Work.........

Kudos to Hari on his 50th Blog – Very moving piece indeed (altho I couldn’t find any mention of my ‘enlightening’ friendship! He he!!)

Anyway, that apart, I have decided to pour out my heartfelt feelings about the work I was so doing so far at my office; the reason why I have chosen this moment for penning these thoughts is that my work life is over at this place – yes, I have put in my papers!!

Of course all this is not without a back up – I have decided to obtain a Management degree. Now, what I wish to say in this blog is clear in my head; although this being a subject close to my heart, my thoughts might not be too coherent and I prefer to keep it that way – let this not be an organised essay – let it be a true revelation of my feelings (as I feel!)

As my close friends know, I have been very frustrated with this job for quite some time now. The thought of resigning has been at the back of my mind for about 6 months now. You might ask me if I have taken any steps to resolve problems I had at my workplace. I did. But of course you cannot expect a fresher to change the work culture. This is the first time I am seeing people who are so not interested in their jobs – people who’ll have no shame in simply earning hefty pay packets without contributing to the organisation in a way that befits their position! Anyway, the start of this blog was the receipt of a rather moving email – from one of my well wishers here. I had confided in him that I was not satisfied with working here, a couple of months ago. And he was helping me from the sidelines – but lets face it, its my job, my life and I have to carry out the ‘culture-change’ that I am talking about.

A few days before I put in my papers, this friend had an offer for me – a very exciting profile – sprinkled with international travelling (“I cant guarantee you anything, mind you, after all, the organisation has its own limitations”) Ofcourse as expected there was a catch in this. This would mean that I had to stay put here for another 3 yrs!! Simply outta qn!! NO WAY!! But I cant say so flatly to someone who is actually trying to help me out. So as a palliative I suggested ‘re-considering’ my decision. And however articulate I might be in putting down my thoughts on paper, I am as bad at talking it out! And I had a meeting with him and came out feeling like I had betrayed the company!!

As if to make things worse, I received a mail from the same person giving me instances of how committed his engineers were and how it was possible for me to think so badly of the organisation when his engineers thought so well of the same place! And the conclusion was that I was not devoted enough. And that I should think twice before taking up my next job!!! Man!! I didn’t know how to react. As touched as I am by his fatherly advice to me, I was upset that I had conveyed such an impression. Did I not do well at portraying myself to be the ‘pathetic’ worker – the person who has lost all self confidence after starting to work at this place?? – Its not even a question of portraying myself like that – I AM THAT!!!!

Anyway, after considering how to counter the attack I decided to go ahead and shoot a mail – after all I sound better on paper!!
So then I shot it all out – how I had already thrown away one opportunity to go abroad for my Masters just for this job! Not once, but TWICE – I had deferred the admit during my first year of work at this place and the very next year I cancelled my deferred admit, all the time hoping that my job would be more promising. But I met only with disappointment. I set it out clearly that my response was not a ‘defensive reaction’. I was not trying to come out of this mess looking sweet and innocent. Rather I didn’t care to justify any of my actions – including qns on why I didn’t do this to improve my plight etc etc.! And I appealed to his sense of fairness – I have asked him if he feels it is the right thing to ask me to throw away another opportunity – when in 2 yrs I have not seen anything else??!!!

Now that I have done this, I feel a bit apprehensive and relieved at the same time. Apprehensive, because I don’t want my revelations to be taken in the wrong sense – because I am pretty sure not a soul would support me on any of my so called grievances – cos everybody is interested only in covering their rears! But I look at my mail as a plea to ensure that my successors don’t go through this useless grind!

I am still surprised at the kind of people I see at my work place – Can you believe that they are satisfied in just sitting and chatting and whiling away time – all the while I am sure their spouses would be thinking that these ppl are working so hard! Shameless I call this – But I am not that impractical to ask them to resign – they must be havin families to support- But still the least you can do is acknowledge that your condition is sad! Only when you notice that your surrounding is bad do u get the urge to change it! But these people parade around like they are so busy! (Man! I am so relieved that I can put a stop to watching all this!!)

Anyway, that’s the end of my blog – More on some interesting impersonal stuff later!!


- Chandrika