I wanted to take the team out. Both the teams have been working hard and it was time for some fun. Usually it would be a lunch or a dinner. But I didn’t want to be a Xerox copy. So I said to the team we will go for bowling and a dinner after that. It worked out to be a good idea. Yesterday we went out (about 19 of us) to MegaBowl, near Airport. We started around 3 p.m. (another thing that other teams don’t do). We played about 2 games (20 throws per game per person). Then chatted for a while and went for dinner. It was a pretty good evening (and team building event too).

Though I’ve changed over the years to adjust to be in the crowd, I realized that I still feel very lonely in crowd. After about 2 hours, I started to be lonely. It lasted for sometime, then I took a walk out and then I was able to be back with the crowd. It might seem bizarre, but that is me. Of course, I couldn’t stop thinking of how life has changed in the past month or so. That also contributed to me feeling lonely. I got a lot to learn in friendship/relationship area.

But in general, it was a different night and a fun one too.

We had a hitch in the morning: our flight was delayed in Bangalore because of traffic (yes, believe me) and then when we flew in here, again we were delayed because there was no parking space (again, please believe me).

We were supposed to reach office by 10 but we reached only by 11.25. And in another 5 min we started the meeting.

We had two sessions and they were fantastic. We (my chief & I) are very much satisfied.

He left and I am staying back for one more day.

With all that is going on, I, honestly don’t want to come back!

I’m on my first corporate visit in this firm. I kind of avoided it so far, as the facilities on employee travel are not so great here. But the new chief expects me to play a greater role and hence he wants me to accompany him on corporate visits to other centers. So here is the first one. We are just initiating such visits so that we get feedback from users about the applications that we have rolled out.

It is a bittersweet irony that on one side life seems to be very disturbing and on the other it just rocks.

I’ve said many times here that I’m going through a tough time, personally. One after another has been draining the mental fortitude. I also said about the electrical shock that I escaped.

I’m not sure if I mentioned in this blog; but about a year and half back, I had to fire an (lady) employee. As a matter of fact, I was the first one to fire someone in this department. I’m not particularly proud of it (in fact I went through couple of sleepless nights on that), but that was a professional decision. I discussed that with HR, the head of the department; we provided two chances for improvement; only then we decided to carry out the decision.

Year and a half is a long time. But two days back, I got an SMS from this gal, in which she said, she was going through a trouble and she was not able to concentrate and I found it easy to fire her!

I didn’t know how to react. Firing someone is in itself a tough call; and having to read this after so many months is another disturbing one. On one side I felt pity and another angry. I didn’t respond immediately, but next day I brought it to the notice of the head of the department and the head of HR. Though they were completely supportive of me, I didn’t have a pleasant feeling sitting through these discussions and meetings.

It is much more a disturbance as I go through troubled times.

As the things go from bad to bitter to worse, I feel like crying aloud. I wish I had someone on whom I can lay my heads and felt comforted. But I have none!

Hope I pass through these days keeping my sanity.

P.S.: I know I’ve been only lamenting on this space. This is the only place where I vent out my feelings. If you find it tiresome, please come back after few months.

I had two escalations today which kept me on toes through out the day. We might miss out on a published schedule. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue; but one of the module is for CFO and he is tracking the progress. This has put me under a good amount of pressure through-out the day.

However later in the evening (19h00-19h30), we had a demo to CEO. This particular project has been in chaos for years and now with new IS head this has gotten a new perspective. The new head wants me to be part of the project and I was in-charge of creating the prototypes. We were little skeptical of the demo; but it went better than we anticipated.

Not so bad end.

Tomorrow I got a status review of the stuff that I talked about CFO module. hmmm…getting ready to be beaten up 🙁

I know some of you have questioned, what the hell is going on? (at least LA & Jai). Well, first I fell sick. And another I’ve become pretty busy. In fact busier than I thought. At office, I am into multiple projects:

• CRM – this how I came into this firm
• Finance – new in the plate. It comes with its own problems and process issues. I’m spending time understanding the processes and the product
• DSS – a dashboard for the chief officer. My new boss wants me to get involved as I’ve become ‘dashboard expert’
• Six Sigma Projects – I am a mentor for 2 of the Green Belt projects, which bring in improvement to our department

In addition to these, I’m also reviewing articles that get submitted from our department for the organizational knowledge management repository

As you can see, currently there is more in my plate than I have time for. But this is helping me in one way – I have full concentration on work and my mind doesn’t wander. However, I do feel I’m alienated.

At home too, I’ve been keeping myself busy.

I’ve installed Linux (Ubuntu) and configured most of the tools that I need – chat client, Python, Eclipse and so on.

I’m going to drive home (yes you read it right) this weekend. It is going to be a long 12 hrs drive. This is the first time I am going to drive for such a long time. Let me see how it goes.