In our roaming division, everything ran smoothly despite GG's rubber-faced, maniacal antics.
While a couple of domestic clients/partners were slow to respond to fix their own problems at their end, by and large, they fared better with us constantly nudging and prodding them. Our 16-hours-a-day, 7 am to 11 pm, 7 days a week responsive single-point-of-contact (SPOC) technical support provided remotely meant the world to them.
At the supporting end of the continuum, we at Satyam offered highly scalable services with state-of-the-art software platforms and technical expertise to elevate complete roaming analytics and financial settlement — in other words, a full engagement from start to finish.
As a Data Clearing House (in collaboration with our Denmark DCH and Cybernet, London partners), we facilitated financial clearing (a specialty from the desk of Suresh, Devi — from Hyderabad, and Michelle — from London), providing fraud detection solutions (Susanne's area of expertise among many others — supporting from Copenhagen, Denmark) and highly scalable, full-stack roaming operations services that establish compliance and operational excellence for our customers (Mandeep's and my domain areas — supporting from Hyderabad).
GG and Balaji liked to say, "We have come a long way," and reiterated in the weekly meetings that we had made significant progress with the accomplishments so far, a fact verified. Indeed, we did, as there were emails of appreciation and thanks, commenting that technical problems had been troubleshooted, files processed, reports made, software applications deployed, and so on. Everything went well in Satyam's roaming department, as it did throughout our association with the division under GG's aggravating, watchful eye and Balaji's (the thinking man) calm, logical sense of things. However, out of the blue, we all were caught off guard (rather quite shocked) when the owner-entrepreneurs of Satyam suddenly began to disagree on business matters: They agreed to disagree and disagreed vehemently. (Or was this one of the first ominous signs of Satyam's eventual debacle?). We loved our work — until the day the division stayed with Satyam Computers because everything radically changed from then on, and the year was 2001.
Given Satyam's tremendous reputation and standing in the country's IT sector — which was already making great strides in the global information technology industry — our small roaming department, staffed by young software professionals like us: Mandeep, Devi, Suresh and I (with substantial contributions from Kavitha, Shiv and others; not to mention GG and Balaji themselves as principal founders), was sadly deprived of its raison d'être at Satyam. It was as if they had severed the umbilical link and robbed us of the pride and dignity we had so skilfully achieved thus far.
As a spin-off, these so-called CEOs and super managers, who were supposed to be risk-takers, challenge-takers, and all that corporate bla bla, decided to forsake their business acumen and move away to start a new company while 'stealing' away the lucrative ventures they took pains to establish when they functioned under Satyam's fabulous trademark reputation in the IT market as a full-service software solutions provider. Welcome to the world of corporate skulduggery that super managers' owners' syndicate commit without shame or fear of damnation. Spin doctoring was at its best display! Greetings!
Within the span of a few months, we saw GG resigning. In place of him, a new noticeably-contrived individual (THE TADPOLE) is coming to handle our division while sending out self-serving feelers that he is the best our division could ever have: That the GG-era is over and out and the man we should watch out for today is the Tadpole, who is beginning to sound a lot like GG when he was in charge of the roaming division, albeit a fake imitation of GG, a counterfeit copycat of GG.
Confessedly, Mandeep and I, even Devi and Suresh, felt saddened and glum for GG because we wanted him to come back and lead our division again, just like in old times; never mind his stormy behaviour, he can restore it if he desires to — we cannot imagine GG without his loud mouth that shoots off faster than a rocket and at every opportunity he spots! But alas, that cannot happen; that never happened. There were inexperienced managers, such as the Tadpole, who took over the reins of the shop on its last legs, and nobody was expecting this young fellow to achieve anything meaningful for it. And he proceeded to wreck it just as we had anticipated.
There was an air of no one taking anything seriously. Not because we suddenly became unconcerned about what we loved doing but because of this inexperienced, rather bumptious rapscallion, who turned out to be a big let-down. The Tadpole acted friendly, but we saw through his pointless game. That everything got jinxed right from the get-go. He came, he saw, and he conquered no one. We believed that someone who was the complete antithesis of what GG was known for would emerge once GG left Satyam. Regretfully, the Tadpole was a cynical sceptic, much like GG, with stultifying managerial abilities that destroyed all remaining traces of our eagerness to continue to work at the roaming division. The Tadpole turned out to be a shifty no-gooder, as far as we were concerned.
Shiv chuckled at the new man's handling of our department's issues, and his spunky personality was one of the preparatory reasons Shiv decided to leave the pathetic tragedy of GG taking the roaming section away to another company. That was in the mid-2001. Devi and Suresh, the finance duo, were preparing to leave the Raj Bhavan Road office branch and, as of 2003, would never be able to return to this beloved office, nor would I. Balaji had shifted to the STC branch before I made my way there, as did Devi and Suresh. GG's departure had sounded a death knell to our beautiful way of life on the beloved 5th floor of the TSR Towers on Raj Bhavan Road. I can still remember those days we left behind.
Everybody started leaving Satyam: first Mandeep, then soon it was Shiv's turn. They were the first to move, followed by the rest of the team. Even that cartoonish Tadpole, who temporarily took GG's role and moved in for the kill, swiftly swam away to Satyam Technology Center (STC), saving his teeny ass from being trampled under the weight of changing times and unrealistic expectations. The TADPOLE foundered, ruined it. He was admittedly at a loss for options. Such scallywag types end up not having any.
As the tide changed, this smart-ass could carefully dodge the irrelevance of his job role. Kavitha was gone, parted a long time ago, a faint memory. One of the early members of our Roaming Division's original team, which consisted of just three software professionals — Mandeep, Kavitha, and Arindam (myself) — became a memorable part of the most favourite era each of us richly experienced at Satyam Computers Ltd.
(To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick
As the tide changed, this smart-ass could carefully dodge the irrelevance of his job role. Kavitha was gone, parted a long time ago, a faint memory. One of the early members of our Roaming Division's original team, which consisted of just three software professionals — Mandeep, Kavitha, and Arindam (myself) — became a memorable part of the most favourite era each of us richly experienced at Satyam Computers Ltd.
(To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick