The Wait.... of another kind

Most of us, especially in the IT industry, have had the experience of changing jobs. Frequently or not so frequently is a different matter, but people in this industry change/switch jobs more than in any other industry.

In one of my earlier post I have written about my experience of one such change and how I felt waiting for a response from my prospective employer. Here I am again, writing this time on a different kind of “Wait”.

Having been finally selected by the new employer, I submitted my resignation to my boss. He was shocked. SHOCKED. Apparently things were moving smooth here, between him, me and the rest of the team. In spite of that I had opted to move out. Why? A lot of explaining went on both from my side and his. Counter offers were made. But I stuck to my point.

All this happened around 4th or 5th June. Finally my papers were accepted and 24th June was fixed as my final day with the company. This is where the second kind of “Wait” started. The wait to leave the present company and join the new one; the wait of join new exciting opportunities; the wait to work on new technology; the wait to work with new people; the wait for a new work environment; the wait for fresh challenges.

The counter started.

20 more days to go.
19 more days to go.
…
…
…
5 more days to go.

Today, when I am writing this, there are still 4 more days to go. 4 more days to work with the present company; 4 more days of working in this environment built my me; 4 more days of working with the team I so painfully assembled, trained and nurtured; 4 more days of working with juniors who are now pretty close friends; 4 more days of leaving this wonderful place.

There is joy of joining a new place but at the same time there is pain of leaving this place. I have never felt like this during my earlier job changes. The last time a job change hurt me was when I was leaving a place after 3 years of working. But that pain was more of leaving couple of good friends; not the place. So why am I feeling it this time? I don’t know. Maybe I will find out on 24th June. Maybe.

The Wait .... finally ended

Like the title suggests, this is in continuation to my earlier post. And this time i am not going to use the chat jargon; one of my many admirers actually suggested me to avoid these. For the none chatty folks, chat jargon = "......".

Well, the wait finally ended. I got a call from the consultant, informing me of the timing for the telephonic interview from the US. It was going to be at 10:30 pm, the same day.

I decided to leave for home early. But when i reached home, i was in for a shock. A very rude one. I will not dwell in to what happened since it is beyond the scope of the present scenario. How ever for the more curious ones, you can read more about the shock here.

In preparation of the interrogation, i set up my laptop, opened up MSDN, some of my writeu-ps/notes, project details etc. I was hoping to use these during the session. I even fixed the handsfree on my mobile to keep my hands free.

Sharp at 10:30 i got the call.

The interview session went on pretty well. There were two interviewers. I was quizzed a lot on the projects that i had done so far, both from technical/architectural and project management point of view. This went on for about 30-35 minutes. All the pre-interview setup activities proved futile. They just didn't give the time to use them. In the end i hoped that i had been able to satisfy their queries.

The whole night was full of dreams. Both good and bad ones.

The next day i got a call from their Gurgaon office informing me that i had been selected and they would like to make a formal offer to me. Wooooooooooooopy !!!!!!!!

"Can you come over to our office right away to discuss the formalities ?" He asked.

Can I ?

"Of course i can." I said.

I arrived in their office dot on time. The deal was struck and i was on board. They offered a hefty package, a heftier bonus, onsite assignments to US. It just felt like a dream come true.

Now i think, "Was it really worth it ?". Of course it was, you damn fool.

Learning:
Never ever miss an opportunity. You never know in what form they turn up. But turn up they do. Often. You just have to recognise them and grab them.

Cheers. Party Time.

I am just waiting for that good old friend of mine to come back. If you are reading this buddy, i am waiting to hit the bar with you.

Bachelorhood

For those of you who know that i am married, please be updated that i am bachelor now a days. No, don't get me wrong. There is nothing like "we have parted our ways" or anything similar. We are together and will remain so till the very end. By being a bachelor i mean that my better half and the kids are staying with my parents for some time. Summer vacations. So here i am, a bachelor again, although this bachelorhood is not going to last for long.

Anyways, this is about what happened to this bachelor on 29th June.

The morning that day was as usual; HOT. It was a clear day and the sun was bright. Very bright. Then at around 4 pm it all changed. Chotu, the peon in my office, suddenly came to us and said "Toofan aa raha hai". I went to the window and saw that the sky had turned dark. Wind was gushing at mind-boggling speed, trees were bent to the hilt ready to be uprooted any moment, doors started banging. Then there was a thunder storm followed by heavy rains. Me and my team stopped working and came out of the office to enjoy the rain and the cool winds. It felt great. It rained cats and dogs for the next 60-80 minutes. Then it calmed down.

Well i went back home at around 7:30 pm. The colony was dark. There was no power. The electricity department had probably disconnected the supply because of the storm. I climbed up to my floor and tried to switch on the main door bulb. Nothing happened. "OK, the inverter battery is down." I thought. I used the flash light of my camera-phone to open the door. The moment i entered, i was horrified. I realised that i had stepped into water. There was water all around. I looked around for the source. Then i saw it. The glass of one of the windows had broken in the storm. The curtain on the window along with it's rod was down. "Oh Shit, The inverter!!". Water had entered into the inverter resulting in a short circuit. The inverter battery wasn't down. the whole bloody inverter was.

I tried to survey the remaining of the house to see for more damages. The drawing room and one of the bed rooms were also full of water. "Oh My God. This had to happen today. Today when i have a telephonic interview at night. What do i do now ? "

The first thing that this bachelor did was call up his wife. Like me she too was horrified. But she understood the situation immediately and calmed me down. She assured me that she would be back in the morning the next day. That was really reassuring.

I some how managed the night and the interview without electricity that day. The power was restored only in the after noon the next day. I had to take a day off from office to face the situation. I got the glass fixed and the inverter rectified the next day. As promised, my wife was with me in the morning.

So long to bachelorhood. But who wants to remain a bachelor. Not me. Not any more. She has again gone back to stay with my parents after this incident. But this time, i have also gone with her.