It was 6 in the evening.I was just about gona leave TATA STEEL,my client after a really hard day at work as my first assingment there had been reduced to flames thanks to my immature decision to employ 'civil engineers' for a construction work.How silly was that!!
My boss who seemed quite illogically relaxed after all the bashing he had received-
courtesy me, was like an ANGEL in what seemed to me like the '
era of EVIL' . Sprinting towards me, he uttered a statement that was easily the longest and the most cruel statements ever made."Stay back for the night,I'l arrange for your dinner, here at the plant itself and relieve you at 9 in the morning".It was funny how quickly I changed my opinion about him to that of smiling demon with my mouth left wide open and my head left with no option but to nod in approval.I wish I had a lifeline that could teleport me far far away from this prejudiced world that punished engineers for employing engineers.
That night was legendary.It had to be penned down and here I am doing just that.I realized, only that day, the reason my company provided its engineers with laptops.As I got busy with 'Friends season 4' (there was very little work required to be done as I had been deployed there as a mere supervisor that night),the contract labours stared at me as if I had just landed from the moon and was enforcing lunar fossil upon them.
Each human inside the Merchant Mill in TATA STEEL (my place of work) looked at me as though he had figured out the fact that I was documenting an assessment I had conducted on their brethren and was planning on sending it straight to Ratan Tata.I felt like a helpless guy watching porn with people thronging to catch a site of me.
It was a long night and my body's spalling resistance was being tested to the core.The working area was burning at 65 deg celcius and the little sleeping space-a makeshift stool made out of junk wood, long and strong enough to ensure a semi-peaceful half an hr nap which I had picked as my bed-for a night freezing at 12 degree celcius.With not much to do and my laptop's battery betraying me yet again, I switched to the THINKING mode, a world untapped for ages.What followed was 7 odd hours of thinking spiced with unlimited number of career options.But I ensured the introspection I did was worth every second I spent in the stinky work area.
Also, the more I tried to convince my conscious mind that I was a technical expert,the more my subconscious mind would get engrossed in a tussle with the former.It was a weird feeling.It wasnt long ago that I had been building castles inside my head-those of venturing into the technical field, excelling there and proving a point to all those who thought I could never belong there and blah blah blah-and I thought I was on the right track ,sadly only to realize the reality later.
My experiences during that visit to TATA STEEL have kinda changed the whole equation.Previously it was about the excitement the job would bring along with it.Now it seems more about the excitement I am missing due to this job.Its just not the thing for me. And to add, the fact that any other
'sane' metallurgist would'v craved for this job,both the profile and the money involved only adds to my belief of being '
The Biggest Loser.'
Countless such thoughts,million alternative options and gazillion people advising about my CAREER-all these have become a part of my life these days.Its unnerving,its complicated,its even irritating at times.But as my dad always says ," All that happens, happens for a reason" and the optimist inside me(though not prominent right now) tells me that there is something fantastic about happen,just that it doesnt happen as and when I want it to.
