Saturday, July 02, 2011

First Day, First Show.

I've read many "My first day at blah blah" stuff and I didn't really relate to most of it. My first days at most places have been dull. Until now.
Lets rewind a little to 25th June when I was initially supposed to leave for Amd, and join on 27th. That was my plan. But as we all know, God works in mysterious ways and due to my brother's sudden illness, I couldn't go. So I was to go on 30th June. Fine. New plan. New excitement. 
On 30th, as I reached the airport in the afternoon, I was excited and a lil bit sad because i was leaving my city. Little did I know, my city was sad about leaving me too. So suddenly, it started raining like mad and my flight was delayed by three hours. Three. Freaking. Hours. Now don't get all judgmental and oh-just-three-hours-I've-been-through-worse on me. You see, my first flight, from Bhubaneswar to Bombay was delayed for 3 hours. My next flight from Bombay to Ahmedabad was still on time. So I was stuck, in my own city, waiting to be stuck in the next one. :/
Finally, after what seemed like ages, we reached Bombay. The Bombay Airport is so fab. Its pretty and chic and just very nice. So again, a four hour wait for the next flight to my New City. By the time, I actually reached Gujju-land, I couldn't even keep my eyes open to look around and check it out. 
So the next day, my mom woke me up (after like four hours of sleep) at 7 and I was like, screw the training man, I want to go home and sleep. But then I had to wake up coz there was definitely something wrong with my mom. She looked pale and was showing signs of pain. Not cool. After a while, we figured out that her disease was acting up and showing some weird symptoms and after an hour or so, she was crying out in pain. I was supposed to report at 9.30 but hello? There was something wrong with my mom. I was prepared to not join that day at all and go on 4th. Anyway, things worsened and we had to go to the Emergency Room immediately. At the hospital, after initial action, mom started feeling a lil better so they decided that Dad should drop me at office then. I was very shaken up, a lil teary and quite blank. Basically I had already had some tough one-on-one conversations with God throughout the morning. You know, stuff like, hello-how-much-pain-will-you-make-her-go-through, why-are-you-doing-this-to-her, can-you-ever-let-me-be-truly-happy type conversations. 
So anyway, i stepped into the office and it was unlike any office that i'd been to. It weird (albeit nice) sculpture-type things in the reception, the receptionist didn't know which date it was, there were all sorts of people in and about the lobby area. Finally we met this Senior Manager something who consulted our Senior Co-ordinater on phone and told me that i was supposed to be in XYZ's studio and i was to be shown where it was. Said a hurried bye to dad and then took the lift to the 7th floor. 
My studio is in the 7th floor. It doesn't have any jazzy name like the others "Planning studio/Urban Design studio" but it has one head. He's nice. He was all handshake-y, crisp welcome-y types. I was shown to my system and was told to sit. For some time I just hung around, acting all busy and intellectual. Then I just got plain bored. I was on the verge of recapitulating the events since morning when XYZ called me to his desk and started asking questions. He was quite nice about it. A little strict but nice. He told me that there will be a lot of ups and downs from now but I would have to keep the main objective clear, that I have come here to learn and should do that as a priority. He also told me to take five days to get to know the system and that I'll soon be okay here. I'd like to believe him. 
I just wanted time to fly so that i could meet mom and dad at lunch time. I wanted to know how my mom was doing. Although both of them had sent me messages telling me that all was good, (mom's message said "I am fine.") But still i had to see for myself. So i lunch time i asked my immediate boss, WXY  to go and he was like yea ok.So i went to our hotel, mom was better so i was relieved. 
I didn't want to go back after lunch. I mean I loved the office and the people were great and the work seemed to be just too cool (my studio people are working on an extremely high profile confidential government project that I'm not supposed to talk about) but I just didn't want to leave mom and i also wanted to sleep. Too much stress was happening. Plus I hadn't even met my  Senior Training Co-ordinator  (STC) yet. 
So i went after the one-hour lunch break and things seemed better as soon as i walked in the second time. I was a lil familiar with things and the people and the place already felt like I had been here since a long time. Finally STC came and he showed me around, I many of my co-trainees with him, we went to his office on the "H" Floor (Thats the main boss's floor, his name starts with 'H'. Fancy huh?). And he asked he questions that I had wanted to be asked the moment i landed here. Why here? Why Amd? Why 'H' Firm? etc etc.
 After quite a bit of chatting, I left his office and got into the lift to go to my studio. In the lift I met another co-trainee,A, who had gone for a survey and just returned. She was quite nice and we went to the "deck" that I had heard about so much.
The Deck is a balcony type thingy next to the conference room on the 7th floor. Its the place where everybody comes out to chill when you're feeling stressed, lonely, thoughtful etc. The most special thing about the deck is that its right next to the Sarbarmati River. As in, my whole office is next to the river but you can  stand on the deck and just look at the whole river and feel so very awesome. It was great.
I returned to my studio and found M working still working hard. M is another co-trainee and he's in my studio only. He's in 7th sem and has already finished 15 days of training. Everybody was making him do errands and just work hard. He seems nice and helpful. He told me that we had a training session in the evening after work and so I sent a text to my dad saying that I'll return at 8. 
At 6.30 in the evening I went to A's studio so that we could go to the conference room together. So she and the others wrapped up their work and we went to the conference room for a presentation. The presentation was by a senior architect at our firm, K sir, about one of his projects. He looked so young but told us that he'd been with the firm for 17 years. Dude, he was too good-looking to be so old. His presentation was quite cool, so was his project and so was he.
Every Architect at this firm is very cool. They're very talented people with zero attitude. I like the people here.They're very detail oriented and systematic. I love that fact. The infra is great and so is the work atmosphere. I'm a lil freaked out still. I've not been given any work yet but from Monday I'm sure I'll be given some work so I dont know how much I can cope up with everything.
Also, after work, we went PG scouting at night. There were basically three place. First place is right next to the office. Its where R di stays. I met her at the deck yesterday. She 's very nice but the room isnt. Its a lil broken and dingy types but still, its so close to office and other things are ok over there. Next place is a hostel where A stays. Its very very nice but is also unavailable. The owner said she'll tell us by this evening if she can do something and maybe, just maybe i'll get it after 10 days or something. Mom and Dad are leaving day after tomorrow so that means I'll have to be put up some where temporarily for some days. The third place was good but a lil far so I rejected that. Lets just hope I get the hostel thingy and I get it soon. 
So now, I work in an office and am going to live by myself in a new city. Dude. It almost seems like I've grown up.

6 comments:

Keshav said...

This is pretty awesome... Got reminded of my first day..
Is there any shortcut to capture the H floor? (U kno wat I mean) :P

All the best and have loads of fun in Gujjuland!

Abhu said...

Girl... um SO proud of you...
Ur first day seemed to remind me a teeny weeny bit of my first day in mumbai but dats about it. Um really happy with the way u r coping up with it :)
It will very soon get better...it has to :)
tc... and miss u loads.... :(

Tejal said...

@Keshav- ohh god!! First i was confused and thought you wanted me to "capture" matlab loot the floor or something..then i got your actual meaning..god!! no way!! hahaha..atleast i dont know much about it yet :P Will definitely find out, dont you worry :P

@Lasha- Yea everybody is reminded of their first day it seems..
Well it'll be fantastic if it gets better from here coz its already very good :))

Random said...

Couldn't comment earlier yaar, China mein its really tough for someone to access something which has google written on it......and you know what... I had my 1st day in office in Beijing on 4th of July, had a great time, people were great so I didn't really miss gujju land, which I think u might agree by now, is very tough indeed.
Hope to read your blog more often...and lurk! :D (got responsibility of a product in Indian subcontinent)

Tejal said...

Ok thats really weird. You cant access Google in China? Thats absurd!
Yea i know what you mean..Gujju-land is awesome <3 I've been here for only two weeks and it feels like home already :)

A.M. said...

yeah, i hope u live up to your self proclaimed "grown up" tag :P..have a great time :)