Part-1: Anticipation
The memory of it all is so fresh on my mind that it almost feels like a thing from yesterday. The year 2012 had lived half of its life and the month of July had brought a spring in my stride. This was the most anticipated July of my lifetime, till then, as this month hadn’t come empty handed. It had a few gifts for me, for which I was eagerly waiting, since the month of March.
I had just finished celebrating my 3rd work anniversary with the organization I was working with, back then. It was a software services MNC, having clients from across the world, and the client I was working for was from the United Kingdom. Having spent day & night to make a name for myself at the workplace, I had forgotten to live my life.
Get up on the first ring of the alarm at 5.30 AM to quickly get dressed and run towards the bus stop to board the office shuttle at 6.30 AM, as a minute’s delay would leave me with no option but to take a public transport and an excruciatingly painful 2 hours journey to the office. Somehow after managing to reach office, I would slog there next 9 hours before starting my 2 hours journey, back home. By the time I get back home, the clock would have ticked pass 9 PM and I would spend a few minutes with my family, before I hit the bed to ensure that I get up on time the next day to start and repeat my day all over again.
And this is how I spent my first 3 years of my processional life, to establish myself in the workplace. I wasn’t doing it for charity of course, but there was something more than the salary which kept me luring towards it. And it was the opportunity to be deputed at the client’s location. It was that one luring factor which kept us all, which includes myself and all my fellow team members, going.
There was an unwritten rule in my organisation, which said that once you work your soul off for 3 years or more, you might be considered for the client location transfers. As I had already ticked all the required checkboxes, which were laid out before us by the management, I was now fairly optimistic & hopeful of getting a chance I was eagerly waiting for, from the day I had joined the organisation.
Whole of my day would you go on refreshing my mailbox, in anticipation of a mail from my manager, which would ask me to raise my work permit for the UK, and that how two weeks passed but no such mail landed into my mailbox. The spring in my stride had slowly started dying a little and the optimism begun cutting corners. Until that call from my manager, while I was travelling back from office that night, which changed everything.
Finally the phone call from my manager brought the much awaited news to me. I was asked to initiate the visa formalities as a new project needed an urgent resource placement at client’s site in the next 15 days. ”You will have to finish all your Visa formalities as soon as possible, so that we can arrange for the tickets for you.” Said my manager over the phone. These weren’t words, this was music to my ears, as ultimately, after so much of wait, my ears were hearing something that they wanted to hear from a long long time.
The next day at office I carried all the necessary documentations and filled the 10 pager Visa application, without a frown. Had it been anything other than the visa form, I do not know how frustrated I would have been to fill in so many details. But the happiness to go and stay in the UK was far more than the pain of filling a Visa form for it. Within the next few days, all necessary documents were verified by the internal Visa processing team and I was sent to attend the mandatory biometric process.
End of Part-1
