SPEECHLESS ON SUNDAY

Another Milestone

When you get to be my age milestones are easier to come by.   Once you turn 50, it is often time to celebrate your silver wedding anniversary.  It has been more than 25 years since I was married, but as I got divorced I dont think I should celebrate its 25th anniversary.  Maybe I could celebrate the 25th anniversary of my divorce, but that is still far away.

I completed 25 years of my service with my newspaper last year.  But our office has a cut off date for counting the years,  and I missed it by one month. Hence, this was my 'official' 25th year.  This year there was a line-up of eleven people who completed their 25th and I was just one in the crowd. I got my mandatory Titan.  I don't wear wrist watches, but my son loves them.  So he gets to wear it.

These days the young ones forge ahead in their career by switching jobs strategically. This is the best way to get a sizeable enhancement in your salary and also get a few plummy promotions.  Sticking for too long in one job is seen as a thing a loser would do.  When I started working, people got one good job and stuck to it through their working life.  This mantra works wonders when you are in a government job with a healthy pension to look forward to, especially after Pay Commission 4.  But what about the poor privateers who have fallen between the two stools of modern careerism and the old stick-to-it style?  Our own company looks at us as if we were deadwood, our experience and knowledge are underestimated here (it shows up dismally in our yearly appraisals), and other companies (in India to be specific) are shamelessly ageist, so it is no longer feasible to switch jobs..

If I could go back to the early days of my career, I would make sure that I care more about me and my career.  Indeed, if I could regain my youth, I would spend it more in hitting my books and making sure I have a decent qualification than other things.  When I was undergoing training in computers, my teacher told me that harder I worked at the outset, the lesser I would have to do later on.  This is one mantra I found very useful every time I had to learn a new software. I could have applied it to my studies when I was young, and I could have had an easier career path at this stage.

Be a career monger.  Don't bother about milestones, they pop up after every mile, if you miss one, you can still make it to another.  You can buy a wrist watch of your own choice for a couple of thousands, but a career that pays you enough to live comfortably is priceless.