The Corporate Crescendo

This is written by SHEROES Blogger - Mayura Rao for the FabBag #TakeCharge contest? Do you have a story to tell? Tell us your your #takeCharge story and win a FabBag, details here. 

Marrying off a daughter is like a marketing deadline for most parents in India, getting her married at the right age is like reaching a railway terminus in the rush hour lest you miss your train _ the right guy in this case, my mom ensured that she met her deadlines on time after fighting fiery battles for her freedom which many of her friends acknowledged with great enthusiasm, exclaiming “Oh, you are a free bird now”! As if my wedding day was her Independence Day or perhaps on a philosophical note, a salvation day.

The footloose fun-horse that I was who led the life of a riley was now reduced to relay steed to run the race of life with all pomp and show.

My new life seemed like a good break from the hectic run up at office, soon I was travelling and bid adieu to my job. Life after marriage was indeed good and I didn’t regret anything at all. Before I discovered the nitty-gritties of marriage, I was now a woman and a proud mother as well, the crusaders of freedom now yearned to be bonded again, not with me this time but my little one. I seemed to have a lot of time at my disposal now and the dynamo of ambition trolled me yet again.

I took up work with a friend’s help and entered the humongous ocean of IT industry like a little speck timorously waiting to be carried off into the waves of the corporate world.  My new corporate office was a buzzing home of technologies where technocratic people were struck in little cubic holes with their precious heads sunken deep into the laptops like bees to their hives. Although I had worked earlier, this was my first stint in a big corporate IT firm and venturing again after a long break of five years I felt like a rustic antique piece in a gadget freaked museum.

There was a sea of changes in everything and I was only scrambling to get accustomed to the newer technologies, etiquettes and jargons coping with a whole new lot of youngsters who were now seasoned players in the stream, it made me feel as if I had been stagnated. Although my previous job involved loads of talking throughout the day I now stumbled for words and shuddered to begin a conversation, initially I thought I lacked the confidence to handle situations but soon I realized that it was the culture that I had to get accustomed to, most colleagues around me were unmarried who almost lived out of the office, they would check in at 8 in the morning and leave late by 9 or 10 in the night, working with them was fun but I found it difficult to establish a connect or an easy conversation with them as our approaches were different, I had probably grown out to be too funny and indulge in unproductive talks, I missed out on most evening parties, kept away from the TGIF beer cans or rarely took part in their fun-escapades from office which they did during office hours but I had stiff timelines that I had to meet, I made sure I got out of office religiously after a 9hours slog to go back to my little one, I was trying my best to keep the balance.. But I had a gruff manager who seemed to secretly despise married women and thought that they always made excuses. Although I put in my best efforts and always met the deadlines he was never once appreciative of anything I did, instead he always chose to find a folly and expressed hostility at every possible occasion,

I was at my wits end and failed to understand where the problem was when I had finished every task on time, his insolence was only echoing across the team who often expressed their conceited prejudices about my vegetarian food habits or my traditional dressing sense or my marital status as if it was a preposterous thing to do, not that I was any recluse to stay away from western dressing or culture but modernism to me was in the mind and not in ones’ accessories or traits. But people around seemed to botch up professionalism in the name of modernism.

It was a different kind of bias, a status and an outlook bias.

I pretended to be thick skinned rhino cereus and determined to show my worth in action than by words but once I was dumbstruck when my manager got his toddler to the office and asked me to cut his kiddo’s nails, I curtly told him that it was completely his business and also barked at the other team members who were busy playing with the toddler that I had a client interview scheduled for my candidate in the next two minutes and they better restore the professional sanctity of the place by keeping the crying baby out.

Even after the probationary period he deliberately ensured that I only assist all the other team members and never front end anything, he would snatch away the work after 90% of it was done and credit someone who put in the last 10% , for all that I quizzed I only got a standardized reply that I head home at dot 6.30 and he never facilitated me to take the work, home, also during the assistance I provided I had figured out that a few of my fellow recruiters were stealthily indulging in fraudulent practices by favoring certain consultancy houses for some kickbacks but I was still a temporary employee and didn’t have a say hence the least I could do was curtail it, I would never employ these consultants and ensured that all my recruits happened through the job portals directly that was facilitated by the company after investing lakhs of rupees, this had nudged a few of them and now they sided with my manager and tried their best in belittling me before the director.

On the home-front my in-laws had moved in with me and my baby was now shuttling between my mom and the day care, life now was no relay, it seemed like an endless marathon. I wondered if my mom’s deadline was indeed coming in the way of my deadline but just then I sat back and thought what really was the deadline in life was it my family? Was it career accomplishment or both?  I felt it was not worth anymore and it was best to quit. But the rebel in me would not die down and I refused to be cowed down and quit without any fault of mine and more so I would not quit without proving my worth as a woman _ a married woman!

By now I was quite clear that he was professionally harassing me and that he would never let me grow for some un instigated grudge that he held against me from day one so I began helping out other sincere recruiters in my free time and slowly took their load of work, this I did everyday diligently squeezing an hour here and an hour there for a month’s time. Soon a senior colleague came down to my desk and thanked me profusely for the work done and also put a word to another manager to take me as his team mate. In just a couple of days I was in a new team, the new head was completely a go-getter who reposed faith in his team and gave them utmost freedom to take decisions and act, he didn’t care about our punching time as long as the work was done on time, on the very first day he assigned me a very important and tough client whom most recruiters dreaded. In a short time I was able to meet their specifications much ahead of the deadlines. Next I was incorporated in a recruitment drive where we were supposed to start a fresh product support team with a new client who had signed up only after being reassured by the quality of work put in by our team and of course the other senior sales people. After the fat contract was sealed my name was recommended for the ‘Hall Of Fame’ award which was like a well-deserved nourishing meal after months of deprivation. After I received this award along with a couple of other teammates there was a jubilant acknowledgement in the recruitment floor where the manager who until yesterday kept dooming my days was today made to hand over the award and appreciation certificate to me.  

I had put my foot down firmly not to get intimidated and resolutely rebutted at every step by simply doing my job without any vile, without any vengeance but with honesty, patience, dedication and a firm conviction in my worthiness.

A few days later my boss announced that I would be a confirmed employee and I announced to him that I would be leaving the company for good as I was already in my family way once again and that I hung on only to prove myself, he offered me to come back whenever I wanted to, I could now part feeling all very nice and proud about myself.

Today I am a stay home mom by choice, a blogger by passion and a freelance content writer. You can be anything in life as long as you are proud of what you are and stick to your innate principles and don’t change your traits that actually define you to appease others. My mom’s deadline has actually taught me the tenets of multitasking, to handle the different facets of life exploring the inner strengths within me and to come up with a dogged will that I can do it.