N = Name Saga

After zipping through the A to Z challenge almost over the half-mark, when N came across, I have to write about my name which incidentally starts with N.

No, in case if you have guessed something, it is not about how I got this name. My dad gave me this name as he liked it…no fancy story attached to it. However, as a kid I never liked my name. I still remember when I was in Class 6^th; I gave my dad the option of changing my name to Neha or Nisha which was obviously turned down instantly!

I hated the fact that no one was able to pronounce my name correctly. Carrying a Bong name in northern belt of India is quite difficult.  I had heard so many versions of my name that it has ceased to amuse me now.  The most common assumption was that it would spell with a ‘V’ instead of ‘B’. Do you remember how Vidya Balan has to interrupt every time in the movie Kahaani when Bongs called her Bidya instead of Vidya…in my case it was vice-versa. Few inquisitive ones doubted my spelling capability and insisted that it has to be ‘Nivedita’ instead of ‘Nibedita’. I had to explain them that Bengali language has no sound like ‘V’ sound…it is either B or Bh.

In school, I heard so many variations of my name in terms of spelling & pronunciation from teachers & fellow students; it ranged from Nivedita, Nebidita, Nibidita, Nibodita, Nebudita and so on!! The college pals were smarter and they shortened it to ‘Nibz’. I felt so relaxed, it was definitely better than to hear twisted sound of your own name!

I can recall one incident, when I was in Class 12^th and appearing for board exams. For viva-voce, we had to face external examiners. I was so terrified in my Physics practical exam. The examiner asked my name. When I told him, he asked its meaning might be to break the ice….I told him that it means ‘dedicated’…He asked immediately, ‘To whom’? I had no answer ready for it so I just said ‘to God’….and he gave me broad smile. The Viva went very well after that.

My office colleagues started with Nibedita but I was rechristened as ‘Nibbo’ or ‘Nibey’ soon. My bosses preferred to call me with last name only. However, while handling overseas client calls it was a mammoth task to tell my name to them and ninety percent of time I had to spell it with phonetic sounds. So, it would sound somewhat like:

I login into a conference call which is spread across various geographic locations of world.

Hi, this is Nibedita Bose from India, site ABC, Operations.

I am sorry, who is there from India??

This is Nibedita….N as in Nancy, I as in India, B as in Bravo, E as in Echo, D as in Delta, I as in India, T as is Tango and A as in Alpha…..and yeah the last name is B as in Bravo, O as in Oscar, S as in Sierra and E as in Echo……..Hmpffff!!! (I always ensured after this to check whether the person on other side was still alive or not!!!)

Another fact with my name is that, I had retained my maiden surname. But, there were many instances when people assumed my last name to be my hubby’s surname. When we applied for my daughter’s birth certificate it came with my name as ‘Nibedita Ghosh’ instead of ‘Bose’, when asked they said that they thought we have mistakenly filled up the form with different surname, so corrected it!!

Many of my office colleagues congratulated me through SmS, after my daughter’s birth. Few of the messages were like: Congrats, Mr. & Mrs. Bose! I didn’t know how to pass on those congratulations to nonexistent Mr. Bose though!

Till now, I have faced so many goof ups about my last name that now a day, I keep my marriage certificate handy for any kind of paperwork involved in Banks or any other offices.

When it was time to christen my daughter, we raked internet to search for a contemporary but easy to pronounce name….the only criteria my in- laws requested that if it can have somewhat related to God. After an extensive search and rejecting almost hundreds of names, we pinned it down to ‘Ishaani’, hoping that it is not easily twisted as my name was.

So, what is your Name’s story?
P.S: After my Teen years, I started liking my name and I love it absolutely now :)

J = Job Hunt & all the jazz

Job hunt – This is what I am doing since last couple of months. After a break of almost 1.5 years, I planned to join back work. Being a ‘too much planned’ couple, we first created our back up plan after brainstorming for long hours.

Many questions hovered over our mind. How would the li’l one react to the change? What option would be more feasible - nanny or daycare? How we can work out the daily household chores? I raked through all mommy blogs, forums & parenting websites to know more about the ways people juggle between home, Baby & job. The dilemma was high and I was not able to pin down any decision. But, after lots & lots of discussion we finally chalked out a plan.

The first step was to get a full time maid or house help who can support me with household chores. In that way, I can spend some quality time with my kid after coming back from work. Somehow, we were not keen on getting a nanny for my toddler. We got registered in an agency beforetime as heard about delays in getting a maid even after registration. Thankfully, we got a decent maid from that local agency.

Next step was to search for a reasonable and compatible daycare for my kid. We visited almost 6-8 local daycares and finally found a decent one nearby to our place. We wanted to get my daughter adjusted to this new regime first and then my proper job search should start. My li’l one cooperated a lot and now after almost 3 months, she just loves the place.

In the meantime I already uploaded my resume in various job portals and waited for my luck to show some positive sign. However, the timing was not quite appropriate. The first quarter remains a lean period for job hunters as new vacancy are not created in this time. It actually means that most of the companies have their annual appraisal & bonus time in March, and people who want to leave their job for any reason would stick till end of March to receive the annual bonus. Thus February & March went away in very few calls from different consultancies & companies and I appeared for only couple of interviews.

Another factor which I am realizing is affecting my job search in a veiled way is the break of 1.5 years in my career. Many consultancies approached me with job description, but chickened out stating employers do not want any break period for any reasons. Then there are other factors as well which is limiting me from exploring all options. I have to search for a job in Gurgaon only and I cannot go to work in Delhi or Noida because of extensive travel time. Although I have kept myself open for all shift timings (my job profile requires that) but still many employers perceive in advance that a married lady with a small kid in tow would not opt for any shift other than general one.

This is the third month in a row when I am just sitting idle at home. It is getting depressing now and has started taking toll on my mood a lot. I feel the void more as prior to this I was handling my hyper-active toddler for the whole day without any maid or nanny. So, suddenly, with the kid in daycare and all household chores except cooking taken care by maid, I feel myself completely useless sometimes. Although, I am getting now ample amount of time for my favorite passion – blogging & reading but still feel no interest in any of these activities. There are days, when I just shut my PC, throw away my book and sit idly staring the wall. I actually pulled up myself to join this blogging challenge so that it can be diverted from the void.

Dus Bahane....

Handling a team of around 20-22 people was my core job during last 2 years as a team manager. These couple of years taught me lot of amusing things. Starting my role as a novice & confused team leader, I gradually evolved into an effective (..??) team manager who was even able to handle other teams (proxy supervising) along with her own.

I would like to give you a preview of various excuses or alibis I encountered for leave extension, unplanned leaves or in simple words not coming to office. Sometimes these leave request would be genuine one but with sheer experience I was able to bifurcate the fake ones. It used to be a tough call as denying any leaves had its own repercussions ranging from low motivation, emotional attyachar, negativity spread & non-performance.

Let’s have a look at them:

Sick or illness: It can be of self or any family members. The request should be understood as below:

one day off = upset tummy , high or low BP, giddiness             

3-4 days off = viral fever,

at least 15 days = jaundice, typhoid, measles, malaria

A guy of my team (Mr.M) informed me about his fever on phone and also dropped hint that doctor is suspecting typhoid. When I discussed this issue in my team meeting and asked everyone to trim their planned leave request as Mr.M might need bunch of leaves, I came to know that Mr.M was enquiring with many people about the symptoms of typhoid just a couple of days ago when he was perfectly fine (nice homework....)!!!!

Accidents or death: It sounds so heinous to fake this reason for a leave request. But, I even faced this also. One of my team members G had a bagful of imaginary uncles & aunts whom he used to take out of the bag for the sole purpose of their demise and thus asking leave to attend the funeral!!!

Conveyance: This was generally quoted when people were expected back from long leaves and the handy reason put forward that flight, train or bus cancelled or unable to get tickets in any the above mentioned means of transportation. Surprisingly, this crunch situation would arise only while coming back but never at that time when the person was going for the vacations!!!

Weird: All of these happened in reality to either me or my fellow team managers.

·         My room-mate locked the door from outside and left for his office with the keys. Also, friend cannot come back within next 10 hrs.

·         I am couple of pegs down, and would lose my job if I come to office in this state so you have to grant me the leave.

·         Watch out for this one...came from a girl. I have developed rashes all over my body; unable to wear clothes (…!!) She used to be a regular defaulter and similar amusing reasons erupted every alternate week.

Right now, I am not able to recollect more but can bet that there were many more completely whacky excuses which came across me in these 2 years.

Life at a Call Centre….(Contd.)

Read the first part here.

Few myths & beliefs:


 Adultery and Infidelity is an eligibility criterion for a BPO employee: Again, a trash and rotten thought. Weak character people are everywhere. That day I saw in news that a professor was beaten up by his wife as he was involved with one of his student. Does that mean that a dignified profession like teaching in maligned. No, it is again a freak odd example which is specific to some person.

BPO is dimensionless industry: It is believed that the BPO work experience is a completely waste as it is not considered in any other sector. This is true as the work ex of BPO at the beginner level is not useful to any other sector but as you grow the management practices and quality tools adapted by the designation is global and same is followed in all other corporate offices. I have seen people growing from scratch to peak in this industry. But then, if any person has pharmaceutical experience he cannot utilize his domain knowledge in finance sector so why to blame BPO sector only that sector switching cannot be done after a BPO job.

Night Shifts = characterless people working: Why we think that if a person is out of his/her home at night then he/she must be indulged in something unethical? If something immoral has to be done then would anybody wait for night only…..;-)
The requirement of the BPO business is to cater the business round the world clock so it works 24x7. Nowadays, even media houses, IT sectors also work in same format so BPOs are not the only one to promote night shifts. Security concerns are there but it can be minimized by the people themselves. I don’t deny that female employee security is a major concern in 24x7 format but appropriate measure are there to avoid them.

I know that there are people in BPO who feel that they are doing nothing and wasting the degree and their life. This package of displaced people would always be there who would be generally the cribbing lot and I can bet that they would crib even if they had been in their so-called degree related domain.

Hard work and sincerity pays off in this sector as well. The see-saw between the hardworkers and smartworkers is same as it is in any other corporate sectors.

Had we thought what would it be like if there were no BPOs? So many jobless people hanging around and I am not specifying only about white collared professionals but cab vendors, drivers, housekeeping staffs, security guards, canteen vendors and even roadside dhaba owners or parantha –maggi wala as well. Even more jobs mean to any government as more income tax payers.

So, why not treat this industry with the same respect and dignity as any other corporate sector. Malicious image personals would be there everywhere …let’s not link them with their professions.

Life at a Call Centre….

This post is dedicated to the six important years of my professional life. Yes, as the title suggest I worked at a leading call centre prior to settling as a SAHM a month back. I thought of writing this post to clarify the various myths and “stories” we have heard about call centre.

More than a decade ago, when this industry landed in India, it was rightly known as call centre as that was the only odd job handled by that sector: handling outbound & inbound calls for any other country’s business, viz. banking, insurance, technology etc. With the progressing time, India started acquiring more variety of this outsourced business which did not limit itself to calls, thus the BPO term came into existence. For example, throughout my career I was with back-end process.

Before anyone starts raising eyebrows and say that “career in a BPO??? Are you serious??” I would like to mention that the ratio of career centric professionals in a BPO is more or less same as compared to any other industry. Moreover, I feel it is completely an attitude issue and any particular industry should not be blamed because of some lazy, confused aimless persons. There are people in government sectors, teaching/education sector, IT, banking as well who are worthless and lack the focus.

Few myths & beliefs:

BPO gives you easy money: This was true till few years back when this sector was trying to settle itself in developing countries and mouthful salary package was offered even at the entry level. Now the scenario has taken a 180 degree change. The clients (who outsource their business) have understood the Indian market well and which in turn has ended up in companies regularizing the package as per the industry standards. Easy money is not there as you have to slog like anything to make yourself eligible for lucrative incentives and bonus.

Only fun loving teenagers and losers land up in BPO: This is again a twisted fact. As many programs of this industry require excellent communication skills therefore sometimes young crowd just out of college do get hired irrespective of their marks and degree. But, nowadays even Chartered Accountants are hired for specific programs as per the requirement of the clients. In context to the term losers, yes I would say that people who are part of this sector are majorly, normal graduates or post graduates who has not specialized in other vocational courses like medical, engineering etc. Does that mean they are losers???

Drugs & alcohol in BPO is as common as coffee vending machines: In my opinion, these two monsters have cemented their claws in all strata of society where they found soft grounds without any discrimination. I do agree to the fact that sometimes the young crowd who lacks maturity and have access to money does fall into this pit easily but the odd cases would always be there. It is similar to brand people as Typical Bengali or Pakka Punjabi!!! If I know one person from BPO who has succumbed to this menace then I also know 100 people who have not and are perfectly normal as any other industry’s professionals.

Contd...