Every breath I take

I get invited on some Wednesdays to run an induction session for our new hires. It used to be face to face at one of the local hotels but as with everything else, this has also moved to a virtual environment. What is typically a 2-day session that covers policies, ice breakers and games to ease the new employees in, get them to open up a bit so we can feel each other out, is also followed by specific sessions on our lines of business. What used to be a heavy deck filled with acronyms, security and compliance requirements, and covered the various aspects of our world (all of which was tremendously important) is now a lighter deck broken up into separate modules. While I used to present this deck, I would sometimes intersperse stories, anecdotes, and examples of why these policies are important, or why you can't swipe away at any access reader that you see.

My sessions now do not include a deck but is mostly a freewheeling chat about life at RRD and what I'm still doing here 17 years on. For a lot of our new joiners; fresh graduates or otherwise, they find it fascinating that I spent 17 years of my life in one company, and when I say it like that, it gets me to pause and think. Until I think about people I talk with on the phone who are coming up on 32 years at RRD, or even second-generation employees who call RRD a second home! So these chats (at least how I sell it) are about those secrets not on any handbook or any policy (Hint: no such secret exists!), about what is spoken in the room stays in the room, and our obsession with acronyms and how they should just chill and not even blink when someone tells them that the FP division has an OFI team that has an OTD SLA of 98%!

So while most people are shy and it tends to be a monologue at times, I try and call out folks, or get them to turn their camera on, break the ice and speak in Tamil (terribly if I may add) or talk about the time I first met the CEO and how I was asleep at my desk at 2 am on my first ever night shift! An oft-repeated question is about how I keep engaged after 7 years in the same company. I talk about growth, learning, opportunities, challenging the status quo, and just sheer fun I've had along the way. I talk about horizontal growth being as important as vertical growth and promotions and how I have redefined and repositioned my career within RRD; that it seems like I've moved to 4 different jobs. It is also about experiences. As a communications company, I see tons of decks about elevating customer experiences and customer delight. I think employee experiences and employee delight is as important if not more.

This video was taken exactly 4 years to the day at a Nasscom HR Summit in Chennai when the RRD Band (hastily put together for this event, no less) was invited to put up a performance to close the summit. Mario and Timmy were easily the most accomplished musicians on stage, who played regularly with Chennai rock bands, Amar played rhythm guitar and was no pushover. Leon, our drummer took lessons earlier and was just getting back to it. And then there was me. A Carnatic trained musician (ok this is a bit of a stretch) until age 12, when either my lack of musical talent or my inability to hold a pitch resulted in my singing career coming to a screeching halt. I was a bathroom singer at best. But, a commitment had been made, and to my good fortune, we lacked an accomplished singer on rolls at the time. I was it!

We prepped. I mean we really prepped. Hired out studios and practised on weekends. We decided on a 20-minute set with about 7-8 songs and decided, we'll go on stage, rock the house, and exit before people realized how bad I was. This was my first time ever on stage, playing with amazing musicians, and before going on stage, I was excitedly reminded by the organizers how the 600 odd people were really looking forward to our show. Gulp! I think the first half-hour is still a blur. I vaguely remember sound check and half a song of CCR's Proud Mary we played just to see if everything was kosher. I know we blew past our setlist in 20 minutes, I recall the audience screaming (thankfully in a good way), I remember wild dancing, I have a memory of a stage invasion and being hugged and garlanded (mid-song). This song was about 45 minutes into the set, and I remember googling song lyrics on the fly and Amar shouting out chord patterns to songs we had never practised before. Then Timmy hit the opening bars of Summer of 69 and the roof blew off! We played for another 15 minutes or so and there might even have been an encore!

Among the rank of life experiences, this would easily be top 5 along with the birth of my kids somewhere in there! That's how unreal this was. Not kidding. The audio quality is poor, so if there are folks who happened to be there that evening, who still have some video of this performance (I wouldn't even want to know why you would!) please do reach out to me and share. It would be of tremendous value to me. So back to the message (if there was one). I have had the fortune of life experiences throughout my career here, albeit none as exhilarating at this one, but enjoyable and valuable nonetheless. I think its about find such experiences interspersed with learning and growth and finding opportunities that make life and one's "job" engaging.

I'm still passionate about what I do and about finding my next life experience. Every breath I take!