Uncertain Times!!

The new year starts with uncertainty if not depressing. The company I work for has announced involuntary attrition which means that non-performing employees would be asked to leave immediately.

However it seems that the company is targeting high salaried employee rather than performance. Again this is as per the various news and rumors floating around. The company has not defined any criteria of the lay-offs publicly . This is generating more anxiety and a feeling of uncertain future in the mind of the employees.

I will not comment on the company policy, I guess any company has to take a decision based on what the market and shareholders expectations. After all business defines success on the return of Investment. It cannot be justified or debated upon or rather I wouldn’t want to.

But then the new years starts with a negative feeling and that may harm the company in the long run. Again I am no expert in corporate affairs and its my personal thoughts but an exercise like that where the company targets senior executives who have given 5-20 years to the company might be a tougher on the executive who has to look for a job at that age.

In any job once you start moving up the ladder, the stress and responsibilities increases. There is no fix office timing and personal and family time is what you get in between your work.

The ongoing layoff exercise is shrouded in secrecy and with no concrete information coming from the company, it leads to lots of rumors and a negative image of the company leadership. I guess the company was ready for that too.

Those who leave or made to leave will definitely have a tough time but those who remain will be worse. A sword of unexpected doom will always hang on the employees head. What it will do to their performance and their morale will certainly not be a positive one.

Every employee will be looking at jumping ships at any available opportunity. Employees have lots of expectations and ideas about how a project or company should run. The position or reality at the top is not as per employee thinking.

As for now today, I am not in the list but it does not mean I will not be. The last 3-4 years, I have done well in terms of work but then with no clear criteria, the future always hangs by a thread.

If not this year then next year. The company performance is all about profit and optimizing cost. So either I cry over it or take it in the stride. I need to upgrade myself. Get the borrowed time I have to make myself more relevant in the industry.

There is a feeling of insecurity and only option is to face it. With a family to care off, its their future also that makes me more worried

The feeling of unemployment is scary even if I look brave. I don’t know the people who actually lost thier jobs must be feeling.

Its a scary world out there.

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Coming Soon!

Hindi movies has educated me in the wrong way. I have been fed with lies from the world of make-believe

Consider an example where the doctor comes to the heroine house and checks her pulse and informs the whole family “Mubarak ho! Yeh maa banne wali hai” (Congrats! She is pregnant). Or when the girl/heroine vomits, it is an indication that she is pregnant or girls get pregnant with their lovers/husband in one night in the rain.  Remember “Roop tera mastana”. The reaction depends on whether she is married or not!

It does not happen that way! Its so misleading so wrong. Conceiving is a very complex process. So complex that we had to wait almost a year to actually hear the good news.

Yes! That’s right! Amu is pregnant and we have crossed the half way already. The arrival is scheduled to be in August.

And as I said its no way easy getting pregnant! A lot many visits to the doctor to understand the conceiving process, numerous test and a lot of frustration. There is actually a very small window of less that two days when a woman can actually conceive so you both really need to time that ….err….you know…I mean…..I know you know

And then that sperm, that hard working, lucky sperm has to reach the egg and then there is a chance that even if the sperm reaches the egg they will not be compatible to make a life.

And the doctor is never sure and not once did they check her pulse, not once. I was so disappointed.

Nowadays you have pregnancy kit to make sure if the results are positive and the few minutes to actually see the colour change are no less exciting as the last scene of a murder mystery movie when the murderer is to be revealed.

Yes! Its that difficult and its no child play!

After trying for many months, we actually visited a doctor, a specialist one. The next two months were even more frustrating as he made us rush and run completing one test after another. It was tiring and stressful that we wondered how are we going to be in mood to make her body relax. Then he would get angry and expected us to follow everything he said without asking many questions. After all had big degrees and many trophies on the wall.

We finally decided that we did not need such an expert and can actually work with someone with not many trophies on the wall. The second and our current doctor turned out to be so cool that we sometimes like to visit her just for nothing. She said that we should try and not worry about it which was our original goal when we decided that we need to become parents.

It took 2 pregnancy kit and two blood test to confirm that we finally were successful getting the sperm and egg to fall in love but finally they did.

But it was not before some extraordinary knowledge addition. We searched and researched every test we did. We went through our reports and explored the Internet to know what it actually meant. We found some weird ideas to get pregnant. We were advised by many weirder ideas to get pregnant. The food to eat to get pregnant and the food not to eat to get pregnant.

Giving pregnancy advice is like hitting a lucky six in the local play ground when the bat accidentally had hit the ball and then using that six all your life to actually comment on Sachin Tendulkar batting and forming opinion how he should have played or not played. Its that easy!

So after about 5 months we started seriously trying to have a baby, we achieved success. All doubts about us were cleared. I mean seriously! People doubt a lot!

People do have a lot of interest in others life. During my struggle to get married, people said that marriage was the one step to happiness as if not getting married was solely my fault. After marriage, suddenly they were not happy. They wanted us to have children and every function gave them the opportunity to ask the question.

If only they can understand that conceiving is not as easy as adding milk to tea. It requires timing, precession, hard work, stress and a lot of luck

But then now done and waiting, it was not before its own share of drama….. With its own suspense moments. Something about that….maybe later!

 

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