Travelling without a care..
11 Dec 2008 8 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: friends, work
I met an old boss of mine for lunch today. He was an awesome boss – one of the very few bosses I have had that I really really liked. Very friendly, immensely helpful, considerate, approachable, good at what he did, and one who spoke his mind, which meant that he had a lot of enemies at our workplace.
Anyway he is back in the country after back-packing in South America for over an year. He is trying to get back into the workforce now and so we were exchanging notes over lunch.
Me with my typical middle-class mind had so many financial questions running in my mind, but obviously being the good girl that I am, I did not ask any. What I did ask him though was how his CV was being perceived in the market-place, with the one year gap. I know its not such a big deal in this country, yet the field he works in is fairly specialised. Also, with the market being as it is, it is hard enough to get a job without having to explain this career break.
I think this is something I would never be able to do (maybe never is too strong a word, and I should change that to NOT, never say never and all that jazz). It is so not in my temperament to be able to take off without knowing where I am going to stay, how long for, whom I am going to meet. Also the fact that I will not have a job to come back to at the end of it all, even the thought of it terrifies me. My imagination goes berserk and I imagine various scenarios – like being stranded alone on an island, becoming penniless after all that travelling, being killed for my money while on holiday – (and I don’t watch too many movies either !!) all kinds of random fears.
I think a lot of it is do with my conditioning. The way I was brought up as a middle class Indian – taught to save, work throughout, settle down, live my dream as long as it within the realms of a stable, secure job but not at the cost of it. It probably is changing now and students have started travelling, exploring the world, taking gap years and probably even taking a break from their career to explore the world and maybe its just me who cannot. But I just cannot fathom giving everything up and going backpacking for an year. This holds true for the times even before I had a baby. I thrive and need the security and comfort of my own home, knowing at least roughly what I am going to be doing in the foreseeable future, plan things and slave away for the few holidays that I am entitled to. I don’t think I can accept any other way, but I sure envy those who can.
Thank You
09 Oct 2008 2 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: friends, thoughts, work
An ex-colleague of mine Z started in my office on a contract position, working in my team. And can I just say how wonderfully refreshing it has been for me ?? I mean, he has only been here since the start of this week, but already it has made such a BIG difference for me.
I never did interact much with him in my previous office. He was my boss for a short duration there, which obviously meant that my interaction with him was guarded and limited. We were colleagues before that (he, being senior to me), when we did interact a bit but not too much. He had a ‘senior’ aura about him, which I did not want to mess with while being the office novice. It also did not help that he used to be out of the office for extended durations of time, working on client sites.
Now is entirely different. For one, I am much more experienced in this line of work and so able to hold conversations on our subject area, discuss clients and projects from the past and am generally a lot more confident.
We have been going out for lunch this entire week. Not going out going out, but grabbing a sandwich and back to our desks kind of lunch. Yet it has been such a change from my usual routine, deciding where we want to go among the various options that we have close to our office, whether we want to go for a wander, just having a conversation about something so routine, yet so important. I have probably spoken more to Z over the last 3 days than I have in my entire 6+ months stint here.
Its also so nice to look over my cubicle and talk to Z. Again something which I took for granted so far, but which I dont have the luxury of doing here. The desk exactly in front of mine was empty all this while. Also I am surrounded by pre-sales people, who travel a lot and so more often than not, I have to look at empty desks. Not to mention the fact that I find them entirely superficial – overtly friendly but not really and so not my type.
My colleague, whom I dont particularly get along with, thankfully sits away from me, though I am not sure if I would be able to have a conversation with him as easily as I am able to, with Z. About routine, random things. Dinner plans. About the whacky house rules he has to put up with at his new flat (one of which is a NUDE day, though am sure his flatmate is making that one up). What he plans to do on his birthday. Those kind of things.
Incidentally, Z too thinks my colleague is particularly unfriendly, curt and rude at times. Yayy…
So thanks Z for making me feel ‘normal’ again. Because I did not have anybody to talk to, go to lunch with or have a random, coffee-break conversation with, here. I had begin to doubt it was down to my unfriendly, non-conversational self. And am glad that its not entirely that at all.
Working lunch
09 Sep 2008 1 Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: thoughts, work
I miss my old workplace tremendously.. Not for the work, atmosphere, office location or anything like that. But for its people. Wonderful, animated, young(ish), opinionated, similar interests, good conversationalists – such a lovely bunch of people. We used to regularly hang out together – evening drinks, lunch, general chatter during the day, coordinated coffee/tea breaks, email exchanges during office hours – all of those general things which make an office a much more enjoyable place.
Its not as if I was in a different place in my own life. I had K even then and though it did reduce the number of evening events which I could attend, it did not make a significant difference.
This office is so different to my old one. I sit on a floor surrounded by sales and pre-sales people. It has been incredibly hard to break into this group and I have been trying to figure out the reasons why. The only apparent difference is that people here are slightly older than my old office, but nothing else. We do have a diverse set of people here from all nationalities, similar to my old office. The office is pretty relaxed – deadlines are not as tight as the old place (at least for me), yet there is no chatter, nobody really to go for lunch with.
My present team is a very very small one – with just my boss, my colleague and me. Obviously I cant converse as much with my boss, even though I have known him for a long time. Doesnt help that I know that he is an intensely private person. My colleague and me started off fine – but somewhere, somehow things changed. He morphed into one of the few people I have really struggled with in my professional life – both personally as well as work-wise. Things got a lot worse before they got better. Now we are mostly ok, but I still dont feel comfortable enough to have a totally casual conversation or go out to lunch.
Reaching out to people after a certain age becomes incredibly tough and a real chore. Somehow am not interested in it anymore. It used to be bother me immensely initially but now am mostly ok. To say that I dont miss it at all would be untrue though. But there is something nice to wander around at lunch time, thinking about the day, chores to finish and lounge about on the sofas in the eating area reading, savouring and immersing myself completely in a rivetting book.
