Dork finds a job

It was raining, it rains all the time in July. The queue didn’t appear to be moving. The hall of our training building was huge though to accommodate such queues.  It was my first job, I was really happy when I got it but I somehow feel sorry to work anyway. Happens. Why can’t we go on studying and why can’t we get paid for studying? Of course I didn’t want to study engineering anymore but how nice it would be to study what you want and not what is supposed to fetch you a potential job, or something your father wanted to study but couldn’t.  Life isn’t that easy you know. They say each day is a gift. I say each day is a struggle to meet the ends. Only few people are lucky to be posh. Everyone wants to be them but then everyone needs to understand that most of them were like us before they were what they are now.

I then heard an excuse me and it broke the stream of my thoughts. I saw the queue had moved a little forward and I paced ahead to join it. Few feet away from me was a huge television flashing “ABN Technology welcomes you to the Training Program at Kaveri Park, Kolkata, 2007 batch”.  Well I was at least lucky to get the training close to my hometown, Bhubaneswar. Maybe I can sneak away in the weekends. It was supposed to be a two months rigorous training before you actually start working at the corporate. They claimed it would be a transformation from campus to corporate.

 I finally reached the registration desk. There was a smart looking lady with horn rimmed spectacles and a sharp nose, sitting behind the computer.

“Name please?”, the lady asked with no trace of smile on her face.

“Nita Sasmal”, I said loud and clear trying to be smart like her.

“College?”

I would have said “some college”. How does it matter after all! That is something I left behind college, friends, parents and a life.

“College please?”, the lady almost barked this time and I blabbered out my college name.

“Well that college is not in the existing list”, said the lady scrolling though the computer screen, “so as of now I am putting it as ‘others’ ”.

I thought that was okay, many people don’t even know where Bhubaneswar is, so how does it matter if the college column says ‘others’ in the form.

“Please stand in front of the webcam for the photo”

I was plain not pretty and my spectacles were old fashioned not like the lady’s. But I somehow wished my photo to look better than me. However this time also it failed to impress me, pasted on top of my welcome kit. Ah it is going to be a long day! I sighed.

It was already 11:30 am, the registration had taken two odd hours and the induction was about to start at 12 pm. I better hurry I thought but on my way to the auditorium I paused a bit and looked around. The building was tall and huge, people had come from across the country to join the company. Some of the girls were very well groomed and yes there were handsome guys too who didn’t quite seem to notice me. I was among the few you could say from a small town. My Indian wear was a little over sized, mom always had an argument, “I am not going to get it stitched tight”, she would say, “What if you grow fat, that will just be a waste of money”.  I stood there in the lawn wondering, will I be able to make it? Can I ever fit in? Just then it began to drizzle again, I saw a grasshopper skilfully moving on the lawn, there were flowers too and a butterfly was resting there moving its wings. Reminded me of what Stephen Hawking had said, “Where there is life, there is hope”.  Well, time to get inducted. 

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Dork Diary

Nita sat at her office desk, late in the afternoon watching the rain outside. It’s been eight years since she started working and life had changed drastically but perhaps she had no regrets. She sat thinking about her first day at office when she joined at Kolkata around five hundred kilometres away from her hometown. It was difficult to leave home and go, the tall matchbox style office building seemed scary and it was uneasy to see so many people inside those glass halls pouring over work. Though she had been a decent student all her life and knew all that stuff because of her reading habit, she never had been out of her comfort zone. To say the right word she was a ‘dork’ and almost scared of the public transport, had never used it before and even if she had she had been accompanied by parents or elders! She was scared about the elevators too and never entered it alone. She would wait in the lobby for someone to join her before entering it and once inside would pray that she was not left alone in it. It seemed to her like a monster that would engulf her and never let her out, she had these dreams of getting trapped in an elevator or taking the wrong bus to office and getting down in a completely deserted place. Hilarious isn’t it? But that was the story of her life, she was a nerd and a dork, in fact a complete dork. She was great at writing the toughest code that would crack open the brain of her teammates but was not at all good at cutting a damn piece of onion or making a perfect cup of coffee. The complex was easy for her and the simple appeared to be difficult. It was easy for her to cross the last level of Max Payne unlike other girls but difficult to even use an A.T.M.! Reason? She had simply never done it before.

As she stepped out to the real world she did realise that her coding skills or bookish knowledge won’t help her anymore and there was a lot more to job and life than that.  So, if you are thinking how she survived the reality let me tell you she evolved or rather made an effort to evolve. In the first three years of her career she had changed more than she had in her entire lifetime! She realised that work can be fun too and colleagues can be her friends, that job is not to be taken so seriously as there can be frequent tea breaks during work and a little chit chat that can bring a smile even while doing the most tedious work. That’s how she spend her first one and a half year at Kolkata working and exploring the place where she actually got her lessons for life. So, that city holds a good place in her heart, the narrow lanes, the fish curry, the second hand book stores had their own charm and it has ever since proved to be her second home. She made some great friends, Bengalis, people from North East, Bihar and UP all of them had something pleasant about them, each of them bringing some charming culture. She returned with mixed feelings to her hometown Bhubaneswar after her project shifted there and has been based there for rest of the years. Ever since that travel has been nicer, people have become friends, work has grown interesting and elevators yes the elevators are just the machines that take you upstairs and must be avoided to reduce some weight not because they are scary! So, at last friends do believe in dorks, after all every dork has a day.

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Speaking

It is said, "When you can speak, you can make people think and when you can make people think you can change lives". Spoken words are indeed much more powerful than written words and they create waves of influence that lasts longer. Earlier you could speak only to a section of society or to a small group of individuals but now with digitization the world is changing. You can upload your video in social media sites or create video blogs and reach out to the wider audience. Today even the written tutorial sites are less popular as people prefer to watch videos for learning. Videos leave a greater and more lasting impact. So, shouldn't we focus on our speaking abilities? After all it is important to make that perfect client presentation, raise the perfect toast, make that perfect proposal, give the most convincing answer, and above all master the speech.

Ever wondered what is so different between us and the animals? We speak and that is what makes us 'social'. Speaking is the best way of expressing ourselves, it makes us give a vent to our pent up feelings. Nothing is more important than speaking your mind. The right words can heal and the wrong words can kill. Mastering the art of speaking makes us human. And of course we need to feed ourselves with the right thoughts for the right words to come out. I think what makes one the best speaker is the amount of valuable information one has, or the kind of positive effect that gets created, or it can just be speaking something that makes sense. That makes the difference between speaking air and speaking substance. This comes from loads of reading and listening, as well as improving skills. Sometimes you don't even need to do that. We already have stories that we can talk about or give a speech in an event or social gathering. It's in the daily stuff, the mundane work, and the simple pleasures of life. One doesn't have to read a business newspaper to be a great speaker after all it is rightly said, "There are more things happening in Heaven and Earth, Horacio than the newspapers report!" We can all be storytellers as we all have stories about our failures, our achievements and the lessons learnt. So, the next time we have to speak let’s give a push to that story in our heart, let’s be ourselves and let us all speak our heart out.

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Corporate Philanthropy

People sometimes ask me, “You are working in a private sector what are you possibly doing for the Nation?”And here is what I tell them.

Actually the private sectors or corporate organisations are doing their bit of giving back to the society in the best possible way. Corporate Philanthropy and Employee engagements are increasing widely. It is no longer considered an optional thing anymore. Employees are motivated to invest time and money in such activities. This is being taken more seriously than ever before and employees are also being judged by how they manage these activities.  This increases collaboration among employees because people from different departments or accounts come together to work for a single cause and help each other to fulfil their goals and duties towards the society.  They are not only making financial contributions towards the less privileged but also investing their time for environmental causes, literacy, helping differently able and many more that brings some goodness to the communities we live in.  This is boosting the morale of employees, increasing their sense of belongingness towards the organization and in a way making them more loyal.

We have now realized that we needn’t be Bill Gates, Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg to be involved in philanthropies. Various employee engagement programs and corporate initiatives are giving employees to do their part as well. This improves team spirit, boosts leadership qualities, develops event management skills and above all improves our business ethics and culture. All this and we also pay our taxes regularly

So, what are you waiting for? Everyone can be a part of it and enjoy the journey towards making this world a much beautiful place together. 

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Stop There

In the name of God stop once,

Stop there, right there and take a glance.

At the world around you, the trees, the planes, the rivers and the hills,

The men, the women, the children, the birds, the cats and the dogs.

They are not different, they are all the same.

They live, they die, they laugh and cry.

Or stand there tall, facing the wind, the sun, the rain and all.

Stop once to notice that you are not alone.

Stop once to notice that it's not the end.

They were, they are and will remain

Happy, healthy, sad or in pain.

Look once to see that broken tree,

Look once to see that child with tears.

Run not away from what is real.

Stop once to feel that wind,

Stop once to realise their sorrow,

Stop there to enjoy the rain.

Stop there before resuming the journey,

Stop there to learn before moving again,

Stop there because it's required to have a pivot,

to mark another phase and to the start from there again. 

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The Three Kinds of People

No matter where we go we will always meet three kinds of people.  The first kinds are the ones who find faults with us and give us endless free advices when we are not successful but are all praise once we are. The second kinds are those who always sympathise us and try to motivate us but turn out to be jealous once we get better than them. Then there are the third kinds who are always by our side, no matter what!

The first categories are foolish they do not have a mind of their own, they like things which everyone else feels is great. They follow the crowd and try to fit in everywhere. They make an attempt to be charming and try to be liked by everyone. These are the people who can never handle rejection and care too much about what others will think instead of focusing on themselves. It is always good to maintain a safe distance from them because they are what we actually call, “The fair weather friends”.  The second categories are those who always like to be with the weak and downtrodden not because they want to  help them but because it makes them feel better when compared to. So, they basically use you to entertain themselves with your “inferiority”.  They are the ones who will first come and tell you that you have changed in a bad way when you succeed in any field of life. They will confront you and try to remind you that you were once nothing. It is very difficult to identify such people at first because they are always so sweet and kind to you. But the moment you realise that they cannot tolerate your success stay away from them as it is advisable to stay away from people who bring in so much negativity.

The third kinds are my favourite they are friends for lifetime. It is hard to find such people but once you do, never get away from them. They are the ones who enjoy your company and love you for what you are or what you will become. I think if we want true and honest friends we will always find those among them. They are “The friend in need type” who will never turn their back on you.  They are the people who don’t require you to pretend in their company.  They make you feel alive and you love to be surrounded by them, so never ever let them go.

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Forty and Still Rocks!

Have you heard the TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert? She is the author of "Eat, Pray, Love" now a movie starring Julia Roberts and has also written a sequel to that book called, "Committed". Though the talk is about writers and their power to create those best selling scripts, I liked something else apart from the moral. There is one point where she mentions that she is "just" forty and perhaps has forty more years of work to do (till she is eighty). That is somewhere I stopped to think. She considers herself forty years young and feels she has still miles to go ahead. Now this is the kind of thinking we should have in India, not that a women should marry by 25, have kids by 30 and retire by 35 from work. We actually forget that as we grow older we evolve, we learn from life's lessons, then why quit when you are just ready to deal with things better and are well equipped to face the problems of life. No matter what is your gender or what job you do, it is never too late to keep working. There are people whose careers have actually started well after forty, Barack Obama being one of them, who became the US Senate only after crossing that age. Perhaps that's what he calls, "The Audacity of Hope". There is no age to start and no age to quit; it is rightly said that as long as you are alive there is still a purpose.  And that is what should keep us driving. 

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