...Wish my silence die before I breathe last
Friday, September 30, 2011
Dil dhadakne do...
...Wish my silence die before I breathe last
Monday, September 26, 2011
Happy b'day Appu da..!!
We shook hands formally and later enthusiastically when Divya (Sarika at that moment) told me he came all the way from Netherlands to wish us. Almost felt like someone had arrived from my birth place..!!! All this conversation with excitement included lasted for mere 5 minutes.
The next time I spoke to him in December/January this year, when I was struggling to keep myself warm in Delhi’s chilly winters. I was passing through a curious phase in my career where I needed a strong professional advice. I was also amazed and little surprised to hear an IIM grad complimenting academic achievements of IIT grad..!! It was like, USA appreciating Andaman and Nicobar for their sea-life preservation.
I kept hearing about him and his small intellectual family- intellectual wife and intellectual-in-making kid, whenever we see any of their facebook update or a new blog-entry or a new series of photographs, and it would be exciting to meet them whenever destined.
The reason for which I am writing about him is to wish him happy birthday..
Monday, September 12, 2011
They went crashing down...
FB ruined me..
But all this while my creativity went for a toss. I haven’t written any good piece of thought since long. And the reason for this is that I haven’t thought about any topic in detail. All I was thinking about was ‘comment’. During the last four and a half months that I had spent in Mumbai, I came across many interesting subjects to think about and write.
Anyways, will try my best to keep up my motivation and patience for my interests.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
A long journey to remember…the final
My last day at Infosys
As I enclosed myself within my 3 and a half walled cubicle and started drafting good-bye mails, I felt a bit low. There were many to whom I thought to get in touch with. There were many good managers and colleagues that I had interaction with and few of my friends and batch mates in the campus. But despite of them, I felt all alone. I used to accompany my friends towards food courts before, but for now I am all by myself. Most of my friends had either been transferred to another office or onsite or had left Infosys. Few guys that I interact with are no more than colleagues. Right from the start of my career with Infosys, I was deputed to projects that had smallest team (apart from Oracle Hyderabad project) that gave me less chance to hang around. There were very few with whom I could share my resonance, but they are not employed in Infosys anymore. As a professional I can say I had done my best, but on the personality front I would say I need to struggle more. I am looking forward to a good social network in Mumbai, the place where there is no space for isolation, I think so.
I have never complained about it but I always felt that my beliefs and my potential were always ahead of what I have in possession now. And that made me firm to quit a well-established job and run for a marathon. I know I would have to struggle a lot in a real metropolitan Mumbai, but that is the actual reality. This is the age to get out of comfort zone and feel the heat that will make you strong and more robust.
I would be missing the ornamental pathways, the luxurious guest house, odd architectural buildings, long queue at food court, people running desperately for spoons, table and chairs in food court, policy to spend atleast 9.15 hours in office irrespective of your work nature, bulletin board where you can sell or buy anything ranging from a needle to private aircraft or discuss any damn topic like cockroach in food or questioning the gender of a lizard, my last cubicle (4 places till now) where I could sleep whenever I wanted without being disturbed, multi-level-car-parking where I could never got a chance to park my car below 7th floor, endless mails asking for free laptop so that the guy can travel onsite, my desktop in which all networking sites are blocked along with USB/CD/DVD and sound drives, coffee machines that are 45% of the time running out of milk or steam, gym where atleast 2 people wait for their turn to arrive at each treadmill, performance appraisal in which almost 40% of the section doesn’t belong to you and even if you had filled that it doesn’t matter during actual discussion, dress code that makes you daily check the day of week, celebrity shows for which the amphitheater gets filled up much before than expected etc etc.
Sounds cynical?? Not really. If I had spelled these deficiencies in front of HR during my exit interview I would have expected the same reply every time, “Infosys is such a big company that these policies are made to control over 1 lakh employees”. I know they are right, actually helpless. Actually these issues/observations are felt by those who have good spare time that is destined to be wasted. I have never heard of these observations from a person at managerial level (except few exceptions), because he must be too busy for these petty issues. Infosys has good policies to keep the idle or new employees engaged in activities, but there is a need to pay attention to these ‘busy managers’ who form the valuable chunk of the population.
Anyways, my stay at Infosys was good. But I have to quit to explore the world outside, to become a good manager, a nice human being and a better professional. In the end I would again like to thank Infosys for providing a robust start to my career and made me think beyond my horizons. I would never forget the charm and hospitality of this organization. We’ll meet again if destiny allows…
Signing off,
Employee ID: 83965
A long journey to remember…part 2
The worst phase
Given the situation, I was made to sit on bench for sometime. But this was against my disposition. I could no longer sit idle and wait for opportunity to be bestowed on me. I retaliate and then I was offered (actually ordered) to join a big team (though, not the best team to work with) that was bound for a product development project with Oracle Hyderabad. Moving from consultancy business to product development wasn’t acceptable to me, but I couldn’t raise my voice. After all it was better than been kicked out of the company. During this 1-year project, I had a realization that I had to go and leave this company/industry. This was the first time that my realization was strong enough that made me look for opportunities outside. I had planned to shift my career to core supply chain intensive companies, but it was next-to-impossible for me to convince the employers that I could match their expectations; credit to my ‘IT consultant’ tag from Infosys. But one thing I had learned from this industry is that, you need to have good patience to survive for long time. My struggle for new employment coupled with bitter experiences at the project along with tough APICS examinations made this phase of my professional life, the worst one in my consulting career.
Domestic onsite..!!
This time I got a really good opportunity for which I am still very much thankful to my new delivery manager. The project was based out of Noida. It was a short project and I had a good share of responsibilities that I had managed efficiently. This project was a turning point in my career. It bought me fame and respect within the group. People came to recognize me for my good work. My manager had planned a long term project in Germany plus 2 months trip to USA to get my H1B visa extended. I was feeling more confident as a consultant as well as manager. But then it was written in my destiny, that…
The decision
It was sometime in November, 2010 when I had got a call from TCS regarding an opportunity with them in the domain of business/management/strategy consulting. I was bit reluctant to attend this because I was doing well at Noida project and secondly I had negative notions about TCS as an employer. Then came an invite from the unit head of TCS to have a meeting over a cup of coffee in a coffee bar. Sounds interesting..!! I thought to give it a try. I met two managers from TCS and in half an hour or 45 minutes I was totally convinced that this is where I may want to go. It goes like: TCS came up with an idea to focus on real consulting capabilities and had formed a group within that will provide the consulting services to Indian manufacturing clients. It would advice on business, management and strategic issues of clients. To begin with, I would have been the third person to join this group at the time I was interviewed.
Clash of my opinions
The final offer from TCS got materialized in late January, 2011. At that time, I had initiated my visa for Germany, plus I had started my preparations for US based project. Lot of thoughts wandered through my mind. After all it was a big big decision to be made. On one hand there was Germany project with Infosys that was an overseas opportunity plus good money saving and stable career for another 1 year. On the other hand, the profile that TCS had offered was something I had been looking after for so long. There was good amount of risk but I would term it as calculated. For the savings, we came to the conclusion that savings in case of Germany project with my wife working as dependent would be nearly equal or slightly less than the case if I join TCS in Mumbai with my wife still working as before. Finally we broke the decision that I HAVE TO QUIT INFOSYS TO JOIN TCS..!!!