This is what happens when 2 dumb prof’s who don’t even know a single “bit” of Networking come to evaluate a project on routing protocols.
[Enter Panelist 1 – Dumb, Panelist2 – Dumber]
Me: Good morning sir, I would like to start by first giving a brief recap of what we showed in our 1st presentation. We started off with…
Dumb: Aap mat bataiye, let him <3rd slotter> speak.
Me : [silent]
[blah blah blah]
Dumber: [towards me] aap to kuch bata hi nahi rahe hain.
Me: Sir, actually we described the mobility model as…
Dumb : Bola na aap chup rahiye, let the other guy speak.
Me: [Silent again]
Dumber: [again towards me after a while] Aap kuch padh k nahi aaye hain lagta hai.
Me: Sir, as I was telling before, we described the scenario in the last presentation, we now move forward t-…
Dumb: Ab agar aap next time bole to aapke number cut kar lenge.
Me: [yet again silent and pissed off]
Dumber: Aap to explain hi nahi kar paa rahe hain. You just have copied it from somewhere. You haven’t even done the analysis. Kya dikhane laye ho?
Me: [frustrated] CAN I SPEAK NOW PLEASE?? Sir, we have done the analysis and also all the simulations. The real presentation is not even started as we are still on the first slide.
[finally moving on to the real stuff]
Me: [using some basic networking terms] Sir the first thing we find out is the logic efficiency for both proactive and reactive protocols….. [a bunch of equations on the slide]
Dumb and Dumber : [blank]
Me: Actually there is a data phase and an exception phase…
Dumb: You just copied equations from somewhere. You are not able to explain what those terms are.
Me: Sir, that is what i am explaining, [with aid of a really cool diagram I might add] The exception phase is… <blah blah blah>
Dumber: I am not able to get what you are saying.
Dumb : You just made the slides so casually. [Because at one place I wrote Ta and at another place I wrote Ta , you see the “a” was different. THAT IS THE REASON they said why they couldn’t understand :-| ]
[as a desperate measure I took a sketch pen and a blank paper and in a frenzy started making blocks and diagrams to pictorially make them understand… I resorted to hindi for a better communication]
Me: [after a lot of drawing] so, this is what I mean by exception phase in a reactive protocol. [I turn towards them]
Dumb: Hume kuch samajh nahi aaya. What is this reactive protocol.
Me : [Something an electronics prof. like you should have learnt in nursery]… [going back to the basics] A reactive protocol is <blah blah blah>
Dumber : accha leave all this, batao protocol kya hota hai? Batao routing kya hoti hai? Batao Network kya hota hai?
Me: [seriously mahn, are they for real?] ohk, a protocol is a set of rules and regulations….
Dumber: accha just skip all this. Kuch output laye ho.
Me: Yes sir. [I started moving forward 8-10 slides, seeing days of hardwork go to waste] These are the simulation graphs we obtained using qualnet.
Dumber: Bas graph bana lie ho, ye to ban hi jata hai.
[don’t know what they expected from an output, a pin-up of salma hayek and beyonce??? Or a love ballad by Sonu Nigam?]
Me: Our results match perfectly with our mathematical framework.
Dumb: Hum kaise maan le. You were unable to explain.
Me: [agitated now] Sir, I explained everything. I can still explain if you want. Most of it we already told you in the first presentation.
Dumb: You should have explained clearly each and every term starting from basics.
[Sly, these guys want a crash course in networking from me for free. Well that cannot be done in 10 mins.]
[Dumber saw his watch. Both of them started going back]
Dumb: Itna casually mat liya kariye presentation. Aap kuch padh ke nahi aaye. Bas equations copy kar li hai. You don’t know the meaning of the terms [what?? Me or you??]
Dumber: Next time aap log kuch output laa kar dikhayie. [both of them left]
[I came out of the lab, bearing a pale poker face, not knowing how to comprehend what just happened]
P.S – apologies to the el-classico members (amal, paonta and sethi) because i ditched you guys to work on the project.
What is really infuriating is the complete impunity with which these people conduct themselves. Well-written, dude.
Awesome piece……….
good one man …
freshened all the old memories!
now that I look back…its a wonder I pulled through 4 years of it and no one got murdered! 🙂
– tronix, class of 2009
I thought things might have improved a lot. Disheartening to see same mentality prevail.
~tronix, 1994