2014 - Time And Place - Part 2

Anonymous 4

Another year comes to an end. This year was definitely one of the most happening year of my life till now.

It started with me joining a new company. I had been looking forward to this change. I was looking forward to meeting new people, making new friends, doing interesting work. But I not only got all this but more. Let me divide my experience at workplace into a two categories - work and life. My first project was really interesting, more of coding and learning, with a senior who was too much fun to work with (partly because he was leaving the company soon :P). Around first 6 months were too smooth and no tension was there in life. Then came the difficult time, that senior had left the company and I had to work with another senior who was too much of a micro manager! At times I had no answer to her questions, at times I had to work a lot (over the weekends as well) and wasn’t appreciated even a bit for it. Let alone appreciation, I was actually criticized for what i had done. Well, through all this, I learnt how to justify myself and my work to my senior. She eventually did understand the situation. As time passed by, she started having more trust in me and was no longer micromanaging my work. I actually learnt a lot of things from her, like how to go to the depth of an issue, how to manage my work more efficiently. I was always surprised to know that she had an answer to every question I may ask. She herself had worked hard a lot and learnt many things during her tenure. During another project, I had to face too strict timelines. While working I had this habit of keeping the things to myself (since i am not the justifying kind), like trying to complete my work rather than letting my seniors know that I am under stress of completing the work. Then came a point where it had become utmost necessary to speak up. I thoroughly explained my situation to my senior (a different person here) and how my work can affect the deliverable. He understood everything, and also enabled me to deliver my piece of work more effectively. It was a very important lesson for me in the sense that it is always necessary to speak up and set the expectations right rather than yourself being under pressure of completing the work and thinking that what would be the outcome if I am not able to deliver it on time. As time passed, my working hours kept increasing (from 8hrs a day to about 10hrs everyday and 12-14hrs also on some days). Another project which I worked on helped me learn about the business aspect of all the work that is done in the industry. I also learnt that you can always ask for help from people, they will definitely help you out, but that help in itself will not be enough unless you make an effort to learn further from the help that was provided to you. The span of your learning widens when you make efforts, not just when an opportunity is provided to you. My current project is also very interesting. Well more so because of my teammate. Everyday I learn a new thing with her. Sometimes its her perseverance that just leaves me startled, while sometimes it is her out of the box ideas that make my head spin. The project (or technologies involved) are as much new to her as they are to me, but due to her 3 years experience her business knowledge is so strong that I feel too glad for having had her as my teammate. I always wonder what would I have done had I not got her as my teammate. And the most surprising element is that, she says the same. She is so humble. Well, there are still too many things that i need to learn from her, and I will. :)

Now lets come to the life part of workplace. Well, life is too rocking i tell you! We have quarterly team dinners, where my team members drink-eat-dance like anything. They know exactly when it is time to have fun and leave behind all the work that may be pending. Then we have office parties. In one year we’ve had like three office parties. Here also people follow the same trend, drink-eat-dance. In one of the office parties I got an opportunity to participate in a dance event. It was hip-hop, really toughie for me, but i accepted the challenge. I wanted to do something out of my comfort zone. I was a bit afraid to do it also, what if i mess up on stage, etc etc. But thankfully none of that happened. Many people (friends/not-friends) appreciated my effort. :D It was a small proud feeling. :) Other interesting events included outings and charity events. Another important activity that I was a part of was some fun sessions for small children at an NGO. I went for about 3-4 such sessions. Interaction with kids was too much fun, they never listen to what we may say, but some of them were intelligent also to understand everything. I always tried talking to them individually also, some were shy to answer to my questions, some were too naughty as well. I will try to be involved more in these sessions going forward. Another event was participating in the Delhi Half Marathon. It was a tough one for me as I am not at all a running person. But again i wanted to get out of my comfort zone. I did complete the 6km run in a decent time period. Life part of workplace also included friends i made here. You may get to talk to many people, here everyone knows everyone, but friends are only a few. That too maybe not best friends, but maybe those who may just hear you out sometimes when you are under stress. Some friends may suggest new songs, that’s how i got to know about porcupine tree and i did like it a lot. Then some friends may have lunch with you. Some may also be too glad to see you, however less that may be.

Now moving ahead to the non-workplace part of my life. There are a few wonderful trips i had this year. Firstly I went to Andaman with my family. It was a pretty amazing trip. Loved the water everywhere, the color of it was different everywhere, it was scary also at times looking at the vast regions only covered with water, havelock was also wonderful, the ship/boat/ferry rides were amazing. We even got to see tribals in the area (baratang island). The weather was also amazing. The second trip was to bangalore with my friends. It was an awesome trip, the weather was cold at night, but pleasant during the day, wind blows 24x7 and will not let you feel lonely :P We saw various parks and waterfalls and played laser tag, ate at classy places. Everything was really fun. I also had an amazing night with my friends about which i remember not much due to the old monk. I was glad that I was in safe hands in such a state. They made videos to keep a memory of the legendary night. :D Third trip of the year was again with family, to dehradun-haridwar-mussoorie-rishikesh. We visited a few temples in dehradun-haridwar. In mussoorie we saw the most famous Kempty falls, while rishikesh we must have just touched. It was an okay trip. I would want to visit rishikesh again for rafting and other water sport activities. I hope to have some more awesome trips in this new year as well.

This year was also great in terms of me keeping in touch with my friends. My college friends are close anyway, whenever they used to come delhi we always made a point to meet. Meeting them never made me feel that college was over. We all had same ties with each other as it was during college. I also met my school friends a few times. It was always a pleasure to meet them and reminiscence good old school days.

This year I also made sure to follow my hobbies. For starters I bought an acoustic guitar. Initially i played it, but then stopped learning because i didn’t get time. But now again I have made sure to spend time with it over the weekends for sure. There are some good novels that I read this year. I managed to finish about 6 books. It is a good number i think, considering that I am not much of a reader. I bought many novels as well, but haven’t been able to finish them all. I also made sure that i get good entertainment this year so i finished a few tv series. Some were continuation of previous seasons while some I had started fresh and finished them. There were quite a few good movies also which I watched.

This year towards the end i also made a point of spending some time with my family on a regular basis. I feel that due to so long working hours I was unable to spend even little time with them. So when i do spend time with them, i talk to them, i see that they also feel nice about it. I will continue doing this going forward as well.

Now finally i come to that part of my life which had been smooth till last year. This year me and my boyfriend faced a lot of issues with each other. Particularly because of long distance that it had been. In the beginning of the year (for about first 6 months) whenever we used to meet, it was with either his juniors or other friends. We never could spend alone time with each other. We finally did realize that it is very important to spend face to face alone time with each other specially when a relationship has turned into a long distance. Later we faced another problem dealing with which I had a lot of problems. It was again after spending some time together and giving each other more time that made us realize that we are meant for each other and even in future we would want to spend our life together only. It made me realize that it is very important to forgive, no person is perfect, no relationship is fully protected from differences or tough times that may come. It is just that we have to be strong enough to get through the difficult times and live each moment fully and look forward for a brighter future.

Well that’s about my year 2014. It was great looking back at it while writing this review. Looking forward for another great year ahead. Happy New Year! :)