I was in Awe of Her Beauty

During the end of April or beginning of May 2005, one Falak Deb, a Bengali and a resident of Dhanbad, joined our team. She was a small, strikingly beautiful girl and so attractive that it was apparent that many boys would have been after her. In fact, while she was still in the training, she had already become the talk on the production floor. Originally, she was scheduled to join another team, but, to their misfortune, due to a last minute change, she joined our team. She was soon to become my misfortune. Strange are the ways of destiny!

I was smitten by her beauty. I wouldn’t even dare to look at her afraid of being thought of as a cheap guy. Whether it was to retain my respect, seniority and integrity or to attract her towards me, I don’t know. Though, I prefer to go with the later thought. I secretly observed and admired her beauty.

Within a few days of her hitting the production floor, IBM organized a small party and I believe it was during the party I got introduced to her. I was in awe of her beauty. From the corner of my eye, I observed her seated at a distance with a guy from her training batch. I envied him!

Meanwhile, my team mates, Prerna Sharma and Pahari Singh, were good friends. They both were top in production. My fort was quality and product information and thus was considered the best in product knowledge which, later, the members of other teams too would come to recognize and appreciate (vanities of all vanities!).

Pahari, wanting to retain the top slot, felt challenged by Prerna increasing her production and they stopped seeing eye-to-eye. I would take break with Prerna, Gaurav, and Priyanka. Thus, Pahari was out of the group.

Falak and Priyanka became friends as they stayed in the same society and Falak would tag along with her during our breaks. That is how she came to take break with us. She became an exception as no one else was allowed to join our close knit group. 

That she was able to penetrate our closed group gave her an advantage and edge over other members as she was now seen as an important member in the team. She would soon capitalize on her special status.

The Beginning of my goof-ups

I was in the Sprint’s back-office process. Being my first full-fledged job, I was nervous, terrified and hesitant to speak much. There was this one guy, my team member, who would taunt me on a continual basis. He would imitate my style of speech and would pass unwarranted comments. He just got on my nerves. After a month, I decided I had it enough. I thought about my plan of action in the event he bullied me again. He didn’t let me wait for long. One day, he interrupted my conversation with someone and mimicked my tone, I paused for a second and retorted back with the choicest of abuses that even surprised me, not to tell about the shock on my bully’s face. The whole team watched shell shocked. He was taken aback by my outburst. He would never again dare to pick on me.

This incident taught me a lesson which stayed with me for the most part of my stay in IBM. You cannot afford to be soft in the BPO industry. This revelation transformed me overnight. Once inside the gates of IBM, I was a different person. I vividly remember how I used to turn on this new me, the moment I entered the gates of the company. This was the survival of the fittest. There was no place for the good, simple and weak. Over the years, this would become my second nature. But for now I had no friends in the new department. I never will.

The training period, in BPO parlance, was considered as a honeymoon but in Aetna it wasn’t anywhere close to be deemed as fun and I didn’t particularly enjoy it. I was attracted to Aman Panwar, my colleague and a team member. She was beautiful, mature, grounded, and intelligent and we instantly clicked with each other. My romance with her was still in the courtship phase when a team member, who too was attracted to her and harbored a secret admiration for her, went and told her a thing which I, stupidly, shared with him over the phone. Next day, in the office, she walked up to me and asked, ‘Did you say such a thing about me?’ I was stunned; realizing that I couldn’t get away by denying the facts, I accepted that I did. Fortunately, she was aware of the intentions of the other guy, so understood that he wanted to sow seeds of discord between us. I do not remember what happened next or whether I apologized, we continued to be friends. This was not to be the last of my goof ups.