A bit into Flashback-
It was sometime in last October through gtalk/phone that Nikmo told me about his plans to come to Paris as he was about to take some apprentice course at Spain in the coming March. This was the time when my plans were just about to kick off and I was all set to sail in November. Though I was very excited I had also some stupid thought that since my assignment would be of 6 months starting November, I feared I might miss him. You see, some bizarre thought in my mind told me that March would come after April and actually felt really sad. Furthermore I wanted to talk to Kishor/Pranav (my TL/Manager) and ask them if I can extend my trip by 15 days just so that I can meet Nikmo who was scheduled to come March 9th. It was only when I discussed this with none less than my dad I got the wake up call. This added on to my Legendary absent-mindedness in my family and they still talk about it for now.
Anyways, it felt like a long time then. As months passed, days started getting near to my Paris trip, even the one and a half month for his arrival felt as if there is a year in between. Somehow by being away from the thought that he was going to come soon, it felt I could enjoy the feeling of waiting and reunion for much longer time. Now he has come and gone just like that. Everything has happened and it has been one of the most memorable days of my life being with him on those 3 days. The last week has been the most hectic week and I couldn’t pen down my thoughts as I hoped too.
Pre-Homecoming -
March 9th was no ordinary day in my life, not when Nikmo is coming anyway. That whole week we had been literally pushed to the limits for the work. As they say, when things are supposed to go bad, everything comes stumbling down. I had issues to deal with in all the segments of the projects, some of which were quite stable until then. Just a day before I was expected to take leave half day my ever so charming and as cunning as a Fox, William (my current Lead) had in one of our meetings almost convinced me to make my leave a half a day one. Through his nice persuasive arguments, gently reminding me about the project commitments, the pressure from above, the dependencies of other teams, the urgency of the tasks, what not, everything in the book, he got me to agreeing to let me come work up till 1 or 2 in the afternoon and then push off. Soufir, another colleague of mine, rightly says he is the perfect Businessman and he gets what he wants. Though I put a brave front agreeing upon everything I wasn’t happy inside. I worked frenetically on Wednesday closing upon as much as I can. I just can’t see this happening. It is one of those unspoken principles that if one had to chose between Project and Personal life, one needs to do justice to his bread and butter. This time I was desperate to break this one for one single time. I was ready to be their slave and work my ass off for the rest of my stay here excepting this one day. I was feeling restless and unhappy. The nest day around afternoon the situation stayed the same. I didn’t want to tell any of this to Nikmo through mails and start off his welcoming to Paris in disappointment.
Around 5:30 we had another meeting for the status updates. These are never short and I was feeling tensed and my mind was elsewhere altogether. I was supposed to catch Nikmo by 7:30 at airport. And then a miracle happened. It seems somehow because of the varied works I was handling, William had a talk with powers that be and convinced them that our team needed one more day to give the deliverables. So we had our deadline postponed by theoretically one day but in actual over the weekend. I was so overjoyed that I want to jump and hug William and everybody around. He did it and I have much more tremendous respect for him.
Frankly when worse comes to worst, I knew it was just matter of half a day that I would be losing. We still had 2 and a half days to look forward to. But thank god, it didn’t and William came to my rescue. The trip would definitely not be the same with that half day gone. It was the most unexpected and completely unplanned days ever and the way it went was just about perfect.
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