Of late quite a few colleagues of mine quit their jobs to start their own ventures and I am left stranded in the same old cubicle with my lovely 17″ flatscreen.
With this beautiful device in my cubicle I don’t need anyone, I tell myself. Nothing can be more brilliant than something that renders 1800 * 1440 pixels at 32 bit color, I goad myself.
I don’t care how rich they get. Atleast I will have a 17″. ( You know what I mean 
)
Ooh! My flatscreen. Aah! My flatscreen.
I guess the tag of being an entrepreneur sounds better to the ear and a corroborative visiting card more pleasing to eye than that of a Software Engineer. Of course, “I am the CEO of Just-Another-Startup” seems better than “I am a Software Engineer at Tain-tain-phiss Technologies Ltd.” even though Just-Another-Startup hires people to clean the restrooms of Tain-tain-phiss for a high margin outsourced tender.
An entrepreneur, whom I once knew as a Software coolie, one day, on a random yahoo chat, tells me some stuff like “Need to hire a few fresh management graduates in one of the vertical divisions for some administrative stuff… We are seeing a lot of traction there and the pipeline seems very strong…”
I am rattled by this. For someone, who can only talk in terms of if-else and goto, this seems like the Khoisan language spoken by the bushmen of Botswana.
I cling on to my 17″.
Ooh! My flatscreen. Aah! My flatscreen.
Money can buy anything these days. Even recycled toilet paper. And with enough marketing muscle behind it you can get people to buy it as well.
It was just another day at Tain-tain-phiss Technologies Ltd and as usual we were in a dilemma. Our predicament, though not unique, was something that we had procrastinated a lot on. We were facing a big issue of creating a ‘differentiator’ between us and the competition ( I know! Surprising ain’t it? I learnt some Khoisan too over the years as a Professional) We needed that elusive edge - that magic formula that would get clients to flock to us with multi-million dollar deals. We needed something disruptive.
A random idea came screeching on the first class air-conditioned coaches of the train of thought that was passing through my head. Before it could come to a complete halt, I hopped on…
“Let’s propose we give one body free for every 10 bodies that a client buys. Around holidays seasons like Thanksgiving and Christmas we can offer special deals like buy one software slave and get another 50% off. We can give them mail-in rebates and make it exciting.”
An eerie silence fell over the conference room…
“Though it will hit our bottomline to begin with, in the long term we stand to gain by atracting repeat business and in a way making the client dependent on our supply”
The silent storm persisted…
“We need to shake things up a bit. Give a dress code to employees where low necklines are the norm for women and boxer shorts for men. This will keep the morale of other employees as well as clients high.”
The attendees gave me a look that could give a good diarrhoea to people with weak bowels. My boss didn’t utter a word. He pointed his long lanky finger towards the door. I took the cue this time and shut up. I guess when you engage in the flesh business there is no room for creativity.
So much for innovation and entrepeneurship.
As I make my walk back to my cubicle, the only thing that is reassuring is my 17″.
Ooh! My flatscreen. Aah! My flatscreen.
Hm. 17″. Is that enough when you’re coding? Hm.
Ah my flat screen!!! Am rolling in laughter at this funny account of software engineer account. You have managed to keep it quite realistic too.. Keep keying..