How a ‘Not-So-Easy’ decision turned out to be the best 5 months of my life:
Life throws its own challenges at different people in different forms. Luckily when compared to most people’s lives I have got to know, I have had the luxury of leading a quite a comfortable life till now, thanks to my parents.
There was a slightly turbulent phase in my life when I was in my final year of my UG (Engineering). I was someone who maintained a very clean or rather an enviable academic record right from my childhood, being in the top 10% percentile right through my school. During my engineering tenure I still managed to maintain grades above average. In my final year, during the placement season, I ended up with 3 backlogs in my 7th semester, which made me non-eligible for all the placement processes that happened subsequently. At this point in time, all I had was an offer from an IT MNC which could be cancelled anytime.
For a person with who had maintained a very good academic record till what could be the final year of my 18 years of formal education (I had no clues I would be doing an MBA then), it was quite heartening. With the threat of the offer being revoked, it turned out to be a very dark period. My parents were quite shaken, and my friends did not know what to talk to me. The IT MNC offer was indefinitely postponed with no assurance of a call in the future, while my batchmates were all called to join the company immediately after the end of the final semester. The results of my examinations were declared by around the end of August 2016 and I managed to clear all my backlogs and I felt a 100 kgs lighter.
I began a job search on my own and the process was quite tedious, and I wanted to get started somewhere, but I did not know where. I got this opportunity to work as a verbal and soft skills trainer in a small organization which would involve me giving verbal and soft skills training to college students. This job meant I had to get out of my comfort zone, I had to stand in front of people who are almost of the same age as me, earn their respect, make them listen to me, and I had no clues about anything about tutoring. I had two options, the easy option – to ignore this opportunity and look for other proper engineering jobs, the not-so-easy option – to take this opportunity, do something I am not comfortable doing, learn things that could be helpful through throughout my life, and simultaneously look for other job opportunities.
I took the not-so-easy option. The first few days were difficult, I was ridiculed by students during my training sessions. I sweated during the lectures, blabbered, embarrassed myself, the magnitude of which could be understood by this incident – a student was sitting inside the class waiting for the trainer to arrive, the moment I entered the classroom, he had a look at me, packed his bags and left the room. 1 month into the job, I managed to get an offer from another leading IT MNC, which provided me a joining date 4 months later. But over the next 2-3 months, I strived to improve, I made it a point to make my classes interesting, to give my best, to give some valuable takeaways to the students who attend my sessions, and I surprised a lot of people including myself, by becoming a good trainer, so good a trainer that, a couple of students shed tears during my last session, when I informed that, I had quit and was switching over to career in software industry. This 5-month tenure as a trainer is perhaps the greatest learning curve that I could ever have in my life and it was one of the best and most important decisions I have ever made in my life.
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