Conductors or Semi-Conductors?

Kerala State Road Transport Coporation was again in the news this time. No, not for breaking the loss-making record again. KSRTC now is paying more money as pension to its employees than the salary it is paying its regular employees.
KSRTC is just another State government tool to ensure employment to a few more people in a state where literacy rates are the highest but the available jobs are among the lowest. Or, was supposed to.
I know a good friend of mine who was a computer instructor at a mediocre computer training institute. The outsorucing boom had just started and software companies were inducting candidates in hordes. Suddenly one fine day my friend said that he had been selected by KSRTC as a bus conductor. And he was accepting the offer.
I was aghast. He was a promising computer engineer who could write reasonable good software and could manage steep learning curves. I tried to change his mind. I told him that with his strong logic and reasonably good exposure to the hot technologies of the time, he would make an excellent software engineer with some real time exposure to software projects. Would not all that talent go to waste?
But he would not budge. He said, his parents considered a goverment job a secure one, with minimal risk and well-paying too. He too agreed with his parents and that was that.
I didn't see him after that.
But whenever I catch the night bus home at 9 pm on Fridays to my native place, I sometimes think of my friend. Where is he? Was he enjoying his work? Or did he turn back to computers again?
My journey lasts 4 hours(half an hour less than in day time due to the empty roads) as it courses most of MC road to my destination. The first one hour the bus is packed with commuters, most of them standing. By the end of the first hour most of the remaining people are seated, the others having gotten down at nearby destinations. The next half hour the bus rumbles on and at the midpoint of the journey where the driver and conductor take a break for a cup of tea and a smoke, the bus empties with only a few dozen Tamil Ayyappa devotees clad in black bound for Sabarimala, the famous religious destination in Pathanamthitta district. They too get down in another half an hour. The remaining one and a half hour the bus rumbles on carrying me and just one or two other odd passengers. When the bus finally reaches its destination there is usually only me and sometimes an odd co-towner.
No wonder KSRTC runs at a loss. All that matters is that the buses be running and the drivers and conductors do their job, passengers or not!

Man Versus Machine

Sorry for the delay in posting.. My posts were going through several beta versions :-)
What spurred me on this topic of Man Vs Machine was after I had the experience of losing a sizeable amount in an ATM transaction.
Just as my cash was about to pop out the ATM machine went dead.
I checked my balance at the nearest ATM and found that the money that I had not recieved had been debited from my account.
After several visits to my bank I found that they had found that there was no record of the transaction in the ATM logs, none on the website that keeps record of all these transactions and absolutely no proof that I had actually got the money, the money was dispensed or whether the ATM machine simply had a mind of its own.
At the Branch Manager's office, who happened to be a graduate in computer engineering, I told him my sad story and on cue he told me one of his sad stories.
"I don't know why they introduced computers in banks in the first place", he started. "Ever since we have been plagued with network failures.. blah.. blah.. blah.... In fact even I have also lost some money. I even know which account it went to, but I can't do a thing about it."
Since the cash I had intended to give to a certain person wanted it immediately, I decided to deposit the money directly to his bank account. As soon as I entered the branch, I found chaos inside. A large group of people were milling around the cash transaction windows but not a single transaction was being done.
Eyeing me accusingly(I was decorated with one of those access tags software engineers hang around their neck while at office), one of the distraught ladies behind the counter exclaimed once more to added effect, "The systems have hung up.. You will all have to wait till we get back the network." And she got up to do her thing, which all government employees are known to do when they get or make some spare time- she went off for a cup of tea, and possibly an early lunch.
At the LIC office..
I had dropped down to my regional LIC office to get some personal work done. Me and the branch manager were in earnest discussion on how I could proceed with a certain transaction, when he was interrupted by one of his subordinates.
The guy said agitatedly "The good lady's husband has died and she wants the record now. Unfortunately the computer..."
A smile played on the manager's lips as if a death was one of the good things that happened in his office.
"You could get that detail if you do this," he said, turning to his computer. He opened a site, clicked on a link and bingo, there was the information.
The computer was playing truant, but this old man who headed the office had learnt enough of the loopholes to beat the machines at their own game, though he most probably didn't know a thing about the software! That was probably why he was the branch manager. Beating the odds!
I need not mention the mayhem at the railway reservation counters when the network goes down. The wisest thing to do would be to return home and come next day with a prayer to the network gods on your lips!