First of many...

I began 2007 on a slightly pessimistic note, apprehensive of the changes it will bring for me personally and professionally.. but one is usually afraid of the unknown.. I was afraid of the known! Well.. the mystery is beginning unravel.. the hazy shapes are beginning to take form, and the first of many tough decisions has been made - today.

We shifted into a new building at work this Monday.. I don't like the new office or my desk here, but its a change, and change is always refreshing, if not necessarily comfortable... I didn't want to leave the previous office because its where I first started working, and its been my office for the past 3 1/2 yrs! Ok, 2 yrs (not counting 1 1/2 yrs when I wasn't in Delhi).. so its got memories.. lots of them.. long coffee breaks, walks around the garden, the "parties" on the terrace where people ate samosas and watched the others dance and make fools of themselves, where the HR organised musical chairs and people ran around office chairs looking like 2nd std. kids prancing around! Its where I started with working 16 hrs a day and grew up into a "lead", implying my work hrs and work load reduced considerably... where I liked to walk up and down the labyrinth of stairs, where no one staircase was directly connected to another! Where the library was a place you could actually consider hanging out in, and where we had many "talks" in the amphitheatre and the only audible thing would be people's cellphones ringing off with different bollywood songs!

If leaving a building can cause so much "heartbreak" for me, imagine what leaving my first job can do! Ok, technically this isn't my first job, what with various summer internships etc where I got my "first salary" and blew it up on gifts! But this is my first job in a real career.. This is my first company.. and its tough... to first make the decision, and then to actually abide by it... and today is the day.. and it feels weird.. I am happy, excited, yet sad.. given that I am such an emotional fool, I do actually attach a lot of importance to the friends I've made in office, some of whom are my closest, most trusted friends.. I attach importance to my bosses, whom I have learnt a lot from, who have taught me to be patient, to manage work, to understand deadlines, to even learn office politics!! I attach importance to the respect I've earned and the pride I feel when random people from the team come to me and say "we were told u're the best person to tell us about this!"... And, there is a great amount of comfort that one develops with the people whom one has managed to stick with for more than 3 yrs! In this day and age of fast moving jobs and quick bucks, I'm one of the few people in my college batch who has actually stayed with the same company I joined with from campus! And thats coz they have given me a lot of rewards, and so thats brought out my loyalty for them! I've learnt a lot in these few yrs, and I've been lucky in getting what I wanted almost before asking for it! So, decisions like the one I have made today are not easy, but like I said earlier, 2007 isn't going to be an easy year for me!

But the first of a series of tough decisions has been made, and today is a milestone of sorts... lets see how the rest of the year unfolds!