As my tenure with Reliance ADAG approaches the end, the emotions wrapping around has shades similar when I left Tata Consultancy Services, in summer of 2007. Undeniably there are comparisons:
- I joined both these organizations, from campus. So I carried the carefree attitude of a student and walked in the board room with a set of friends with whom you had shared late night Maggie or gulped mugs of coffee and shared stories before. There was a companionship and support structure with you when you enter the gates the new world. The platform where you were before joining the organization and set up you need to get geared to are same for all these campus hirees, so the degree and steps of adjustment are same, example living together again in same or near by apartments, the same mode of commute, the same period of shopping spree and lot others.
- Both of these organizations are conglomerates, so huge, so much so that, even a set of 200 campus hirees could get lost and its becomes difficult to be pin pointed, your group becomes your camouflage. One refers to you as MT ( Management Trainee) or GET ( Graduate Engineer Trainee) or simply Trainee. You are given space of time and comfort, nursed and treated with series of programs to help you assimilate to main stream.
The noise and color of excitement level, when 200+ invade offices straight from campus is so vibrant. The rest of world looks on with curious eyes and sometimes with eyes of interest.
So I move on to take the first step of my corporate life, to move from one organization to other rather than a campus. I think, Change is inevitable and 6 years after graduating from REC Trichy, it is too late an experience. As I leave Reliance, I look back to those times when I had been cribbing about the culture and work ethos, quite a similar way to which I had done at TCS, also the lack of opportunities and grooming but also losing a set of close buddies who made the journey look so beautiful and memorable.
But this is inevitable and confrontation is the best way forward, so “Keep walking - Move on “
