From job to study

I remember how it felt receiving the offer letter from my first job interview. It came with a bit of warning though. I needed to improve my communication skills and that there'll be periodic reviews of my progress. This kept me on my toes throughout the remaining years of my engineering.

Still, after joining HCLT, I dreaded termination for the first few months as I felt too many had been accommodated to perform too little tasks. As I embraced the work atmosphere, complacency creeped in and it took almost one year when I engaged in any profitable work. Soon, hostile market scenario triggered by the sub-prime crisis bottlenecked many contracts and mitigated work in current projects. The fight for survival commenced and suddenly, everyone was geared up. The options were diminishing for the lethargic and the opportunities were surprisingly opening up for the workaholic.

Never had I tread in peace. Eager to satiate myself, I had abhorred just filling in the office. That one year of inactivity bred alternate career choices. I tried for few and failed at the ultimate stages. The fact that I had informed my manager about my plans only gave me heartaches later. Being ambitious, I refused to see myself sitting 9 hrs a day staring at a computer. I began the preparations for CAT, the test for admission to management colleges. I had a previous experience of writing this tricky test. There was a colleague with similar bent, so we were a sort of company. Our preparations were in full swing, we were actually relishing reading CAT Forums and solving questions at office. Maybe our controllers realized we had been making mockery of our job and it's time to provide us with some work.

The work commenced three months before we appeared for the test. It was indeed unwelcome exercise. But, it was the first chance to prove the worth. Having the habit of enduring less risks, I preferred work over CAT preparation. My unyielding attitude and zest for solutions impressed my lead. Due to the reliance on me, I had to undertake added responsibilities. I enjoyed working most of the time though. It was a bit easy.

Fortunately, I got a chance to work on deputation at Chennai. I decided to utilize this opportunity to the hilt. I performed really well, earning direct appreciation from the client and manager alike. I worked with determination which subsided my inexperience vibes and with proactive support from the team members, conquered the challenge. This success tasted sweet and justified my enhanced salary for this duration. I reveled these moments and wondered if they'll be everlasting.

Soon I realized that my role in Chennai had come to an end and soon I will be rendered redundant if my time was extended. With a direct monitoring of the unbilled resource, not much is left in the hands of Manager. Reducing the dependency on human element will reap benefits indeed. Efficiency has reached it's highest levels in HCLT and the credit goes to EPIC(Employee Passion Indicative Count) and policy of 'Deployment Allowance'. I fancy a profit/loss sharing among all employees. Also, a schedule tracker for the mid level managers would help the company ascertain the value being brought to the organization.

In my short career in IT, I worked with some egoistic and unresponsive managers. They were at peace with their immediate hierarchy and thus were experiencing the 'joie de vivre'. An unprecedented sense of security structured their thought processes and encouraged 'extra-communication' skills with their seniors. My analysis can be extremely misleading as I have my perspective. But, discussion with senior engineers who have been good performers, vindicate my judgement.

Still, one can not come to a conclusion as a manager's constraints are thought to be different and difficult (I don't know why!). Then how some are revered by the team and some are cursed at their back? The effective team interaction skills and proactive decision making ability are on watch here. Spending quality time with the team is essential to build a sense of belongingness. Obviously, many would regard it as a waste of time, but it may provide benefits in future.

My own concepts and their implementations will be on test when I will start a new chapter of my life as a management student. It seems tough to go as I had been performing really well in my erstwhile assignment at Chennai. Maybe we are supposed to take significant decisions at the inopportune time. Keeping future in sight, I decided to go.