You is kind, you is smart, you is IMPORTANT!

This happened few years ago. I was working with an IT company as business unit HR. I got a call on my cell, I sensed that something was wrong because normally I don't get calls after office hours. When I answered the phone, never did I expect that it would be such a horrible news. One of my associate who was working in Sydney committed suicide, he jumped off from the harbor and drowned to death. I could not move for next few minutes and was very shocked to hear the news. He was just 25-26 years old and he decided to take his own life at a very depressing time of his life. The reason for his suicide is unknown, there was no note or letter written. And it confounds me every time I think how it could have been prevented. 

Emotional well being is very important and is directly related to the overall health of a person. The residual effect of one's personal problems will crawl its way into the employee who is at work as well.  An average employee spends around 9 hours of his quality time in office. This is apart from the time spend for commutation, work done from home, discussing office matters with spouse or friends etc. That is more than 80% of your time. Now imagine if you are going through personal problems like:-

- Relationship issues - break up, divorce and legal battles related to it, parenting struggles

- Financial struggles like mortgage, huge loan, struggle to maintain a certain lifestyle

- Health related issues to self or near and dear ones

- Other problems which includes but not limited to sense of loneliness, depression, addictions, emotional baggage, substance abuse etc.

How does one person deal with such problems in life especially when you are spending majority of your time at office? You will never know what your colleague is going through unless you pay close attention to them. Nature has provided us with fight or flight response as a self defense mechanism. Some people hide away their problem and pretend to be jolly good even when they are crying for help inside. That is a flight response. Others may withdraw from everything trying to fight the battle on their own and they seldom win. Sometimes all one need is little bit of your time. Active listening, recognition and appreciation can be considered as the CPR which can literally resuscitate a person who has hit rock bottom. 

Ted Bauer is a blogger and a well known twitter figure especially in the HR circle. Below is his one of his tweet which caught my attention:-

A kind word or a gesture can really make a difference no matter how irrelevant you might think it is.The single word 'Matters' at the end of the above tweet proves it. I know this because I have been there myself. A kind housekeeping staff in my previous office said "ellaam sheriyakum madam" (everything will be alright) when I was on verge of bursting into tears inside the restroom. It meant a lot to me because at that point I felt that no one appreciates what I do and I felt invisible. But this lady who was part of my Spoken English training class (a CSR initiative) noticed me and she said "excuse me ,good morning madam, elaam sheriyakum" we were teaching to exchange pleasantries and she was using the words she learned in the class. She told me that her kids and husband were so surprised that she has started using English words in their daily conversation. I made a difference, the whole volunteers of that CSR initiative has made a difference in that woman's life. That was all the motivation I needed that day.

It also make me wonder if somebody had said this same sentence to the 25 year old boy who committed suicide maybe he would be alive today. All he needed was someone to tell him like Aibileen said to Mae Mobly in the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett,

"You is kind, you is smart, you is IMPORTANT" 

Serendipity of life

Serendipity of Life 

Fate has always worked against me and my wishes, maybe because it knew what I want is not what I need. When I was a teenager all I ever wanted to do was move out of my parents' house and live in a city far away from home. I don't know why I felt that way. I have great parents and two loving sisters, my mom is still my best friend and dad is the one who shaped me to be bold and strong. I guess its because I always wanted to be independent and for a teenager, the ultimate independence is living on your own. I swore to myself that I will go to college in a big city. But because of numerous reasons, I couldn't. I ended up studying in the same city where I grew up. 

Then I thought maybe when I start working, I will move out. This was easily achievable because most of the companies that visited my campus were offering jobs in big cities. I was so sure that I would also be placed in one of the metro cities. There was a company that I was following since the first semester of my college, and I so badly wanted a job there. But on the previous day of the interview I found out that I am not qualified because I did not have engineering or science background. Note that this was an HR position in one of the leading IT companies in India. I was heartbroken, never did I imagine that my degree would stop me from joining HR position in an IT company. And then came Arbitron, a media measurement company all the way from the US of A. I instantly fell in love with them, loved the culture, job profile and they offered me a nice package. It was a steal, I prepared for the interview and it went smoothly. I was confident but competition was fierce so I dint keep my hopes high. Long story short, they offered only one student from my college and that was me. That was one of the happiest days of my life. My parents were so proud. The only problem was my dream of living alone in a big city was shattered as the position offered was guess where ...MY HOMETOWN again. I had to stack away that little dream to a corner of my heart.

Joining Arbitron was one of best decisions I had ever taken in my life. I learned so much from there and some of those lessons will be with me forever. This is also where I met Anish Aravind who was my Boss and Mentor (he still is). I can only describe him as a driven yet weird guy. Anish is weird because I am yet to meet another person who has so many hobbies and is doing extremely well in all of those. He is good at badminton, bird watching, umpiring, fishing, networking events and heaven knows what else. He can quickly identify patterns and future trends in HR. Using social media for HR purposes was unheard of in a small town like Kochi during that time, yet he directed me to explore it further. This led me to experience the true power of social media. I could not believe that top HR professionals with decades of experience would read my tweet and respond to it. 

I wonder what kind of HR would I have been if my first boss was someone who micromanages, or someone who doesn't like changes or questioning the relevance of a strategy or policy. I would not have been my true self and soon I would have started hating my job. But nature has created wonderful serendipity, my team was great. My mentor taught me the true meaning of empowerment and accountability. I presented a case study of our company at a HR conference hosted by National HRD Network at Hyderabad when I had just 2 years of experience. There were at least 300+ HR professionals from across India as audience and the panel had some of the top notch HR VPs and Directors of big MNCs. I was nervous but Anish motivated me to go for it. We were shortlisted for the next round which in itself was a big deal for me. I cannot imagine getting such level of national exposure if I was working somewhere else. "What's in it for me" was a phrase that is often used in our office meetings.  He would make me think about "What's in it for me" from the viewpoint of all stakeholders involved while creating HR strategies or launching a new initiative. This helped me to be more prepared and execution of strategies were much easier. 

Arbitron was special to me because of another super important reason. This is where I met my soul mate, my husband and my best friend in the entire universe. Justin and I are happily married for more than 4 years now and we have a beautiful daughter named Elizabeth (Elisha). These two are my brats and they both drive me crazy, I wouldn't trade them for the world. Who would have thought I would meet my future husband at my first job, a guy who casually came to ask if he could borrow the newspaper would become the father of my child?? If I was in some other city or in some other company like the IT giant I mentioned earlier I would have never met him. I got a great head start on my career and I also found the love of my life. Like I said serendipity....now you know the reason behind my blog's name.