First Anniversary, at First Job!

“A true balance between work and life comes with knowing that your life and activities are integrated, not separated.”
- Michael Sunnarborg

July the 23^rd, 2013 - exactly a year since I’ve started at the first real grown-up job of my life.

And as stereotyped as it seems to be when it comes to Indians, I actually do work in IT. Still it hasn’t really turned out to be as torturous as they make it out to be.

Maybe that comes later. I don’t know ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

Anyway. This past one year has been a helluva roller coaster ride; loads of twist and turns, sudden ups and drastic downs. But nonetheless a very exciting time indeed.

Met a lot of wonderful people (AG, KR, PV, RG, TS etc.)

Learnt a lot about the Lone Wolf guidelines (the importance of having a healthy supply of paper soap with you at all times, how to go from full-wallet-rich-as-shit to puny-arse-broke-as-hell in less than a week!)

Had some really great experiences (nomadic solo trips all around the city, rediscovering friendships, and shedding off a few way-past-expiry-date ones...)

As for the things that go on within the office walls. Man, each day is a revelation!

Things seem so different this side of college.

My workplace is in the IT compound of a Special Economic Zone. The best thing about working in SEZs and Tech Parks, where almost always half a dozen big companies set up shop in the same neighborhood, is that you get to meet people from many other IT companies and interact with them. So I kind of have observed some peculiarities and similarities in almost every big MNC I have come across. We are not all that different, you and I. Everybody is just as stuck/fortunate as everybody else.

Yes, I agree I have been away from home since college. So you could say I already know the basics of shacking it out on your own. But college was different. In school you know you are going to have to spend the rest of your time there with the people around you. So you find the most compatible ones and choose to have them around you at all times.

In a corporate, you don’t have that option. You don’t get to choose. You have to make do with what you get because you will have at some point or the other get something done by or for them. Most people won't be so hard to handle or like. As always it depends on your luck, and how much they know the good parts of you (if at all there exists one) and how much you get to know them.

I’ve seen the sense of putting in an effort or time to actually get to know someone is absent here, may be that used to be there a couple of decades earlier in our father/grandfather’s offices; when people that you work with, somehow ended up becoming your best of mates and your child’s god parents. It sure isn’t happening these days!

I am not saying I have only come across pricks all along; there have been mostly good guys so far. Nothing I would point as too bad or too good. Except at least one guy, as far as I can say, was definitely anything but a megalomaniac. He actually cared of the people around him even though he was high up the food chain, and needless to say he was the happiest guy of them all.

Also I read this article a few weeks back that said saomething like this. Makes sense now.

You seem to have a better content quotient at your work place if the people around you seem to make you feel more at ease than on the edge. Yes, there always will inevitably be pressure at work, but bringing down the morale of people around you might be the wrong strategy overcome this pressure. One has to know the difference between encouraging and down-right annoying.

People pleasing whilst being productive for your company is an art, and I think this should be put in the syllabi of every MBA and PMP courses out there.

Guess that’s what I think I’ll be taking away from this past year when it comes to office stuff.

Work matters, career is important. But then from this point forward, you are probably going to spend a major chunk of your day within the fully air-conditioned bright four walls of your office. On most days, you are probably going to see the face of the guy sitting in the next cubicle than of those of your own family. So why not go greet him every other day, speak to him for a bit, get to know him, stand around the coffee machine with your co-workers and trash the latest Nicholas Cage movie.

People won’t remember the accolades you got from your managers, people won’t always remember the letters of appreciations you got from the clients, and they will also forget how you used to come first to work and was always the last to go. They might not even remember all the back-stabbing and how you masterminded your next big pay hike. They probably won't remember how you always used to sit hours on end in front of the computer screen working hard to the point that it gave you a migraine.

People will probably remember you best by the way you made them feel. How you treated them. Did they look forward to seeing you in office the next day, or whether they rather that you moved your PC someplace else as far aways ?

After some point in everybody’s life, office gets to become an extension of your home. You will be spending a whole lot of time here. Your father did, his father did, and so did his; and (just so to be politically correct here) probably a few of the females in our family tree too. It’s inevitable to feel out of breath when all this come crashing on you all of a sudden.

But as in every burden you might come across in life, the more you share - the more the burden feels lighter on your shoulder.

I don’t know what I my answer will be if somebody comes up to me in office and asks where I see myself in five years. Nobody really has the answer to that anyhow.

I probably would like to say, I see myself to be working someplace where each day when I go back home from work I should be looking forward come back the next day to do something that I enjoy doing and meet people that I actually like having around.

Fingers crossed.

----

Please like my FB page to stay updated on upcoming posts:

https://www.facebook.com/An.Irony.Called.Life