Inner Battles

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!