The Journey

Note: cross post from my Facebook post series

Passion?

+2 results are out.?There are discussions about what to study.?Running down my memory, I am an above average student. Being an OC I could not expect merit engineering with my cutoff marks.

So, my goal was to pursue a job which helps to get a job soon.?Two choices in front of me.?A government aid college offering Bsc chemistry annual fee Rs.1,500.?Private college Bsc computer science annual fee Rs.12,000.

Even though I am interested in computer science.?With family finance condition I could not afford 12 k per annum.?I went ahead and joined Bsc chemistry.?

BSc., chemistry is from Pachiyappa’s college.?The college was not teaching well.?The classes will be from 10 to 12 most of the days.?Indiscipline professors, students' reason for that.?But it helped me to do part time jobs in the evening to earn fee for private computer courses.?

I did milk packet delivery.?Typist job for a local publication.?These two jobs given enough funds to manage my fee.?By the time I finish my degree I completed DBase, FoxPro etc., basic programming and for the publication layout tools such as Adobe Page Maker, Adobe Corel Draw and Adobe Photoshop.

Having some earning and degree given me confidence.?I want to take up a computer master's degree.?Still, I cannot go regular college.?Luckily, there was a part time MCA which offered classes on weekends.?The semester fees are high, my mom's jewels went to pawn shop.?I started working in local computer training institute SSI with agreement I will go to college on weekend. I paid for the loan in first semester and able to manage myself thereafter.

By end of my professional course, I had solid knowledge on subject with degree and teaching experience.

That’s my story on getting professional degree and getting ready for job market.?If we are passionate, we will find a way to archive it.?That’s how I got my MCA.?All young folks follow your passion, you will find a way.

Facing reality

Many mentioned my previous post was inspiring so I will convince few more post on that series.?As a part of toastmaster in Microsoft I came to know many such story.?It is quite common among Microsoft employees.?I know many who are not from great colleges but with great strength and talent accrued by dedication and persistence.

Stories may have a happy conclusion but?in reality, it is a cycle.?We cross one hurdle after the other.?The distance education MCA degree was not valued much.?At those days, there were full page fancy advertisements in The Hindu opportunities section.?Requires good, reputed college degree or excellent work experience.?I don’t have both.?Being a Tamil medium student and from small town, facing Chennai and interview were hard.

This is during the 2K crash time, so it was even hard to get a job.?A professor friend of mine shared his room.?I got a job in a data conversation project in shift duty so I can cover my basic expenses and attend software interviews in the noon.

Unsung heroes

After 6 months of job search got an offer from a startup Homedicare, which provides online service to manage medical lap reports.?We are just 5 to 6 employees.?The best time in my career.?Every day is learning, fun.?

The founder Sairam is an amazing person with great goals.?The project manager was Rathakrishnan.?We call him RK sir.?Meeting them is my start of professional career.

Today is Gurupoornima, I consider both as my professional gurus one for extraordinary goals the other one is achieving the goals with no complaints.

Sairam had a Microsoft book on his table featuring Bill G. and team standing in garage office.?He used to motivate that we will also grow as big as Microsoft.?He walks the talk.?Sairam showed perfection in every action.?He stood as role model.?He came up with many ideas.?At those days we felt he is not practical and dreamer but now I can value the thoughts.?

RK sir is our mentor, he not only helped to setup my professional career, I used his bike to get my license.?He helped me to buy my first phone (I still remember the day, requires another post to detail the feeling), the list goes on and on.

The project provided many onsite opportunities.?The locations are Nungambakkam-Lister, metropolis lab, Anna Nagar-Sundaram Hospital, Rayapetta-Elrich lab, Thiruchur, Bangaluru, Mumbai.?Every time a hard fix goes as new exe file with a new CD written using RK sir bike or Satish’s car (the car itself worth many post).

I was given opportunity to develop Data Doctors an upload tool from Idea to deployment.?In fact, I traveled Mumbai with RK sir to deploy it.?It was such pride feeling.

The remuneration paid was very low, but we learned lot.?In fact, we once wrote a letter to Sairam for salary hike.?It is like a labor union reaching management for hike.?

Sairam may not be successful as Microsoft, but he is successful in providing opportunities for engineers like me and uplifted our life.?

Similarly unsung heroes like RK sir are the one helping the society to transform.?He is source of inspiration for many.?He choice stay in startup world helping many many local projects.

My sincere thanks to Sairam and Rathakrishnan Jothi for the opportunity.

Go beyond

Startup world had its own creative way of solving problems.?15 years back we had automatic lab report dispatch system.?Like ATM, people can walk in and enter the report secret code and take out the lab report 24/7.?The solution looks fancy, but it is RK & Anand lab doctors' creative solution of just placing the printer, keyboard & display in proper position made the trick.?Simple hack like these were interesting and solving real world problems of my own community was a full filling.

On-site like Thrissur are unique experience.?Experiencing big rice, new food items, ever raining conditions, in the bus tarpaulin windows, it was fun to explore new place.?Similarly, Mumbai trips are good.?There are so many awesome places within in India, our lifetime may not be sufficient to cover all.

Startup is fun, learning but I need to calculate cash for every meal.?The breakfast at tea stall is cheaper than decent eaters. So, tea stall is my destination. Cost optimized living was the way of life.

The government should have some minimum wages rule.?Even these days young engineers are exploited in the name of training, apprenticeship and paid very low.?I could have asked for money from family, but self-esteem stopped me doing it.?

I wanted to get a better MNC job to earn more.?My job search continued. But I need to balance my work, learning and interview schedule which required greater discipline and focus.

During that time C#.Net just born.?To learn such latest skill the training institute, charge a lot but we get everything at lower price at T.Nagar, Chennai.?Yes, I learned C#.Net in big hall where one faculty teaching 250 students with a mic and few projected displays.?The fee was cheap.?The training made the .net fundamental strong.?My teaching experience and solid training on C from Mu.Sivalingam helped me to grab the latest tech quick.?Training institute like these what makes India to accelerate.?Similarly in Hyderabad, Ameerpet hosts 100s of institute which offers latest courses with cheap fee structure.?If there is a strong will to learn there are so many options.

The interesting part is, I catch the last bus from T.Nagar to icehouse at 10:30. pm?Few of regular T.Nagar shops employees travel, they sang songs, crack jokes and make the ride interesting in the night.?Though I haven’t made friends with them as a co-passenger the friendly smile was joy.

Some stay at this stage getting along with job and try to grow in place but going beyond and hitting the walls of MNC required additional level of effort and continues attempts.?This is where many young engineers fail or look for someone to help or recommend.?In my view this is the time to stay focused and work hard to get to the next level.?Luckily with god's grace I got the courage and determination to hit the walls.

Believe in future

It's strange, HR asks me & my friend to decide who is willing take the job offer and who will let it go...?

At that time, friend and I were working in a five-member startup and looking forward to joining a reputed MNC job.?We mutually share job openings details.?I told him about an interview I gave for Aspire Technology at Guindy. The results looked promising. The moment I said *he was surprised*.?He said he gave an interview for the same company and was shortlisted too.

He also knew there was only one position, which they wanted the best candidate to start ASAP. Aspire informed him they were waiting for one more interview to be conducted before releasing the offer letter. The last interview was mine.?

We realized that we were in a strange situation.?Only one of us will get the job.?He and I were able to confirm the gut-wrenching situation with Aspire. Their preference was me.?The ball is in my court, and even if I don't get this job, he will.

HR asked him and me to decide on who wants the job... One of us has to join by Wednesday and confirm by Monday, meaning we had just Sunday in between to decide. I decided to take some time off to think about this...

My friends and family suggested taking up the job explaining that I was qualified for the job, and this situation wouldn't have happened if the other candidate was a stranger.?But, I was not convinced.?After thinking about it, long and hard, I decided to let go... he joined but continues to share openings in other MNCs.?After few weeks of this I got an offer from HCL technology where I served close to 5 years and had great professional career.?Both him and me succeed in our professional career.

Today, in another context, when we talked about this interview, this incident came to my mind.?I was happy and proud of my decision.?Sometimes letting go is more satisfying than acquiring.

Delightful day

The long wait is over.?The delightful day is here.?HCL Technology offered a contract position for 6 months with consolidated pay Rs.10,000/-?This was a big deal for me.?I screamed like flying in sky.?I am part of an MNC organization now, I have 5 digit salary! Music ?? bells are ringing… I am so happy to receive the offer letter!?I still remember the day.

Honeymoon

I was placed?in an insurance maintenance project.?Not much work, enjoying the corporate lifestyle.?Reach office relax, check emails go for coffee, chat with colleague.?Have some work done, then lunch time. Have some post lunch walk, do some chat, get some work done.?Again, coffee chat.?This is honeymoon time.?

Adopting the cultural

It was bit challenging to face the corporate culture.?It was posh, people across India coming together.?People are more stylish, many from college-hire they had close groups.?As a lateral hire in my team, it was just Annapoorani Natarajan and me.?It took some time to settle.?HCL veteran like &Baskar Ramasamy, Gopinath, Lakshmi Pattabiraman friendship helped.

Office moral outing introduced new food items.?At those days reading that menu card is like reading a English essay, I can read all, but I could not understand.?All these north dish names, I am hearing for the first time.?I will ask the team to order some veg food for me.?Raitha could have been printed with subtext (????? ?????????), so people like me could understand.?Aloo, Gopi are Spanish for me.?These outing are strange; I never know what I ate but I believe they are vegan ??. (???? ???? ???????????? ???? ??? ????????????, ???????? ??????? ???? ?????? ????????????!)

Indian companies

I am grateful to HCL while many MNC not even filtering my resume,?HCL like Indian companies gives opportunity for people like?me to grow.?HCL also have training division across India (Hclfirstcareers.com).

Making connection

HCL appreciated my dedication and contribution.?Many Saturdays I spend for hiring, few HRs became friends to me.?I build an app for Admin to manage employee travel requests, the admin head presented a gift to me.?We had many new hires in the project, mentoring them was pleasure.?Overall, it was an awesome experience.?

The corporate job

After six months I got my appointment order with 2.3 lakhs annual salary.?I was moved to a v1 project which showed the other side of corporate life.?We worked for unrealistic deadlines.?The day and night spend at office, but it was such an amazing team of people.?We learned a lot, a real MNC project with multiple team and Geo dependency started.?

Inspiration from Neighborhood

I am not an expert but an average person with dedication to progress from current.?Most of the time we talk about remarkable success, the average person story was not listened.?These posts helped to share my stories, like I said earlier it is just my story but here in my friend circle and among my colleague there so many people came thru inspiring path and reached success.

Closing thoughts

There are so many interesting episodes in HCL project.?I will see how to cover those.?But for this series I will stop here.?Thank you all for the comments and support for this series.?It gave me a good break and helped to run thru my memories.

I strongly believe financial steadily and career growth alone is not success.?Having peaceful, happy, healthy life is important.?I have few friends living simple life in Kanchipuram.?The growth does not look as fancy but they enjoy life.?I feel they are equally successful.

I could be able to carry my professional journey with peace because of my two brothers who took care of family finance support.?My sister and my parents moral support big strength for me, without them I could not be able to achieve any of these.?There are so many good people around me, who helped on my journey.?My sincere thanks to all.