A day in the life of 'a' Software Programmer

Shikhar, the youth....

Shikhar, a young college graduate, 24 years of age, was very excited as well as nervous that day. Lot of butterflies circling his stomach as he was approaching the company of his dreams, a multinational software consultancy company.

He had dreamed of this day since his college days, working in a multi-storied tower, shining and standing tall amidst all the other buildings around. Cubical decorated with the Intel core i5 processor, ergonomic keyboard, LED monitor and a nice comfortable ergonomic chair.

Leading a Team of talented programmers and creating quality softwares was his sole aim in life. The loving sight of a perfect figured blond sitting besides him, passing him a smile and he impressing her with his charm and talent was his fantasy of life, that he would think of it every now and then.

Sir, 20.25, a shrill voice of the cab driver breaks his day dream and brings him back to reality. Shikhar, in his new blue casual trouser, a crisp white shirt, a nice brown tie blended with red dots, shiny black shoes and cool Armani fragrance, didn't leave any page unturned to make a perfect first impression as a software professional.

Taking his wallet out, he pulls out 25 bucks and waves it towards the cab driver and proudly says keep the change. The cab driver happily takes it and drives away, as Shikhar thinks again whether or not he did the right thing by giving away almost 4 bucks as a tip. He gently scratches the back of his head in confusion and moves towards the reception counter.

Shikhar, Day 1 @ Office....

A middle aged old Guy greets him with a smile and asks him; how can I help you ?

Shikhar in firm voice says;Hi, its my first day at the office as an employee. The receptionist smiles and asks him to sign in to get temporary access.

Shikhar quickly signs in and moves ahead in a hurry but then steps back to ask which floor he needs to go and report in, the receptionist waves his hand and symbols 3.

He then quickly moves towards elevator and pushes the elevator button, and a Aged Guy in his mid fifties comes and stands beside him. Shikhar takes a side look at him and checks out his attire which was very casual and bit wrinkled up, and thinks how that guy got Job in such a big company.

Ting, and the elevator door opens up and he and both move inside and he guy pushes the 3rd button. Shikhar thinks again a bit puzzled if the guy was also a new joiner. With confusion circling over his mind he moves out of the elevator towards the floor and sees around lot of mid aged people buzzing around, few talking over phone, few digging deep down on the LED monitor. He advances towards a blond haired lady to ask about where to report in and also thinking it would be a great start to his day to see a young sweet face, says Excuse me Ma'm, and a lady turns, age about 50 or 52, teeth turned yellow with marks of a smoke, wrinkle showing up her face. Shikhar, a bit disappointed asks her in a low voice, where does a new joiner needs to report ? She points towards a cabin on the left of her and says go in and meet the Manager.

Shikhar with a confused and semi-confident look moves towards and knocks on the cabin, a hefty voices says come in ... Shikhar opens the door and to his dismay finds the same Guy at the elevator as his manager. He somehow still manges to smile and greets him; Good Morning Sir. The guy nods his head in acknowledgement and asks him to take a seat.

Shikhar gasps in and takes the seat, still trying hard to keep his smile intact. The guy then starts shooting at Shikhar with sharp words, about commitment, hard work, honesty, ethics, determination that he had to show at work. Cube OR-H12 is your cube and you can take briefing from your lead Samantha about the work requirement that you need to understand and get prototyped by today. Also focus towards a robust SOA architecture, says his Manager.

Shikhar hearing the name Samantha gets a bright ray of hope as well as feels a string of sweat behind his ears, hearing terms like SOA and moreover to have prototype completed on his first day. It was as if hard rock and soft melody tune hitting his ears at the same time.

Meeting Samantha.....

You can leave now, the strong words, gets shikhar up and moving in brisk steps towards his cube looking for Samantha at the same time. Soon he sees a beautiful young girll smiling at him and he moves towards her with his fingers crossed and says 'Are you Samantha?'

She says yes and says 'Shikhar right ? ' . Shikhar with a mouthful of smile says 'Yep' and happily takes the seat Samantha offered besides her. Samantha asks shikhar if it was his first day, and Shikhar nods with a smile saying yes.

Samantha then starts explaining him the requirement to build a shopping cart for a wireless customer and asks him to go through the requirement and ask her any questions if he had. She then mentions to him that he has to get started quickly on the User Interface prototype and bring it back to her for approval. Shikhar excited to see her lead as a young lady, though she looked to be of a bit stronger built then usual women of her age, felt something that seemed like a cold drop of water to him on a bright sunny desserted day. He then moves towards his cube and sees a guy in his mid thirties besides him

He starts his desktop and whispers to the guy besides him hello, the guy asks him if he was new and he nods yes. Shikhar then starts going over the requirement making sure he understood most of it.

Soon a voice breaks his concentration, 'Dude wanna catch some food ?' the Guy besides him asks, says BTW am Jeff, Shikhar shakes his hand and says Sure, Am Shikhar. Jeff says Shikaar, right ? Shikhar says no its Shikhar.... Jeff again says Shikaar ? .. Shikar then says you can call me Sam.. Jeff smiles and says that's better, Sam . then they both move towards the canteen to grasp some quick lunch.

Shikhar quickly munches in his lunch and asks Jeff's excuse to leave and moves towards his cube, determined to finish up the prototype ASAP.

He then starts building one, trying all different variations to make it as better as possible.

He Kept creating and scraping the prototype, to keep improving and create one which exactly matches the requirement and without any flaw in it. Soon he realises that it was 15 minutes past 6 in the evening and remembered that it might be the time for Samantha to leave.

He hurriedly copies over the prototype to a shared drive and moves towards samantha's cube and breathes in easy when he finds her sitting and working over at her cubical. He then feeling proud and confident of his prototype, interrupts Samantha; Excuse me Samantha, I have completed the prototype, would you like to take a look ?

Samantha smiles, and asks him, Is it perfectly done ?

Shikhar replies 'To the best of my ability Ma'm'. Samantha then opens the shared drive and starts going over the prototype and says, not bad Shikhar. And after going over the entire User Interface turns towards shikhar and asks 'Where is the prototype for second part of the requirement ?'. Shikhar kind of awestruck, looks at Samantha and says 'Am sure I completely prototyped the requirement'. Samantha a bit frustrated opens the requirement in front of him and shows the second part which was at the end of the tree structured editor.

Shikhar holds his head feeling bad and says 'Give me some time I will get this done'. Samantha says 'hurry up, we don't have much time'.

Shikhar rushes back and starts coding the second part of User Interface, simultaneously reading the requirement, multitasking with his tiered brain and fingers to catch the deadline. Soon around 8:30 PM, he completes the prototype and shares it with Samantha. Samantha goes over it and says Good Job dude. He then feels good and asks Samantha if she would like to go out on dinner with him before leaving for the day.

Samantha nods and walks with him for dinner. During dinner they both start talking about each other sharing views and exchanging pleasant smiles.

Climax....

After a days of hard work and feeling dead tiered, Shikhar was still feeling happy as he had his team lead a young girl having dinner with him. But soon he bites his tongue as he hears those words coming out of the mouth of Samantha 'When I was a guy of your age I was also hardworking and as smart as you' . Not able to believe his ears, he asks her 'What do you mean, when I was a guy?'. Samantha smiles and says that she had her sex changed a year back as she wanted to feel like a woman and be a woman.

In a minute all of Shikhars excitement and dreams drain down and he somehow completes the dinner with her and takes leave to move out to catch a cab back home.

While moving towards to catch a cab, he stumbles over and falls down and gets hit on his knee and he wipes his eye to realize a bright light shining on him.

To his astonishment Shikhar finds himself lying down in his bedroom besides his bed and bright sunshine hitting his eye through the window shade. And soon his ear gets attentive after hearing the alarm go loud. He looks at the clock and says 'Shoot Shit Shit Shit, Again the haunting nightmare of what happened on my first day at work is going to get me late to the office'.

It was 10 years now since his first day at his work as a software programmer and still he had his dreadful deadlines to meet, still the same work hours of 12 -14 hours a day and still the sour memories of meeting Samantha.

Shikhar then gets up and moves towards the washroom, swearing of not being a software programmer at least in his next incarnation as a human being :)

**Disclaimer: This is a fantasy story written by me and has no resemblance with anyone or any substance living or dead. Please read and enjoy the story.