Moving away
I have worked at different locations in India through my career so far. I had fairly long stints at some locations. One thing I have avoided whenever I left an organisation was fairwell get together. It hurts.
I moved from Chennai to Jaipur bag baggage three days back ( on 18/09/09 to be precise ). The feelings were different from all the previous occassions. Here I was moving laterally from one location to another 2000 km away with a huge difference. The set up at Chennai started as an one man show an year and half back with me holding fort alone for a month and a half. Two months into action , our team was four strong. We did everything from sending out handwritten envelopes inviting candidates for interviews to receiving the would be associates at bus stations. It was a humbling experience with most of those made an offer not turning up. It bruised our pride and left us wondering how our project would take off. A large pool of us used to operate two laptop computers. Space was a big constraint and we used to literally sit on one another's lap. There was very little to go by in terms of office comfort. We have used public facilities for fascimile reproduction ( photocopies for the uninitiated ) and print outs. We struggled to provide hostel accommodation for trainees ad freshers. Even getting a cup of coffee within reasonable time after placing the order was a luxury.
Associates could be seen hanging around in the cool comfort of a large tree outside our single room office. But long time spent under the tree did not make a Budha out of our associates. The only gain some of them had was the offerings from birds easing themselves after digesting their food.
We struggled together as a team with no feeling or fear of hierarchy. There were a lot of willing volunteers for most of what we did as there was no prior experience in our area of operation. Since the cause we were working for an eminent one, we could book premises for interviewing large number of candidates free of cost. New comers were joining us every now and then like passengers hanging on gamely to an overcrowded bus. Some of the newcomers were disappointed with ( the lack of ) office facilities and this could be gleaned from their long faces.
We moved to a comfortable campus with state of art facilities. Over the period of time we learned the tricks of the trade and started breathing easy only to find ourselves staring down the abyss thanks to the adventurous ways of the promoter which landed him behind the bars. This struggle was different where I had to keep the details and difficulties away from the team. It took an effort to go to office smiling in the morning.We came out of this half a year long struggle thanks to a new promoter. It has been back to business as usual when I decided to take a lateral transfer to get close to my family.
I did not give much time for my team and associates to react on my last day in the office. I just breezed past them wishing them the very best and left the premises before they could comprehend the import of the moment. I knew most of them would feel emotional and this could make me emotional too.
I took up this project unnoticed and wanted to leave unnoticed. I can hold my emotions in check but why should I act in a manner alien to me ? More often than not, I wear my emotions up my sleeves. I chose this occasion of parting as an exception and held my emotions i check.
It will take a long time for me to come to terms with parting with this excellent bunch of colleagues.
I moved from Chennai to Jaipur bag baggage three days back ( on 18/09/09 to be precise ). The feelings were different from all the previous occassions. Here I was moving laterally from one location to another 2000 km away with a huge difference. The set up at Chennai started as an one man show an year and half back with me holding fort alone for a month and a half. Two months into action , our team was four strong. We did everything from sending out handwritten envelopes inviting candidates for interviews to receiving the would be associates at bus stations. It was a humbling experience with most of those made an offer not turning up. It bruised our pride and left us wondering how our project would take off. A large pool of us used to operate two laptop computers. Space was a big constraint and we used to literally sit on one another's lap. There was very little to go by in terms of office comfort. We have used public facilities for fascimile reproduction ( photocopies for the uninitiated ) and print outs. We struggled to provide hostel accommodation for trainees ad freshers. Even getting a cup of coffee within reasonable time after placing the order was a luxury.
Associates could be seen hanging around in the cool comfort of a large tree outside our single room office. But long time spent under the tree did not make a Budha out of our associates. The only gain some of them had was the offerings from birds easing themselves after digesting their food.
We struggled together as a team with no feeling or fear of hierarchy. There were a lot of willing volunteers for most of what we did as there was no prior experience in our area of operation. Since the cause we were working for an eminent one, we could book premises for interviewing large number of candidates free of cost. New comers were joining us every now and then like passengers hanging on gamely to an overcrowded bus. Some of the newcomers were disappointed with ( the lack of ) office facilities and this could be gleaned from their long faces.
We moved to a comfortable campus with state of art facilities. Over the period of time we learned the tricks of the trade and started breathing easy only to find ourselves staring down the abyss thanks to the adventurous ways of the promoter which landed him behind the bars. This struggle was different where I had to keep the details and difficulties away from the team. It took an effort to go to office smiling in the morning.We came out of this half a year long struggle thanks to a new promoter. It has been back to business as usual when I decided to take a lateral transfer to get close to my family.
I did not give much time for my team and associates to react on my last day in the office. I just breezed past them wishing them the very best and left the premises before they could comprehend the import of the moment. I knew most of them would feel emotional and this could make me emotional too.
I took up this project unnoticed and wanted to leave unnoticed. I can hold my emotions in check but why should I act in a manner alien to me ? More often than not, I wear my emotions up my sleeves. I chose this occasion of parting as an exception and held my emotions i check.
It will take a long time for me to come to terms with parting with this excellent bunch of colleagues.
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