How Mainframe is changing Life?

After being trained in Mainframes with one of the premier organization, TCS, I was sent to Chennai with complete batch giving shocking news just 2 days before we were due to join Ahmadabad. We were told that there are certain "Critical Business Requirements" and to compensate these requirements they are sending us to Chennai.


I thought it could change life and I am going to work something really good and make myself worth working in TCS.


Now, I start my daily routine by waking up, doing my daily business, going to office, eat, and come back, eat again and then sleep. Oh you might be thinking that I missed the most important part of whole of my day, "WORK". But the truth is I didn’t forget, it is not anymore part of my schedule.


When I joined a project, I started up doing some excel sheet work. Then came some manual editing work on mainframes and then came the most fascinated and admired "Cycles". I have to run one or more cycle’s everyday of every week of every month. Nothing has changed; I have to just run them. Write the code in the most tedious way, though there is not much of the coding now done.


One was told to leave all his creativity and knowledge aside, start working like dumb, ask no question and follow the checklist perfectly. Now who cares if 80% of the world's code is written in COBOL? However nobody of them told that there are no new technological breakthrough happening in mainframe and COBOL. You are asked to work like other almost 50K odd people are working in the organization like sheep and cow.


I wanted to work in Networking, but I was told "NO" at all the points and passages I went. I was asked to work whatever that is assigned to me.


I am not saying that everyone who is working on mainframe is having the same kind of work, may be its just me or maybe not. If somebody is happy with whatever he is doing he has to keep doing it until he feels it’s worth doing it. I just wanted to let you know that this is what happened to me.