Tech Job 9 to 9 (11 page)

“So what are
you doing in PicoEMG office? Why you both are frequently going there?” asked
Vinay.

“That’s a
different story man. It’s more of a business deal if I may put it like that,”
said Himesh.

Himesh started
telling the story from the beginning.

“And so you
are the invisible hand changing everything I did. You manipulated the results
during the POC time in CDSTP project. No wonder why all my logic and
predictions didn’t work as I had expected. You indirectly, without me noticing,
set the path for everything I did then. It’s a breach of trust, betrayal,” said
Vinay.

Himesh dropped
his head low.

“I know what I
did is wrong. I know you would never accept my act. But you had become my
friend. I thought we could do better. I thought I could reason with you once
this is all over. I hoped you would understand once you realize the results,”
said Himesh.

“This is a
scandal! This is cheating…you lost your respect, professionalism and your
integrity. You had been entrusted to judge and decide something for a highly
respected firm who blindly believed whatever you had said,” said Vinay.

“You use big
words highly respected firm, scandal, cheating. Big words they are,” chimed
Ashutosh.

“You, I don’t
know whether you spoiled him or he spoiled you! I didn’t expect this from you!
You were my role model. What a disappointment!” said Vinay.

“Let me start
with your own words…highly respected firm, scandal, cheating. Manipulating
effort estimations in the name of SME team, projecting a one-year work as six
months work, scandal or cheating? Bullying one person to do the work of two
people, scandal or cheating? Forcing someone to do a three days work in one
day, scandal or cheating? Making people stretch and work extra hours on
weekdays and on Saturdays but bill only nine hours for only weekdays, scandal
or cheating? And highly respected firm…the what?” said Ashutosh.

“Who are you
to judge? Who are you to say this is scandal and that is not?” said Ashutosh.

“I say if that
is not scandal then what we did is not scandal as well,” said Ashutosh.

“Here’s what I
get, three million dollars. Each of us will get one share. And Ashutosh will
get one share for materializing the business deal. He was instrumental into
getting them into the negotiation table. He constantly reminded them the
project might be pulled off until it reached Go-live. And then they gave in.
They agreed to pay six months after Go-live. Today we will get the money in my
account,” said Himesh.

“Listen to me.
We don’t need to be treated like slaves by people like Mona and Nitesh. Think
of the possibilities this will bring. I did everything for us only,” pleaded
Himesh.

“Himesh, check
your account. It’s about time,” said Ashutosh.

Himesh logged
in to his bank account. They saw the money in his account. Himesh looked at
Vinay.

“Give your
account numbers. I will transfer now,” said Himesh.

He first
transferred to Ashutosh account. Vinay thought about it. He was tempted with
the business deal and finally he gave in to the temptation. Himesh transferred
the share to Vinay’s account.

“Let’s keep
quiet about it and keep a low profile. Don’t start spending everything suddenly,”
advised Ashutosh.

Later that
day, Vinay contacted the network team and tried to get the MAC address from the
IP address. MAC stood for Media Access Control and each MAC address is made of
twelve characters. Each PC had a unique MAC address. He searched through the
network logs for the IP address to find the corresponding MAC address but could
not find the IP address in any of the network logs.

Vinay asked a
network person sitting nearby. He did some searches and said that IP address
was not assigned to any of the PCs used in Holtezent.

”Why are you
wasting time on this? Just inform the operations support team to redeploy
everything including the core system files,” said Ashutosh.

“Then how will
we find out who did it?” asked Vinay.

“Why don’t we
just tell all your findings to the concerned people in the support team and let
them work it out?” asked Himesh.

“That’s what
I’m thinking now. I’m just going to tell them and then it’s their problem to
find out,” said Vinay.

“Take a copy
of all your findings and keep it somewhere for future reference,” said
Ashutosh.

Vinay took a
copy of the account numbers he found in the preproduction and the logs from his
debugger. He then immediately sent an email with all the details to the operations
manager responsible for the CDSTP operations. Within thirty minutes he got an
acknowledgement and was told not to talk about this to anyone. Vinay noticed
all of their login ids and access to CDSTP server was locked out.

Usha’s plan
was working out. She has tipped her colleagues in Dochamk Bank involved in the
GF project to ask for more in the form of cost savings and value additions to
the project. Now Mona was told to develop and roll out for two entities every
two months. She was told to plan to roll out all twenty entities within two
years.

“Two years I
have to be here and to lead these incompetent people. I’m just tired of spoon-feeding
these guys,” exclaimed Mona from her seat after reading an email from Raghu.
She was exhausted and burnt out leading the team. This was not what she had
imagined she would end up with as an Architect or a Technical Team Lead.

Mona was no
longer in her previous self. She spoke meekly and her voice was less audible.
Gone were those authority and commanding tone in her voice. She became weak and
humbled.

Shanthi gave a
birthday party. She invited every one for lunch to Three C restaurant.

The entire
team went for the lunch. They all chitchatted while having lunch. Some took
photos using their camera phones.

Vinay saw
Puneet frequently leaving his seat and going to some secluded area and talking
with somebody on the phone. Vinay wondered with whom he was talking. He thought
he might be speaking with his wife.

Vinay saw
Anil’s phone rang a few times. He tried to see if anyone familiar to him was
calling so that he can inform the person to call after a few minutes as Anil
had went to washroom. He saw a name flash on the phone’s screen. It showed
“Nitesh”.

Satish gave
his debit card to pay the bills for the buffet. He then went to wash his hands.
The waiter swiped the card and returned back to the table with the receipt and
the card. Satish was not there so he gave the card to Vinay.

Vinay then
went to washroom to wash his hands. He overheard Puneet speaking on the phone
with someone. He heard familiar words “TeraSMX”. He also heard Puneet whispering
to someone, “Yes Shekar I’m working on that”.

Everyone came
back to office and continued their work.

“I now know
who is involved in altering the core system files in CDSTP server,” told Vinay
to Himesh and Ashutosh.

“Who is it you
are suspecting this time? Last time I remember you made a good attempt but
failed miserably,” said Ashutosh.

“Who else he
sits right there all along,” said Vinay and moved his face towards a cubicle.

“Good guess
buddy. Let’s scare him come,” said Himesh.

“Himesh I’m
serious. I have proof,” said Vinay.

“See this list
of account numbers. See this number that ends with 5555. I saw this in his debit
card back side,” said Vinay showed a file with account numbers which he had
made a copy before informing the operations manager of CDSTP operations.

“That sounds
like money to be made. There are others involved most probably from the bank
itself. He might have been used most likely as a pawn to do this configuration,”
said Himesh.

“No. We don’t
need any of this money. This is stealing. Where is Satish? Call him and tell
him to come to discussion room,” said Vinay.

Himesh called
Satish’s mobile number.

“Hi Satish,
how are you? Where are you now?” asked Himesh.

“Yes. I’m
fine. What’s the matter? I’m in cafeteria,” asked Satish.

“You are in cafeteria?
You just now came from lunch from Three C. Oh, never mind. I just called you to
discuss a very important thing you know. Nothing to worry I assure you. No
problem. You know we can discuss it out and resolve this matter within
ourselves. We are open to a share, you know what I mean,” said Himesh.

‘What are you
talking about? What matter? What share? I don’t understand anything,” replied
Satish.

“Oh yeah cut
the crap man. We know what you have done, either cut us a share or you will be
in serious trouble,” said Himesh.

“Wait…I will
come…we will discuss,” said Satish.

Satish met
Himesh, Vinay and Ashutosh in one of the conference rooms.

Vinay told his
account number was found in the account number list in preproduction which was
used to send the funneling transactions with the siphoned amount. He briefly
explained the funneling transactions and that CDSTP operations support team had
been already alerted.

Satish started
telling his story.

“I’m not
involved in doing any of this. I supplied only login ids and passwords to this
guy from Dochamk Bank. And once he asked for my account number. He said if
everything goes well he will pay me handsomely. I don’t know how my account
number got into this. I really I don’t know anything about this. I don’t know
who else are involved in this. I received instructions only from this guy,”
said Satish.

 “So you have
assisted in this stealing indirectly with hope of receiving future payment. You
have given all our login ids and passwords. No wonder why there were changes
done through Puneet’s login id. How cheap of you Satish to do this,” said
Vinay. 

“Man you should
leave this support lead role unless you want to be suspected for anything in
future,” added Himesh.

“We will
inform our management regarding your involvement. It’s up to them and you to
sort it out,” said Ashutosh.

Vinay saw an
email request from the CDSTP operations manager asking him to create a revised Operations
manual with enhanced security checks incorporated.

Vinay started
working on the new Support Operations Manual for CDSTP operations. The new
guidelines will detect loopholes, restrict access rights to the system core
files and ensure each activity in production support goes through a three-step
process. An Authorizer who would have to first authorize the production
activity, a  Support personnel who would execute the change and a Verifier who
would then verify and approve the change.

He then
emailed it to the support team copying important stakeholders in Dochamk Bank.

After a few
days, Satish was told to resign from Holtezent and he submitted his
resignation.

Vinay and Himesh
were released from the GF project. Vinay was made as the new support lead for
the CDSTP operations support team. Himesh became the team lead for the CDSTP
maintenance team.