4 Months at RBS IDC ( Title inspired from the famous books one night at the call center)

Title of the blog is kept a bit similar to the famous book titled 'One night at the call center'.But I cannot write a blog which is almost as big as that book. I just want to share with all of you my experiences in the night shifts and the hardships we face in my stlye of narrating things elobarately. All the things are explained to my own perception there is nothing to do with my team mates opinions.

People will be now wondering what is RBS IDC. Yeah I am coing to that only. I am presently working for Royal Bank Of Scotland India Development Center at Gurgaon near New Delhi which is on the banks of pious Yamuna river. I came here on deputation basis in the month of January 2007 for a period of 6 months to test myself at the client side and also to see how production support teams do and what do they really need to perform. This RBS is a client of Polaris Software Labs Hyderabad Branch which is specialised in Investment Banking and Capital Markets. Since we are the vendors we are working here for them to migrate their support system from their head office to IDC. We have been successful in that till now though it is not claimed by the client people.

We are a team of 10 members currently out of which 7 are from Polaris and 3 are from IDC. We work together in shift basis. We provide support to the application 24 X 7 X 365 days. There will be 3 shifts per day. Morning hift goes from 6 am to 3 pm , afternoon shift goes from 2 pm to 11 pm and night shift goes from 10 pm to 7 am. The one hour overlap time between in the shifts will be considered as handover time, transition time or changeover time. Next shift people will have to completely take the charge and control in between that ovelap time. If failed to take the next shift who need to take over will be blamed. For IDC people night shift is not applicable, They will only work in the first two shifts, we being the vendors have to face the Night shifts. This is the first and foremost point in seeing people who are providing you the service in a different angle. This is because they think since they are paying to the vendor they need to do everything possible to satisfy the customer. Right of equality does not apply here.

Since I am young I thought working in a shift system will be a challenging task and I can have fun. I just wanted to experience the call center type atmosphere accepting this project. Very soon I realised that it is very difficult to work in shift basis esp night shift for a long time. Irrespective of age I find a person should not and can not work more than a period of 6 months in such shift basis projects as it affects the person's health in the long run badly though the project and the company are benefited by you taking the pain and you will be having a mere monetary benefit with which you will be able to do nothing. Though many of my friends scolded me in choosing such a project I took it as a challenge for 6 months and now I decided strongly that I cannot continue after my 6 month duration completes here. I feel and hope that I will be able to go back after 6 months easily to my place as my manager gave a written confirmation of the same when I was starting in January 2007.

Woking in the night shifts will be a totally different experience compared to working in the day shifts. It is very tough some times to cope with the situation in the night shifts unless people are highly skilled to work fastly. Some times it will be very cool to work in that shift as every thing will be so cool. When some data base and space issues arise in the night shifts it will be very difficult to handle unless you have a concrete document with details of how to handle the problem. If there was no document with you, then your situation is in chaos. You don't know what to do, and also do not have any idea to handle to issue and everything will be held and nothing will move until you have a concrete solution. One advantage I find in the night shift in India in such development centers is we can get a close bonding with the other team members as there will be nobody to talk and share their words. We will be able to discuss many things under the sky from hair pin to Airbus380.