MY FIRST ON SITE JOURNEY

                                                      MY FIRST ON SITE JOURNEY

It was just another lazy weekend for me when I heard the familiar voice of the postman of our locality, asking me to open the door. I saw quite surprised to see him because after the arrival of mobile phones in every hand their appearance has become quite rear.

“Hi” I simply addressed him with a voice mixed with some sort of surprise. He gave me a brown packet which had a label of government of India. It took no time to understand me that my passport has arrived for which I had applied for 6 months ago and almost forgotten.  Being a Bengali it is quite natural to have a wonder thirst inside me and studying computer engineering had multiplied the hunger to roam around all over the world which is officially known as “onsite”. To live with the dream one must have a passport which I got that day.

After that 2 years had passed and I was still waiting for the ‘D-Day’ to come in my life. It was November 2009 when I got one urgent call from my reporting manager Mr Subhroneel Ganguly. He told me that he wanted to see me in salt lake sector 5 office as soon as possible. After working hour I went to our head office to see him. I was little bit tensed at that moment because best of my knowledge the system I was looking after was working fine. Then why so he called me so urgently?

“May I come in sir” I knocked the door of our VP where my manager was also waiting for me.

“Come in, How are you” my manager replied with a smiling face which brought some sort of relief within me.

“So Anutosh , have you ever gone to eastern India before ?” My VP asked.

“No sir” I replied.

“So it’s your chance to explore eastern part of India “My manager said.

“I don’t understand” I said.

“Actually we are going to set up one payroll system for one of our client at Tizit, Nagaland. The payroll system  is  currently running in Kolkata office so all that we have to do is to install the software in respective server and you are going to entrain the company staffs so that they can use it efficiently.” My manger replied.

I was quite surprised and happy because it was going to be my first client visit experience or my first onsite travel. After two days our tickets were confirmed and we got it via email. On that very night I had seen majority of news channels were telecasting the increasing ALFA activity in   Assam. Just the day before boarding the plane I had received one call from our airline office that our direct flight from Kolkata to Dibrugarh was cancelled and we have to travel via Guwahati. It was good news at least for me because the direct flight was scheduled at 7 am in the morning which might cause difficulties for a person like me who stays nearly about 23 km away from airport. The new flight was scheduled at 10 am.

On the day of journey when I was about to leave my home suddenly I thought that it would be better to have a book with me because earlier I had experienced many boring hours on flight which I did not wanted to repeat. At that 11^th hour I rushed to my room and picked up one book from my book self without even seeing the name of it.

It was 9 am and I was waiting for Subhroneel at the airport entrance gate. Sharply at 9:10 am he arrived and we went to took out boarding pass. After clearing security checking “tests” we were allowed to board the plane. It was the first time when Subhroneel was travelling by air so he had many question regarding the journey and I nothing to do but to answer. Even he got a window seat he preferred to sit in the middle. Sharply at 10 am the plane started moving and the speakers came alive with the voice of the pilot. After it’s took  off the air hostess started their routine work to inform us about the do and don’t in the plane and to negotiate problems in the time of any unexpected situation. Several minutes after floating in the air our plane shook for the first time due to some atmospheric reasons. We had got some more shakes within few minutes. Subhroneel was so afraid he asked me about the point told by the airhostess some time before. I assured him that everything was under control because if the situation was worst then definitely captain had addressed us already. But truly speaking I was in tension too because I had never faced so many shakings before in any flight.

The plane landed safely in Guwahati airport at 12 o clock .It was a shiny morning with freezing cold winds. The first thing anyone will observe in Guwahati airport is the military activity. Several men with automatic weapons in their hands were in position in the airport for security reasons. First time I saw some military helicopters in the airport like I had seen in many Hollywood action movies.

One of the flight attendants had informed us our next flight was scheduled at 1 pm. We got one hour time. First thing I did was to call to my parents in Kolkata. I was surprised to see that each time my call was disconnected by the service provider. The same thing happened with Subhroneel too. Latter we came to know that  due to security reasons government had ordered to block all outgoing calls which was originating  from pre paid mobiles of other states. “Oh my god ”, it was the exact expression which came to my mind at that time. I opened my bag and took out the book. It was OSAMA  written by Jonathan Randal. I started to read that book while Subhroneel was trying to contact his home.

After  30 minutes we were called for security checking. I must say security checking of Guwahati was more strict then Kolkata. I submitted both my hand bag and book to them. First thing they checked was my book. Still I can clearly remember the surprised expression of the security personnel to whom I had submitted the book. It was as if I had submitted any hazardous goods to them. He immediately called another two persons .For the next 5 mins they have checked each and every item of my bag and finally I was allowed to board the plane. It was more sophisticated than the previous one.

After one hour of journey we finally reached Dibrugarh airport. One person from client side was already present there to receive us. He informed us that last night ALFA had declared strike in Assam so we had to stay that day in Tinsukia district.  Still I can remember the natural beauty which I saw both sides of the roads. It was a wave of greenery . This place is famous for large tea gardens. When we reached our hotel it was almost 5 pm and sun was almost set. Even it was a strike but me and Subhroneel could not help our self without a short walking. It was 8pm in evening and every shop was closed and a very few people was there in the streets. First time in my life I had seen strikes making such a impact in people’s life.Luckly we found one PCO from where we had made calls to our homes.

Next day at 7:30am we started our journey to Tizit. Again it was a long exhausted journey but the natural beauty was so amazing I  could not even think to sleep in the car. Nearly after 4 hours we reached our destination.  Initially it looked like this.

It was the only factory of that area which imports logs from different parts of the country and makes ply from them. At 12 O clock we went to visit the office. The office was within the factory premises with some sort of modern facilities. Even in the village like Tizit I was surprised to see the modern computers with high speed broadband internet and satellite TV in the guest house. We started to work from the next day. Our on site manager was a very friendly person. The server setup and s/w installation, presentation took the first 2 days. Third day in the morning Subhroneel left for Kolkata. Now it was my trun to give training to some of the office stuffs.

Before coming to Nagaland some of my friends told me some horrible stories about the place but I think it was bad as it generally covered by the media. People of this part of the country are very simple and peaceful in nature. They are the most hard working people I had ever seen. I even saw some people even work for 15 hours a day. I was unable to talk with them because local language was not known to me.  Partho, who was living there for last 3 years helped me a lot to understand the people.  What he said was farming is the main occupation of 90% naga people. The population of Nagaland is very low compared to the other parts of the country .  Number of villages in this area is also very low so each village has got owner ship of huge land. I had also seen some people from other countries also staying there. They generally cultivate the unused lands of the villagers. In every village  there is a leader who controls the activities of local people. Partho told me that for last 3 years he had never observed anything like robbery, stealing, and communal mob which is quite common in bigger cities.

One thing which I had observed about tizit was the freedom of women. They truly work with male shoulder to shoulder with the same status. Some of them even works in the night shifts  and there was no report of any kind of abusing or harassments with them. When even in the bigger  cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata security of woman workers is a big issue I think this part of the country can set an example in front of others. Majority of the people of tizit is christen. There is a nice church where they gather in every Sunday.

Every day after office hours me and Partho went to walking to see some different places. Some photos I had taken.

I can’t remember the name of the river but the water is very cool.

Market place of tizit.

Empty roads

Lapha mountain

Lapha bridge.

Little naga children.

It was really interesting to see some people prefers to stay in the mountains rather then the plain. Last place I had visited was lapha. He told me even some years ago Indian army regularly storms this places. collision between ALFA and the army was a common matter but now situation has changed. Ceasefire has been declared from both sides so now the area has become very peaceful to live.

In the meantime my training conducting session was over. It was a really good experience for me.My returning journey was not as happening as it was in the time of coming. My flight was scheduled at 9:30 am from Dibrugarh airport so I had to start my journey at 5:30 am in the morning. The driver of the car was very good in his skills. He took only 2:30 hours to reach the airport.

“Come again” he told me while waving his hands and I assured him if possible certainly I will return.

This time the flight was neither cancelled nor delayed .It took exactly 3 hours to reach Kolkata. Again the I got the busy streets, crowded bus, trains I was familiar with but still the little, unprivileged village had marked a permanent space in my memory “My first onsite journey”.

                                

Oracle/PLSQL: How to avoid ORA-01403: "No data found" error and it's alternet solution

Most of us in our early days of learning pl/sql face the typical error. This error happens when the query you are submitting does not find any data in the under lying table. This error sounds really simple but things get worse when this errors happens in production and there is no work around other then correct the error in corresponding package which may require database as well as system downtime.

I have seen some incidents in my carrier where this type of small mistakes resulted hash words from team leader.

So in pl/sql package my suggestion would be to avoid SQL like 

DECLARE

    v_empname  emp.empname%TYPE;

    v_ename       emp.ename%TYPE;

    v_job            emp.job%TYPE;

    v_mgr            emp.mgr%TYPE;

    BEGIN

          SELECT  empname,

                           ename,

                           job,

                           mgr

             FROM   emp

             INTO     v_empname,

                            v_ename,

                            v_job,

                            v_mgr

             WHERE empno='7156';   

END; 

Rather in pl/sql package it will be safe  if you write the above query like

DECLARE
    v_empname  emp.empname%TYPE;
    v_ename       emp.ename%TYPE;
    v_job            emp.job%TYPE;
    v_mgr            emp.mgr%TYPE;
    BEGIN
      BEGIN
        SELECT  empname,
                        ename,
                        job,
                        mgr
           FROM  emp         
           INTO    v_empname,
                         v_ename,
                         v_job,
                         v_mgr
           WHERE empno='7156';  
      EXCEPTION
         WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND THEN
           NULL;  -- OR DO what ever you want to
         WHEN TOO_MANY_ROWS  THEN
           NULL;  -- OR DO what ever you want to
         WHEN OTHERS THEN
           NULL;  -- OR DO what ever you want to
      END;
      <-- OTHER SQL or PL/SQL Statement -->
    END;
END;


In my opinion it will be nice if you write every query in separate BEGIN--EXCEPTION-END section.
It reduces the chance of any unhanded exception.

There is another way to avoid this kind of situation. If you are planning to use the data you have retrived from the database you can also write code like this which is safe

FOR r_emp_rec IN ( SELECT   empname,
                                                   ename,
                                                    job,
                                                    mgr
                                       FROM  emp
                                       WHERE empno='7156';
                                 )
LOOP
      Dbms_Output.Put_Line(r_emp_rec.empname||'--'||r_emp_rec.ename||'--'||r_emp_rec.mgr);
END LOOP;



This explicit cursor will never execute if there does not exists any data in emp table against empno=7156.
So system will never encounter ORA-01403: No data found.