A month with a difference...
What would the life be, if you were removed from your comfort zone and put in a completely different environment? An environment which you were part of several years earlier but you never envisaged being part of it again? What if I you can't adjust yourself to the uncomfort zone you are in now? What would it be, not to have all those people around, with whom you have spent almost 1/3 of your life? How would it be, to work all alone, almost all the time, with occasional calls from the team? How would it be to work from home, be at home almost entire day? loads of questions... all "W"'s were haunting me.
It all started with a casual discussion with one of the friends almost four months back. I was getting an opportunity to do something different, something that I had not done so far on the career side and that got me excited and interested. After much deliberation, lot of debates, going over the pros and cons, finally decided to take the plunge... Decided to move myself in the uncomfortable zone. Into a role, which calls for all the technical work, which I had been part of years earlier. Last few years with my last employer had been in a completely different area - project management, account management, customer relations. The role was challenging and I was enjoying it too. However, there were sudden bursts, which kept on popping up - what is it I would like to do 2 years from now, 5 years from now? (Thanks to some online influencers like Robin Sharma, Ramit Sethi, Seth Godin, Brad Feld and many more, of whom I am a regular reader of their blogs)
There are instances when you get some ideas, get excited about the new idea, you decide to do something about it later and you park it. Only to realize after a while that either you haven't built anything on that idea or someone has taken the actual step to build the product around the same idea. And then you go through the cycle of pain, frustration and what not. Happened with you? It did with me multiple times. And this, kind of forced me to start believing that if I need to work upon my own ideas, I need to dedicate time right away for that idea, otherwise, it won't happen. But in the services industry, that too, with 20 odd kilometers of driving one way (or should I say 120 mins on the road daily!!), it almost becomes impossible to spare some time for such ideas. The services industry definitely teaches you how to build a product, but not how to "own" a product. To be able to grow and do something about my own ideas, I wanted to be on the other side of the table... "Building" Vs "Owning". "Asking for confirmation on decision" Vs "Taking the decision and owning it".
With this thought, I finalized to change the gears and get on to a very different track and join a startup firm in Pune which has been operational for about 18 months or so with couple of their own products. By the time, I was getting relieved from my earlier employer, things changed suddenly and I landed up with another startup with the same person, but into a very different domain - mobility with retail - exciting concept and with proper execution we'd be reaching the masses of this country.
So here I am.. working from home for five weeks. Only three-four meetings in the entire week. 3-4 status calls and rest of the time - all hand-on. Went back to the technology. Basics of Java/J2EE, did some hands-on exercises to refresh the knowledge. Basics of cloud, Some new concepts like NoSQL. Working with Amazon AWS. Completely immersed into getting myself up to the speed. Got bugged down with some stupid nuances of Java like CLASSPATH and Resource files etc. Started drawing flow-charts, write code on paper first and then do actual coding. Cursed myself for overlooking few obvious design issues in the beginning, but looks like I am getting into the groove...
It is still a long way to go, feels like I am on right track... to discover myself, my capabilities.. to do something different, something that will touch millions around...
At the onset of the new year, with lot of hope in the mind, I wish you all a a very happy life, filled with prosperity and health. May this year bring some meaningful difference to each one of you.
It all started with a casual discussion with one of the friends almost four months back. I was getting an opportunity to do something different, something that I had not done so far on the career side and that got me excited and interested. After much deliberation, lot of debates, going over the pros and cons, finally decided to take the plunge... Decided to move myself in the uncomfortable zone. Into a role, which calls for all the technical work, which I had been part of years earlier. Last few years with my last employer had been in a completely different area - project management, account management, customer relations. The role was challenging and I was enjoying it too. However, there were sudden bursts, which kept on popping up - what is it I would like to do 2 years from now, 5 years from now? (Thanks to some online influencers like Robin Sharma, Ramit Sethi, Seth Godin, Brad Feld and many more, of whom I am a regular reader of their blogs)
There are instances when you get some ideas, get excited about the new idea, you decide to do something about it later and you park it. Only to realize after a while that either you haven't built anything on that idea or someone has taken the actual step to build the product around the same idea. And then you go through the cycle of pain, frustration and what not. Happened with you? It did with me multiple times. And this, kind of forced me to start believing that if I need to work upon my own ideas, I need to dedicate time right away for that idea, otherwise, it won't happen. But in the services industry, that too, with 20 odd kilometers of driving one way (or should I say 120 mins on the road daily!!), it almost becomes impossible to spare some time for such ideas. The services industry definitely teaches you how to build a product, but not how to "own" a product. To be able to grow and do something about my own ideas, I wanted to be on the other side of the table... "Building" Vs "Owning". "Asking for confirmation on decision" Vs "Taking the decision and owning it".
With this thought, I finalized to change the gears and get on to a very different track and join a startup firm in Pune which has been operational for about 18 months or so with couple of their own products. By the time, I was getting relieved from my earlier employer, things changed suddenly and I landed up with another startup with the same person, but into a very different domain - mobility with retail - exciting concept and with proper execution we'd be reaching the masses of this country.
So here I am.. working from home for five weeks. Only three-four meetings in the entire week. 3-4 status calls and rest of the time - all hand-on. Went back to the technology. Basics of Java/J2EE, did some hands-on exercises to refresh the knowledge. Basics of cloud, Some new concepts like NoSQL. Working with Amazon AWS. Completely immersed into getting myself up to the speed. Got bugged down with some stupid nuances of Java like CLASSPATH and Resource files etc. Started drawing flow-charts, write code on paper first and then do actual coding. Cursed myself for overlooking few obvious design issues in the beginning, but looks like I am getting into the groove...
It is still a long way to go, feels like I am on right track... to discover myself, my capabilities.. to do something different, something that will touch millions around...
At the onset of the new year, with lot of hope in the mind, I wish you all a a very happy life, filled with prosperity and health. May this year bring some meaningful difference to each one of you.
Happy New Year 2012!!
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