An year after Infy

Its been an year now after my last day in Infosys. 27 June 2008 was the day when I bid Infy bye and went on my path to higher studies. After an year and couple of sems behind me I wish to revisit my memories at Infy. I would also like to think on how my life changed after Infy.

Getting unemployed after earning salaries every month for two years is a little difficult task. It is indeed a tough decision. One gets used to continuous inflow of money. But this time it was not about money. I know I wanted to step out of my position to have a better future. Earning money will again be part of my life some day and I had accumulated enough to sustain till that time. This time it was about broadening horizons. I wanted to get a higher academic degree in a far more developed country. All these thoughts never made me uneasy to give up on what I had.

But I still remember the initial days at Infy. I was fresh out of college. I was a BE in Computers and eager to have a look at professional world. I never had any work experience. My first day in Infy was July 26, 2006. I was supposed to undergo a training in Pune. The training was a 9th sem and gave exposure to professional world only to an extent. I was hardly pressurized - strolling through my lessons, projects and many hours of Counter Strike. I was making new friends, exploring new city and having fun. I had made good friends with Sujeeth, Yazad, Revati, Paridhi and Radha. After a good span of 4 months, my training was over and I was alloted a project.

Meanwhile an entirely different chapter in my life was starting. I made friends with Sneha, a girl from my training batch. She was not in my project but we went to a trek together with other friends from Infy. I shared some of my best moments in Infy with her. I might make a big list of things that I owe to Infy and her name will be at the top of the list.

HP Openview - that was the tool I was supposed to learn in the project. Padmapriya, Sheetal, Amey and Rajinder from my training batch were also with me in this project. We were asked to report to Deepak Deshmukh. He is the coolest manager I have ever worked with. He made us feel extremely comfortable and never lost his cool. We met our other project members Smuki, Darshana, Kiran, Amber, etc. Slowly, we were bonding together. But there was no clarity on what stage the project was in. I only knew that their is a group of people who are onsite and will get back to us soon. Meanwhile, we kept ourselves busy with chats, coffee, games and walks. Days went by and we were getting into specialized groups that focus on one of the softwares from HP Openview Tool.

Service Desk - this is the HPOV s/w that I was asked to concentrate on. This was the tool I was playing with for the whole of next year. I was put on a live project which involved supporting Service Desk for National Health Scheme (NHS), UK. NHS was client to British Telecom (BT). And BT was client to Infosys. I wrote this together but it took me good amount of time to understand the whole structure. Anyways, finally I was seeing some light. I could feel that I get to do work which involves responsibility. Ever since I was billable for this project, I had to report to Balaji Ranganathan. He was in UK and I was in Pune. We talked on phone and exchanged mails. I was more than glad to take responsibilities as it was almost an year in Infy with almost negligible responsibility. My only responsibility prior to that was to swipe in and out my card daily and fill the time sheet. Now I got to access client systems, handle support cases, talk with customers and report to BT managers.

As I got more and more comfortable with my work, I started to handle most of the cases independently. I got a lot of help from Ajeet and Anupam who were gurus in this project. After a while, I used to train new members in the project. Then, in January 2008, I got a chance to goo onsite. I had to work from Belfast, UK. This was again a fresh experience and I thoroughly enjoyed each and every moment. That was the first time I got to see my manager, Balaji. It was a pleasure working with him. I had a short cameo to play in UK and was sent back to India just before 3 months. I spent my last 3 months again in Pune. Though I was working on the same project, it was more of transfer of responsibilities. I was getting ready to fly far from my first workplace. Finally the day of flight arrived and I made my way back to Mumbai with lots of fun-filled memories to cherish in my heart.

After an year in Infosys, I realize how important it was to get a work experience for two years before studying again. Apart from expertise in Excel and writing official mails, you are able to handle most of the situations in life with a better understanding and organization. Infy Rocks.