The most livable city in the world

Long, LONG story short,

As soon as I became the Software Team Lead (and this other guy in the team didn't, and became my subordinate instead), he started showing insubordinate behavior. Let's call this guy Howard because he reminds me of Howard Wolowitz from TBBT, for some inexplicable reason. I used to think that I have an above average ability of being able to detail the inference process that led to me coming to hold a given opinion, but in this case, it was not easy. It was a combination of the following overlapping factors:

• His well-known anger management issues that the whole company knows about
• Jealousy - He wanted to be Team Lead. He has been in the team and even in the company for longer than I have. He also knows and acknowledges though that I am much more technically skilled than him. He believes things like he is a better fit for this role because he knows more people in the company than I do. If you're not sure what sense that makes, don't worry; I don't know either.
• A problem with authority in general and female authority in particular
• Typical Aussie complacence

One of the two other guys in my team has been friends with Howard for many years. These three have been hanging out together and excluding me ever since I've been TL. Lucky for me that my boss clearly sees it too and also how the two friends always disrespect me, challenge my authority and act difficult for no reason. The TL before me was technically very competent but made no attempt to address their performance and attitude issues. He got loved by everyone by staying back every day and quietly making up for their shortcomings by fixing their bugs and doing shitloads of work that the team couldn't handle.

All along the way my tech boss kept me that I am wrong and told me to "document" stuff with no clear direction as to how and what to realistically document. And all along the way my business boss understood what I'm talking about, and wanted to do something about it as bad as I did. We both care about the business and want to see it succeed, and not get messed up because of lazy, immature people playing politics.

This had been going on for a few months and now finally he is being moved to a different team. The news was broken to him by my bosses on day two of his having come back from a 3 weeks holiday. That day him and the other two guys in my team just kept getting up together and disappearing for long times, at least 7 times in the day (totaling about 5 hours of break by day end). When they came back from one of these breaks I went and asked why they were gone for so long without even informing me, neither before nor after, because this is not responsible behavior. Howard's Friend replied with something so idiotic that I couldn't believe my ears; "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what to say to you. Do I need to inform you every time I go to the toilet too?". The other one was reasonable and said that since Howard is suddenly moving teams, we got into a chat and the break took so long. He apologized and agreed to be careful next time. That is a sensible response and a decent attempt to make for unprofessional behavior. My business boss said that I shouldn't have told them to not be irresponsible because they had just found out about Howard moving and must be in a "fragile" state of mind. I disagreed, because the company doesn't pay people to chit-chat all day, and if they don't feel like working then they should take a day off.

That day I worked on the performance review document that my tech boss wanted me to, to use in the monthly performance reviews I have with my team members in my capacity as TL. I showed it to him the next morning and he complained that the goals are not "measurable" enough. Later I realized that the only goals he approved were the ones with an actual number, for example attend at least x trade shows in a year, don't have more than x bugs in a task etc.

Later that day my business boss had an hour long meeting with me to advise me on how to deal with my team. He said that however unfair it seems that we cannot tell the employees to do their work properly, it is because of the Australian laws that employees can slack off as much as they want and there isn't much that employers can do about it. Even if  I want to ask them to do their job, I have to beg them to do it and convince them and put insane amounts of sorrypleasethankyou in it, because that's the Australian culture (of complacence and inefficiency) that we have to deal with. The labour laws are so biased; he told me about a kid who got fired from his job for stealing money which was caught on tape. His father was a lawyer so he sued the employer for firing his son and actually extracted money out of them instead, because they hadn't filed a Police Report in time or something like that.

The talk with my business boss made me realize why my tech boss isn't happy with the monthly review document I made. This document is supposed to have nothing to do with my team identify and fix their weaknesses. Nothing to do with me helping them grow and build their career either. It is just something on which we keep track of any kind of stupid metric for each team member, which we can later use if need be, to show the this person wasn't doing x amount of work therefore we have taken the actions that we have (e.g. fired them).

So much for hard work getting acknowledged and rewarded.
So much for honesty.
So much for genuinely caring about my team and their growth.

This is Melbourne, the most liveable city in the world. Where the lying, manipulative, lazy and inefficient people can live mostly for free - And the hard-working, honest and responsible people do most of the work of the former group, and are hated by most for it.

Bucket List (Things I Wanted To Do Before I Un-Died)

I did not even remember I had ever started writing the below post... I have logged in to my blogger account today and discovered this draft. I am just publishing it as I found it, without any attempt to recall and finish what I was trying to write over a year and a half ago (June 2012). I'm even leaving the "->" in because this is how I found it. The title and labels are written today, though.

I am a 28 years old Pakistani woman who is leaving with her husband for Australia tomorrow night, on a Permanent Visa obtained on a skilled basis. I was born in Karachi, Pakistan and spent my whole life here. In order to fill my mind with good memories of my city for the rest of my life, here are the places I wanted to visit before I leave:

-> Open proceedings of a case in any court
-> Planetarium
-> An event at T2F
-> Base Rock Cafe
-> Mohatta Palace
-> Frere Hall
-> Chowkandi Graveyard
-> Ahmadiyya Graveyard
-> Abdullah Shah Ghazi's mazaar
-> The Nursery in Karachi Adventist Hospital (formerly 7th Day Hospital, where I was born)
-> The Nursery in Holy Family Hospital (where my husband was born)

Didn't get to do the above since I was very busy planning the move; we are going on a permanent basis never to come back. But yesterday gave me a full flavour of what I am leaving behind.

First, had to get money transferred and it took us three hours, going bank to bank

Moonlit Nights

I felt scared when I thought of coming back to my blog to write something. Scared not of writing, but of reading what I had written before; for I might feel embarrassed. So I came and quickly clicked on the "New Post" link, trying to keep my eyes off of the text of my last post. I need to overcome this fear, of knowing my real self. And the funny thing is, here I am, still believing that I work harder than most people at trying to know myself.

The reason why I have come to write something is to say that I've been feeling like singing, a song, about the moon. I don't know why the moon in specific. Looking at the moon always makes me think of whatever beauty I have come across in recent days. Singing this song would make me happy, but not entirely. It would make me entirely happy if it were true for me. And if it so happens that the words of this song become true for me, then I want that to happen slowly, and savor every moment of it.

The song I want to sing is called "Chandni Raatein". Here is a literal translation:
"Moonlit nights... The whole world sleeps and we stay awake, talking to the stars."

Right now I am scared of singing this song. That is so because I am afraid that if someone doesn't understand, they might be annoyed by it, or think that I am stupid. And if someone understands it, then my rendition might not be perfect enough for them, and they might think that I am stupid. But once it becomes true, then whoever listens, will surely feel what I feel, or at least understand what I feel. I should probably have hope.

Forbidden Fruit

This is exactly what I had wanted; to be strong. Unshakable. No unnecessary emotions should be able to deviate my thoughts from continuing on the course of rationality. And I am somewhat proud of myself for having done it.

But I now realize that what I've trained myself to do is to not let emotions touch my heart. I have stopped feeling - I am desensitized to all things good and bad. This was probably the right decision for me to take at the time I took it, in order to stop feeling pain. But since I do not have a heaven (or hell) to go to at the end of this life, I have no sense of purpose left now. Just like there are things (chocolate, for example) that trigger the same response in your brain as being in love, there is a thing that has, in the past, made me as satisfied as having a real purpose would have. For me that thing is a passion of some kind, or feeling passionately towards something. Be it continuing or not, explicable or not.

I think my ultimate goal should be to reprogram myself to open the doors of my heart and let everything take two courses to my brain, one through my heart and the other one direct. This is how it had always been before I stopped feeling, but the weights I used to give to each input were "stupid". This time I need to learn to apply the right weights to both of these inputs. The definition of "right" weights can of course be subjective - as a consequence of the definition of "right" being relative in its own nature. In my definition, I would allow my heart to suggest "crazy" weights for its outputs but not "stupid" ones as before. This should make me able to consciously develop passions about things that matter. This is important also because just thinking and acting, but not feeling is getting kind of boring :-)

But for now, just for now, I may have found a way to feel human. Ever since I died once, rarely have I ever felt butterflies in my stomach about anything. But I guess they might come, these live-in-the-moment, ephemeral creatures might come fluttering, over forbidden fruit.

Mc Donalds Happy Meal Tyrannosaurus Rex

A simple Data Access Layer (DAL) in C#

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;

///

/// Summary description for DAL
///

public abstract class DAL
{
static string strConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ConnectionString"].ConnectionString;
static SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(strConnectionString);
static SqlDataAdapter adapter;
static SqlCommand command;

public static SqlCommand DALCommand
{
get { return command; }
}

public static void InitDataAccess(string strStoredProcedure)
{
command = new SqlCommand(strStoredProcedure, connection);
command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
}

public static int ExecuteQuery()
{
return command.ExecuteNonQuery();
}

public static DataTable GetTable()
{
adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(command);
DataTable table = new DataTable();

adapter.Fill(table);

return table;
}

public static DataSet GetDataSet()
{
adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(command);
DataSet dataSet = new DataSet();

adapter.Fill(dataSet);

return dataSet;
}
}