An Outlet: Part 8

18 September, 2019.

I had a feeling that today won't be as great as the last two days.

As I may or may not have mentioned before, the last two days I had my induction at Office N and for the next whole week or two, I will be having my "training" sessions at Office L.

Office L is only one station away from my senior college so I was quite familiar with almost the entire journey, until I reached the station. Today was the first day I got off at the other side of the station.

Since I don't really like to rely on public transport when I'm in an unfamiliar area, I decided to walk up to the office. In that way I could get to know more about the haves and have nots of the unknown locality. I walked quite a bit and reached some really tall commercial looking buildings.

Thankfully, I met a colleague at the reception and we went to collect our laptops as soon as we entered office. It took SUCH A LONG TIME tho! Even though I got my laptop early, I had to give it back because apparently they hadn't configured the laptop or something.

We are 11 freshers in total, 3 boys and 8 girls (hired from Office I) so we spent over 2 hours just in front of the IT room. 3 of us didn't even get the laptops today.

I was worried that we'd be super late for the training but turns out none of our trainings could start until each one of us had a laptop. :/

Well, then maybe you should've ensured that there were arrangements for all of us in the first place!

We waited at their lobby till 12PM with the three of them coordinating with the HR for their laptops.

Ultimately we decided to go have lunch and stay there for a while so that we could talk more. Cause someone came and asked us to shut up while we were in the waiting area.

Oh yeah, we all hit it off quite well! Obviously some of us had met each other during the induction but now the 11 of us even have a WhatsApp group! They all seem nice so far and I hope it stays the same. Also, I met that Director I was sat next to for the past 2 days!

Anyways, the HR told us to meet our "Performance Manager" at 2:30 and start training without the laptops cause there is no way they'll get them today.

We finally met her and she took us to our department's area. This office apparently has a hot seat system and there wasn't enough space for all of us but we managed. We made some small talk and the manager asked each of us to give a little background about ourselves so she could see which project to put us in.

However, two other guys and me didn't have to do that cause apparently we have already been assigned to a team!

After all my interviews, I should have guessed what kind of assignment they were going to put me under. I'm on a GST assignment. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL THEM THAT I HAVEN'T FORMALLY LEARNT GST?! Why are people so sure that I'm the right person for the task?

We met our GST "Engagement Manager" and I made this fact known to him. He told me that I was selected for this project because of my Excel skills, something that the other two apparently lack (though they have proper working knowledge about GST). He then went on to tell me that he himself isn't well versed with this new tax regime and that we'll learn it on the way.

Cools, I guess?

As of now the only positive (but also scary) point about this project is that we'll have to go to the client's office for 3 months and that office is in Mumbai itself! I won't have a hectic traveling life for 3 more months! And guess what, my client is an MNC!! I'm very well aware of the fact that I've been hired by one of the top Accounting Firms and they undoubtedly deal with a lot of huge firms, but I never thought I'd be able to work on one of their projects so soon! That's so cool!

Apparently, this is a new client for my company (for this sort of engagement) and here's how it's going to go - In the next three months, we'll have to learn what our role is, perform it and if by the end of the third month, the client is satisfied with our performance, they'll sign a contract with my company for a year (and we can continue the work from our own office).

Now that's some scary shit.

Also, I was hired to be a part of the back office who will be helping the client service teams but this project totally looks like a client facing job to me.

This briefing happened in front of the other freshers as well. I got talking to one of them and he told me that being on one assignment for such a long period showed limited growth opportunities. Hmm...

Speaking of the other freshers, they were to be assigned to their teams/assignments/ projects later on.

Meanwhile we were all instructed to complete our mandatory online trainings but guess what, the links for that are listed on a welcome email and none of us have recieved it! Great. Just great.

We tried to talk to our HR about this and she said we'll get it by tomorrow or day after. We're definitely getting it the day after.

We legit didn't have anything to do after that. Nothing. This is definitely not something that I expected from a well known organisation with so many rules, policies and complexities. My idea of having an organised environment is slowly going back to it's dungeon. But maybe it's too soon to judge?

With nothing else to do, I tried going through any other starting links and websites I could find on my laptop. Despite what some others say, I do like our new laptop. It's definitely much smaller than my personal laptop but it'll be much better to travel with.

In the evening, I met CA 2 at the open air part of our canteen. Yes, I decided to still be friends with him even after his bold behaviour yesterday. I feel like I judge people too hard in the first go itself and it might keep me from getting to know their good qualities. We spoke for an hour and then I left for home.

Overall, totally not a productive day but everyone told us to enjoy before the shit storm begins so let's do that, shall we?

Today's weight- 53.6. It's consistently been 54 or gone above that but never below. Now that I've stopped gymming, the loss of even 1 kg makes me wonder how?