Changing Jobs is like Changing Lovers...

The transition from one job to the next ... is pretty much like the transition from one boyfriend to the next.

You only choose to leave a man when he no longer gives you what you need and you don't see a future with him - as you change jobs when the organisation no longer give's a rat's ass about your needs and the future of your career looks absolutely bleak. Well for that matter, the analogy is not just true for jobs and gentlemen but change as a broader concept - you know that its time for a change when that time comes. Its like some innate primitive instinct in you that may not manifest itself openly, but keeps digging away at your subconscious mind leading you to do things to seek change.

Like some old email forwards used to say, you know its time for a change when you are at home on your laptop and you press control+alt+del before you get up, or well in less funnier terms, when you just hate yourself for having to get up and go to that place you hate going to, and when that happens every morning.

Its difficult to get rid of old habits, I have just changed my job - and I still type in my old employee id to log in at my current workplace. Its hilarious and reminded me of stories where my friends had blurted out their ex's names when having a passionate moment with their current flames!!!

Also when you are at a new place everything seems just so much better than the last workplace. Comparisons between the two workplaces are inevitable and I hope that the new one always wins in everyone's case! What is the point of going through a notice period if the first few weeks at your new workplace do not seem like a breeze.

Coming back to my new job, I love it, of course a couple of my friends have been regularly and sanguinely (to my utter disgust) reminding me that its just like having a new boyfriend. Everything seems beautiful and rosy and then slowly the kinks begin to show.

But I do know one thing for sure, that working at a small bank is infinitely more pleasurable than working at a fat-ass huge bank. Everyone at my new workplace is so involved in everyone else's life. Me being the new kid on the block, and also one that's just moved to Mumbai, everyone was hell bent upon finding me suitable accommodation. I of course already had a perfectly awesome place to stay in, and yet everyone right from the HR to the Admin team, to the Accounts team, to the Dealing room members, and of course my very own Treasury colleagues, were all proactively coming up to me and offering phone numbers, addresses, places I should check out etc. The interest flattered me and also made me compare the scenario to my previous workplace where I did not even know the names of half the people in these teams, including the treasury. It's not that they are cold people but the sheer population makes it unfeasible that people would know each other by name and know what was happening in their lives, unless they shared teams or had adjacent cubicles.

The head of HR at my new bank is an adorable guy who thinks nothing of just chilling out with his entire team over a smoke and pull their legs over how desperate they are for free dinners! In fact he even told me that if I offered them free dinner they'd not just explain my local train route to me, but even drop me home! I know maybe it doesn't seem that big a deal to people who already work in fun work environments, but for me, coming from the previous job that I had, it seems like a dream come true, cos only if you are lucky you are blessed with the change that I was talking about at the beginning of this blog. I don't need to change my career, in which I am doing fairly well, and yet I have obtained the change that I was looking for - a fun bank environment to work in!

Yes, bankers are boring, that's a universal truth, but work becomes that much better by just a bit, when these boring bankers transform into crazy fun regular people on their breaks! I hope this part is really not like changing a boyfriend - where I get to know him better only to loathe his company more, or when I love him and his company, but he does something to let me down severely!

I end my blog with a not-so-silent prayer - Dear God, Thank you for this job, and PLEASE let my bubble not burst this time around! Amen!

Monsoon in Mumbai

Rain Rain go away,
come back again soon but not when I am on my way,
for when I reach office I wanna be dry as hay,
and then you come back for me to enjoy while I'm indoors all day.
A worse yet most apt adaptation of the age old Little Johnny wants to play - ' not lil johnny who is the brunt of all adult jokes' - to suit the Mumbai Monsoons.

This time around its my second stint in Mumbai, and I find myself just as captivated, irritated, mesmerized and disgusted with the constant rains as I was the first time I lived through it. Monsoon in Mumbai is probably one of the most dreaded yet most awaited seasons of the year. There simply is something about the lashing rains on the crowded streets that awakens a sense of romanticism in almost everyone in the city. The best part for me is to observe how indifferent people are to the pouring rain, whether or not they are prepared to face the wrath of the awe-inspiring heavy grey thunder clouds. I thought of blogging on the rains in Mumbai, as I walked down the streets in Powai to meet my friend who was waiting patiently in some sought out shelter, I was filled with silent glee at the perfect opportunity to 'have no choice but get drenched' as he was waiting. And as I was filled with all these self indulgent emotions, I also noticed that everyone else around me too was making their way through the rain, some enjoying it, some seeming indifferent to it, but no one looked disgusted by the rain.

The ones that had dead pan expressions and seemed lost in some other thought, oblivious to the fact that they were getting wet right to their bones, were the true Mumbaikars, and the ones that fascinated me the most. There's something so innately resilient about them, like you take one look at them and know that nothing can get them down, neither all the rain in the world nor all the bomb blasts. I too hope that one day I would walk down the streets looking as indifferent and unaffected as they did in the rain, but for now I was just loving it.

After meeting my friend and deciding on the plans for the day, came the part about the monsoon that disgusts me the most, finding transport - specifically a mode of transport that is public. My friend and I ,both true blue Hyderabadis, had to walk for about 40 minutes in the pouring rain towards our destination before we could finally convince an auto guy to 'kindly do us the favour' of dropping us off to wherever he thought was convenient for HIM. My friend was disgusted at the absolutely rude and brazen attitude of the auto drivers, and yet he seemed to be enjoying himself a little through all the disgust that was showing on his face. We then had to take a cab till we were almost home and then walk the rest of the way in the still pouring rain.

As we reached home, drenched to the core, I observed to myself that this was probably a very mundane experience the average Mumbaikar had to experience on a daily basis, and yet the experience seemed so exciting to me. Not to say I wasn't thinking of it as an extremely irritating ordeal that I had just gone through, but that was the thing about Mumbai and its rains, you can love them and hate them at the same time. In no other city would you be able to stand at the Worli Sea Face or sit at Marine drive while there was a slight drizzle, and watch the waves breaking against the rocks and feel the fine spray of the breaking waves right up to your eyelids. Even in Wake Up Sid, it seems only right that the story comes together, along with its hero and heroine, when the rains start pouring, and remind us of the scene where Sid, the home-grown Mumbaikar had earlier told the recent immigrant Aisha that she was 'going to love the Mumbai rains.'

Well I certainly didn't need any Sid to tell me the first time that I was gonna love the rains in Mumbai, I simply did. The rains transformed the city but never changed its spirit. This year now, the rains have only just started here and going by the trends over the last 3 years, I am still going to have plenty of time to enjoy getting drenched to the core, or to curse the clouds for breaking out just as I step out for work, or to love seeing the street children running around in the 'cats-and-dogs' kinda rains, or to screw my nose up in disgust as a car splashes all the muddy dirty water on my freshly ironed clothes... lots of time to do it all and love all of it and hate it all the same.