Comfort Zone

Wikipedia defines comfort zone as “…a type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries. Such boundaries create an unfounded sense of security.” Human beings by nature seek a comfort zone. And its true for all aspects of our life-relationships, work, our physical work n many others. About a year back I was forced to confront the fact that my life is practically ruled by laws laid down by my comfort zone in every aspect of my life. And I decided to change it- one thing at a time. I resigned from my cozy comfy job. Being in media, there is actually nothing called cozy comfy but after working on same brand for 3 years, I had a good understanding of the work with little surprises. Things ran almost on an auto pilot.

So I moved out of there and joined another company…its been 6 months and I’m still trying to find my groove here. Its scary- from a sure position to a completely unknown environment. What makes it worse is that when I was moving out, I did not think it will be this tough- I somehow assumed that there will be a ready void that I would conveniently fill in…stupid eh. But I forgot that voids are always hidden. There are days I don’t feel like going to office, there are days when I almost regret the decision and think of all the people who are comfortably working 6 years+ in same company- they don’t feel this itch…what was I thinking to leave a steady thing and move?? It all comes back to my comfort zone. It doesn’t end with you moving out of it, its inertia also tries to lure you back. You are plagued with doubts and regrets- and there is no solution to these. So far I am not giving in. Its not going the way I originally envisioned but it will work out in the end.

A month down

Yup.

Its been a month already since I started working again. Life has been super busy with me putting in close to 10-11 hours atleast daily. For those who find it surprising, lemme tell u its a pretty normal work behaviour in Indian corporates. Add to it the uncertainties and forever changing environment of a marketing agency and you have a job with no timelines…its not for the faint hearted for sure 😀

I loved it. The adrenaline rush before making a campaign live, the chaos of negotiating things with 10 people and those last minute deals…I loved it all. I still love it. It was just difficult getting back to it all after a year. More so coz the scale of operations in my current company is bigger than what I did @ my last one.

But though its been only a month, I am already missing out on a few things. And formost is my blogging. 😦 😦 😦 So much so that I didnt even notice passing Thursday and thereby missed out on participating in Jingle’s Thursday Poets Rally.

I miss reading…there are 4 books lying with me that I just don’t get time and energy to pick up and read.

Anyhow, hopefully I would come around to some kinda schedule that would help me get the best of both worlds.

1 week of grind

Never ever in my life have I so looked forward to a weekend as this one. As it has less to do with festival of Holi and more with the grinding work schedule I have been following.

For past one year my mornings begin not before 10 AM (8 if I am forced to get up early) and now at 8AM, im out of my house braving the morning traffic to reach my office and leave not before 7 or even 8 PM (official time is 6PM).

1st thing I noticed on entering the cubicle sea were the almost antique machines. They horrified me more coz my last company being a start up had dazzlingly new laptops and desktops. This one being an established company had machines from the time when they got started. 😀

My so called office honeymoon period (where you just relax and observe and work without anyone blaming you for any goof ups coz you are new) lasted all of 4 hours. Then I was handed over a client to plan a campaign for and the drill began.

Everyone is so busy here as if they are runnin a country instead of a campaign. I have hardly spoken to anyone in my team for anything other than work. Lets hope it changes for better soon.

But even after all this, I am glad im here. There is so much to learn! I feel like a frog who came out of the well only to realize there is still so much of the world.

A perfect end to my 1st working week in a year is HOLI!!!!

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY AND COLORFUL HOLI 🙂 🙂

Back in Rat Race

Phewww!

Finally after a sabbatical of a year, I am again part of the gazillion of people who get up early morning and drag themselves to their workstations to stare at their computer screen full 8 hours 5 days a week (some unfortunate ones might even have 6 days a week :O Not me though 😉 )

After a search of 3 months, I am back on the work scene and raring to go.

Hope I didn’t get rusted during this time.

Wish me luck. Will keep posted on all the office gossip and characters (which was actually the primary motive of this blog.) 😉

Taking A Break

I think writing a blog suits me…everytime i start a new blog, I end up resigning from my existing job! And thats a good thing coz no point being stuck in something you dont like. Maybe blogging about even mundane things kinda clears out my thoughts and i think rationally 🙂

but the crux is that I RESIGNED.

All those with your eyes either rolling out of the sockets or going up in your skulls, take a walk. Yesss i resigned even in these though-to-get-a-job times. And please dont gimme the looks like my mom used to when I dint eat my veggies @ age 6. “You dont value it and thats y you are throwing it away. Think of the kids who dont have it!?!”

Notice period: 1 week. Ideally its 15 days but since I aint managing any current campaigns since my job profile change ( which actually happened coz there wrnt any projects to manage), so 1 week was enough ending this Friday.

Though it has been only 1 year and 6 months working here, it is unlikely that i would find another company like this one. Where else would you find 15 people working in a bare and barren room with just some work stations thrown in.

No dress code issues. Even our CFO used to dress in Jeans and mojaris on Mondays! Infact all those people who were looking for a job now are in a mess coz they have to wear formals…some of them dont even any formals left with  them! 😀

And work from home option available. Bottom line: As long as work is not hampered, noone cared what you did and how you did.

Freedom to the core.

It was not much of parties every weekend kinda office but we had our times like a party @ RPM, a potluck (or pool lunch as it is usually known) which we organised followed by Dumb Charades (that got some amazing pics too;)).

<sigh> Too bad they had to change my profile and put in me SALES! I am everything but a sales person…IMpatience is my middle name (also add stubborn, easily bugged etc.). I tried it but it simply wasnt working out so now I am on a cool break…and might as well brush some dirt off those PGDBA books that I got for my distance learning course.

Hang on…having a lot of time means you’ll get lot of posts from me. 😀

Saying Goodbye

Laptop in Kitchen

“Im gonna be 20! Not a teenager anymore…its BIG. Im a grownup man. Its so special :)”

Nah not me, this was my brother raving about his entering the manhood age. Its one of those events in your life which you expect to me landmark events, bracing yourself for some kinda cosmic alignment and an elightening of sorts …only to realize looking back at it that it was nothing different!

But for now…his 20th bday was all important for my brother… He wanted a party for his friends..a bunch of 8 hooligans! Nothing wrong with that.

But my mother is kinda against serving hotel food to people coming @ home. And since she cudnt have cooked food for 9 kids with king sized appetite all by herself, naturally I had to help her what with my recent availability @ home. And so I had to pull through the most bizzare multi tasking day in my memory.

The multi tasking part started@ 10AM. Laptop was placed in the kitchen and my mobile was next to the vegetable chopping slab. Add to the mess, I have 2 mobile phones…people call on my old number and I make calls through my recently acquired number 😦

Ofcourse Murphy’s law came into picture so when I was hoping for an easy working day for myself, I had n number of calls, sudden alterations to plans to be made and sent to the client ASAP, call up 10 people to take appointments, follow up from 15 others who asked me to call them today, and send them emails…and list goes on.

So I was chopping onions followed by 2 emails followed by capsicums interruped by a phone call which required some chat on SKYPE followed by heating oil in a pan and adding mustard seeds and waiting for them to start jumping out of the pan (any one wud if you out them in hot oil) then add onions and stir till they turn golden brown…since that takes some time, I could make a couple of phone calls and since they required to be followed up with emails, i could do that also. But cud I trust the onions not to stick themselves to the pan!?! Nooooooooooooooooo! But I did..and I was let down! 😦

Thankfully we were serving lunch and not dinner and so while I had the busiest and messiest day of mhy professional and culinery life, it was all over by 3PM. Not that you asked but the food was yummilicious! Post that I had to continue working. Miraculously, after 3, there was no incoming phone calls or emails or any emergency work…WTF!

If you are thinking why the devil dint I take a leave for that day and that would have made my life so much easier…I DONT KNOW.

Direct hit by economic crisis

It’s hard to escape the economic crisis currently surrounding the world. And trust me its bad…and no one can imagine how bad a situation is unless it strikes you right in the middle of your eyes.

That’s what happened to me.

I used to read about all these mammoths meeting same and as the hairy mammal did centuries back…actually, genuinely feel bad for al l those people being shown the door in these tough times. And then the day came when we all were sitting across our company head and hearing the same lines!

Hard times…cost cutting measures…unforeseen circumstances…hard steps required…we are evacuating our office premises for the time being. Some people were shown the door, others were shown their home. Thankfully I fell in the latter category.

That was one a month back.

So now I work from my home…that means, no more getting up early morning, reaching office on time braving the notorious traffic and super duper notorious Delhi winters. I work all  cozied up in my quilt on my bed (I was never into table-chair arrangement) and before you ask…no I never fell asleep working.

And my job profile still involves lot of phone calls only now I am making them instead of getting the phone calls..cold calling to prospective clients and setting up appointments… I don’t like it much but hanging on t o it till something better comes across.

So in a way this crisis has been a boon. Except of course some side-effects.

Like I miss the easy camaradie of my collegues. Jokes, pranks we used to play on each other all the time. The head banging metal that 2 of them used to make us listen to on the busiest of days coz ‘its sin not to listen to this.’

Not to mention that sitting at home all day without moving anything except my fingers is not helping my weight gain problem at all…about time I do something about it and stick to it.

But till then its working from home for me…lets see for how long.

Working from home