“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou
I believe in
"Celebrating everything that can be celebrated and appreciating everything that can be appreciated" :-)
And then appreciate the voyager anyway, "just for the journey", for the guts to go sailing when the tides were high.
A friend reached out to me for some career advice(not that I am an expert), quite a while ago. She sounded confused and upset about her career trajectory(but tell me, who isn't? ;-) ). Just a couple of minutes chatting with her, signaled, she felt lost and islanded in the land of nowhere. IMHO, she spent some quality time, with moments of self discovery and introspection(time that's never wasted), all the while. She won races which few would dare run.
I was in bit of a rush. So, I asked her to drop me a mail with all that she did (learnt the power of writing down one's thoughts over the course of last 2-3 years, this one really works).
Here's a snippet of her story in my words.
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A bunch of 20(18 male and 2 female electrical engineers) graduate engineer trainees joined Kalpataru Power, a company in the business of bulk transfer of electrical energy from plants to substations. The business is supposedly an equal opportunity employer.
These fellows were being trained to help management, set up a new plant in Raipur, and make it operational. The team included a few more females(5-6 percent of total number) in HR and design department. They laid down a training plan, the two female trainees were to be versed with production planning while the rest were being intensively trained in all aspects of power transmission and its operations. Males trailed their hands on shop floor, they worked in raw yard, cutting yard, fabrication, notching zone, bending zone, galvanizing unit , finish yard and what not. Not that these girl fellows chose their way. It wasn't a matter of choice, but a perceptive measure of their capabilities.
Where there's a will, there's always atleast one way!
I am glad that they didn't let this perception be a reality. They fought for and earned a fair opportunity, proved their mettle, making their way to tonnes of appreciation and respect. My friend attributes a fair share of credit to her fellow 'Gujju'( she has a very high opinion of them) colleagues.
At the end of the training, were they sent to the new plant, in Raipur. A stranded place, perhaps naxalite area, far away from the city, where nobody wanted to work. As she described: "It was new, the office was yet to be constructed. Their refuge was a makeshift office. It was so new that it had only one restroom, common for men and women. These two had to fight a battle, 3 months long, to have this problem solved".
They loved the work and dealt with all the challenges on the road ahead, putting their hearts and souls into it. They as well did the clerical paperwork, which had nothing to do with their job profile. Kudos for that.
And then came the day, when parent of the other lady visited the two. Her dad decided to take her back, that very moment. She was on a month's notice period, when my dear friend's(soon to be the only girl there) family wanted her to quit the job as well. She did find her next adventure in power transmission industry, but with another company.
That speaks for itself, for the tenacy and persistence, of the demoiselle :-)
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We had a few more conversations on this topic after the email. Turns out, she enjoyed the writing part, and it was helpful in some way.
PS : I promised her(you know who you are) that I would feature this story on my blog(well, that's how I convinced her to write about it), the coming Friday from that day, almost 6 months ago. Fridays came and Fridays went, it did not happen. And finally, Tuesday it is..!! There you go. Sorry for the delay...
