Work experience can lead to interesting experiences where you get to meet all kinds of people. My first job fresh out of college was to sell cosmetics to parlors of a good known brand in West Delhi. The job involved enticing customers to use those products. I thought what mattered most was the location, the number of customers, the products they used, but what my experienced boss taught me was the lingo (the language) speaking Punjabi would be the key. He spoke for a total of five minutes in chaste Punjabi and the deal clicked. Well, my first learning knowing a local language never hurts.
The subsequent job was in a prestigious MNC company involving night shifts and speaking to overseas clients. Here my English accent helped, fortunately. The only hurdle was being aggressive and not giving a damn to the so-called call parameters but being naive ,new, and idealistic stuck to all protocols that had to be followed. The result was not bad, not a high performer but managed to travel abroad.
Then came a job at a bank where I got the job only because I was ready to work from scratch and very persistent in my efforts in getting the job. Here it was direct customer interaction and the need to mask your emotions was the hard lesson I learned. At the counter, it was time efficiency, smart work that mattered. One needs to be alert, observant and memory had to be good. Recalled an incident where I took a phone call and had just finished a talk with colleagues on something funny and was laughing. The customer felt disrespected cause he heard me laughing perhaps felt was mocking him the issue landed us in loosing a customer business account shaken up I thought never to laugh again could be the moral of the story.
Then came a short stint at another bank which was broader in terms of responsibilities being a smaller branch.
Here I had a more human experience of falling in love with the boss how unprofessional !!!!! Lesson learned there never mix business with pleasure. Then came a job that freaked me out to some extent, which was the role of counselor cum administrator at an NGO. It’s the counselor bit that caused a lot of shake ups well for virtually any problem I would hear as a counselor I would in my mind say hey I have that habit, oh god ! maybe I have this problem… A degree in psychology didn’t help much at this point. I also realized that helping others was important but helping yourself was way more important.
Then came a job that would help me in my next job as a recruiter. Matchmaker makes me a match. Well, I landed a plush job but it was short-lived because as a transition consultant I may have upped the glamour quotient a bit among all computer geeks but my growth as a professional would have been marred had I continued, it was a total mismatch.
Last but not least was the job of a recruiter this was the most unglamorous of all roles but here is where I discovered my hidden passion for writing also that there was more to life than just work and age was just a number. The last role that I took was that of a teacher. Life comes to a full circle here I taught the language to students that too German! Here the learning never stops I discovered. My work experience and learnings were many more than I can sum but these do bring a smile and insights when I reflect back today.
Reflections 