Being a Servant Leader

Spring of year 2000, one Friday night, I sat beside Shankar watching him debug the code, my code, on that Sun Spark terminal. I had been having that issue with my code on which I had spent hours debugging. This one final bug- was all that was left to be finished before the release was packaged.

I had resorted to the last-resort, the god of debugging - Shankar. Even if it wasn’t remotely his code or someone from his team, we all knew he can fix it! Shankar had that reputation, if no one could fix a piece of code – you go to Shankar as the ultimate ‘problem solver’. 

I was no stranger to pulling all-nighters, sometimes finishing the code I need to finish for the release and many a time just for the company of the guys – bachelor life does that to you I guess, there is no one to go home to, if my friends stayed overnight I stayed overnight.

But that night was different, the guys were all preparing for the trip, and I was there stuck on that screen with Shankar. I did not report to him at the time, though he was the senior most person in the team.

I had never done white-water rafting, neither had I done overnight camping. The tent I bought from one of those camping stores or may be Walmart rested in the corner of that cube – silently waiting to be picked up for the trip, the trip we had been planning for several weeks.

The clock on the bottom right of that green screen attracted my attention more than the line of code Shankar debugged. The clock would soon show ten pm – the time I had imagined I would be all done with the code and the ten would soon become twelve. Twelve became three am and Shankar hadn’t found the bug. My eyes dozed – with the lines scrolling up and down that screen, with no sign of finishing, I called the guys to just pick me up from the office. I imagined I still could make the morning flight.

With no sign of finding that bug, Shankar continued debugging, narrowing his eyes on that screen, rolling his sleeves with his hands deep in the mud, no matter whose mud it was. I continued to pretend to pay attention and when the guys called me from the parking lot – I asked them to move on without me.

My eyes still drifted between the code and the clock, and … moment the flight time passed, 

Shankar said – ‘Found it, this is a bug in the Sun Operating System’!

I still have that unused camping gear with me! It feels as if it happened just a few years ago – but it was two decades ago. A lot has changed in those years, I eventually reported to Shankar, and would do so for more than a decade. 

Shankar grew up to be a true servant leader. He didn’t have the leaders’ title during those early years – but Shankar had exemplified the servant leadership right during those early days, when we were just a bunch of programmers. When it came to helping people – even when you were not in his team, you could always rely on Shankar – to this date. 

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You can read my other stories of Verizon Days below

Plane with a Blue Air Phone

Second Floor of the B Wing