Another small milestone

While on the topic of  anniversaries ( psst, I just blogged about one recently), I recently marked another small milestone. Completed first year at my current work place. The Indian companies I worked in past treated work anniversaries differently, the companies I worked in my first 7 years did not really seem to care. Later I worked for Cognizant which is technically a US headquartered company (but full of Indians) and maybe that could be the reason they used to send out anniversary notification to my manager who would share it with entire team with some good words tossed in for added motivation. Once I joined this grand old company, I could see that 'service' with company mattered  to folks a lot. Service anniversary was a big deal indeed. Once I went for a mandatory training at my city arranged for folks from various different roles/work stream and they had us introduce ourselves by stating, name, which city we work, what role and how long we have been with the company. When a team member has an anniversary we all get notified and there is a usual round of applause and congrats emails which floats around regularly. Several folks in my side of the organization have work anniversaries with the company higher than my age.  The emails are really fun especially for the anniversaries of veterans in the org, usually there is lot of self deprecating humor involved and the mails and huge fun. People spoke about being happy and sounded happy when we talk about their service anniversary, all of which is good to know for someone in their first year at the company. I could understand why the company featured in great places to work list

So the day arrived and as soon as I logged in I got a very nice email  from my manager and several others chimed in as well with good words and predictions of a long successful journey ahead. To be honest this was a job which on paper looked very easy and comfortable one for me given my previous work background. But as lone Indian employee in a team full of Americans I was not sure if I will fit in well and there were lots of doubts if I truly belong or if I can belong. Of course there were minor cultural differences, and I had to look stuff up online to understand some references/quotes but it also had to do with the fact that I was lot younger than most people around me. Before I knew it an year was up and it was up so fast that I hardly noticed. Only when I walked into office one day in April and after noticing my name up on the board for service anniversaries did it really sink in

And its 4 years!

Just realized today marks the start of my 5th year in states. That needs a blog entry because 4 is usually the maximum I stay at a place or at least that was the case in the first 30 years of my life.Now in  mid 30s maybe I'm embracing familiarity and hanging on to stuff longer. I stayed at my previous job for 5 years until quitting an year back. Even though I have lived for 4  years in US, I did move to a different City/State after 2 years, so not that bad I guess!

And as cliched as it might sound it just seems yesterday that I applied for and got a role in a projectin US and had to uproot myself and my wife from comfortable life we had in Chennai to North western US. But it was very hard to give up an easy life in India with folks around for support, Chennai did take a few months to get used to. But I did start liking the place, grew familiar with various parts, the local lingo and almost felt like a local. At work I had put in the hard yards initially and had an amazing reputation and was well regarded and steady growth awaited. But I wanted to travel and live in other parts of the world and experience different cultures. There were possible stints to Australia, UK and even NZ hinted at, but nothing seemed concrete and so when I got my US visa approved I thought I should make a move immediately otherwise I will not step out of my comfort zone. Spend an year or two at max in US was the plan and get back to whatever I was doing back in India. That is another reason why 4 years is a bit surprising.

Usually you don't get much of choice in terms of where you go, luckily I was able to land a role in Seattle.  Its a nice beautiful place no doubt, but the main reason to choose it was the fact that my sister and another cousin lived there. So having family made it very easy for me to move to US and settle down.It was a wonderful place to live in for sure, extremely scenic. With more greenery than I have ever seen and perennially rain drenched and cloudy most of the year. But enjoyed it all the same, rain or lack of sunshine did not really bother me. Life in general was certainly more easy, I actually could imagine life outside of work during week days something non-existent in India. Being able to get back home before 6 PM was a big positive. Plus having folks I knew guide us and come and meet us quite often initially made it smoother to transition to a life in a different continent. It was hard initially for my wife until she got work permit, and started working, but we soldiered on and after moving a couple of houses within Seattle Metro we decided to try warmer Southwest US and landed in Dallas, Texas. Its been almost 2 years in Dallas now. Lot of folks keep asking how is life over there, difference between the cities and how is life really like over there, how different is it from India? Day to day life is mostly just the usual boring routine stuff. Work during weekdays, evenings in park nearby, weekly temple run. Shopping during weekends at Indian grocery stores, Whole Foods, Costco. Occasional trips across US, lot of new places explored, lot of wonderful travel experiences. Tried so many different cuisines, interacted with folks from diverse ethnic groups and backgrounds.Some of it interesting, most of it just routine stuff.  I will try to write more about life here this year now that I have some memories and experiences spread across several years to fall back upon. Write I will even if its just the usual stuff!