my love for bench,because i never stopped getting punished and my love for bench just went on increasing day by day. Add to this those boring assemblies,where we had to slog it out in scorching sun and chilling wind.Bench was the comforting factor then.
This love for bench stopped abruptly when i entered engineering. All over again after my kindergarten i hated being tied up on bench,this time with the fear of attendance shortage or some scheming profs who were hell bent on cutting your term marks on every single % shortage in attendance.I used to think of ways to get punished(after signing attendance sheet), which no longer meant being on knees,rather it was more like go out of class.These acts of mine reached a crescendo in final year when i along with my friends virtually became an expert at it. Finally i was done with engineering,i sat comfortably at home(mind you on a sofa and a bed and never on bench) and then i joined an IT company..........
In an IT company the wikipedia definition i gave above doesnt hold true officially but unofficially it means the same.Bench is a state of a person who gets the same salary as others on project but for doing nothing. Now how people perceive this "doing nothing",is a different question altogether. With gleaming eyes I got trained for Java and the day my training got over i geared up for projects, but to my surprise despite recession being done with, i could not get my hands on any project. And hence i was transferred to "bench" , now this bench was a lot different from what i have been on, here i got an internet connection , a nice cozy chair and a landline to fiddle with. Suddenly i started enjoying bench all over again, no work, no time constraints and loads of parties. This went for a month, people started getting projects and my frustration on not getting project started increasing, and one fine day i got a call for project....
"Am i speaking to Abhishek" interviewer asked
"yeah" i replied
"Hi this is Anup from XYZ project, is it the right time to take your interview?"
"yeah absolutely" i said almost shouting with excitement
"Tell me something about yourself Abhishek"
"Ok I have done my engineering from LT college and trained in JAVA, and currently on bench" i said
"Did you just say bench? Look Abhishek, bench is not the right word, you are just a part of inter project talent pool, you are undergoing trainings in advanced java right? So how can you call it bench?" He said in a lecturing tone
"Yeah Anup you are right" i said in a low voice
Two days after the call i got into the project and my period on bench was over, finally my frustration was over, i was doing something now, i had a project team, a team i could call my own, but with this team of my own, came the perils. The work load, the release date fears and many other things.And now while i am writing this blog i wonder if in my life of almost 23 years, i love this bench or i hate it? Enough reasons for me to love it and enough for me to hate it. I guess as the saying goes, you can love it or hate it,but cannot ignore it.
In our life, all of us must have sat on bench, I am no exception to that. I have had an interesting relationship with bench. When i was in kindergarten, i hated being tied up mentally on bench by the stick our teacher used to carry. This hatred carried on till the day i got my 1st punishment,kneeling down for 30 whole minutes made me realize the importance of bench, how people were cozily sitting on bench and teasing me in whatever way they can.This punishment which i got in 1st std started my love for bench,because i never stopped getting punished and my love for bench just went on increasing day by day. Add to this those boring assemblies,where we had to slog it out in scorching sun and chilling wind.Bench was the comforting factor then.
This love for bench stopped abruptly when i entered engineering. All over again after my kindergarten i hated being tied up on bench,this time with the fear of attendance shortage or some scheming profs who were hell bent on cutting your term marks on every single % shortage in attendance.I used to think of ways to get punished(after signing attendance sheet), which no longer meant being on knees,rather it was more like go out of class.These acts of mine reached a crescendo in final year when i along with my friends virtually became an expert at it. Finally i was done with engineering,i sat comfortably at home(mind you on a sofa and a bed and never on bench) and then i joined an IT company..........
In an IT company the wikipedia definition i gave above doesnt hold true officially but unofficially it means the same.Bench is a state of a person who gets the same salary as others on project but for doing nothing. Now how people perceive this "doing nothing",is a different question altogether. With gleaming eyes I got trained for Java and the day my training got over i geared up for projects, but to my surprise despite recession being done with, i could not get my hands on any project. And hence i was transferred to "bench" , now this bench was a lot different from what i have been on, here i got an internet connection , a nice cozy chair and a landline to fiddle with. Suddenly i started enjoying bench all over again, no work, no time constraints and loads of parties. This went for a month, people started getting projects and my frustration on not getting project started increasing, and one fine day i got a call for project....
"Am i speaking to Abhishek" interviewer asked
"yeah" i replied
"Hi this is Anup from XYZ project, is it the right time to take your interview?"
"yeah absolutely" i said almost shouting with excitement
"Tell me something about yourself Abhishek"
"Ok I have done my engineering from LT college and trained in JAVA, and currently on bench" i said
"Did you just say bench? Look Abhishek, bench is not the right word, you are just a part of inter project talent pool, you are undergoing trainings in advanced java right? So how can you call it bench?" He said in a lecturing tone
"Yeah Anup you are right" i said in a low voice
Two days after the call i got into the project and my period on bench was over, finally my frustration was over, i was doing something now, i had a project team, a team i could call my own, but with this team of my own, came the perils. The work load, the release date fears and many other things.And now while i am writing this blog i wonder if in my life of almost 23 years, i love this bench or i hate it? Enough reasons for me to love it and enough for me to hate it. I guess as the saying goes, you can love it or hate it,but cannot ignore it.
