"Tambaram Anna" a girl said.
"9882" the cab co-ordinator replied.
"Urapakkam" another colleague asked.
"5442"
"Guduvanchery"
"7741"
The cab co-ordinator stood in the middle of the bus bay and all my colleagues gathered around him telling him their destinations. He was lean, around 40, replied every one with a smile.
As he replied to countless people, I wondered how he remembered the registration number of so many cabs that were waiting to pick us up. The software engineer in me thought for a while if I could automate his job. Poor guy, let him have his job - the sofware can not bring in his smile, anyway.
"Urapakkam" I said.
"Main or Interior?"
"Interior"
"Left or Right?"
"Left"
"Please wait" he said and continued responding to others.
He didn't ask 'Main or Interior' for the most of the crowd but only to a very select few. I then realized, he not only remembered the cabs, but also the people and where they went. He even asked a few why they had to stay back so late. I instantly decided never to automate this process.
I sat in the back of the cab.
Will I be missing US?, I asked myself (well after many others asked me). I knew I will. I atleast had some mixed feelings. There was so much self transformation, taken lots of independent decisions and I have definetly grown. Followed my passion or may be followed to find out if it was really mine. US has presented lots of opportunities and a means to get whatever I wanted. Unlimited high speed Internet has helped me search for and develop interest towards blogging, story writing, video editing, tennis, piano, graphics and animation. Walmart and google has helped me search and get anything I wanted. A place for cool gadgets and smiling people;a place where I made few but very good friends; snow draped cities every winter - will definitely be missed. Six years had flown in no time. I wished I had done a few more things while in US like I wanted to go for a pitch fest in LA or New York( and experience how screenwriters pitch their stories for movie makers in Hollywood) and Ski in Colorado mountains - still no regrets. May be next time. First snow experience and Ice skating in Galleria mall are good enough. Right since childhood, anyone who had blessed - blessed me to be a doctor and go to US. Atleast, one came true! Now I'll be home.
Though not a big fan of farewells, I liked the nice farewell dinner at Chettinad with Vinod Vijayakumar, Priyanka Asthana and Naresh Srinivasan; lunch from my team at Zios with Prem Jaisinghani, Pankaj Malik, Vinod Vijayakumar, Muthu Balasubramanian, Jennifer Aruldhas, Manu Cherian, Elam, Hariharan Badrinathan, Shankari Ramachandrasekaran. Dinners at Vinod and Priyanka's home (esp. The Bisi), the wrestling match in PS3 (Vinod likes hitting me with the ladder); Cake cutting at office West Break Room by Yvonne Tan, April Kelsoe, Linda Youngblood; Cake cutting at Office West Break Room by friends (speech given by Pankaj Malik, Vinod Vijayakumar, Priyanka Asthana, Sundarraman Jayakumar, Karthick Ravichandran, Prem Jaisinghani, Rija Varghese, Muthu Balasubramanian, Elam, Manu, Rakesh Paulraj ...did I miss out some one? or may be i included some who gave speech at team lunch and ofcourse myself). Thought someone recorded or took pictures of all these ...if you have it please share it with me!
Thanks to my Team for gifting me the nice watch!
I'll be missing the Chipotle and Flips dinners with my room mates Naresh Gona and Tejas Desai. And may be the tennis sessions as well. Naresh had tried hard to improve my shots - may be he did succeed to some extent.
Thanks to Naresh Gona and Tejas Desai for helping me setup my room when I joined them in January 2012, putting up with me all this time :) and helping me pack my stuff while leaving.
Thanks to my dear friends Vinod and Priyanka for dropping by the night before my travel and help pack my stuff (and for the cool gift :-) ). I've been always lucky to have had good roomies and friends through out my stay in US.
Thanks to all those who came for sending me off at the airport. Naresh Srinivasan, Naresh Gona, Tejas Desai, Rija Varghese, Christi Ninan, Nathan, Muthu Balasubramanian, Vinod Vijayakumar and Priyanka Asthana.
"Enga Sir turn pannanum", the cab driver asked.
The commute is posing a big challenge for me to stay back late at office if needed. Some night shuttles don't go too much interior off the GST. Also, it would be getting late for other travellers. May be it is a good thing and would encourage me to leave office early. So, not going to worry too much about it.
Two weeks back I was searching for both an apartment (near Mcity) and a bike for the commute. I had already visited one house in SP Kovil and a bike showroom in Tambaram. That Sunday evening, I was standing at the Mcity bus stop in GST road for going to Tambaram again to finalize the bike. A sudden change in mind, I crossed the road and got in a bus to Cuddalore. 3 hours later I was home. The next morning around 7 a.m I took my Maruti 800 and drove to Mcity. I was in office before 9.30 a.m.
Now found a place to stay in Urapakkam and have a car to commute. Now I can focus on my 'whatever'!! :)
The Mcity Infy campus should be one of the most beautiful workplaces in the world. Here is a view of the campus from my ECC hotel room. Though this picture does not capture it as beautiful as it really is.
Our offshore team seems like a nice and friendly team.
Infy BB is a great place for many things. This weekend I didn't want to drive all alone till Cuddalore. A post in BB for carpooling from Mcity to Cuddalore flooded my mailbox instantly with many requests. However, lost a few blockings when I couldn't start from office in time on Friday evening. Still found some late goers who joined me. Hopefully, it wouldn't be a boring journey anymore!.
P.S - Didn't mention about Balaji Gnanasekaran or Ramya Pandi as this post just about my last few weeks in US. Thought I will mention this if either of them ask me why there was no mention of their names :-):) (you'll have to refer to older posts for those)
"9882" the cab co-ordinator replied.
"Urapakkam" another colleague asked.
"5442"
"Guduvanchery"
"7741"
The cab co-ordinator stood in the middle of the bus bay and all my colleagues gathered around him telling him their destinations. He was lean, around 40, replied every one with a smile.
As he replied to countless people, I wondered how he remembered the registration number of so many cabs that were waiting to pick us up. The software engineer in me thought for a while if I could automate his job. Poor guy, let him have his job - the sofware can not bring in his smile, anyway.
"Urapakkam" I said.
"Main or Interior?"
"Interior"
"Left or Right?"
"Left"
"Please wait" he said and continued responding to others.
He didn't ask 'Main or Interior' for the most of the crowd but only to a very select few. I then realized, he not only remembered the cabs, but also the people and where they went. He even asked a few why they had to stay back so late. I instantly decided never to automate this process.
I sat in the back of the cab.
Will I be missing US?, I asked myself (well after many others asked me). I knew I will. I atleast had some mixed feelings. There was so much self transformation, taken lots of independent decisions and I have definetly grown. Followed my passion or may be followed to find out if it was really mine. US has presented lots of opportunities and a means to get whatever I wanted. Unlimited high speed Internet has helped me search for and develop interest towards blogging, story writing, video editing, tennis, piano, graphics and animation. Walmart and google has helped me search and get anything I wanted. A place for cool gadgets and smiling people;a place where I made few but very good friends; snow draped cities every winter - will definitely be missed. Six years had flown in no time. I wished I had done a few more things while in US like I wanted to go for a pitch fest in LA or New York( and experience how screenwriters pitch their stories for movie makers in Hollywood) and Ski in Colorado mountains - still no regrets. May be next time. First snow experience and Ice skating in Galleria mall are good enough. Right since childhood, anyone who had blessed - blessed me to be a doctor and go to US. Atleast, one came true! Now I'll be home.
Though not a big fan of farewells, I liked the nice farewell dinner at Chettinad with Vinod Vijayakumar, Priyanka Asthana and Naresh Srinivasan; lunch from my team at Zios with Prem Jaisinghani, Pankaj Malik, Vinod Vijayakumar, Muthu Balasubramanian, Jennifer Aruldhas, Manu Cherian, Elam, Hariharan Badrinathan, Shankari Ramachandrasekaran. Dinners at Vinod and Priyanka's home (esp. The Bisi), the wrestling match in PS3 (Vinod likes hitting me with the ladder); Cake cutting at office West Break Room by Yvonne Tan, April Kelsoe, Linda Youngblood; Cake cutting at Office West Break Room by friends (speech given by Pankaj Malik, Vinod Vijayakumar, Priyanka Asthana, Sundarraman Jayakumar, Karthick Ravichandran, Prem Jaisinghani, Rija Varghese, Muthu Balasubramanian, Elam, Manu, Rakesh Paulraj ...did I miss out some one? or may be i included some who gave speech at team lunch and ofcourse myself). Thought someone recorded or took pictures of all these ...if you have it please share it with me!
Thanks to my Team for gifting me the nice watch!
I'll be missing the Chipotle and Flips dinners with my room mates Naresh Gona and Tejas Desai. And may be the tennis sessions as well. Naresh had tried hard to improve my shots - may be he did succeed to some extent.
Thanks to Naresh Gona and Tejas Desai for helping me setup my room when I joined them in January 2012, putting up with me all this time :) and helping me pack my stuff while leaving.
Thanks to my dear friends Vinod and Priyanka for dropping by the night before my travel and help pack my stuff (and for the cool gift :-) ). I've been always lucky to have had good roomies and friends through out my stay in US.
Thanks to all those who came for sending me off at the airport. Naresh Srinivasan, Naresh Gona, Tejas Desai, Rija Varghese, Christi Ninan, Nathan, Muthu Balasubramanian, Vinod Vijayakumar and Priyanka Asthana.
"Enga Sir turn pannanum", the cab driver asked.
The commute is posing a big challenge for me to stay back late at office if needed. Some night shuttles don't go too much interior off the GST. Also, it would be getting late for other travellers. May be it is a good thing and would encourage me to leave office early. So, not going to worry too much about it.
Two weeks back I was searching for both an apartment (near Mcity) and a bike for the commute. I had already visited one house in SP Kovil and a bike showroom in Tambaram. That Sunday evening, I was standing at the Mcity bus stop in GST road for going to Tambaram again to finalize the bike. A sudden change in mind, I crossed the road and got in a bus to Cuddalore. 3 hours later I was home. The next morning around 7 a.m I took my Maruti 800 and drove to Mcity. I was in office before 9.30 a.m.
Now found a place to stay in Urapakkam and have a car to commute. Now I can focus on my 'whatever'!! :)
The Mcity Infy campus should be one of the most beautiful workplaces in the world. Here is a view of the campus from my ECC hotel room. Though this picture does not capture it as beautiful as it really is.
Our offshore team seems like a nice and friendly team.
Infy BB is a great place for many things. This weekend I didn't want to drive all alone till Cuddalore. A post in BB for carpooling from Mcity to Cuddalore flooded my mailbox instantly with many requests. However, lost a few blockings when I couldn't start from office in time on Friday evening. Still found some late goers who joined me. Hopefully, it wouldn't be a boring journey anymore!.
P.S - Didn't mention about Balaji Gnanasekaran or Ramya Pandi as this post just about my last few weeks in US. Thought I will mention this if either of them ask me why there was no mention of their names :-):) (you'll have to refer to older posts for those)
