Corporate
life teaches one a lot of lessons. It’s been close to a year and a half for me
in the IT industry and it never stops intriguing me. Here’s an incident that
made me look at my office and colleagues from a far more human perspective.
During our
first few days in the company that I work for, we were divided into batches and
trained in different areas of technical expertise. Each batch comprised of
about 30-40 freshers and fortunately I happen to belong to a very lively and enthu
batch with whom I spent three fun-filled months. We were all fresh out of
college and became friends almost instantly. This rapport continued even later
when we were allotted projects and teams. We often met up at work either in the
pantry or cafeteria to spend a few light moments in the otherwise drab and dull
work environment
One day when
we were in the middle of a conversation I was informed that a friend of ours
(from the same fresher batch) lost his own brother to some lung disease (I do
not remember exactly which one) and that he was away from work to perform the last
rites. We were all shocked to hear the sad news. Unfortunately, this was around
the same time that his girlfriend was all set to get engaged to someone else.
This boy (let’s just call him Mr BigHeart) was the live wire of our batch,
always smiling, always fooling around. There was never a dull moment when he
was with us.
Mr BigHeart
resumed work within three days of the demise of his brother. The day he came
back, he was seated at the same breakfast table with our gang and surprisingly,
there wasn’t even the slightest glimpse of grief on his face. He appeared
exactly how he was before he knew about his brother’s death. I had no idea how
or what to say to him. After all, death of a loved one leaves one with a
massive void, a void that never fills. Generally, we have a few clichéd
condolences to offer to them but in front of Mr BigHeart I was all tongue tied.
Instead of us trying to cheer him up, he was cracking jokes and lightening up
the situation.
Corporate life
makes you a slightly selfish person. When you enter the office and sit at your
desk, your sole concern is the PC in front of you. The relationship with the PC
often becomes more important than your relationship with the colleagues sitting
around you. Just one short, observant look is enough to make me realise that
everyone out here is fighting a battle of their own. This battle could involve
death, rejection, confusion, loneliness or a feeling of absolute helplessness. Some people wear their emotions on their
sleeve while some others like our Mr BigHeart bottle it all up and choose to
keep a pleasant mask on all the time. And yes, there is always more than what
meets the eye.
Coincidentally,
a part of this post was written while I was at my work. Yes, I do get bugged
occasionally and that’s when issues such as these creep into my head. Within no
time, my mentor dropped in to check my “daily progress” and I have no choice
but to get back to my PC. Sigh!
