Last Month at Work

On 19th July this year, I came to know that I had finally got into an MBA college. After exactly 3 years and 1 day, I put in my papers here. And thus, began my last month in my company which has been like a home to me for the last three years.

It all started when I was in Ranchi enjoying myself after my sixth semester holidays. I got a call from my friend saying that there was a company coming to college which would allow people with less % to sit. I took a flight to Calcutta the very next morning and then a connecting flight to Mumbai. Once I was in Mumbai, I came to know I had to report to the Logitech office of some “CITOS”. I just knew C in CITOS stood for Citigroup. This was a big thing. I mean who didn’t know what Citigroup was (Believe me, many people still don’t know what Citigroup is. You have to tell them that it’s basically Citibank). So I reached the office, cleared my written exams, followed by GD, then two rounds of Interviews. Thankfully for me, the interviews were a mix of both technical and HR questions. I made a mess of all the technical questions but did pretty well on my HR segments. Anyways around 7:30 in the night, the final results were announced. I was in. my first job! More than been happy at that moment, I was more relieved that atleast I had a job in hand when I got out of college. The last year of Engineering just flew by. And it was already 18th July 2008 and I had to report to office. CITOS was CTS by that time.

Now, when you are joining the private sector, people tell you all sort of horror stories of how they are blood suckers and what not. So, I reported to Interface very apprehensive on 18th July morning fearing the worst. That whole day is just a blur in my mind. All I remember is just signing the mountain of papers in front of me and that the Airtel network was down that day. Then one of the best months of my life started. There was a month long training. And the people I met inside that conference room have become my closest friends since. There was Karan who was from my college only. We had never ever looked at each other during our college mainly because he was in a different branch from me. The more mind baffling case was of Nipun. We were in the same branch in the same college and lived like a 200 yards away from each other, yet for some reason we had never spoken to each other. These two guys quickly became my very good friends once we started our training. Then slowly and surely I become friends with nearly everyone from that room. There was Arvind. A typical nerd. (sorry Bro! but you know that I felt like that initially). He always had a question after a long winding session. Then there was Abhishek Kalapatapu. A really nice guy. Nisha Patel, the sweet chocolate loving girl. Then, there was Liana Deboo, one of my best friends with an amazing sense of homour. There was Furhad Jidda, who could turn Pink at the drop of a Hat, literally! Manan Shah, the most chindi-est person I have had the honour to call one of my best friends (come on Builder, you know that you are Chindi) and then we come to Santosh Sai Venkat, a most amazing friend and the biggest flirt I have ever met in my life till now. And though, he didn’t join with Batch 3 initially, but Mark Fernandes, one of the funniest guys..EVER!! This was our small group and we prided ourselves as “BATCH-3”. Things were damn good when all of these guys were around.

I was allotted a team which was easily one of the stress free ones. There was Nimisha, who taught me everything about the work and who was and still is a very hard working person. Pooja, one of the biggest gossip mongers I have come across! Just kidding but she does like to talk. Then there was Shweta “Ma’am”. Atul, a guy who did all his work without any issues and Sumith, one of the best friends I have around here. Rahul was my 1st TL and a cool one at that. There were also Eunice and Darshan. Then there’s Dhiraj. The official Batch 3 buddy and an amazing guy. Sandeep Naik, one of my best friends once I shifted to Powai and an awesome boss(he was for like 3 months which were the most hard working months in this office for me). There were quite a lot of other people from that time who were my good friends. Those initial 6-7 months were really fun. Whoever would have thought working could be so much fun.

Then in Jan of 2009, our company was sold off to an Indian MNC(don’t want to name it here) and things started to change. But still it was fun working with my friends all around. Till March 31st 2010, everything went on as usual. People left and moved on to higher studies and with Arvind leaving and me shifting to Powai Office from 1st April, things completely changed. Coming to Powai had some plus points also. I met and made quite a number of new friends like Sayali, Yogesh, Smruti, Ameya, Vandana, Shreyashi, Sanjayji, Mukul, Gati, Bijal, Rasika, Viraj, Ashish and Chinmay to name a few. I got along very well with my new TL, Vipul. So, nearly after an year in April 2011, every old face of the team was gone, moved on to different projects. The only guys who were left behind were me, Yogesh and Dhiraj in the team. The last few months have flown by because I was busy with work and what not. And with 19th August fast approaching, the day I leave office, I am very sure that I will have mixed feelings. I would like to take this opportunity and thank everyone who made these last three years fly by. Post 19th August , I am going to miss you all.