Tag: Living

Life at work and life with life itself

Posted on by natasha shilbhadra in lessons i have learnt

A lot of us are excited to begin office work for the first time after college thinking we will finally land into the job of our dreams. Literally and finally.! Our one and only happiness here seem to be only one thing.

  • No more books.
  • No more exams
  • No more semester fees.
  • No more standing in front of HOD/Principal’s office for skipping classes and giving reasons for lack of attendance.
  • And most important to-do for any student is to mark their names with a white marker on tables and chairs they sit. So when someone asks “is this your chair?” Then you proudly say “Yes. Its mine. See my name here.” So that only you can own and not others. As this was the only property as students we will have only once. Because once after you pass out of college, the next generation will take over your property.

Trust me. You will miss all this fun in the office. And you will wish you could go back to where you started never wanting to grow up. Because once you enter into a workplace, life sucks for no reasons at all.

There is a similar comparison between college and office.

  • A1. During college, You sleep and wake up on a fixed schedule unless you have to sleep late to work on your reports / record submission.
  • 2. During office, you sleep and wake up depending on your work schedule such as domestic / night shift.
  • B2. During college, and during exams, your body suddenly props up at 3am with books in hand. This is where your alarm clock becomes your best friend for waking you up. (Talk about desperate times, desperate measures.)
  • 2. During office, no 3 am owl sitting business unless you have to work on heavy projects.

Either ways both seems to be stressful. But an advantage here is, there’s a period to complete your college and get graduated and there’s no going back to re – graduate unless of course you want to study further. That’s entirely for you to decide.

Let’s talk work now.
Face this :- everyone is going to judge you from the minute you say “hi” to “bye”. The way you eat, table manners, how you sneeze and would you say “excuse me” after you sneeze.. this shouldn’t be a concern / worry to you because everybody has faced this experience everywhere.

Office facts

1. You have to report early for work and swipe your ID card for attendance. If you don’t do this, you will miss your day’s salary. Your college doesn’t do this because you pay to get educated. But at work, you want money,? You come, slog and get it.

2. If you know you are going to be late for work, call up the office and inform you will be late. This will save you from being questioned later. And if you think traffic is the reason for being late, leave home minutes early to avoid traffic. Everyone knows traffic is never ending problem. Saying that as an excuse doesn’t look good on your part.

3. A lot of people with whom I have worked till now have missed their morning break fast and rush for work thinking skipping meal could save the trouble from running late and not realizing the health hazard you bring upon your own body. In simple words, skipping break fast regularly makes you want to eat more during lunch because you were empty stomach whole time and thus eating more cause your body to weigh more over time. This is purely unhealthy and dangerous way to put on weight. There are better ways to put on weight if you want to. But not this way.

4. Then comes the famous part. The burnout. Where everyone becomes crazy for no reasons.

You may have heard of “deal your office work at office and house work at house”

Its not so easy to find a trustworthy colleague and confide everything about you to him/her. Rumours and gossips spread quick. But when you find someone of worth your trust, you will know. Just like how you choose your friends. Similarly when office matters bother you, find someone to talk about it. They could be your parents / spouse / friends. Because once you do, you will be surprised to know how good it is to have people around to talk on everything and anything.. talking itself is a de-stress and is natural therapeutic healer.

5. Take part in office activities like games, touring. Or you can give ideas to organize events and fun activities once a week inside office premises.. participate in such programs and use your talent here to sing/ dance. Exposing your talent shows who you are than slogging 8 hrs a day with your work. Remember all work, no play makes Jack a dull boy ?

6. When getting into a new job for first time, before saying “yes” to it, ask yourself a question. What kind of job do you want to work ? Night shift or day shift ? I once turned down an offer that asked me for night shift. Since that was my first job opportunity, I said I will work for the nights without realising what I was saying. Then 2 days prior my joining date, I realised night shift is not what I wanted. And the work place was far away. I asked myself “is this really what I need? Travelling 25 kms up and down, is this all worth ? Spoiling my sleep and health and putting myself into something I’m not comfortable?”
A week after I said No to this, I got another “job of my dream” that is simply 20 mins from my house.

In simple words, I will simply say life is a KISS – Keep it simply simple/sweet. All you have to do is to test the waters and look before you leap.