Seshadri's Musings

I had one customer who was using our software.   One day he called me to his office and ordered another copy of the software.   I asked him as to why he is buying another copy when he was using one already.   He said it is for someone else and refused to tell me who that was.   He said the person does not want to identify himself and all the communication will be routed through him.   The order was placed on his name. After the order was placed and the payment collected, I asked him where to install the software.   He asked me to come after 2 days and he will tell me where to install. After 2 days when I went to meet him, he showed a laptop and said I can install it there.   I installed the software and asked him about the training.   He said he will take care of it. I left it at that. After one week he said the person who is using the software wants training on the product.   I told him I can come to his office tomorrow and train the person.   He said not at his office and g

Another interesting incident!! When I was working in the same company, there was a call from someone who was calling from a hotel and wanted to see our software and buy it.   I went to the hotel to meet him.   He had an office suite in the hotel which was quite big. He said he wanted to see the software.   I started showing him the demo of the software.   While showing the demo, it seemed to me that he was not that interested in the demo.   I asked him a couple of time whether he had any questions to ask for clarifications.   He said no and asked me to continue with the demo. After about half an hour, I told him the demo is completed and how do we proceed further.   He then asked if me Harshad Mehta was using this software.   At that time Harshad Mehta was the king of stock markets and was regularly being featured in the magazines.   Also, there were many stories floating around on his lifestyle.   And fortunately, his firm had indeed purchased 2 copies of the software.   An

This is yet another of my encounter during my working days!!   Enjoy!! I was working with a software development company which was selling financial database of companies on a subscription basis.   Its high-end subscription was priced at Rs 1.25 lakhs as the fees for first year and about 20% of this amount as a recurring cost for further years. We had quite a few customers for this across the country.   In February of that year, the company launched a scheme wherein if you buy the subscription, you can get a laptop with 80MB hard disk size (yeah you read that correct 😊 ) free 😊 .   The price was kept the same.   So, we had many people, including our existing customers making a beeline for this offer.   In addition to the subscription, they can get a laptop free.   One more advantage was that they could claim depreciation on the laptop and save on some tax!!   The irony was that, by that time the database size had gone to huge and could not have fit into the laptop itself!!

There have been several instances of humorous or unforeseen situations that I have encountered during my working life.   I am enumerating a few of them for your enjoyment 😊 over the next few blogs!! I was in Egypt once on an official trip and was staying in the Hotel Sheraton in Cairo.   By the way, Hotel Sheraton was a five-star hotel and was posh!!   I had just finished my dinner in the room and just went to the corridor outside to keep the plates out.   Otherwise the housekeeping guy might come at night and bang the door asking for the plates.   I was dressed in a sleeveless banian and a lungi with no slippers 😊 .   Now the door of the room was such that it used to close on its own. You have to hold it so that it does not close on its own and gets locked.   When I bent over in the corridor to keep the plates and stuff, the room closed and I was locked out of my room clad only in my banian and lungi 😊 😊!! I tried opening the door but to no avail.   I waited for some t