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!