Friday, September 22, 2006

My Frens At Work Place

The first day I joined my Job I was under the impression as anyone else that finding close frens at workplace would be like dreaming of having a cup of coffee with the CEO of the company(although I guess Karan Johar would be a better substitute!).On the first day of my training I realised tht I was the only one from my college who has been assigned to my training batch….Gawd! I thought there were seven hundred of them from my college who were recruited along with me in the same organization and here I am left alone with these strangers…and whosoever said that the world was a small place must be complete nuts!!So, I started my training with a feeling that I have been completely stranded in a marooned island with lots of aliens around!!
Forty days of training passed by in a ziffy and at the end of it I had got to know just abt a handful of people.We went around together to places which I had just heard of and never discovered although, I claimed to be from the same city considering that my parents had shifted there sometime back.We had a good time pulling each other’s legs and discussing abt our college days and going senti over them….and the 40 days of training got over and I discovered that all those people whom I had got to know or rather was beginning to know have been posted at a different place altogether.So the usual parting happened with promises made to keep in touch through mails (i.e fwded mails included !!) and the goodbyes and take cares and all.And now I was back among a new set of people (aliens is a better word I guess)!!
I was put into a project along with three of my training batchmates whose names I took sometime to figure out….now ofcourse I cudn’t have said “Hi there!I don’t remember ur name…wht’s ur name” considering the fact that we had spent 40 days of training together and I was expected to know all of their names unless I was in a state of amnesia or something of that kind.But, probably that’s the biggest short-coming in me..I just can’t map people’s names to their faces unless I really get to interact with them for quite some time say a week or so.I don’t know but God seems to have bestowed me with the least memory ever possible…..probably when he was distributing memory to everyone I was standing at the very end of the queue and the stock got over just when my turn came.
The initial days just went with hellos in the morn and byes in the evening….and we were being ultra formal with each other.I just used to sit back and remember my days of fun in college and wished I had never passed out …just flunked in all those courses and stayed with my frens!Days converted into months and then into years and then it dawned upon me one day when one of my training batchmate came up to me and announced abt his long term Onsite assignment.I then realised that I did make frens in the workplace afterall…frens who had started off formally but had come quite a long way since then.…although just a handful of them but they were nevertheless there to laugh and giggle with, to play pranks on each other like we made one of them have gobi Manchuria convincing him that it was Shanghai diced Chicken,to share funny things abt urself like one of them is scared of ghosts and messaged at 3 A.M in the night when he was alone in his apartment to say that he can hear lots of strange noises around and is not able to sleep and the other had a problem in having the flow and remembering the right words while speaking and is doubtful if he will ever be able to remember the words “help me” and speak them out at one go if he’s being robbed.We even know each other’s bank balances(just short of knowing the credit card details), we pestered and bugged the one who’s bank balance is negative to treat all of us and took pride in making it more negative,we take motivation from each other for things like giving up preparation for CAT or for applying for a loan and purchasing a bike and joining in the negative balance avhiever’s list,we fight for that one single chocolate which one of them would have managed to secure from someone who had come from abroad in the account and get down to breaking them into equal pieces such that u can only imagine and be happy that u had a share although the taste buds failed to register the minute piece’s taste,we get a warm invitation to the house only to find that u had to wake up the half dressed hosts by bangs on the door and end up having a huge argument as to why it is necessary to take bath on holidays also,we are very sweetly served with daal , rice and egg bhujia(which on usual circumstances at home needed a lot of coaxing and spanking from ur mother to eat them….but was relished on that day like they were some awesome dishes served in some seven star hotel) by those who had never stepped into the kitchen before and who never had the knowledge as to which side the regulator knob of the gas needs to be turned for lighting the stove,filled up each other’s appraisal without even having a clue as to what the other person had worked on,advice each other on where we need to invest money to make savings and get tax exemption without having the faintest ideas abt the schemes and tax policies,watch movies like “krish” together and teased one of them for becoming over-excited when Hrithik was seen giving his heroic stunts to save a circus of fire, imitate each other’s accent and laugh over other’s stupidity and concocted stories till u have stomach ache,momentarily burst of anger and irritation when people are having fun at ur expense,took secret videos when two of them are having a heated argument and making them listen later to their insanity,going crazy over newly bough electronic gadgets and making a display of the madness at any given moment,gossip over each other’s supervisor and discuss on politics at work place and even make secret plans to bombard the organization after shooting all ur module leads,managers and account leads,while away time by cursing every single person at ur work-place over tea breaks,talk insanely abt muddled up plans for ur future,give corn treats to each other not to talk of the dairy milk,samosa,good day and hazar other treats which when looked at might seem insignificant but hold more value than a treat in Taj.And not to forget the whole lot of fwded mails that we keep sending to each other calling each other monkeys and substituting names for characters in the sardar jokes.
Like everyone else I too had a notion that frens end with college days and the word just stays in ur dictionary as a sweet remembrance of the days u spent with them in college.But I have been proved wrong, u can have frens at work place too…frens who seem to be on the surface but are equivalent to ur close frens any day.Frens whose acts u remember and laugh at in ur leisure time…and make people think u need to be admitted in a mental hospital soon.Frens who can be as close to as ur own siblings.And the most ironical thing is it is these frens infront of whom u keep narrating those unending episodes abt ur close frens of school and college and when u go back home the only people you talk abt in ur house is them.The only difference that is there now is that the probability of that sweet or sad partition is high with ur frens that u make at ur work place.U get up one fine day go with all smiles to office and hear that one of them is leaving the organization or that one of them has got an assignment abroad etc and u just have to be happy for them and for the opportunities they have managed to get.U are kind of prepared for the inevitable and u know that they might not even keep in touch later because there would be more responsibilities as time progresses and thousands of priorities in life to deal with.Although with college frens u knew that u had to part one day but u also knew that u all would be leaving and going on different ways simultaneously. So probably that made the pain of parting a lot easier.
Frens at ur work place are like a part of ur everyday life…u live ur professional life with them keeping them miles away from ur personal life but just like how u don’t realise when ur personal life has transformed into ur professional life in the same way u never realise when these professional frens of urs have ventured into ur personal life and become a part of it.U feel sad when u have to part from them but u have to tell urself that this had to happen one day anyways and u just got to move on and probably as time passes more and more such professional frens cum close frens will keep adding on to the list and ur memories too.Looks like God needs to bless me with a little more of memory otherwise it would be difficult for me.Now, most of my good frens are leaving for their onsite assignment….may they be successful .And hope all my other frens also find good opportunities by and by and make announcements abt their farewell treats(prime interest!).And if at all our paths ever cross again(i.e if the person who bragged abt world being a small place is not nuts afterall) hope that my memory just clicks and when I give a find on my memory its able to match the right name to the right face!!

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