Live life to the fullest... stay young!!

What is it like to swim against the tide? Tiring? Stressful? Challenging? Well, the best persons to answer this question are the numerous employees in the BPO and call center sector. They arise when the set sets.. and work through the night, defying the laws of nature. The work they do is not always pleasant. Most often work pressure suffocates the youngsters and kills their ability to grow and learn.

There is an old saying “ As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold”, What I would like to say to this is why not try cold coffee instead..? Adopting the right attitude can covert negative stress into positive growth. Work is either fun or drudgery, it depends on your perception. Perceive work as monotonous and the greatest of jobs would be just mundane, try innovations at whatever you do, viola!! you have a wonderful challenging job! Whatever you do, do not forget to get a good laugh at least twice a day. You cannot hold back a good laugh any more than you can the tide. Both are forces of nature. So go ahead and let go..!

These are some everyday events at our crazy work place. Take a peek at some of our ways of beating stress and keeping the atmosphere lively and loud..!

One of my colleagues has the responsibility of reporting human resource statistics and analyzing the results. One day he was generating a report and could not co-relate some cities that he saw on the report with the relevant states. Thinking that a map would help him, he printed out a couple of copies. Another curious colleague asked him why he was printing out maps. He responded “I just want to ensure that everything is in place”, sending roars of laughter across the floor. The poor guy did not comprehend what was wrong for a long time, and when he did, he quickly clarified about the importance of maps in his reporting function.

I belong to the human resources information management department. This essentially is a department that is placed in isolation because of the sensitivity of the information that is handled here. Hence, we are located in a separate building with dual access points. One day over tea, I casually mentioned that our floor looked dull, and we need to do something to brighten it up. I requested all the team members to put down a couple of points that would support this endeavor and pass them on to me to initiate the process of brightening up a dull work-place. I received an overwhelming response. Most of them talked about preparing colorful posters, decorating the pin-board, using bright colors on the walls etc., one of my team members even said that in order to have a colorful floor, we should hire a couple of air-hostesses, (preferably steal some pretty gals from Vijay Mallya’s group!), to replace the security guards! The best one that I got was from a female colleague who simply said “wear a smile and stay young.. Its contagious and makes the place lively and colorful”

Stress is an unsolicited perk that comes with Jobs such as mine. On one particular day, nothing was going right, I had a project presentation scheduled for the next day, and the tool that we had developed as a time saver, was just returning wrong results, making me very nervous. One of my colleagues decided to lighten up the situation. He came up to me and said, ”Hey Vidhya, what are you doing tomorrow morning?” I replied mechanically, ”Nothing much, why?” He adopted a tone of request and said “Would you mind accompanying me?” “Where to?” I asked curiously. “Big bazaar... they have an offer going on now... it says bring anything old and exchange for new.. Would you mind coming?” Now, that brought a smile to my face. When I mentioned about this to my husband he promptly replied “That was not a very nice thing to say!, By the way, how long did he say the offer was valid?” So much for guys and their strange ways!

On another one of the crazy days, I had an IM (Instant message) from our directors’ in US. “Yo Vid, have a couple of minutes? I have a question for you.” Of course I could not refuse a Director some time, so I answered in the affirmative. Pop came the question “What did you have for breakfast?” I almost fell off my chair! He mentioned that it is good to start a stressful conversation on a lighter note and then moved on to the serious work related questions.

Our Operations manager is always a busy person. He always has hundreds of issues to resolve and is always seen doing 10 things at the same time. One day, I needed to speak to him for a couple of minutes, so I approached him and said “Hey, can I disturb you for a second?” To this he simply replied “No need to ask…haven’t you disturbed me already?”

I could quote hundreds of such everyday happenings that make it a pleasure to come to work. We are a whole bunch of positive people. A little crazy but full of life, probably, that is the reason we are able to excel in whatever we do.

So, live by example.. wear a smile.. Don't let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries, Think positively and put your best foot forward… success cant be far behind!