The college has ended and the cruel world has called me to wake up for the professional world ahead. It just seems another big transition in my life. The heart stops merely on the thought that there will be no more bunks, no more last night studies and no canteen pranks. But as they say “Life goes on”.
I, like my other friends, was busy in enjoying my last vacations after completing the college when my mobile rang one afternoon and whoopee, I received a call for joining CAPGEMINI. Unlike planned, I had to prepare to move to Mumbai with just 3 days for preparations. So I got my air tickets done as soon as possible and started shopping the very next day. Done with everything, I kept a day reserved for my family and all the closed ones. Final day, 11th of August, 2011, at Jammu, I bade good bye to Milan Pal Singh (my best buddy, wingman, bro). Some more good friends were there at Airport to see me off.
I was very much excited for my first air travel, but it all ended when I got the news that the flight is delayed by more than 2 hours and that we have to spend rest of the time doing nothing at the airport. Finally after a long wait, we got our boarding and I along with Goldy and Divya were sitting on the plane and reached Mumbai at around 10 in the night. We rented a room in some hotel nearby and had a nice sleep.
And finally the D-day had arrived; we had to reach office in time for our joining. It was a whole new experience seeing everyone in formals going for their work with badges hanging around their neck. We were looking straight into our future. The joining formalities started at around 10:00 in the morning and went up to 7:00 in the evening. We experienced some problems in completing the formalities as, unlike every other university in India, our final semester results were not out yet. At first, they asked us to wait while other new joinees were completing their bank account forms etc. Then, after a long wait, our recruiter came to us and apologized for the delay. She asked us to return back to our home town and come back for joining as and when the results are out. We went furious. We asked her to let us talk with the management and that they can’t do this to us as we had informed about this condition prior to our travel. First she refused but then, after we insisted a lot, she asked us to wait in a common area while she discusses this issue with the management. We started calling HRs who were in contact with us when we were informed about our joining. They assured us that there ain’t gonna be any problem and that we should feel secure. After a while, the recruiter returned to us and said “Abhi tak kitni gaaliya de di Capgemini ko. Lo maan li tumhari baat. But you have to sign a legal agreement that you have to produce results by end of this month and your employment is subjected to you scoring more than 60% in final sem.” We were finally happy and started jumping in joy. The last couple of hours was like we were protesting against Britishers (Although company is French :P). Finally we got our formalities completed and had the joining letter in our hands. We also made some friends on the first day and then returned back to the hotel room and had a good heavy dinner and felt asleep. The 1st professional day had finally ENDED.
