Desk Jockey : Auto-Gawd !!!

Week -2 

Sucked it up and finally jumped head first into AutoCAD today, a software which according to me is the closest I’ll ever be to anything remotely Rocket Science Related. I had been  avoiding AutoCAD like the Plague, sticking to word, excel and PDF files. Couldn’t put it off anymore, finally decided to download the blessed thing. Asked around for a installer CD, nobody had one. all the senior engineers were using the old version and the newbies were still using the student version. So I go online and download the one month trial version so I can get started immediately.

Even my Laptop seemed surprised that I was downloading AutoCAD, It asked me thrice. It first asked me “ do you want to install AutoCAD 2016?” I said “Yes Please”. Then it asked me again “ errrr are you SURE you want to install AUTOCAD 2016 !!!!” I said “YES god damnnit !!!” . After a long painful silence punctuated with frequent arthritic whirring of the laptops cooling fan , it asked me “ Should we speak to the administrator and ask him if it’s ok?” I replied “you are MY Laptop you idiot, I am The Bloody Administrator, Now OBEY me and install the Bleeding Thing” The Laptop jumped to it and got busy doing its bidding , these Artificial Intelligence thingys need to be put in its place, else they will start travelling back in time and try assassinating a younger you, ask John Connor.

 When I told Boss/Dad I had the 2016 version he gave me a look which I translated to being a look of admiration, but deep down I know it was the exact same look he would give a monkey walking around with a MAC Pro book.

So heavily armed with the latest version of I ventured into the dense deep jungle of electrical drawings and Layouts. I felt like a caveman walking around with an AK-47. a caveman would be more prone to using the rifle as a club rather than fire it. Likewise I would be happy if I didn’t make an ass of myself by trying to use AutoCAD to download YouTube videos.

During the start up of software’s like AutoCAD and acrobat have this live commentary going on on what is happening, one of the lines I noticed during start up was  “Loading working environment “  I looked around me in awe half expecting my cubical to start turning into a AutoCAD suitable work environment. I am not sure what the use of the live commentary is, is it just to give the waiter/user some reading material to distract him from how long the loading process is. Or is it just to intimidate a person into believing there are too many complicated stuff happening beyond their comprehension so to quietly hit the X n go open a word document. Am not sure which one but both worked on me.

45 minutes into AutoCAD I now know two things, first is, hit “escape” the minute you click something and the color changes in the drawing. And secondly when in doubt close document and pretend like you never opened it in the first place in case someone asks. Every time I hit X to close the drawing AutoCAD asks me cheekily “ Do you want to save the changes you have made? ”, knowing full well that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and there is no way in hell I would save anything I ever did.

 I might have impressed the tea delivery guy with all the colorful and serious looking drawings i seemed to always have open, when he  comes by with my coffee. But then again working for as long as he has in the office I wouldn’t be surprised if he tapped me on my shoulder and said “keep scroll wheel pressed to pan document”.

The Kind of Stuff I hope to use AutoCAD for. 

What I'll Probably End up Using it For.

Desk Jockey, Day:2

Day: 2

Woke up with the alarm and broke my own personal record of hitting the snooze button just three times. Woke up jumped into ma shoes and headed to the Club for a Run, The instructor did a double take when he saw me walking in to the Gym at 0730 in the morning. Looking around i noticed that the average age of the Gym was 83, gave myself one more future excuse to use on myself on why i shouldn’t come for a run in the morning. Having done my ritual stumbling on the treadmill headed home to Boot up for another day of Vinay in Solar Land

This is What True Love Looks Like!

Boss/Dad then showed me to my cubicle. My nesting instincts immediately kicked in and i set about personalizing it. After spending 15 minutes adjusting the Chair, changing the location of the laptop 4 times and designating a spot for my Dwight Shroot Bobble head (which i don’t yet own and also which i checked online immediately to ensure it is available). I spent another 10 minutes wrestling furiously with my laptop charging cord, Phone charger and the mouse USB cord, who after spending half an hour together in my bag, fell in love and swore they would never be separated without putting up a struggle to the death. i finally settled down to get some work done.

 Boss/Dad gave me a couple of reports of how to set up a Solar Power plant. Reading through (studiously ignoring all the big words, it was too early in the day to Panic) i realized that these files were all project reports submitted by various EPC firms, (EPC – Engineering procurement and construction. Impressed yet? )

 So I figured you want to do something and don’t know how. All you got to do is send out mails asking for a presentation and quote from a few folks with the know how. Take the first quote, Google all the big words, and then Google up some brand new bigger words and compile a Cheat sheet, most important  divide the project cost by two. Then Call the second quote giver and pretend you already know how to do it but not able to do it on your own because you are needed to act in the new star wars movie and   are doing a favour to them by letting them do the project. Offer to pay them half of what the first quote said. They are sure to immediately claim that they would not have any money to feed their children if they did it at that cost. Then you pretend to be Mother Teresa and increase it by 25%, bring in a third group if you are the Ménage a Trios kind.So and so forth, OR you could just use the report to do it yourself. wow !! it just took 2 days to turn me into some kind of evil corporate vulture. Fortunately Dad/Boss has better ethics and principles than me and made sure i did all the Technical research by myself and i have absolutely no corporate decision making role ( Damn it!! so much for taking notes while watching Wall Street or Wolf of Wall Street).

Met Mr. P who will be my immediate boss, he is in charge of the Electrical side of the Plant. I managed to look intelligent yet again with a lot of nodding and pursing of lips and narrowing of the eyes.Got discussing a few drawings, slowly was beginning to decipher the nomenclature used. I was swimming in the uncharted waters of electrical drawings, schematics and schedules. Amidst all the Greek and Latin, shocked myself by actually coming up with a reasonable solution for a small problem, got so excited that I immediately forgot what I said. Mr. P then asked me make the changes as per the idea. I have NO idea what to do. The trouble was when I was talking, I wasn’t listening, and then I got busy celebrating my new found Smartness. Nope!!  Absolutely NO idea.

The Accidental Desk Jockey!!

Current Situation:Unemployed, I first considered selling a Kidney, and then Dad made me an Offer of working for him. I thought about it and decided I shall keep my over sized jelly bean. I didn’t think my other kidney would be able to handle the pressure of working all by itself (Performance anxiety works for body parts too you know, my bladder is proof of that, It will be perfectly fine and humming along. The minute I get into a long distance bus, it suddenly realizes that it is at the point of exploding).
 So dad made me an offer I didn’t want to refuse, and I was now the newest entrant to the world of Desk Jockeys.(Triumphant and fanfare music,.... no?...oh alright move on.)

Dad is the MD of an organization which is setting up a solar power plant close to Madurai. He wanted me on board at the starting stage so I could start at the basics. I had a strong feeling he wanted me joining at this stage because this way I would inflict least damage on myself or on his Dream project.

So I walked into the office and was immediately whisked away to a meeting with BBA(name changed very badly and is fooling nobody, looks like no identities are going to be protected) whose work on site I was supposed to watch, coordinate with and supervise on behalf of the Company. Being introduced as the MD’s son helped and they couldn’t smell my ignorance immediately. I sat down and tried to look as important as I could manage to without making an ass of myself. I nodded intelligently, took notes , pursed my lips and even narrowed my eyes when spoken to. The works!!. BBA left the meeting either thinking that I am the newest threat to their company, or that I have severe constipation. Former would be better, but I suppose the latter is inevitable.

Was given a pile of files to read through and bring me up to stat with the project. I settled down and pulled out the top most file and started reading the first page. One hour and 2 files later I leaned back and decided the project files were not working so I looked around to make sure no one was looking and having established my reputation was going to be unharmed I Googled “ HOW DOES A SOLAR POWER PLANT WORK?”, realizing this might lead to advance level reading material i revised it to " WHAT IS SOLAR ENERGY".

If there is one subject I hated as much or slightly more than mathematics was electrical. In fact despite being a marine engineer and having to work on electrical equipments on a regular basis, and also have to study and give exams, I am still not sure how a current actually passes in a wire.

If I were asked to explain to a kid how a current passes through a conductor I would first take a deep breath and look for the closest exit,if i did end up talking to him about it, at the end of my talk he would probably end up thinking that electricity is the work of  fairies and elves and that Harry Potter is real. I would totally prefer giving the kid the talk about the bird and bees  .

I have been always lucky to have an electrical officer on board with me leaving me to focus on the mechanical side of things. If something electrical didn’t work I would first stare at it and alternately threaten or  plead for it to work, I would then poke it with a stick, if that didn’t work I would whack it between three to eighteen times, If it still didn’t work I would say the magic words “ Electrical Officer HHEEELLLPPP”.

The only time I had ever used Solar energy before was when I used a magnifying glass to burn a piece of paper. Unfortunately a power plant is slightly more complicated than that, and fortunately it turns it is not Rocket science either. So looks like I might be of some use to the company after all.
Survived day one, and I am actually excited about day two. Well Here Goes Nothing.