It is time to start again...

Today is my last day of corporate freedom. Tomorrow, the third of March (almost all of the important ones fall on a 3 or it’s multiple…I can’t help noticing the pattern) will see me employed to a new employer and the managers and the team leads and a new set of people and colleagues will enter my life. I have no idea what lies ahead. With the same zeal and an inner thought that says that this time I will make it a better one and hold on to for some good number of years, I would go and face it. Though, with experience now, it isn’t tough to recognize the type these corporate high sitters belong to and who really hold my way ahead.

Some are the tea-break types. You should be lucky to be addicted to smoking or coffee or tea and you need to accompany them until they speak out the things which matter in the real world. If you are able to hang around for some time, you would gain insights into the way the project is headed, the things going on under the management garb, the real concerns making it tough for things to flow or the real opportunities hidden underneath.
Some are the athletic types. You should have the talent to know how to play it and a few games down, if you are able to prove your steel, in a few days you can see them confiding in you the real patterns applicable to your project or the real gems that can get you what you need or the way things can be moved in your favor.
Some are the workaholic types. They think of food when they need it and for the rest, all is about work. While I prefer these, it certainly needs a good deal of pain taking capability and some real sacrifices on your part to make things work. But once they do, these are the only ones which give the real pleasure.
And then there are the loner types. They need you when they are alone. It might be the late hours in the night or the afternoons on the weekend. Go and sit and discuss and share and soon, you can see the bonding. But more than often, these types insist that you bother about your ways and stick to your time frames and mind your own, but that is when they say they need you to hang around.

Of all that I have seen and observed, the managers and the leads, the so called tough people belong to either of these types. And if you can break the code, the project, the glory, the fame and the ladder up is all yours. Believe it or not, a poor performer is one who does nothing but work. The best performer is one who does work wherever and whenever it is needed. It isn’t only about working on the system and gaining knowledge and expertise but it is also about the people you work with and mainly the people you report to. This is what I had missed at my first organization and the results weren’t good, they were devastating. And this is what I did when I reached my second one and believe me, I struck gold for more than a year and half until revenues dropped for my business unit and I was moved onto a different high revenue earning project onto a challenging task which sadly didn’t suit my taste. And I hope, this is what I won’t miss tomorrow at my new one.

I wait for the day when I would belong to the genre “managers”, to add a new type to my list….