FIRST JOB – FIRST EXPERIENCE.

MY FIRST JOB

This is an old article from :Young India"and this is my fresh attempt t recollect and present for freshers.
I am sure many will find it happenning with them...

 FIRST  JOB – FIRST EXPERIENCE.

A child at birth is without any credentials except the parentage. The baby gradually gets aged in seconds, minutes and hours. Then in days, weeks , months and years. Suddenly “the youngest”  tag goes to some other baby very soon even in the joint family.

The baby may be youngest or the only one in the family, gradually grows learning the things like crawling, walking running etc. Then starts talking and at a later age starts going to kindergarten and then to school.

When joins the KG, baby might be the youngest in that lot of lowest class but sooner new ones join and the baby is no more the junior most or the youngest.

After KG comes the primary school. The journey restarts and the tag of youngest / lowest level re-appears. Here child studies from class one to five and having grown from youngest class to the senior most class. Then  the child shifts to a higher level of school called middle school and again starts from the junior most class to grow gradually to the senior most class.

This trend continues from middle school to high school, intermediate and the Degree College and then post graduation and may be Doctoral positions. At every level the ‘junior most’ tag re-appears and gradually disappears with the growth.

In the process the child starts from the lowest position, climbs the ladder and reaches senior most position and gets into next level at the lowest position and grows  again to the top. At every level the one gets a feeling of senior most but the same is withdrawn at the very next level becomes the junior most again.

Then starts service hunt, which is the case of most of the students. Then written tests and interviews shake the confidence to quite some level. When selected by a company as trainee or an staff /officer ( employee) the candidate has to join again at the junior most level. Every one in the organisation is senior, may be by age or by position. The irony is that all talk and boast about the seniority in some field but the field in which they are junior are never discussed.

Everyone likes to preach the new comer regarding ways to follow, in their own way. The new comer gets absolutely confused which to follow and which to ignore. This society is quite heterogeneous and there are a variety of personalities. Some genuinely help, whereas some cheat creating wrong notions & illusions and enjoy sadistic pleasures. Some due to jealousy, that tomorrow the new candidate may surpass me if I teach -  misguide devastatingly.

Besides all these, there are so called ‘frustrated lot’ who have already spoilt their careers ( for whatever reasons) and life for some reason or the other and guide others to follow suit. This lot is completely dissatisfied lot and always see problem with the people and system. To them nothing in the organisation is in good / right order.

All that matters is presentation and state of mind of the new comer. The varieties of advisors are so many for the new comer that it becomes difficult to judge how and where to go. In the age of formation and information, the task becomes more and more difficult as the quantum of information available to the candidates is too much to confuse badly.

At this stage there will be pacifiers and some of the oldies provide solace, who could gauge the moods of the candidate. Now it is solely to the candidate, who has to make the judgment.

This remains for first few months and then the youngster starts adjusting to the ambience and gradually comes to know where to rely upon. Here starts the actual grooming of the new comer for the office position.

In the name of the training at most of the institutions there is no one to guide as is expected by the new comer. One has to learn by one self. Therefore no one will try to involve the new comer in the activities as things  have to be explained up to the clarity , which they themselves might not be possessing. This is also because of  loss of confidence and phobia of getting exposed. Practically it turns out to be on the job training as if to learn swimming, you are thrown in to a pool of water to reach the bank swimming. Naturally for the fears of demise, one tries the best possible way to survive. Those who reach the banks have survived and rest are under the water in the pools.

It may please be noted that the tag of youngest sticks repeatedly from the infancy to the employed age. Therefore one is fed up listening to this often repeatedly by the time one approaches the working stature in employment.

Many a times like first step of the baby or like the first spelt-word of the baby, the first day in school / college and the work place is given equal importance. On date the subjects may not be as important but on a later day, when the same is revisited , it communicates bagsful and provides insight into how one has guided, who is genuine to be believed and who was to be ignored. Whether the actions taken were correct of analysis made should have some amends.

Once these are well thought of and concluded, fresh new comers, like you are today, can be guided to right path, to which you could not be guided by your seniors when it was anticipated from them.  New comers can certainly be cautioned against the known misguiding personalities in the right perspective, so that they should get the right advise for getting into the main stream as fast as possible so that the on hand training starts at the earliest possible opportunity and provides ample lead or gestation time to grow in the organisation suitably and in right direction.

Have your experiences in memory so that you can guide nexr G in right perspective - at least to your honesty.

But there is always a risk that the next G counts you too amongst the rest and may not belive at times ... that certainly hurts but that is the trend of the day... you will have to bear with it.

M. R. Iyengar.