A decade of slogging.

After university I goofed around for an year just basically waiting for results and spending dads money – I thought I’ll do that till I get fed up. I never did have an issue with spending dad’s dough forever, but dad did! Our yahoo group mail was fully active with all my college mates posting their achievements in the past one year – some got promoted, some got overseas postings and some were doing their masters in India and abroad… updates kept coming it. All I had time for in between spending dad’s money and planning holidays was to send congrats to each one of them. I looked at my “sent mails” and it was only “good for you mate” “way to go dude” , “oh wow how are the blondes in the United States?”..hmm.. And so after my numerous failed attempts at finding a job or even getting a decent interview, mostly due my slackness and my overly impressive grades (highly sarcastic there) from university, I asked dad to sponsor my Masters or find me a job. Thanks to my utterly dismal performance in BTech he wasn’t sure of me pursing an academic career. Oh well can’t blame him for that. I still am surprised about how I scraped through college.

So after a month or so Dad finally got me a job or I thought it was a job. I go in happily for the interview and all goes well as he asks me some basic Mathematics and Physics and some Mechanical stuff. And the supervisor told me that I can join from the next day. WOW ! Score one out of one ! Nice ! but hey - what about the pay package ? Should I be negotiating that ? Hmm. Well I thought dad must have sorted it all out and decided on a hefty sum worthy of my skills. Super Dad!

On the first day the manager says – okay let me show you your work place. I am all set in a fancy tie and a shirt and new trousers – all new and branded of course! He takes me to the back of the yard and shows me a huge bench cum table (full of junk and broken stuff) at the very corner which didn’t have an inch of space on it and with at least a few centimeters of dust all over. Not been touched for a year at least. He goes – clean it up and its yours. You will find overalls and gloves and cleaning equipment in the cupboard there – give me a shout if you need anything. Ta. “er..Me ? Clean ?” “there must be some mistake here” “ what happened to the janitor?” these were my thoughts but then I thought it would be best to keep quiet for now and work at least till the first pay check :-P

For the first whole month I was pretty much cleaning the shop and tools and cars, greasing the forklifts and cranes, helping the secretary with photocopies and basically anything that didn’t require me to use my brains I was made to do. Phew that was a tough one month. But at the end of the month the table was spick and span, all tools were serviced, showed up on time each day, worked a weekend when I had to and everyone there liked me because they all had a slave :-P..  Come pay time – I was told that since I was a temp they can’t pay me in cash as it’s against company policies. I was shattered :( instead they gave me a battered old HP printer with no print cartridges because they were upgrading all their printers. So I go home carrying this printer – and mum and dad were all thrilled at the fact that I earned this printer – and told me that this is probably the heaviest pay check me or anyone else for that matter must have brought home ( literally). I smile and then borrow some money from dad to treat some of my friends :) and that night it was my turn to log on to yahoo groups and make a posting with the good news. I was getting there…

Two months down the lane I was made permanent at the yard for my enthusiasm and expert cleaning skills more than anything else. But that was a start to a career that took me places, brought me stuff and allowed me to do things that I enjoyed doing without having to say – “hey dad I am outta money again”.

Come end of this month – it would be ten years since I put on that pair of blue overalls, armed with a mop and mask and went about cleaning up the yard.