< RELAX AND DREAM >

This incident happened a few years back, when I was working with the R&D department in one of the major software company.

Being in the Research and Development department, has it's super advantages. Many outside the highly secure glass panel of R&D believed that R&D stood for "Relax and Dream." Well, what do they know!! We have been specifically trained and hardcoded to smile and do strange dumb things and laugh at it. That is what they pay us for. We are just doing our job.

As I said, it has super advantages. Let me tell you why.

1) Unlimited internet access, to access, resources and materials to enrich our already awesome knowledge which we are never going to use in our life time, except those learned from porn.

2)We had a 3 Temperature water-cooler inside our department.That reason itself is the biggest proof to prove that we have the super advantage.

3)We get powerful and new machines.

But we have our limits too.

Any CD/DVD/electronic media or other media that can store data has to go through strict check. This is checked by a smart female.This 'female' was to psychologically restrain us from even trying to sneak out 'awesome'/any stuff, which we downloaded.

This was the reason why we envied the Media department. They were the ones who were actually enjoying a lot. They can do anything they wanted. They can copy stuff. They can write anything onto CD. Download Chicks.jpg and call it ART for the brochure, but they didn't have the water-cooler inside their deparment like ours.

For this simple reason, Media is our ally.

Meet, the Agent smith and Party of this story. This department keep an 'eye'(Other eye would be over some hot chicks) on our network activities. They consider themselves to be one level short of "Playing God".

Every others feared them. They considered "Agent Smith and Party" to be like, Ebola or some silent killers or serial rapists, always lurking in the dark, watching your every move. Waiting for you to make one wrong move.....

But

We in R&D pity them, cuz they are using the network monitoring tools that we developed to monitor the network. Ironically, we decide what to show them and what not to show them. We decide what buttons they can click.

Well! This actually is the problem with the world. The people in power thinks that, they have the buttons and therefore the power, but it's actually those people who made the buttons, who should actually be in power, cuz only they know the true power of the button and hence be sensible. Science and who understand science should rule.

As one of my knowledgeable friend once said...

"Intellectual anarchy is better than democratic mayhem"- Dewdrop.

Which I think holds true, thinking about the state of the world today.

[ I thought of putting it in golden color, but it was hard on eyes. Well!! Truth always is!!]

That make us in R&D half level short of "Playing God". For us, Agent Smith and Party never exist. They were like those tiny little, creatures, swimming in 'cultural fluid' in some petri dish...Long way down the food chain and way lot to evolve. If I were to explain the corporate chain, I would start from the bottom with 'Agent Smith and Party'.

"All your base are belong to us"

One day, an advenuterer named 'Lijo Mathew', set out on voyage. Like any great voyage, in the afternoon after lunch, This, young explorer stumbled across a link."A small link for man , a giant database of porn kind."

Soon this young explorer was bypassing and outsmarting the 'sniffer dogs' of so called 'Agent Smith and Party' and downloading stuffs.Young, the sailor was. Who can blame him, for he was young and lonely in the vastness of the sea called internet.

After downloading the movie, he claimed it in the name of R&D. Now it belonged to us.

We beamed it to the media dept. server.

Now the mind game begins.

..

..

Ram****** is the department head. A young guy who sees everything as art. He even sees designs in crow poop. He could even look at it and tell from which height and angle it was launched to create such design. [ I just want you to understand how much of a genius he is.]

Ram****** calls us over the intercom phone. Negotiation begins.

[ *Added dramatization for effect in the below conversation.]

Ram******: I will burn it on to CD, watch it and then tomorrow, you guys can get a copy.

Lijo: NO!! if it was not for us, you people will never have anonymous access over the internet.

Ram****** : Don't push too hard. I can watch it and delete it and say THANK YOU to you.

Lijo: Consider that, you will never have anymore support from R&D.

Ram******: booo hooo...please...please don't leave us. Listen, we have your software patch for anonymous access that means we don't need you anymore.

Lijo: Will call you back.

..

..

" I downloaded the movie, I have every right to watch it first."Lijo was fuming." Ya know, I even arranged to leave early from office today."

"What should we do." They asked the sorcerer. [ They always ask the sorcerer on advice, such as these.]

The sorcerer sat in contemplation. Eyes closed, not snoring. This was the battle between the minds.A resolution need to be made to avoid further escalation. We always do the risky job. We are trained for such jobs, like creating methods that crash but bail out the data unharmed or download unauthorized stuff. Still we were dependent on those whose department look like a play pen of a toddler for our personal needs.

..

..

" Call him, tell Ram****** that we agree".

"But" hesitated Lijo.

The sorcerer motioned his hands towards the telephone.

____________________

NEXT DAY MORNING

Ram****** is seen sitting in the cafe. The R&D trio wave at him. He wave back

Ram******: You, people are so bad.

Hari: What happened?

Lijo and Sorcerer was sitting silently sipping on coffee.

Ram******: I went home with the CD. In order to reach home early, I didn't take the cab. I took the bus, crowded bus, mind you. I reached home. made all arrangements to watch the movie. I opened the CD in media player and all I got was RD BURMAN songs, Old Hindi Song.!! I anticipated too much. You should never do such things even to your enemies.

Lijo gives the CD to Ram******. "It is in this. Watch it. It even has a story line."

Ram****** : Thank you.

____________________

"What exactly happened yesterday evening?" asked Hari.

"We have Intel that Ram****** keeps his 'special' CD under his keyboard. Th**** switched the CD for us."

Th**** was our hardware admin, he had access to all departments and systems.

"We bribed him with copy of the movie" said Lijo, happy as ever.

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Ps: No confidential company owned intellectual property was harmed or destroyed in this process or during my stint with that company.

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