New City, New Career

When some people, starts their success story like, “I came to this city Ten rupees in my pocket……” Now I feel I too would say the same after few years. Now it is too early to comment because I just 4 years old to Hyderabad. Four years back, I had no clue about Hyderabad other than my new company ‘GECIS’ and my college mate Rohit who is for HSBC.

My fortune was changed over a phone call on 19 or 20th of December that disturbed my afternoon nap. It was from two managers named Girish and Shankar. When they said they are from GECIS, I recollected my memory and came to know, I attended their written test three or months back. Then I had about 20-30 minutes of telephonic interview, testing my accounting skills from my basics to the end. Lucky for me, I was preparing for my M. Com exams (in fact I was sleeping above accounting book) books was very handy for me. As questions were shooted, I rolled pages of Accountancy text and managed to come up with right answers. After few minutes after interview, I got call from HR that you are selected and please join by 23rd of December. First I thought of joining first week of January, later I negotiated with HR and fixed my Joining date as 26th December. After hearing the news about my selection, I was overjoyed to work with a company like GE, but the other hand, I need to relocate to Hyderabad soon.

It was around 2-3 hours discussion with family members about my relocation. Many of my friends suggested not to move, rather than to look at Bangalore or Chennai. At last I decided to move to Hyderabad with one new hope and to meet my good old friend Rohit.

It was Vacation time and there was only one train that was connected Kerala and Hyderabad. Since it was three or four days to go, Waiting list touched the limits. On the other hand, I didn’t get my reliving letter from my old company back in Bangalore. Then I decided to break my journey by Palakkad to Bangalore to Hyderabad. So that I can collect letter from Bangalore and continue my journey to Hyderabad. Then I worked out with different trains that connect Hyderabad and connection train or bus from Palakkad. Then I worked and came out with one weekly train- Mysore to Jaipur that runs through Bangalore and Hyderabad on Friday of 23rd December on 12pm. I managed to get one Third A/C ticket out of seven tickets to spare with 3 days to go for travel.

At last, I decided to travel on 22nd of December 2005, from Palakkad to Bangalore- 8:00Pm KSRTC Volvo, so that I could catch train which is scheduled to start from 10am on Friday. Journey was peaceful, had a nice sleep, when I woke up 5AM, so found myself in midst of heavy traffic Jam on the outskirts of Bangalore. My heart beat increased because, I had to go to my old office and need to collect my letter.

After saying final words to my colleagues, I reached station with 20 minutes to spare for train to arrive. I couldn’t the train journey which I always do. Many thoughts came to my mind, like going back to Bangalore and look to other good company so that I can stay close to my home town. But I managed to get through that sorrow, tried to stop such thinking by sleeping or talking with co- passengers. I slept a lot in evening because train is scheduled to reach Secendrabad on midnight of 12am.

Around 11:30pm, it was winter time and chill air was blowing, I peeped out of door, to have a first sight of my place, where destiny is written. Train was slowly moving through one of MMTS railway station on the outskirts of city. At last by 12am, I reached Secendrabad Railway station. I called up GE travel desk for a cab to my guest house. After few minutes, cab reached station to pick me up. As soon as I sat on my cab, driver said, “saab mein aapko jungle le jaa raha hoon”. I was shocked for a moment because my friend told me that company guest house is near to office, and it is residential colony. But later came to know that the guest house already full need to go other guest house which is almost 15 kms from city, surrounded by rocky hills and small pond and few houses were around two to three kilometers away

Later on day, I made friends with couple of other friends, who came to join on Monday. We were around eight people, with new hopes joined company on Monday of 26th December 2005. Thus I became one among those 10,000 in Genpact (Previously called Gecis) family. I joined as Process Associate which is an entry level in this company. Now I have completed four years with Genpact. I feel there are lots of changes personally & professionally. There were some bad moments in daily work and at the same time some of the nice moments overcome those bad days. There were situations which made me to think of looking for greener pastures. As long as you compromise with failures, you can’t shake hands with success. I think I got good guidance and support from my supervisors, which made me deliver things and could darely expose to the challenges.

Now time has arrived to shift gears in my corporate life. I am waiting for my promotion letter to become Management Trainee. The position which every Process Associate like to reach when he/she joins Genpact. I understand this is very small milestone in my career map as compared to success stories of people who has earned over the years in this company. I hope I can be an example for many young people who joining the company. It takes first six months to know the company and six months to know your work. It all depends upon how you take your work- as a challenge, or way to make money, or as learning. I would like to end by famous words by Jack Welch, CEO of GE, “Control your destiny or someone will…”