In love with Genius

V-3

It's been a week since I joined as a senior software engineer. I like the team, and I try not to screw up by completing all my tasks in a single day. I dont want unnecessary attention and I dont want to be looked at as smarter than the lead.

I have three teammates, Rudhran, a Tamil guy, Saurabh from Delhi and Harshini Tamil girl. All three talk to me well and it's nice to have a normal conversation instead of talking about million-dollar projects. So this is what being normal is.

For the first time, I didn't feel hatred for waking up from my bed, I looked forward to the day, to spend with my team, to talk about sports, food, vehicles, and day-to-day activities.

Work is not challenging at all for me, I hope my old ego self won't come out and roll the eyes at everyone who is working hard on these problems. I am always afraid of myself, even though I have learnt the hard way, I am scared about going back to being that egoistic intelligent rude person. I always remind myself about the past 3 years and try to be humble.

I was on my coffee break with Rudhran when I saw her, at the last corner table. I can't see her face, as she presses it against the table, but she is hiding from the world. My heart started beating faster as if it knew who it was.

She lifted her head, and I saw those beautiful eyes red with tears, she quickly wiped them and looked around to make sure no one saw her. My heart skipped a beat. I wanted to run to her, hold her hand and comfort her. I know I can't, so I stood there without moving.

I never thought that someone's happiness and sadness would affect me so much. But now, Ray was showing me, how much she can affect by just sitting in a distance and crying or laughing.

I guess the universe has decided at last.

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It's been two days since I have seen her in the cafeteria. I saw her again and again and again and again and again. I could go on and on.

I was sitting at my desk when Harshini came and told us that the manager wanted to have a quick meeting with all of us in the conference room.

We all went to the conference room to find our manager and Ray already seated.

"Hey everyone"  - Azar our manager, greeted us.

Ray looked at all of us with a smile on her face.

"I will make this quick, as the team has been requesting me for an additional resource to achieve our commitments, we have decided to move Revathi to our team. She has been working with us for the past 4 years and some of you might know her. She is well known for her work on EV vehicle communication protocol. I am very happy to have her on our team, hope we can all learn from each other"

We all smiled at her. "Welcome Revathi. Glad to work with you", started Harshini.

"OK team, please introduce yourselves, I have another meeting now, so I will go. Rudhran, don't forget to plan a team outing this month" With that Azar left.

Harshini introduced all of us to Ray. She was seated next to me. It's decided that I give her KT as a test of my understanding. I couldn't be happier.

We both planned on the session which started after lunch. She was a keen observer and intelligent too. I could just see those eyes all day.

She was added to our WhatsApp group, "Timepass" where we all discuss anything but work and mainly the stupidity of management! 🙄

Yeah right. I got to know about bad managers and I have plans to replace them and make this a better place but the thing to note here is, I now know her phone number.

I didn't start messaging her immediately, I was waiting for the right time. She doesn't talk much and mostly concentrates on her work but I could see her becoming more and more relaxed each day.

And the right time did come.