Whattay night

A year ago, my workplace had a technical competition. We would be given a problem and we had to come up with a business solution within 24 hours. There was another choice for the real innovators - they could pick any mind-twister and sell their business case to get rid of it. All arrangements were made for the participants to stay in campus overnight.

I participated with 2 of my close friends - V (my friend and teammate) & B (my friend from college days). We called ourselves 'The Nutketeers' !!! Don't you just love our name? We lived up to it to the hilt :D We chose to go with option 1 (easy for the truly lazy) - find a solution for a problem presented to us. Days prior to the event, all captains ( read 'guinea-pigs' ) were asked to attend a series of meetings for the important and not so important details. No prizes for guessing who was forcibly made the 'captain'. Grrr.. I used to religiously attend all these meetings and relay the information to V & B who were least interested. Instead they used to gang up and laugh mercilessly at my plight.

Friday came. We came prepared for the event -- with our toothbrushes and clothes! ;) At 5 p.m. we were sent a mail with the problem / system information and other necessities needed for coding. V was the smartest among us and we allocated the task of coming up with the solution to him. We trooped to a meeting room where he came up with a brilliant plan -- Lets eat before we get started! Even before he finished the sentence we were out of the MR heading to the cafeteria. As we knew that we had to do a lot of thinking, we ate like pigs - Noodles, Chips, Chocolate doughnut and Juice! Tummy full and happy, we set off again (to work). V did some serious thinking and came up with a neat and simple solution. We pitched in here and there with pointless suggestions and finally decided to follow the master. We spent the following 1 hour trying to find the perfect place with 3 workstations where we could code uninterrupted.. oh yeah!

The only sound heard was the pitter pattering of fingers on the keyboards. B was tapping away so rapidly that V & I were suitably impressed. A closer look told us that she was furiously chatting with her friend online !! We worked for an hour or two like this when we unanimously agreed that our solution was very simple and we didn't need 24 hours for this! Geeks would have tried other difficult approaches but having more time on our hands, we decided to take yet another break. We went for a walk around the campus talking nonsense and enjoying the December breeze. V had this brainwave here (I told you he was the smartest) and suggested we watch a movie together in one of the meeting rooms. We were delighted and literally jumping in the air. The chosen movie was 'Road to El Dorado'. As it was nearly dinner time, food was calling again. We ordered from the nearest Dominos outlet and scouted around finding a MR with a projector. Soon the show began - Movie, pizza, coke and laughter!

The beddings were provided and we could put it anywhere we wanted (inside the buildings of course). V put his in a meeting room near our workstations whereas B & I decided to sleep in the ladies room. Feeling a little guilty after seeing others' sincerely working, we again tapped at our keyboards for an hour. At midnight, there was a mail circulated informing us about the availability of midnight snacks. The 3 gluttons shut down their systems and went to explore the food. We gobbled sandwiches, had juice and decided to call it a day(night)! B & I traipsed to the ladies room where we found a few girls discussing their business cases animatedly. How boring can one get we thought. We played a game of Dumb-charades, 20 Questions etc and dozed off.

6:30 a.m. I got a call from V calling us for a drive. I thought I was dreaming .. Turned out that one of our friends N who was also participating called us for an early morning drive. I was really excited. B needed to sleep more. At 7, we went for a long drive and it was quite refreshing - sleepy people, misty trees, hint of dew in the air, chilly all around and smell of coffee from the roadside.. On our way back, V complained that he felt queasy. While he took some rest, B & I showered and had a hearty breakfast. V had gotten worse and was looking very very pale. The in-house doctor gave him some medicines. B & I worked a little sans enthusiasm , completely lost without our mast-head. Couple of hours later, we had some kind of a prototype which was satisfying (to us). We had to prepare a presentation and showcase it to a panel of judges. Since V was getting worse by the minute we decided to give up and go home (at least enjoy the rest of the Saturday). We sent a mail explaining V's plight in detail and why we simply couldn't stay although we really really wanted to ;)

As were heading out, we heard that backpacks were being given to all the participants. Shucks.. How could we not collect our bags that we 'rightfully' deserved? We went and shamelessly asked for our bags only to be told sternly that we could collect it at night after the event. Damn!! Resorting to half-measures, we made some calls and found a couple of friends who were staying back till the end. Entrusting them with the duty of collecting 3 bags, we fled feeling very gratified.

Are you thinking .. The three Nutketeers ran away???

*As I wrote this post, I almost felt wistful. I miss my friends and those mad mad days! :(