Chp 787. Goodbye, Corporate World.

As I woke up this morning, the shimmering beams of the first morning rays seeped through my makeshift curtains consisting of a quickly drawn Mizo traditional shawl. I stretched and revelled some parts of a dream that was still lingering in my head, of a mystical beauty who enchanted me with her alluring eyes. Two pillows surrounded me on each side of my bed, a substitute for a woman's warm body to cuddle and find solace in during the tempest hours of a dark and forlorn night. Yup, it was just like any other morning.

Except, it wasn't.

It took a few minutes to dawn upon me that this was the first morning in 15 years I was waking up as an unemployed individual.

Yes. A man with no occupation or duty. A free man.

Yesterday had been an emotional rollercoaster ride for me, as it was my last day at work. As I mentioned in my previous blog update "Notice Period", this was not just about me leaving this company, it was about leaving the Corporate World for good and going back to my roots, Mizoram.

 

Hence this entire week had been emotional for me, knowing I'll never be sitting behind a workstation again completing tasks or chasing deadlines. I recorded each day of this past one week, so that it would be a good memory to look back, years from now.

This was me on my way to work, the last Monday of my life working in the Corporate sector.

My last Tuesday.

My last Wednesday.

My last Thursday.

And finally, when the last day arrived, I woke up with fervid anticipation. I took my last shower as an employed person, and also made my bed for the last time as an employed person.

I even tied my shoelace for the last time as an employed person.

And of course on the way down from my apartment, I took the ceremonial photo - Last Friday of my life working in the Corporate world.

Getting stuck in traffic on the way to work used to be frustrating. But on my last auto ride to office, I wished the traffic was stuck for a little bit while longer.

Finally, my office appeared in the distant horizon.

I arrived at our office main gate for one last time...

Oh boy, I am so going to miss this place so much.

I showed my ID to the security for one last time.

Office lobby, waiting for the elevator for the last time.

Pressing 7th Floor for the last time.

Signing in with biometric print into our Gaming division for the last time.

Logging into my workstation for the last time.

Accessing network for the last time.

I also posted on my WhatsApp status that I never understood why we had to login twice with the same user id and password, and immediately my colleagues replied saying it was no longer required  to do that a long time ago! Apparently I was the only employee in office who had been unnecessarily logging in twice for the past 6 months, lolz! And yeah, I found out about it on my last day. Typical Kima luck, haha.

Here is me making coffee from the office vending machine for the last time!

Eating Vada pav at our office smoking section on the ground floor for the last time.

Touching the Lobby piano for one last time.

Pointing at other people's project for the last time.

Underneath the Jetsynthesys umbrella for one last time.

At lunch time, my colleagues took me to Mineority for a farewell lunch. I felt quite teary-eyed at this time.

And like any other organization, drinking alcohol during office lunch break is prohibited, but on very rare occasions like this when an employee who had been with the company for a long time is leaving, managers turn the other way when alcohol is ordered.

Awesome food as always.

My plate, three types of meat with buttered kasundi sticky rice. Yummm.

We had a great bonding time over lunch, and they made me reveal a few of my secrets, like the naughty stuff I did in office :)

With Prerna and Gouri, my foodie buddies.

Overall, it was an absolutely wonderful lunch and I thank my colleagues for the treat.

Back in office, yeah, back to random extra posts, like me napping at my workstation because of heavy lunch for the last time.

Trying to stay awake and drinking water from the office cooler for the last time.

Drank too much water so I went and peed in our office toilet for the last time.

Finally, it was time to get serious, and I started filling up the formalities to quit.

I had to go to different departments across 6th and 7th floors, IT team, NOC team, Server team, HR, my reporting managers etc etc., getting all my accesses deactivated one by one, and then only could the department heads sign off. I even got my official email deactivated and then realized I hadn't sent out my farewell mail yet, lolz. But then again, I write longer farewell mails on my blog updates so I guess that will do :D

Finally once I was done with everything, it was time to surrender my office ID to the admin and get the final sign-off from him.

Ahhh... I will miss my badge.

And after that was done, I was officially released from the company and became an unemployed vagabond.

Of course I stuck around the office for some more time, saying my goodbyes to all my colleagues. I even passed on my personal office plate "Tubby" (do read my series of blog posts called "The adventures of Tubby") to my friend Omkar, who promised to take good care of her and treat her with love and affection.

Yeah, my plate had been much talked-about in office as I am, or was, the only employee in office with his own plate.

And then my colleagues got a farewell cake for me.

I gave a short speech again as it was demanded, and finally, it was cake cutting time.

Received a beautiful farewell card too, signed by my colleagues.

After that, it was finally time to shut down my system for the last time.

Goodbye Corporate World.

I emotional-blackmailed Zubin into dropping me at home on his Scooty for the last time and so he did it, even though he had to travel in the opposite direction :D

My colleagues called me for a drink party but I decided to stay at home alone. I didn't go to any of my friends' places either nor called over anybody to mine. It was an emotional time for me, and with this great big weight lifted off my shoulders and about to wade into an unknown future ahead, I just wanted to be by myself last night.

So that was it. My experience yesterday of spending my last day in the Corporate World. Hope you found this post entertaining, and yes, I had to add a little bit of drama here and there because it sometimes lessens the pain. :)

So until my next unemployed post, cheers everyone.

Chp 786. Notice Period

I've been so overwhelmed at work and was suffering from an abscess in my right pupil (small formation of pus in my eye because I was rubbing it a lot due to extreme monitor exposure) for around 2 weeks that I just realized I've already completed serving 1 month of my 2 months Notice Period!

Yeah, that's right. I am currently on Notice Period.

Around a month back, with a heavy heart, I had to officially hand in my resignation letter to my boss. I have been under a lot of pressure for the past few years from my family to start taking care of our family business and house back in Mizoram, as I am the youngest and only son.

And it is an open secret in office that there would eventually come a time when I will have to pack up and go home, hence the reason why I used the word "officially" to submit my resignation, so as to give my employers enough time to hire new resources before I could officially start serving my Notice Period.

Usually, if people are on their notice period, they are asked to keep it to themselves by their reporting Managers or HR, and only tell others on their last week. I guess it is like a Corporate office etiquette, so as to prevent other employees from jumping ship or causing a domino effect. However in my case, I am not joining any other company or looking for greener pastures as I really love where I work, this is like my retirement from the Corporate world due to family obligation, so it is different.

I've also realized that in around 15 years of my experience in the Corporate world across various sectors like Sales, Marketing, Advertising and Gaming, this is the FIRST time I am actually serving my Notice Period, as previous terminations were because of acquisitions, mergers, policy changes etc., which resulted in immediate new job profiles. This time, I am actually doing the proper Notice Period thingy! :D

So how does it feel to be serving my first (and last) Notice Period?

Well, for starters, I make sure I don't slack. I am still one of the firsts to reach office every day, and one of the lasts to leave, for FIVE straight years. That is one of my legacies I am planning to leave behind here. I love my work and the office environment, and nothing can take that away from me. Secondly, yeah, the tasks that I have been assigned to are a way lot lighter now compared to before, but I plan to make the most out of it.

Unlike other people who may be itching to complete their Notice Period so that they can start working in a new Organization, for me, every day of my Notice Period is quite nostalgic. Even the daily commute I take to office, as the first glimpse of our tall Corporate Office appear in the distant horizon, is poignantly painful, because working at such a place is something I will not experience again in my lifetime.

I will be in Mizoram, growing rice and vegetables, cutting trees and shrubs, rearing cows and pigs along with a handful of chickens, ahhh what a contrast my life is going to be. No more scrums, no more daily sprints, just a daily interaction with Mother Nature in its rawest form.

It feels just like yesterday when I was sitting in a conference room at a 5 star hotel in Mumbai, me and my fellow Co-founder Sumeet along with our entire Start-Up team at one side of the table, and on the other side sat Rajan, Parimit, Nitin, Niharika and the other top management from Jetsynthesys, as I presented all our gaming concepts and ideas to them. And finally, the green light that we had been acquired! Oh what a ride it had been, from moving out of our incubator space in Bandra to our new office in Chandivali, to the weekly commute to Pune, to finally moving permanently to Pune.

We were the first batch of employees of our newly set up gaming division of Jetsynthesys, and even though we were initially small, we gave it our best, and we stayed with the organization for as long as we could as more and more experienced talents were slowly absorbed, and today, it is filled with extreme super talents like Jenna, former game designer of Farmville, Roopak, Amitabh, Saurabh, Nayab, etc.

Our gaming division now occupies an entire floor of our office at the elegant Sky One Corporate Centre, and is more or less the size of the rest of all other Jetsynthesys divisions situated one floor below us. What a growth it had been, especially if you compare it to the time when we initially joined and we had to sit in that dingy old Metro House office with cramped up workstations and everybody had to push in their chairs and suck in their stomachs if somebody from inside the lane wanted to use the toilet, and I always felt bad using that toilet because everybody could hear the flush sound :D

What a transformation indeed.

I will really miss all this, the daily pressure of meeting deadlines, the brainstormings, the endless discussions in one of the many conference rooms, the learnings that I get from people who had many more years of experience in gaming than me, the mistakes we encountered, the pivots and re-strategizing, etc etc. And most of all, I will miss my colleagues and all the laughter we shared, especially our kickass upper management of Jetsynthesys like Rajan, Parimit, Nitin and Niharika without whom none of this transformation would have been possible. I thank them all profusely for giving me the opportunity to experience all this.

As I enjoy my last few days of Notice Period, I raise my glass to all these people, and hope that this company continues to grow bigger with more top grossing games released in the future.

In the meantime, I will continue drinking as many free coffee as I can from our office pantry room before my time runs out :D

Cheers for now everyone, and have a very happy Diwali long weekend!

Chp 785. Bachelor Pork

And thus, to complete my series of Bachelor cuisines, here is my Bachelor Pork.

You can read my previous posts too –

        Bachelor Potatoes

        Bachelor Bai

        Bachelor Dal

        Bachelor Eggs

        Bachelor Fried Rice

Pork is one of our favorite Mizo meat. Most of us Mizos prefer the fat part, whereas if you order from any restaurant, 99.99% of the time, you'll get only the meat part, which is why we prefer to cook our own pork at home.

In this post, I will teach you how to make Naga Smoked Pork!

Step 1. Wash and clean the smoked pork.

Step 2. Get all the ingredients like cabbages and king chillies ready.

Step 3. Add a Naga lady.

Step 4. Thaadaaa, your Naga Smoked Pork is ready! :D

All jokes aside, Smoked Pork is one of the easiest dishes to make. I have blogged about it before too. You can read about the first time I tried cooking it as my friends were giving me step by step instructions on Facebook :D Or about the time I had our Mizo Smoked Pork with various TV show celebrities :D

Just boil the Smoked Pork (after washing) in a Pressure Cooker for about 10-15 minutes (wait for the pressure cooker to phhsss 3-4 times). After depressuring, add some cabbages, and let it phhsss again for around 3-4 more times. Your boiled Smoked Pork is ready!

Simple right?

You can spice it up by adding some green chillies along with the cabbages, so that the meat and cabbage will have this uniform spicy taste.

So good!

There are other easy ways of making awesome pork cuisines, like the one my friend baked last weekend.

Maybe I'll blog about it one day. For now, this is a conclusion to a wonderful series of Bachelor dishes, and hope you found all these posts useful. Until then, cheers everyone.