Oh My Team!

What does a “Job” mean to you? Think for a minute before you read further J.

For me, it means learning, handling challenges, working with people/team and obviously some money. In today’s generation, I do not think people stick on the same job(s) for ever or at least it is like that in IT industry. I am not judging anyone who change jobs for money, it is absolutely their personal choice. I am writing about me and my recent job experience.

I feel that not all jobs give the same experience to you even though you work with the same “Job Title”. And not all experiences are cherishable or precious. I am in a new job from this month and wanted to write about my previous job. It was one of the job experience that I will cherish forever in my career. I spent 2 years in my previous job & I learnt so much, handled variety of challenges and interacted so much with my onsite and offshore teams. I handled a team of 72 resources - I know, it sounds crazy, but true ;). I handled a team of 20 onsite and 52 offshore resources. Our offshore teams were located in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

That was the first time I worked with offshore teams – learnt so much from that perspective. When I went to India last year for my personal trip, I visited Hyderabad and Mumbai teams. That was nice that I could get to meet most of my team members personally. It was really fun to meet them, see how they work (with 1 monitor), took them out for lunch and visited their snack places J. Manjusha was my offshore manager and she is located in Mumbai. She also came to Hyderabad and we both were treated with utmost hospitality by Hyderabad team (especially Raja & Upender). We both traveled together to Mumbai. It was really a fun and adventurous experience.

I spent lot of time getting to know people, build trust and relationships with each one of them. I think I was successful to a great extent. Being a delivery manager, nature of my job was very reactive to situations and circumstances. I think I really became more patient in the last 2 years. I could clearly take a step back, analyze the situation and come up with a solution. Team members come to me for variety of reasons – be it personal or professional. There was not even a single day without any challenge J. I guess I really enjoyed it. It was time for me to move on and I did it gracefully. I really had to slow down for my work life balance and to spend more time with my little kids.

My client manager Karen organized a farewell from client side and it was a big hit. Almost 35+ team members showed up including full time employees and resources from other vendors. The team brought a cake with “Good luck” note on it and got gift cards. There were couple of tears too L. Thanks Karen!

My Sogeti team organized a farewell lunch and it was really sweet. I felt I left the company with utmost respect and positive note. I am glad that I made that positive impact with each one of them.

Quick Test for me -- I am really trying to name each one of them to see whether my memory still stays strong – Stacey, Nandhini, Hima, Vijay, Nirmal, Ram, Syed, Suresh, Adarsh, Priya, Lakxmi, Harpreet, Shaju, Mahadevan, Bob, Aaron, Kavya, Likith, Manu, Matthew. From offshore – Manjusha, Kalyani, Sidharth, Ankita, Nishad, Nishita, Srujana, Vamsi, Gaurav, Dipti, Sumant, Sarath, Kapil, Ravi, Nishtha, Supriya, Prachi, Priyanka, Pranav, Madhukar, Ranga, Sunit, Renukaprasad, Harish, Sujatha, Raja, Upender, Vijaya, Damodar, Mohammed, Sravan M, Bhasker, Ramya, Seetha, Santoshi, Pradeep, Venkat, Partha, Surya, Sambit, Malikarjun, Rajesh, Mahesh, Murali, Sravan N, Rajeev and the new resources whom I hired Ashay, Rakesh, Bidhu, Hariom, Manoj and Priya. Yayyyyy!!! I DID IT J. Thanks for being a wonderful team member everyone!

Special Thanks to Conor for being a wonderful coworker and account executive for our account. I learnt so many things about the consulting job from him!

Special Thanks to Manjusha for being a wonderful listener and a support. Learnt so many things from her about working with offshore!

Special Thanks to Anand for being a nice friend and a support!

I think I complemented very well with each one of them in their roles and built a wonderful relationship with all.

After I moved to new job, there is not a single day yet that pass without thinking about my team. It is actually a great feeling J. I am proud that I left with a success note and with the sense of accomplishment. I really hope that I could get to work with any of them in the future.

Miss you ALL!