Five years after Y2K
Yes, five more years gone and I was still finding myself as insecure and lost in IT world as I had found myself five years back, when Y2K project had completed. I coincided my move almost to the perfection when I started a new innings of my professional career. As unsettling and agonizing it might appear but more than choice it had become a compulsion for me to venture out my professional career in the USA. The experience of summer 2003 had taught me a bitter lesson, so much so that I could not believe in Canadian IT market anymore. It was a conscious decision and I had been postponing my move for quite sometime. In fact last year around same time I had almost quit Toronto to join Capital One but then something else was in store for me and it never happened. But this time around it appeared as if it was kind of destined! It kind of unfolded and I was a mere spectator. I have believed time and again that at times I do not do anything but still things happen and it starts taking shape on its own. In my entire life, things have "happened" and if I take any credit of "achieving" any of them, then that will be my ignorance. I often Iook up somewhere in the sky where someone is blessing me with all the happiness and prosperity.
December 2005 began on a normal note and I was never expecting to make a move in a matter of couple of weeks' time! I was pretty settled and was all set to be around until end of July 2006. But all of a sudden I was called by Naresh and Pintoo so many times. In fact I was not paying much heed to calls from Naresh once I heard that it was another opening in his work place since I was interviewed earlier in November by one of the managers and was not selected eventually because I did not have Sun Solaris OS experience. But finally I just called Naresh for courtesy so that he did not feel otherwise. It was lunch time and he asked me whether I was interested for an opening. In spite of reminding him of my previous failure he insisted that I was never "rejected" but there was a "better" candidate hired. Well, that is a very positive way to look defeat in stride! I agreed and since he had my very recent resume with him, he immediately forwarded it to his manager. Within couple of hours I was interviewed by one of his managers Ranjit Singh. I was extremely busy that day and did not prepare for the interview. It just went normal and some of the questions were little above my competence and I kind of did OK. Ranjit asked me to come over to DC in person to which I requested him to avoid as I did not want that to happen. After half an hour, he called and said that there was no need to come in person and he had finally selected me. I did not expect that outcome and therefore was not prepared how to take it. Before I could say anything more, Ranjit asked me to join by next week. I asked for couple of day’s time to decide, since Ron Naidoo was still in India.
On Monday when Ron came back and was in office after long vacation, he could not believe the news which I broke to him. He was expecting this to happen for sometime as I was not looking very excited to him. He quickly agreed to release me but asked me to give 2 weeks notice as required. I communicated the same to Ranjit which he agreed to. Now all of sudden I was committed to leave and join my next job. But I was sensing a big hurdle called TN visa. A Canadian normally gets TN visa in matter of few minutes while on his way to the USA, at border but I somehow was sensing some problems in that. Eventually I went to get my TN visa on Friday at Niagara border. Since I had my joining date as December 12th, I had no other option but to go on Friday to get my TN visa as that was the only working day before that. But when I got up that morning, it was snow all over and it appeared complete white outside. It was still snowing. I decided to drive slowly to the border. I reached in almost 2 hours.
The TN visa process turned out to be a risky thing. I was almost denied the visa as the officer there insisted for a 4 years degree course in Computer studies and in spite of showing him my MBA with specialization and 4 years degree course in my Mechanical Engineering, he was not looking very satisfied. I had almost resigned everything to fate. I was thinking of the worst development to take place for me in the form of going back and continue in the office after everyone had known of my move. Also in all my friend circle people had started counting my days and everything had come to a standstill. How often one small weak link breaks a massive chain of events!
But the officer gave me one small hope that I should wait until a NAFTA officer would arrive to take a final decision on this. Since it was heavy snow all over, I was told that he might be late and I should continue to wait there. Finally the officer came and after few more questions here and there, he was convinced and gave me the visa. It was a big relief. I drove down straight to the downtown office.
Now was my next task to get the air-ticket and wind up everything in the office. Ron had almost panicked and wanted me to complete many transition, documentation and other related activities. I had now no time to do anything else. Meanwhile Seema had invited many people for our 10th marriage anniversary to take place on December 17th.
My office friends took me for dinner on my last working day. I came home around late night and next day was our anniversary. The anniversary party was in a restaurant called Kaarma. It turned out to be a very memorable evening. Initially every one just came and sat quiet but then Binoy Prasad took command of the things and even without mike he did very well in speaking to all the guests. What followed that was a series of speeches and songs by many of the guests, mostly "praising" about us and their heart felt wishes for my next move and blah blah. Though it sounded very artificial but some of the speakers were indeed serious and said some good things about us. It felt good to us and finally I also spoke few words and thanked everyone. Since many of them had sung, it was my turn to take "revenge"! It ended finally around 11:30 PM. Next day afternoon I had to start for DC. It was absolutely hectic and I had no clue as how things were going to take place.
It was a very different kind of feeling to suddenly separate from my family. I was feeling very strange to see myself in a situation wherein I was not even prepared to face whatever was taking place before me. It appeared as if someone else had chalked out everything for me beforehand! I was finding myself, not exactly helpless but unprepared, yes that sounds better! Hursh and Yash were little surprised to see that I was showering all my love and affection to them "unnecessarily" and in lot more "abundance"! But kids do not need to speak out everything and at times they do express many things with their body language. Finally I was seating in the plane and was on my way to DC.
It was a new chapter to start in my career. I reached DC around late evening. I called Naresh and it turned out to be Naresh Puri and he was a bit surprised when I was asking him to pick me up at the airport. He sure mistook to take it as a prank and was about to hang up when I realized the problem. It was another Naresh whose number was stored in my cell phone as well, but I had put both Naresh with their first names only! Finally I called Naresh and he came to pick me up in almost half an hour.
Next day was going to be my orientation at the DC office which is in the downtown. Naresh dropped me at the local subway station Viena and had explained to me about connecting trains and station to get down and walk to the office. The orientation was to start at 8:00 AM and I made it around 8:15 AM. But there were many who had shown up even after me. The Fannie Mae's building is a huge one. The receptionist gave me a visitor pass and the orientation was pretty well organized. There were two separate sessions going on, one for contractors and another for full time employees. When I entered in the room, what impressed me the most was the ready made package with all the required papers and instructions. There was a brief session explaining as what the company is all about and code of conducts and so on so forth. The next important activity was to get our photo id process completed. It was pretty well organized. They asked all of us to come in the alphabetical order of our surnames. I therefore, completed much before I had expected. The shuttle bus from the DC office to the Herndon office was every hour and on hour. I had just missed the bus and now I had to wait for almost an hour. Finally I started for the office. I had left a message for Ranjit about my orientation session and that I was coming to the office. When I reached to that office, I was quite surprised to see Ranjit himself there with Naresh to pick me up. I was very touched by his kind gesture.
When I reached the office, I was truly impressed. It is a big building and facilities inside impressed me to a great extent. When I reached my cubicle, I could not believe that how organized my induction was in this office. Almost like well orcheterated! I already had my laptop and all the other related stuff were kept on my desk. Within next couple of hours I was all set and I was working!
On technical side, I could not have asked for more. I had so many things to learn. I did some mistakes in my beginning only but I did realize my problem. The problem was that I was not focusing on the standards and processes as religiously as ought to have. I resolved to my mind as how to tackle the problem. I approached the problem with the aim to slowly minimize and then achieve zero tolerance. The best way to achieve that was discuss with Naresh and others, if I was not clear on anything. I hope that it has started paying off.
Within two weeks time it was New Year time and I decided to go to Toronto. But by that time I was down with severe cough a cold, so much so that I could not speak, I had severe soar throat. The New Year celebration was at Lalit's friends place. It was a low key affair and it was not as enjoyable as before since most of the faces were unknown to us. The next couple of days just went by and it was time to come back to DC. Since I could not manage a good return ticket, I wasted whole Monday and reached here later afternoon. Naresh came to pick me up very late. In fact I would have missed the flight, since I was so late in getting my papers etc. cleared. As a result I could not get my luggage and wasted lot of time in locating the luggage and then lodging a complaint at the lost and reclaim.
The office had become now a serious place and I was in fact pulled up by Ranjit for my "poor" performance. It was a known issue and since I was already working on that to minimize my problems, it really did not take me by surprise. I had a plan in my mind and was acting on that. I hope I have been able to pull up my socks quite a bit ever since, but in such a hectic schedule with so much to work and with minimum turn around time, I myself am not sure yet whether I have been able to control my mistakes. It is going to be an ongoing tussle to fight with my accuracy and alertness. But beside, I am learning a lot and this experience is turning out to be one of the major milestones of my career. For a while I have dropped all my ideas of transitioning to non-tech area as it has rekindled my interest in technical area. I could not realize that how little I knew before this assignment! There is so much to learn here! I could not have asked for more, as I said earlier. Now the next challenge is to quickly wind up everything in Toronto and move my family to DC. Ranjit seems to be a very "cool" manager and he minds business only. He did mention couple of times that he wants to see me beyond the Restatement project, which will be winding up in few months from now.
But as I told earlier, I do not read too much into future from distances. When my future starts condensing into present, things start becomng more and more visible to me. And before that it remains more murkier than clear. In other words, I have been unable to assess my present in conjunction with my future, something I need to do now quicker than it is too late!
