Policies that don't make sense

I love my job. I love my office. But I disagree with most of the HR policies. About leaves, about the dress code, about not getting compensated for working extra etc.

Today, for example, I needed to work 3 hours extra just because a translator did a shoddy job. Most of the translated text (from Japanese to English) didn't make much sense and I had to make sure that the final output, which involves my efforts, has some semblance of quality. So I had to spend my Saturday night at the office working.

I don't mind working extra. But I do think that such extra work should credited and acknowledge by paying for the extra hours that I had to spend at the office. Currently, my superiors tell me that it eventually gets evened out - one day you have to work extra, and another day you work less. But I'm sure the "working less" part happens very rarely.

The leave situation is altogether another issue. On one hand, the company policy wants to ensure that the workers are adequately rested, the company says no to increasing the leave quota for seniors. This year, 4 of the 10 recognized national holidays fall on Sunday. That's almost half of the extra leaves other than what we are allowed to take per year. When asked about it, the answer is the same - it evens out. No it wouldn't. It will never even out. We won't get more than 10 holidays any year.

And about the dress code policy - well, they have a strange sexist policy. They allow kurtas/kurtis and sandals for women. These are not allowed for men. They allow round-necked t-shirts for women and not for men. Isn't that strange?

I wish there were more people to protest against such indifferent policies.

I have been promoted!

Yay! I’m so excited to announce this to the world! It’s been a year and half since I started working as an academic editor in the wonderful company called Crimson Interactive. I have been given an ‘out-of-line’ promotion to become a Senior Research Editor. This brings me a lot of pleasure to announce this on my blog.

My bosses—at least one of whom reads this blog at least occasionally—wer extremely happy to see me successful manage and balance my two (or is it three now?) lives and emerge successful in at least one of them—in editing, that is.

Noise Market might not be turning heads as much as expected, and Shoonyas never took off from being a good band which plays within town to something else—of course, how could I forget not to mention my recent break up with Vinokur and the pain that it brought me—at least, my editing career is going places!

This promotion has given me a lot of hope and inspiration to achieve even more in my life. I so feel like saying the clichéd line of “with power comes responsibility” and killing it and myself in the process. But I’m not going to. This makes me feel a stronger person and helps me believe in my abilities.

QOL

I always wonder an acceptable quality of life (QOL) is? Is it intimately related to lifestyle and comfort? Are both the same?

In the last two years of my life as a struggling bachelor/artist, I have passed through the 'virtual' worst possible scenarios. Hunger, poverty, infestations, debt, depression, separation, and a helluva lot more. All through this period, I have seen and sampled many a level of 'living' - almost all of them being socially superior to mine. Most of these instances made me feel insecure, and apart from occasional fugues of mania and appreciable amounts of alcohol in blood, nothing has helped me much from feeling miserable.

Then came the real shit - depression. And even further down the lane came therapy.

Now my perspective has changed. The long and short, the broad and narrow, the deep and superficial, have all ceased to be a ghastly blur. I have started to think rationally and perhaps have started planning - maybe not to the extent that would be considered prudent at my age. I have goals to aim at and landmarks to achieve.

For example - renting a decent one BHK (one bedroom, hall, kitchen apartment - for you non-Indians), occasional partying, a few movies, a relaxed time during weekends, progress in music and editing, holistic improvement, avoidance of wasting time, occasional indulgence, a complete (albeit cheap) wardrobe, vacation, solitude, quietness, enjoying art... The list could go on and on.

Two questions remain:

1. Is this what quality of life means to all of you? I pose this question to my readers.

2. What has changed?

Is it my graduation? Is it the thrilling experience at my job (it's been about a year since I started working)? Reaching the over-hyped landmark of 30 years of age? Therapy for depression? The gradual but progressive weaning from being an eternal optimist/die-hard romantic? Completion of a circle of life? The bitterness of fate? The irony of existence? Love?

First day at work

So I started working today. A totally new environment so alien that it felt really weird. Out of scrubs and lab coats, not standing at an operating table, not talking to the needy and not saving lives. Instead, in my jeans and tee shirt, sitting at a desk, talking to no-one and learning grammar. In came the world filled with deadlines and assignments and out went the world with intravenous lines and surgeries. That’s one helluva change.

I met new people. New colleagues, new trainers, new bosses. Apart from the trainer, I couldn’t really talk to anyone there. It really seemed like an invasion of privacy. They were doing jobs and had to meet deadlines. I can’t talk to them and disturb their work. That’s not civil. Not only that, I was given a computer and some lessons and exercises about English grammar and punctuation. I had to work on that as well.

I tried to concentrate on what I was doing. I found it extremely hard because I could hear everyone talking, gossiping, laughing. I could also hear filtered music leaking out of the earphones of a colleague sitting next to me (so clearly that I could identify the artist!). I have never been diagnosed as ADHD. But I think I’m a subclinical ADHD person. The only resort was to get lost in my own music despite it being an impediment to the functioning of my brain which is trying to solve complicated grammatical problems.

I’m sure things will get better and more ‘relaxed’, but not in a jiffy.

A new job, a new beginning

I’m starting a new job tomorrow. It is a very weird feeling to be saying that word ‘job’ itself as I am used to the phrase ‘working in a hospital’ ever since I became an adult. A vast majority of my friends and well-wishers think that it’s a bad move that I’m making – giving away my medical career and jumping into something new. I can relate with all of them. How I wish I could carry on what I did. If only it could also allow me some time and space to work at my music!

I am starting work as an Academic Editor in the Medicine and Biosciences department of a Knowledge Processing Outsourcing (KPO) organization. I’m looking forward to starting to work there. Why? Mainly because it will let me do what I love doing – being at the keyboard and working on text documents, editing them and making them readable and attractive. Apart from that aspect, this job would give me the financial stability that I have been looking forward to.

To all my friends who don’t want to see me put to waste my 13 years of medical training, all I have to say is this. I understand the risk that I’m taking. But my aim in life is to achieve what I want and to be happy. And I think you have to make a few sacrifices for achieving that. This is a humongous sacrifice and I might regret it in the future. That’s when I’m going to need all of you – my friends. Please stand by me.

Let’s analyze my future

After my recent attainment of the masters degree in surgery, I felt a part of me getting invigorated to search for options to continue my medical career. For the first week or so, when I met and talked with people, I put forth the idea of looking for jobs in hospitals. People like my sister, my uncle and my parents took that as the definitive sign of me ‘coming back on track’, I felt.

My own research, which consisted of consulting my colleagues, seniors and professors had convinced me that there was no hope of finding a hospital job that would give me liberty to rehearse and perform music the way I wanted to. The recession had wreaked havoc on the economy and the job market and finding a nice job, at least as per the opinion from many people outside the medical field, was very difficult.

Mr. Bach, because of his brash, outspoken nature, is the only person who ridicules my attempt to build a career in music with a significant enough force to put me in doubt. Even though I’m not comfortable with people being so in-your-face, he has somehow helped me realize that I need to make a deadline after which I would have to return whole-heartedly to surgery. Before he left for the States, he made me agree to setting the end of this year (or my birthday) this reassessment.

If I don’t make any significant progress/success with my band(s) by then, I would have to go back to working as a surgeon in a hospital irrespective of whether that would make me unable to play at gigs. This way, I just lose a year. That is a reasonable period of ‘sabbatical’ after which I should technically be left unscathed. I must thank Mr. Bach for making me do this. Thank you Mr. Bach!