Lassi Cafe in Bengaluru

You can take an Odia out of Odisha, but not the Odisha out of him.

I can’t remember, how many times have I craved for “Dahibara Aloo dum ghoogni” in Bangalore. But was always disappointed. A chance visit to “Café Lassi” on Harlur Road last weekend, revived my sagging spirits and delighted my Odia taste buds. The café is managed by a bunch of Odia lads, who take great pride in Odia street food. With great hopes, I entered the café and placed order for Dahibara-aloo dum, Lassi and pakudi ghoogni. The food was lip-smacking and almost similar to what we get in streets of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. The lassi was a meal in itself and came with a topping of Rabidi, just like in Odisha.

I am a big lover of anything that has a history/story attached to it. And food is a great reveler, it brings out the child in us and other than exercise, it’s the only thing that lifts the spirits instantly. And who can resist any authentic local cuisine?! Be it street food of Odisha or Kolkata, I can just dive in it.

So all you Odias, who are staying away from home, do visit “Lassi” Cafe in Bengaluru! 5 stars!

The Ecstasy and agony of an HR professional!

The ecstasy and agony of working as an HR professional in organizations today.

“With power, comes great responsibility.”

-Spiderman

No other profession in the world evokes such a gamut of emotions amongst the youth today, as HR profession. Be it a newbie on the threshold of starting a career or a veteran maneuvering the labyrinth of corporate ladder in quest of success. Almost everyone has an opinion about the “famed” HR professionals. May be because, for an employee, we are the face and soul of the company. Some of the most critical functions in an employee life-cycle is executed by us, like Recruitment, Onboarding, Query handling, Policy clarifications, Separation etc. So, while the trigger and rationale of the key decisions may be residing with business leaders, when it comes to designing the guidelines and execution framework, HR comes to the fore front. And fortunately or unfortunately, in most of the organizations, the communication of the outcomes for key programs like C&B, involuntary separations is also left to the HR team. In fact, the Internal Communication team itself falls under the umbrella of HRD. So that explains the power and great responsibility part which need to function in a “Yin-yang”mode. And its imperative that, these two work in a complementary fashion, otherwise success will be unattainable, both for the HR professional and the organization.

While we may dwell upon the nature of the high-pressured job and getting sandwiched between the diverse takes of manager and employee fraternity, its also heartening to know that, we have a key role to play in creating employee delight through our numerous interactions across the plethora of programs and initiatives that an HR is supposed to execute. If I look back at my 9 years of HR journey, I see lot of stories that have made the “agony/stress” worthwhile. Be it a smiling employee at the end of a difficult discussion or an employee who meets you in some corner of the world after years of initial interaction and tells you that you created an impact. 

One very recent incident that comes to the fore of my mind is from a recruitment drive that I participated in, last week. Earlier I used to work at Bhubaneswar DC of my company and 3 years back, I relocated to US to take up the GEO HR role. Post my stint in US, I moved to Bangalore Development Centre. And this recruitment drive was happening in Kolkata. I was the only HR person in that event along with a bunch of technical panelists from Bhubaneswar. As I entered the room, I could see, each and every panelist was a known face, some names I could not recall, some I could. We started chatting up like old friends and each one of them, was eager to know, where had I vanished and what was I up to. It was like the years in between had never happened! We ended up taking selfies too! Such was the warmth and open-heartedness of my colleagues. They welcomed me back with open arms! Many of them narrated some incidents which honestly speaking, I could not even remember! So the gist of the story is, if you are doing your job with passion, integrity and “Humaneness”, you will be fondly remembered. For an HR professional, it is critical that we learn to view and act in every situation with lot of empathy, otherwise we will end up being Laptop/Excel HRs only and not for the people. Kindness in interaction wins hearts and creates lasting loyalty. While rudeness and transactional approach leads to disgruntled employees.

Another story that is still fresh on my mind is the kind of appreciation and adulation we receive, whenever we go that extra mile to make the families of our employees feel special. Be it though any of our family centric initiatives like “Mothers dayout”/“Bring your kid to work”/“Family day at work” or any interaction with the families in general. When the employees and their families really appreciate you genuinely, that’s the highest reward that an HR can ever receive, in my opinion. I remember, we had rolled out the initiative named, “Mothers Dayout” in our Bhubaneswar center, way back in 2011 and we were amazed at the overwhelming positive response that we received. Soon after this initiative was replicated across all the centers in India and now is a regular feature in the event calendar in my organization.

We received a huge no. of emails, appreciating this initiative, sharing an excerpt of one of them.

“This is not just a feedback but a letter of gratitude addressed to each who made this wonderful event a memorable and beautiful moment. Thanks for giving us a chance to make our Mom feel special in this very special way. I saw three things in my Mom’s eyes: Happiness, Pride and Respect; Happiness of being loved and cared in a special way, pride of being a mother and Respect for the place where I work and for the work I do. Moreover, this made my Dad a bit hopeful that soon there will be “Dad’s day out” and soon he will be given a chance to feel special. Thanks a ton again.”

Interestingly, we rolled out the “Bring your Dad to work” initiative this year!

I feel proud and privileged that I have this opportunity to make a difference, each day, in my own small way. And each such email from an employee makes all the hard work and stress really worthwhile. No monetary rewards or accolades stand higher than an email from an employee appreciating your efforts. These are the moments of ecstasy that beat down the moments of agony by a huge margin!

Rolling stones...

“Nazia! If you feel uncomfortable and unsure as to what’s happening around you, remember you are in the right place and doing absolutely fine. Feeling overwhelmed is fine as long as you are making an effort to learn.” These were the parting words to me from Shruthi Bopaiah, when I left for US for a consulting assignment recently.

It was a BA role which required certain level of HR domain expertise and involved working directly with the client. It was a recruitment based tool, that my company was developing for the client. And it was a billable project. For the first time in my career, I was not an overhead but I earned revenues for my company. Although it was a heady feeling which came with lot of expectations and apprehensions from my side, I was up for the challenge. Not being from a technical background and getting exposed to Agile development jargons, extensive self-learning and making sense of the task in hand, so that I could add value to the client was what I continuous strived for. All this made my consulting journey extremely exciting and challenging. I think, my learning curve was at the peak in last few months during this assignment, if I look back at my almost 9 years career span at Infy.

Another beautiful aspect of such assignments, is the exposure one gets by traveling to a new place, meeting new people, learning about a new culture and how to adjust and enjoy all these. One of my friends, who is all set to travel to a different country was asking me, couple of days back, about my first assignment to US. She was interested to know, if I was feeling apprehensive and scared about traveling all by myself to an alien country. Strangely, I never felt any kind of fear, even for an instant during my first trip. I had it in my mind, that its just another country, same humans though! Work would be little bit different, but again, dealing with employees who are part of Infy family after all. That level of assurance and comfort was always there in my mind. Second trip was like, returning home! Because, of the number of friends I made during the first trip.

 

On personal side, if I think about my biggest learning being in US, was the life skills that I learned! Most importantly, cooking! I don’t boast that I became a Masterchef, but yes, I can survive anywhere now. There are a plethora of examples, of when I was touched by the kindness and generosity of strangers in that strange land and I hold those memories very close to my heart. One particular incident really stands out in my memory. It was day 2 for me in USA. I was supposed to go for my I9 appointment to some office in the city. I could not book a cab due to some issues. I was at the reception of my hotel, looking all worried due to this reason. The owner of the hotel came up to me and started chatting. After getting to know the cause of my worry, he kindly offered to take me to the I9 office in his car, waited for 20 mins till I completed all the formalities and then dropped me at my Infy Office. I was truly grateful to this stranger, for the kind gesture. Its because of incidents like this that, one starts to believe about the existence of humanity after all.

Now, coming to the professional front. I have always believed that a manager’s role is extremely critical when it comes to designing the career path for an individual. We keep on hearing from all possible sources that a career is an individual’s responsibility, but I beg to differ. I feel, a manager’s guidance and insight is what actually makes a difference. While it is upto the individual to make things happen, without the managers mentoring and gentle prodding towards the right path, the individual would be like a rudderless boat in a stormy ocean. And I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been blessed with such mentors at work.

I started my career as a part of Employee relations team in Bhubaneswar DC. 3 years down the line, my manager who also happened to be my mentor, told me that I need to explore the Business Partner HR role. After almost 3 years as BP HR, I took up Geo HR role in USA for 18 months and once back I moved on to take up Account HR Partner role. While in the AHRP role, I was selected for the HR consulting assignment. So I got the opportunity to delve into 4 diverse roles in 9 years, hence the learning has been tremendous to say the least.

 

Was doing some research on net and found out that one of the top most reasons for “Hipot” attrition with a work exp of 8 to 10 years is the learning graph hitting a plateau. Rest assured, this can never be a reason for my attrition!

You must have heard of the common adage, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” One has to constantly move out of one’s comfort zone and try out unchartered waters to learn and grow. Change is scary I agree, and trying out anything new makes you feel flustered and confused, but that’s when you are actually doing something worthwhile. So never be afraid of challenges and the unknown path ahead! Feel glad and proud that you made it through!! Be a game-changer, it’s ok to be overwhelmed, its fine to try out new and interesting things, because after all, it’s the crazy-ones who change the world!

Touched by the generosity of a stranger

So I had this very strange experience last evening, while traveling to Mysore from Bangalore.
Anybody who knows me well, is not unaware of my abhorrence  for crowded places like bus and railway stations etc. In fact any place that has an organised mass or gathering of people. Nothing against people as such, it's just that any kind of chaos unsettles me.

Anyways. I reached the Satellite bus station in Bangalore at around 6 in the evening after the two hours hike from Electronic City in a cab. Yes, I call it a hike because of the crazy traffic that one has to endure on the way. It actually feels like a painful hike as it drains you physically and emotionally. The sight of around 200 over-enthusiastic people standing in a queue to book the bus tickets to Mysore, welcomed me. And I couldn't believe my eyes! Somehow I gathered the courage to join the serpentine queue. And I could see that 80% of the crowd there belonged to some IT company or the other going by the logo of their backpacks. No wonder, Blore is known as the IT capital of India. After some 20 agonising minutes of waiting, a lady came and stood behind me. And I was kinda relieved for being not the last one. We started chatting up because, there was nothing else to do!! All of a sudden, a Volvo bus arrived to collect the passengers and announced that tickets will be issued inside the bus instead. And obviously there was a mad rush to get into the bus!! The lady who was behind me told me that she is going ahead to explore the probability of beating the crowd in the stampede. Before I could realise what was happening, she vanished! And I got busy looking at the pushing--shoving-elbowing that was going on at the bus door. After 10 minutes, I saw the lady calling out to me to get into the bus along with wild waving of hands. I still couldn't believe that I had it in me to jostle amongst the crowd and get inside the bus. It was like you are drowning and you see a hand calling out to you in an effort to save you! I don't exactly know, what happened to me in that instant. I joined the melee of crowd and somehow pushed-elbowed myself and managed to get into the bus! The lady had saved a nice seat for me! I felt like screaming in delight, I was so happy and relieved! I thanked her profusely. The struggle didn't end with the bus ride. After we reached Mysore, I couldn't find a single cab. The lady who was a localite, shouted and screamed for an auto and managed to find one for me! She negotiated with the auto driver and helped me get inside safely.

I was too stunned with this unexpected kindly gesture from a stranger and quickly I asked her number to send a thank you msg later! And all throughout the auto ride, I was thinking how people touch your lives through their kind behaviour sometimes...She didn't know me personally or anything, still she went out of her way to help me out...And it left such a lasting impression on my mind, I just wanted to crystallize this incident forever by blogging about it... I hope she reads it somehow and realises how thankful I am ...

Eight years hence...

It was somewhere around this time in the month of August, 8 years ago, that I entered the famed Infosys Campus at Mysore with stars in my eyes hoping to build a career. Last evening, all those memories came rushing back to me especially as I entered the multiplex in campus to watch a movie. 8 years back, it was "Love aaj kal" and yesterday it was "Lipstick under burqa", which has been getting rave reviews lately. Anyways, this particular post is not about the movie at all, so let me not digress from the subject.

8 years is a long time. People change, circumstances change...perspectives change. It  was my first  tryst in a state which was not Odisha. My BigB travelled all the way from Pune to drop me in the campus. After that, I was pretty much on my own. Working, traveling around to explore the city on weekends and enjoying South Indian delicacies. I was a lot thinner, probably a bit naive and may be gullible at times. 8 years hence, a few kilos enriched...bit more confident may be...sometimes sceptical of people and situations...and yes! A lot more easy going and brave. I choose to believe that I have changed as a person for the better. I appreciate every moment of life, health and people more now. I don't believe in accumulating things or objects anymore.I have developed a deep abbhorence towards anything that is materialistic. I love to lead a simple life devoid of frills. All my current possessions can fit into just one strolley, I am not kidding. People say, they travel light. I like to proclaim, I live light. Yes, that's true.

The only things I value now is people and relationships. Rest is immaterial to me. Work is important too, as that's the source of my bread minus butter! Honesty and dedication in work is important and I try my best to make a difference. But I do envisage a life beyond work too...maybe after a few years, I would like to quit the cat race and do something like full time writing or teaching. I called it cat race, because I feel cats are way more meaner than rats. Rats are cute docile creatures. Cats are shrewd, cunning and mean.

I wish to travel a bit more, explore India now with my family around me. Have been hearing so much about a place called Hampi near Bangalore. Someone told me, it has an old fort or palace kinda thing which is dilapidated now. It had 50 or 70 odd pillars which could play musical instruments in those times. Now only few pillars remain. Some archaeologists believe it was a temple. Now it's a popular site for destination weddings. Ok, now that gives me an interesting idea to ponder over... :)

Ok, enough of Saturday morning ramblings. Time for more coffee!!!!
Ciao!