I come from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of “The
God’s own country” (incidentally, the richest God in the world dwells in my
city) which rests in harmony with the deep blue Arabian Sea on one side and the
lush green Western Ghats on the other. I travelled 3000 kms from my home town,
in the extreme South of India, to Noida in North India, for my training in IBM.
Hindi was an unknown language for me, for I have learned it only in my lower
grades at school just to pass exams. It was like settling down in Mars, and I
loved it. After two months of training in Noida, I was directed to report in
Pune, which is in the West of India. New destinations, new people, new
languages, new cultures; I welcomed it all, observing and loving it. After
almost a year in the Tech world, now when I look back, life has changed with
amazing swiftness!
Mondays were never dreadful before. “Happy weekends” were
never heard of. Vacations were spent counting days to return back to college.
There were no planned holidays; rather, no one ever bothered to plan one.
Deadlines were months away. Not meeting the deadlines could hardly get us into
trouble, apart from getting low grades in the internals. Getting late to class
just led us to the Head of the Department’s cabin. Getting a wrong solution
made us write a hundred impositions, and that’s it. Cultural fests and sports
days meant bunking classes in the name of practice. Inter-college fests meant
making new friends. Group discussions meant fights. Cricket tournaments meant
betting (without any real cash involved). New movie releases meant mass
bunking. Boring speeches meant snoring at the back rows or a desperate attempt
of non-stop clapping to bring the speaker to submission! Assessments meant
copy-paste. Professor getting late to class meant Sachin Tendulkar batting on
his 90s, and if the same professor shouted on the same day for no reason, then
it meant Tendulkar missed his century.
Things have changed… and changed so radically. From relishing
weekends to waiting for the texts that read “Your salary has been credited”,
everything has changed. “Deadlines” are no more distant illusions. It means
business. Group discussions are on “how to improve team performance”-both in
terms of effectiveness and efficiency and not on “how Jackie Chan did his stunt
in Rush Hour”. Getting stuck in work meant “Google-ing”. Lunch breaks meant
time for lunch and not the time for gossips.
Responsibility is being felt and is getting used to it. If we
were not responsible enough in college, it just reflected on our annual
results. But today, our commitment drives our client’s performance. We were
building bits and pieces of knowledge all throughout our lives without actually
knowing whether they would ever be of use any time in our lives. Now we are
digging deep to bring every bit of it to active domain in solving real problems
at hand. We used to take exams to test if we have learnt the concepts, but now
we have to use them to define and solve real issues at hand.
Improving the way we worked and innovating were so alien before;
we were only bothered about improving our grades. Now the Client’s success is
our priority. It was just our triumph in exams that mattered to us before.
Somebody else’s satisfaction is our achievement now. It was being the topper of
the class which was appreciated and recognized. Now a mail of appreciation from
the client meant “we are doing the right thing” and is valued.
When we faced a challenge, things were to be sorted out
ourselves, and now we have the privilege of a whole team behind us that takes
it up as a collective responsibility. The days are gone when we learned to
answer a particular question in a readymade format, prescribed in a textbook.
Now, a new day brings up a new question in a new context and we arrive at a
solution which belongs to no textbook… wait a minute, Google is not considered
here!
