From Student to a Professional

I always wished I could earn my own money so that all my fights with my Mom over my pocket money would end. So that I don’t have to show a balance sheet to anybody at the end of the month to prove that I have spent the money in the best possible way. Once I graduated I knew that my next step was going to be a job and if I was going to study ahead it will be with my own money.

Having cleared the test and interview of an MNC I got my entry into the shining IT sector of India. Of course that meant leaving my hometown and moving to a new place.
Suddenly everything seemed so difficult, “who will wake me up in the morning, who will take care of my bills, who will fulfill my daily needs”. The saying ‘No pain, No gain’ started to make sense to me. Anyway I decided to concentrate on the brighter side of things and arrived at the place of my Karma.

Settling to a new place is not easy if you have not ventured out of your home much and have lived a life of luxury with no responsibilities and minimum interaction with the outside world. Everything from waking up in the morning to making the bed for sleeping in the night has to be done on your own. Suddenly you realize that clothes have to be washed or they start stinking after some days, if you don’t take care where your money is spent the balance in your account goes from XXX Rs. to 0.00 in no time.

I learnt a lot of lessons professionally as well. At work you are supposed to behave in a certain way, you have to dress in a way and you have to be a professional in the true sense. That means no hanging around in gardens when you have work, no WWF t-shirts in office and no nasty language exchanged with friends and colleagues even if it is in the right spirit. So many of my friends told me that in order to be successful as a professional you have to look busier than all the others around (even if u don’t have work). I also learnt that it was more of your good contacts that mattered when it came to appraisals and better growth. I don’t know how many of these things told to me I have actually followed but then some extra knowledge is never bad.

The experience till now has been enriching and an eye-opener. The problems and focus areas in my life have changed a lot. Relationships and priorities have taken a shift but I feel that I am still the same guy I used to be. I don’t know what my next step in life will be but I know that someday I would love to have a fight with my Mom on my pocket money again.