Is good work all we want from our workplace?
I have written a few blogs last year but published none. That is in part because of some "technical" problems and in part because last year was extremely busy. A lot changed. A lot happened. I got to meet my niece for the first time ever. I switched jobs, and got into consulting, something I wanted for a long time and lastly, I got married. Yay! Anyway, I wrote this particular blog around September, when I was about 5 months into my new hob.
I cannot believe that this is the one of the few blogs I
have written this year. You can totally and completely attribute this to my
pre-martial bliss in life. That man makes me happy, and I cannot write. I
recently saw a video of Ian McConnell singing a really nice song and there is a
line that goes,
“Wish I didn’t have to be sad a fuck to write my funniest
jokes”
And I felt that. I end up writing only when I am overwhelmed
or depressed, sad, annoyed, irritated. Sometimes the good kind of overwhelmed
but mostly the bad kind. But getting back to point of why I am writing this
blog.
It has been about 5 months since I left my previous
organization (a small boutique consulting firm) and joined a behemoth of a
consulting firm. So to say my team went from 68 people to about 600. And my
entire company went from 250 to forty fucking thousand. That is quite a bit.
And this is not a unique journey, people make changes and switches all the
time, but I felt about writing this down.
It goes without saying that the perks are fucking amaze. The
infrastructure is made of things I think of in dreams. The work is much more
impactful and very real. But there is something quite absent from my work here.
And this could be a function of the size or also the function of the fact that
in my industry, people are still working largely from home. It is very
isolating. I am doing great work, but I am doing it alone. I haven’t been able
to forge any kind of relationship with anyone I am working with or anyone in my
team. And that is so far off from my previous organization. And just to give
you a frame of reference, a former colleague of mine, we call him “Guruji”
because he gave us all gyan and helped solve our problems. He had a daughter on
the 4th of September, and he called me within 5 mins of him becoming
a dad. And I was elated with joy and so so happy for him that I ended up
crying. That is the kind of relationship I had with my colleagues. We were
invested in each other’s lives, and it was a very warm environment. It made you
want to work with those people.
A large part of our work has to do with work, but a large
part is also the people. Personally, for me I would prefer people and my team
over a good project. Work is a significant part of our lives and though we are
not on the border fighting for our lives, but camaraderie goes a long way. That
feeling that this person has my back, or I can lean on them. Or just
celebrating with a cup of coffee or ranting over that same cup of coffee.
Intense and opiniated lunch discussions where you can express your thoughts and
then equally dumb conversations during the post lunch walk trying to ward our
sleep off.
I remember discussing personal problems over a sutta with a
boi, I am now marrying at the end of this year. So you can understand the level
of closeness we had in our small team.
Now cut to my new job, my team is good, but even after 5 months, there is a formality
in our conversations. We’re mostly polite. And definitely do not bother about
anything beyond the 9 to 5 or in my case 9 to 9?
But yes, there is a distinct lack of camaraderie and
relationships in the office, that I for one think does end up impacting our
work life.
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