Life Coaching - First Date

My name is Pranay, I am from Bengaluru city. Currently working as a manager in one of Software MNC company. The Bangalore city is called as Silicon City of India. The city has kept its reputation for last 15 years. With advancement in the technology and education friendly government rules there are average 50000 engineers are getting flooded in the market for employment. The jobs are limited compared to number of engineers available in the market. Hence everybody is now starting new company to catch the fresh candidates and employ them. Along with Electronics industry, the software Industry has also soared in Bengaluru. Due to massive employment in the city, the other sectors such as food, transport, medical, civil, travel, administration etc. also got flourished. The average capita income in the Bengaluru city is higher than other cities in the India.???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

While working as a manager in the company, every year the new batch of the fresh engineers join. I am working as a manager for last 4 years. I am just 28 years old hence comparatively young in the eyes of fresher employees. The new batch which was hired recently was from girls’ college. I am usually not interested in the new recruitment process but this time the reason was different. The company was able to recruit girls from the reputed government colleges. All candidates were exceptionally talented. Hence my interest triggered to see if I can get 2-3 new candidate in my team and get benefitted from their skills and expertise. I made a request in the system and luckily my request to get new employees in my team got approved. While approving new employees in the team, financial approvals and a few other conditions are mandatory to complete. I was able to fulfill all of them hence I got 3 new faces in my team. Asmita J., Sheetal K. and Vijaya S. All three joined on Monday afternoon hence decided to have an introductory meeting so that other team members can know about them and these new members get welcomed with the help of cake party to ease out their onboarding. As usual I asked Mrunal to order cake and Vada Pav for all team. Usually, we get limited budget from the company. Hence, we have luxury to celebrate such events. The meeting was scheduled at 4 pm hence I quickly had a word with three new team members and arranged desk for them. They were little excited as there were from the reputed college and universities. At 4 pm I was first to be in the meeting room along with the 3 new members. Slowly entire team gathered. I have inn total 7 people in my team apart from these three new members.

Vijay, Shrikant, Mrunal, Kavya, Sharvari, Mohan and Ketaki – My Team members

Asmita, Sheetal and Vijaya – Three new members.

The discussion started in this fashion,

Pranay – Hello Team, Thanks for joining on short notice. As you know, we have three new hires in our team. Sheetal, Asmita and Vijaya. Three of them are pass out from recent government college batch. Their onboarding process has already been started which will continue for next 2-3 days. I have already desk reserved from the facility team for them. All of them have secured first class in their academic. All of them will work with Mrunal. The Kavya, Sharvari and Ketaki will play role of their peer. Asmita your peer is Kavya. Sheetal your peer is Sharvari. Vijaya your peer is Ketaki. All new team members will get in touch with your peers in case of any doubts related to work, facility or any other questions related to onboarding or commute or stay etc. I know currently we are working on the tight schedule of current release. Hence, I want to quickly wrap up this meeting. Mrunal has already ordered cake so let us have a quick introduction from new members then we can cut the cake and get back to work immediately. Sheetal, would you like to start with your introduction?

Sheetal – Sure Sir, my name is Sheetal. I have completed my engineering from the government college and secure first class throughout. My hobbies are reading, singing and cooking. Thank you.

Pranay – Asmita can you please go ahead and introduce yourself?

Asmita – Yes, sure. I am Asmita. I have passed out from the government college with distinction. My hobbies are drawing and yoga. I am certified yoga instructor.?Thank you.

Pranay – Vijaya can you please introduce yourself?

Vijaya – Hello All, My Name is Vijaya. My hobbies are playing sport and watching movies. Thank you.

Pranay – Thank you three of you. Welcome aboard. Let me introduce our team members to you. Let me start from the right.

Vijay, Mrunal, Kavya, Shrikant, Sharvari, Mohan and Ketaki

Everyone says hello to the new team members.

Pranay – Mrunal help them to cut the cake. Give knife to three of them.

(The new members cut the cake and we all enjoyed the moment.)

I came home pretty late as I had a few meetings lined up for the project. I reached home at 10 pm. I quickly took the shower and then sat on the couch and turned on the TV for watching some latest news. During break there was an advertisement for the yoga program in the morning. I was lost while watching it but suddenly recollected about Asmita. She also had similar hobbies. I smiled and felt little odd as I avoid thinking about office when I am at home. But Asmita was different than other two. She appeared to me very professional and her dressing sense was good. She can soon become manager if given an opportunity. I was going in loop and kept on recalling about her. I did not realize when I slept. Luckily, I have kept TV OFF timer on hence in the midnight it got turned off automatically. In morning when I woke up early and realized that I slept on the couch only. Quickly wrapped morning routine and went to office little early. Not sure why but I was excited today and was curious to see Asmita again. Being Manager and already working with Mrunal, Kavya and Sharvari; I am pretty much balanced while dealing lady employee as we have very strict laws. But genuinely my mind was going back again and again to think about Asmita. I reached office via metro and went to cafeteria after a quick wrap up of mornings emails. I ordered some breakfast and was waiting for my order to complete. I kept on surfing on mobile and my order was ready. I brought the tray and started having my snacks slowly. To my surprise Asmita was in cafeteria and was giving order for breakfast. She took her tray and came to my table. I asked her to seat without any hesitation as she being new and not having anyone else as a company. ???????????????????????????????????????????????????While eating we started to have discussion in general as office discussion on food table is not policy. The discussion happened,

Pranay – Good Morning Asmita, have a seat.

Asmita – Thank you Sir.

Pranay – In our team we do refer everyone with their respective names and we do not use titles such as Sir or Madam. So, you can call me Pranay instead of Sir.

Asmita – Sure Sir, I mean Pranay.

Pranay – How are you finding food quality?

Asmita – Hmm! it is quite delicious. I usually prefer eating fruit dish but they did not have it today hence went for brown bread sandwich and tea.

Pranay – How do you find the company?

Asmita – It is very good. I like it.

Pranay – Do you do yoga on daily basis or its an recreational activity once a while?

Asmita – No, I do it daily basis in the evening for couple of hours. Unless I do the yoga, I do not have my supper. I have completed 5- levels of yoga teacher and conduct classes on weekends. Around 100 people do come on week end for yoga batch.

Pranay – Wow!! I did not expect this at all. You talked about Yoga as a hobby but it turned out to be your passion. Handling 100 people of different age at such a early age is amazing to know. I am not much in to yoga although prefer doing exercise in the gym. I had attended a couple of power yoga sessions but never got comfortable with it. But congratulations for having this as an achievement.

Asmita – Thank you very much Pranay. I never wanted to get in to Software Jobs but got into it just to experience the work culture as there are many people from the software industry who needs a lot of exercise.

Pranay – What else you do apart from your yoga sessions?

Asmita – Did not get your question?

Pranay – I mean do you do anything other than yoga classes at mass scale level?

Asmita – No I don’t.

Pranay – I know its too early and unprofessional to ask but do you have any introductory sessions where I can see joining the yoga sessions?

Asmita – Yes, off course. We have couple of batches on Saturday for new comers to know about the yoga process and overall structure of the entire sessions.

Pranay – Wonderful. That sounds pretty professional. Let me see if I can make it for coming Saturday batch.

Asmita – Sure.

Pranay – Thanks for sharing details. Can we go back to our desk?

Asmita – Sure.

Pranay – As discussed yesterday, kindly get in touch with Kavya for technical queries. In case she is not able to address then let me know. Importantly when send any email, mark me copied in CC. Let me send an email to you three new members to know office etiquettes. Will add to a couple of office trainings to understand industry process. Let’s go!!

Asmita – Sure Pranay, I will add you in the CC list while sending any email. Thank you.

The week was quite heavy as there were many emails exchanged by new comers and there were lots of question-and-answer session. It made me understand their working style and got the area of improvement so as to arrange the soft skill training for them. The peers were busy in project schedule but while doing it they were able to help out the newcomers. I completely forgot about adding a reminder about yesterday’s plan for yoga session. The Asmita was also busy with her work hence we never got another chance to share breakfast or discuss the topic. ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????I have a habit of waking up little late on weekends just to balance out sleep quota pending due to late working on weekdays. I opened my eyes by hearing the phone ring and I saw, Asmita’s name displayed on the phone. I quickly ran through my memory to check scheduled work list if I missed on anything. I quickly realized that nothing was pending on work as Kavya had done good job of sharing information. But still Asmita called such morning, does that mean she went to office on Saturday by mistake? These were a few thoughts ran through mind before I answered the call.

Pranay – Hello,

Asmita – Hi Pranay, are you planning to join the yoga batch today as we discussed on Monday this week?

Pranay – OH!! I completely lost and forgot about the yoga session. I forgot to add the reminder due to heavy workloads this week. Did I miss the session?

Asmita – Pranay, today’s batch for newcomers has already been started. I was expecting you but you did not join. I am having 5 min break between two batches and other instructors are helping me. Are you planning to join really?

Pranay – Extremely sorry for not able to remember about the yoga session. Its already 7:45 AM and I am not ready yet. Do you have any batch after 9 PM today where fresh people can join?

Asmita – Yes, we do have at 10pm. If you can manage then do come. I am getting late for next batch. Kindly join. Thanks bye.

I quickly jumped out of the bed and went for warping up morning routine. Decided to skip shower instead had a half wash and drove the yoga class session. When I reached to the place, there were at least 70+ people who were doing stretching and yoga instructor were giving instruction to all of them. There was one help desk where I quickly enrolled my name and asked for further details. There was nominal fee of 50/- for joining the session as an introduction. I was handed over a booklet which had information about a few basic definitions of Yoga and its benefit. It also had information about the batch details and fee structure. Importantly there were guidelines not to do yoga if you are having medical condition. I quickly glanced through the booklet and joined the group. I felt very good as the atmosphere was very good and positive. After couple of hours, I realized that I did yoga for 2 hours and was still feeling fresh. The instructor was very good and guided us through various basic yoga postures. After class was over, I was waiting for Asmita to speak with her. She was busy speaking with many other people. She was maintaining her calmness and posture very neatly. I could clearly see her as a leader. Being manager in office has made me observe things when I am not occupied. She led the program so well that she was definitely a successful entrepreneur. As she got free, I got chance to speak with her.

Pranay – Hello Madam.

Asmita – Hello Sir.

Pranay – Your yoga sessions are quite helpful and I really enjoyed it.

Asmita – Thank you.

Asmita – Can we go little outside so that we can speak freely as I have to maintain decorum of the yoga class.

Pranay – Sure. Let us go.

We went outside where there was one small outlet for fruit juices. Hence we went there.

Asmita – Pranay thanks for coming. I was about to ask you to have one yoga session in our office so as to increase the awareness about Yoga classes happening in the city and if I get a few new members then it will definitely big plus.

I was completely surprised to see her professional approach. She was completely speaking as an entrepreneur.

Pranay – Yeah, kindly speak with HR person to help you out.

Asmita – Would you like to have fresh fruit juice? I usually go home and prepare juice at home but today you are here hence let us order something. Are you hungry? Do you want me to order something to eat for you?

Pranay – Sure.

We both had a quick breakfast. She was completely into yoga trainer mode. She kept on telling me different stories of new comers and her affiliation with other corporate companies. She looked so excited about the process of getting new company into her affiliations. She was not in mood to discuss anything other than yoga. After half an hour we left the place. I asker if I could drop her to her home. She was adamant to take cab instead of joining me in the car.?

When I came home, I was completely stunned with her professional approach. She has not only come out as a successful entrepreneur but also a successful person who has earned many friends and well-wishers. She has taken her passion to next level. She is a successful woman.

I completely forgot to pay the bill for the juice and other beverages. I was about to ask about taking her out on a date as She appeared good to me but I came home without realizing that it was my Date with Asmita instead of vice versa. ?

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Author: Narendra Kulkarni

mailto: [email protected]??

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