My learnings in six months..

Its kind of easy to mention, yet difficult to collate. The work life has been a little shocking to start with, yet it got normal with the passing days. But its still different from what I am used to! I spent a great deal of my first two months at Trivandrum, with beautiful scenaries and a ligament tear to deal with. Days passed on with no sense of purpose and clue as to what I am doing. I am never exposed to the working life of software industry earlier and I had a feeling of back to school with strick schedule and hostel work. We had quite an interesting time, dealing with the corporate expectations. I guess, even the company is perplexed as to what to do with the 200 odd MBAs attending the training. After the gala time and the tension of the allocations, I finally landed up at Chennai. The training process gave me an enriching perspective on the working style of IT industry. With companies having 30% of surplus capacity so that they don't suffer opportunity loss, it was quite difficult to see the kind of roles I could play. Yet, I got lucky (I hope so!) to get into a demonstration oriented ideation lab which prototypes the next generation ideas on telecom platform.

Luck got a different dimension in everyone's life. Some curse it, some love it and some doesn't believe in it. Its good if it works in your favour and its better if it doesn't. The work life brought in a new culture. It means marriage to your desk, professional relationships and new challenges! Often you like the job, often you won't. Often you blame the fate, often your boss!

I got to learn a lot of new things from different people. I had my own Oh! Shit moments as well. Yet, through all this flow of life, I can find that the importance of learning is tremendous. I should never let the fire of curiosity die. If that happens, there would be no difference between the dumb terminal on which I am working and my own little brain. I realized that one needs to have a clear focus on the career and which direction one has to mold it into. Its like this old saying: " If you don't know the destination, the road doesn't matter."

I feel good in my job profile as it keeps me in touch with the industry leaders and influential persons of the TCS client companies. At times, its simply amazing to hear what they have to say. I work with a group which tries to make technology as a part of human life and the implications are far more prominent than one would like to believe. The fight in the telecom industry for the customer mind space, the importance of presentation, the need for innovation and the struggle for market share brings in a level playing field for all the companies big or small.

Marketing still rocks for me, yet I could see the mutual dependence among the different functions for the proper organization of the company. It added a new respect with which I view this functions like HR and Finance. I may not be a great number cruncher, yet I can appreciate those big heads in front of the screens working furiously on Excel. What impresses me the most is the ability to touch people's lives in a pleasant fashion. Some of the people I met really amaze me with the kind of confidence they exude and the smile with which they carry themselves. Impressive experience is what I had until now. And many more miles to go!

My first six months of work life!

I have completed my first six months of work life and am waiting to complete another! The experience has been quite eventful till now! Guess this is the time to reflect and learn! I used to have a director at IMDR who always emphasized on the importance of reflecting after experience to garner learning. Guess I would listen to him this time! Well, I had an interesting team get-together with my collegues at MGM resorts. We played cricket, handball, and sealed theday with a gourmet dinner. The heavy moment of the day was when we had to bid farewell to collegue who is leaving to UK the very next day. He is our project lead and somehow I grew comfortable with his guidance. Yet, life has to move on, isn't it? The ambience of MGM is perfect for team events. The resort has cricket pitch just beside the beach, and it was quite fun to play the match as I have never played cricket earlier! No wonder, I ended up duck-out (rather ducked out!). I had quite an eventful day, yet I had to back to office on Saturday! So more to key on in further posts..