Habib is a Project Manager on the Computan team. He communicates with clients, helps estimate projects, and assists with improving how we deliver work. In this installment of Behind The Coding Habib talks about everything from car tires to locks to why he was standing in front of a pit of fire as a 12-year-old.
Hi Habib how are you?
Hi Sajeel. I am good thanks.
What are the last 3 things you Googled and why?
Infant vaccination center
Is this for your daughter?
Yes, she’s due for one of her vaccinations and I was planning on taking a day off soon to take her to get that done.
Ok! What else have you been Googling
Github Projects
Nice… what about them?
As of now, it is a feature in Github that is in a public beta. Kind of a nice way to manage projects on Github. Adds something like Trello or JIRA on top of Github.
Like an issue tracker?
Yeah, provides you a Kanban board to manage the issues you are working on.
Interesting! What else are you Googling?
Car tire locks
Car tire locks? What for?
Someone on the team got their tires stolen.
Oh, man! That’s awful
Yeah, it is. Right from their driveway too.
That is too bad.
Definitely. So I was Googling for tire locks to research what are the best ones and suggest those to him.
That’s very nice of you and will try and help him too. When was the last time you worked after hours to solve a hard problem?
Well, you know I am not fond of working after hours and I try to be organized. But earlier in my career we were launching a web app for a political party. The developer on the job was supposed to deploy the code from staging to the live but had to take an emergency day off.
Uh-oh
Uh-oh is right. So I had to figure it out on my own. Luckily I was able to, but something that shouldn’t have taken a long time took me a long time because I had to figure it out. We got it done 30 minutes before the launch.
That was a good save!
Yes! For sure.
Who are 3 people you’d like to have dinner with and why?
3 old friends who I would like to meet again. One from school, one from college, neighborhood. They all know each other.
Why those 3?
They really enjoy food and are a great company. Actually, I love it when they come over. I cook and eat with them.
What do you mean?
One time, one of my friends called me up and said ‘let’s go out for lamb roast.’ So I called up the other 2 guys and said all 3 of you come to my house and I’ll cook a lamb roast.
Wow!
Yeah, and they surprisingly brought him to my place and I had the lamb roast ready for him.
I know you love to cook. How did you get started with that?
My first time cooking anything was when I was 9. I’d seen my mom cook a lot obviously growing up. She wasn’t home and my brothers and I were hungry. So I cooked rice and potatoes.
I’m a little older than 9 and still struggle with rice and potatoes.
Hahaha! You just have to watch others doing things, then take mental notes and you can learn. When I was 12 I cooked for my first dinner party.
You were 12??
Yeah. My dad invited some office colleagues to our house for a small get-together. I did a BBQ.
So you were 12 and managing an open flame for your dad’s guests?
Yes! It was a lot of fun.
Did you have any practice runs or anything?
No, no. No need for practice! Come on.
What if the food didn’t turn out well?
Failure wasn’t an option for me! But even then my mom had dishes prepared as a backup just in case.
That was the first time?
Yes. No practice meals, no nothing. 12 yr old. 10 people.
I guess that is kind of like being a PM. Sitting in a firepit all-day
Hahahaha, yes sort of!
When was the last time you cried tears of laughter?
It wasn’t too long ago. We were watching a cricket game between the Lahore Qalanders and Karachi Kings. My brother said ‘this time India will win!’ When obviously this wasn’t an international game or something. You kind of had to be there to really appreciate how funny it was.
Where were you when you first saw a laptop/desktop?
In school. I was 10 or 11 years old. It was kind of scary for me but I was very curious.
Why was it scary?
Because I thought it was this expensive and delicate thing. I didn’t want to touch it and break it or something. I built up some courage and moved the mouse.
Then what happened?
Well, obviously the cursor moved! It was magic to me.
What is something your teammates don’t know about you?
I’m a mechanic. Electrical wiring. Fix the car, AC, Generator, UPS batteries, etc.
A master of the trades and a cook! How did you become a master of the trades?
I owe that to my dad
How so?
He told us that whenever a handyperson like an electrician, plumber, or something comes to the house we should stand and watch how they fix things. So the next time it breaks we know how to fix it!
Is it really that simple?
Hahaha! For me luckily it has been.
