The journey from “sap” to S.A.P. – Confessions of a Fresher

The 11th of November 2010 was the D day. Being hired by a leading IT company sent cheers to my mind when the HR said “Congratulations”. With limited understanding of what would come ahead, I plunged into the tech waters. The waters which would take me deep and wide.

The training as a SAP consultant did not give a clear idea of what it was… SAP just seemed like a plethora of t-codes, a grey screen, lots of drop downs, some master data creation, printer to be selected as LOCL and t-codes getting locked by another user. While the training was extensive and tough, we had to really dig in late hours to get the knack of SAP. We would often mockingly say that “sap (Indian snake) ne das liya”. The phase ended with loads of late night canteen trips, unlimited lemon tea and coffee, strained eyes staring at PPTs and goodbye to friends posted to a different location.

Then there was the famous BENCH period with which we experienced a love – hate relationship. It was lovely for people who managed to double (read – coupled) and hateful for those whose prospective were taken away by someone else. Whatever it was, everyone had their own share of chilling and BENCHING with late reporting to office and lining up for the computer to check emails.

In IT companies, may be getting hired is not so difficult as managing to get a project. It is like the Eureka moment of the career. The first day of my actual work was confusing. I stared at the screen and asked myself: “Will all this ever make sense?” I was so nervous in my first call with the Onsite team that I could only manage to say a bleak HI. Every Onsite call seemed like information from a different planet. HPQC, Remedy, ABAP, Debugging, SLAs, Interface etc were not something which were taught in the training. Till next three months, I could not manage to solve a single issue without help. But what it taught me is the significance of team work and patience.

Things did turn out well for me when after few months of working, every damn word started making sense. From t-codes to process, Estimation to Integration Testing, everything did have some flow. From the anxiety of issue resolution within SLA to confidently saying that we’ll send the resolution by EOD, SAP kept me entertained.

After completing two successful years with SAP, I can proudly say that my work keeps me satisfied. It is a privilege to help the client with solving issues which have the ability to toss their system off. Every day brings in a new enthusiasm to work better and make them smile. Be it support, implementation or rollout, the bottom line is each has its own charm and I confess: “I am bitten by the S.A.P bug and there is a long way to go.”

This article by Sweta Agarwal took part in the joint contest, which SAP Expert ran together with Zinio.