The Infy Experience- First Impressions

8: 30 am
The Staff Bus

She is studying for the module test scheduled at 9. It is her first test at Infosys. She reminds herself that she has to click pictures of her cubicle from her cell. She wants to show her family how nice and personal a space it is.


1: 30 pm
The Food Court

A group of friends are sitting around a table. Her classmates from college. They have read her blog, and know how uncertain she was about joining Infosys. The topic of discussion is the facilities provided. The vote is unanimous.

She likes the place. Especially her cubicle, she adds with a grin.


6 pm
The Cubicle

She’s been sitting there for the past four hours. She so loves the solitude it provides! It has a whiteboard, a pc, a phone- all her own. Today, she created her account on the Infy Communicator. She called a few friends and chatted with a few others. It was fun!

Life’s setting into a routine again, and it’s hardly as tough as she had imagined. She had worried that the job would cut her away from everything else she wanted to do. She’s learning that is not the case. She would need discipline to manage her time well, but it is possible. She can have a life outside of her job.

8: 30 pm
Home

Her mother happily tells her the latest about S, the son of her mother’s colleague. He was one year her senior. They had both prepared for IIT. He cleared. She didn’t. He was now being sent to US by the consultancy firm he had joined for a premium assignment. His mother had told her mother that he often says that she should have gone to IITs.

She listens quietly. The same empty loss gnaws at her. She didn’t go to the IIT. It is her single regret in life. And one that time has not been able to overcome.

Had she dropped that one year!

She often imagines the girl she could have been had she studied in an IIT. How different things would have been. How her mind could have flowered. How wide her options would have been. Perhaps, she would actually have become passionate about research? It was her childhood dream to discover something, or create something new. She had always seen herself as a blend of a researcher and a philosopher. Certainly, she was as eccentric as them! She wanted to be one of that select club. But in UIET, all her creative talents found only one outlet- Magboard. And so, today she plans to be a writer. Academics at college failed to rouse her! She sometimes shudders that if Magboard hadn’t happened either, the flame in her may have totally extinguished!

It is at moments like these that dissatisfaction arises in her, and makes her restless. Had she been an IITian, she would have got a job on her merit. Because she was intelligent. Or because she had solved some difficult problems that no one else had. Or maybe, because she had promising ideas.

In her current job, she is repeatedly told that the greatest talent of all trainees would be their learnability. The fact that they can let their minds be moulded as per “business requirements”.

She doesn’t know if she is actually capable of free thinking, or how intelligent she actually is. It may just be an illusion that she’s created for herself. But the fact is, that illusion makes it difficult for her to accept her reality. There is a huge gulf between the life she wished she had, and the life she has. She ought to make her decisions based on her reality, but she rather gets jumbled up in all the ideals that she creates under the spell of her illusions. She had no other option but this job in hand, and yet, she went declaring that she was not too sure if she would take it up or not.

She’s a funny, whimsical girl. Or rather, she’s too much of a romantic. She thinks too much, and then lets those thoughts warp the realities.

The reality is that the job has given her a sense of security. She has been writing regularly now, and with joy. That is something she has been unable to do for a long time. Because, each time she would set to write, she would get anxious about how important it was that she should write well, and that her book should be a success. She was leaving it all for her writing. She could not afford to fail in that. It was a tremendous pressure on a new, naïve writer like her. She could not take it. Each time, she found it easier to just get up from her desk, and do something else.

Now, she can afford to write the way she wants. Her focus has shifted to learning her craft, rather than publishing. She feels calm. Light. She looks forward to her hour on her novel. Her job has set her free.

It is a big gift.

The job is good too. Infosys takes very good care of the employees. Truly world-class facilities are made available to them. It’s a great work environment. The work culture too is very good. The one thing that truly amazes her is the meticulous planning that has gone into each and every aspect of the organization. It is a marvel! To create processes that can provide individual attention to each employee, when there must be more than seventy thousand employees!

Infoscions wear their identity cards around their neck in a black thread. On the first day, she had done it awkwardly. She had felt that it would dissolve her identity and reduce her to just an Employee Number. But by Friday that week, she had started liking it. It made her feel a part of the organization.

She will not say that she is proud to be an Infoscion. That would be too committed a bond to the company, that she hardly feels yet. But, the company has impressed her. It has earned her respect and admiration. She is glad that she joined it.