Ela re ela

2022 started like any other year. Nothing unique. Spent time with family, good food and lots of pictures to capture the beginning of the year.

Due to bad health my work had suffered in the last year and I had not made enough profit to renew naukri.com for 2022. I decided to not have naukri.com. it took me a good 3 to 4 months after that to windup projects from existing clients. DS was one of my clients. I made good business with my seasonal client which was almost coming to  end. I informed DS that I won’t be working anymore. That is when Kavita offered me to work with DS as a full time

Some how I was excited because I never worked with a corporate company before. Either it was me alone working directly with clients or I worked directly with my ex boss. People joined Talent Selexion and left in a month or 2. So I always wanted to work in a company with more people.

I got disappointed when my final round of interview did not go well. The interviewer looked very strict which made me more nervous. I was sure of being rejected. After few weeks kavita came back saying that she fought for me and wanted me to join DS. It was very strange so I asked many questions and she convinced me saying it was all normal and assured me that once I join no one will hold anything against me. I joined DS.

I was excited to work with a big team but when I actually saw so many people sending welcome messages I got scared. I didn’t talk to anyone for a month. The only people I interacted to was Shrinath and Kavita because I knew them before I even joined DS.

Initially Shrinath kept pulling me up for everything. Later I showed him my blunt side, he said one thing to me and I said 2 things in turn. It was fun. However I realized he was a very nice person so I started behaving myself. We disagreed on many things and also had royal arguments on how he made decisions. In spite of all this I went to him whenever anything bothered me professionally. In fact more than my Manager I was comfortable talking to him. I guess he was the only person who had experienced the crazy side of me till then. I enjoyed irritating him at times. All said and done, I respected him more than anyone else there.

Slowly I started talking to other people. I really started enjoying. It was worth pushing my limits.

However there was something that was not right. I noticed Kavita had naukri.com subscription for her personal use through internal conneections. Simultaneously she wanted the compamy to have Linkedin subscription which was expensive. I was against the idea of having Linkedin subscription, when we could have naukri.com which was cheaper and very useful compared to Linkedin. Kavita asked me to stay quire and not express my views to the higher authorities, so i just let it go.

After meeting a few of them it became more easy to connect with everyone including the US team. I expected better understanding between me and Kavita after the Mumbai meetup. Shockingly Kavita’s attitude towards me changed overnight. She used to yell and say petty things without any valid reason. She created a rift between me and the ones I shared good bond. She did not wanted me to talk to anyone. I told her straight this behaviour was not acceptable and she had no good reason to behave that way. She still did not change and continued behaving badly. It was as if she wanted some reaction from me. After some days she started taking away my tasks and asked someone else to do it. I couldn’t take it anymore and reacted abruptly to it. By now I had realized how manipulative and cunning she was!

She played it smartly by showing that I was not performing well. When I confronted her with facts she conveniently said I was making too many mistakes and she had to train me for everything. She never really trained me on the things I actually needed training but lectured me for hours on things I was already good at. We all make mistakes including she but she made my little mistakes look big.

She asked me to quit and I put it back on her by asking a written notice. To cover up her own guilt she changed my department. Here again she pretended of being nice and giving me a chance to stay and not asking me to leave. I had strong reasons for not taking up the alternate  role. After working for 9 years as a Recruiter, a basic copy paste job did no justice to my skills. Moreover this caused a lot of strain to my eyesight and sitting in a posture looking at the screen closely caused a terrible back ache.

She again used this by saying I had problems working with people. My blunt nature was termed as arrogance.

I raised my voice against this but what was surprising was, people’s behaviour. The colleagues who encouraged me to take a stand and when I actually took a stand, suddenly changed and started supporting Kavita. It was understandable as it’s human tendency to stand by the person who is in a position of power. No one really want to get their hands dirty. Without addressing my concern, they hired someone else in my place.

My hardwork and dedidication was ignored as if I never existed. They spoke glories about the team publicly just to make me feel guilty? How easily they forgot I was a part of the same team. I guess they never really accepted me as a part of their team. I was hired because they didn’t have any other option that time.

There was no much scope but still I wanted to know what the COO had to say in the final call. As expected he started the conversation with listing my mistakes and said he could have taken action against me but did not. I wondered I had not done anything wrong then what action he would take against me. I had gone mentally prepared to listen silently to what he had to say because it was futile defending myself or arguing at this point. I didn’t really talk much but told him i dont want to quit. Somehow felt he genuinely wanted to help and keep me in the company. Later I received a mail stating my resignation was accepted. It was clear then, that he just tried to play.

I never asked for too much or any favors. Neither did I want anything exceptional. I just wanted my role back. The role  which I put my heart and soul into and worked dedicately. May be my approach was wrong but no matter whichever approach I adopted the result would be the same.

More than anyone else Shrinath’s behaviour hurt me the most. I didn’t expect him to support me but his indirect comments and taunts were almost killing.

This was my fight against my Manager but God knows why the others made this their fight against me.

It was too much of a trauma for my family to see me broken. So I decided to spend the last week of the year peacefully with my family.

Now when I think about all this I feel kavita alone could not have the guts to do all this. Sure she had support….!

Some fond memories of 2022

Continue reading Corporate Awareness

We all talk about inclusion, accessibility and equal opportunities to all but does it really exist in the so called corporate world?

Does our corporate world understand the needs of a differently abled person and support them in the way they should?

Does it exist in other areas of our life?

There are a few companies that conduct job fairs for people with different physical and intellectual problems. However there is still a large section out there unaware, unreached, uneducated.

It’s really nice to see people coming in large number and creating awareness on a certain day; World Cerebral Palsi day, World Autism day, etc…

Way back in 2018, World CP day, when I was felicitated with the Young Achievers Award by Adapt I was on cloud9. However such events should be conducted more often.

I remember a few years back when I went on a trip to Mumbai Darshan, all excited. I was disappointed when the Tourist Guide restricted me of getting off the bus at the first destination just because I may not be able to come back on time. This happened for the next 4 destinations. I finally raised my voice and said I didn’t pay you just to sit in the bus and people around supported, that was when the Guide apologized and let me visit the remaining destinations. We still need to reach out these areas for more accessibility and inclusion.

There are quite a few places where  they have palanquins to carry people with motion disability to their desired destination. One such place was ‘Elephanta Caves’ . Having the option to be carried I opted to climb up myself as I wanted to enjoy and explore every place there. Though I couldn’t walk for 2 days after that 😆 The palanquin is a nice facility for people with motion disability.  People are willing to extend support, all we need is to raise our concerns / voices wherever possible.

Due to these facilities I visited the Mysore Palace with a lot more ease and comfort

Companies are willing to hire differently able people but are they really aware about the problems people face after hiring. Many a times companies just don’t care. Owners are not aware of the politics being played by people to achieve their own agendas. And amongst this power game the sincere people suffer the most. People around are so clouded with their ego that they just don’t acknowledge that a person  with disability too can perform. It tales alot for a differently abled person to perform even simple tasks but the so called normal people just don’t understand. They do everything possible to make us feel incapable and eventually having us resign. Once we resign, they are very happy as if they have won a war.

Every person suffering from Cerebral Palsi come with a different set of physical and intellectual problems.

Like in my case, it’s difficult for me to keep up with speed and pace of my colleagues. I was lucky my first employer allowed me to work on my own system to make me more comfortable. I slowly picked up speed and also got over the vision issue by increasing the font size of my screen. Even after years of experience I still find it difficult to adjust in a new work environment. All we need here is patience and time.

I don’t make new friends easily. I only talk to a few known people around me. As a recruiter it was a real challenge for me interacting with new people day in day out. I still stammer at times but I manage interacting as much as needed professionally. Personally I still stay silent when it comes to interacting with a new person😁

I never faced any challenge getting into a normal school or college. For me I had ‘Inclusion’ , ‘Acessibity’ and ‘Equal Opportunities’ almost everywhere I stepped.

Ofcourse there were struggles but I had strong support everywhere I.e. family, friends and mentors. I feel like I was born with a silver spoon 😎.

This was my story but there are many out there still struggling for recognition. We need to reachout to more such people

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Continue reading Two Pillars