End of an episode….

After all the chaos for past 3 months…. I got rid of Infosys and I finally joined Lehman.
It was a roller coaster ride I must say. A nail biting finish till the last day.

I still remember the first encounter with Lehman while I was in Hong Kong. Initially also it did not go well. My mobile connection used to give troubles. Once or twice the call was dropped in between. Sometimes the interview team used to inform that they were not able to connect at all.
Finally somehow the first round of interview was over. I was not T all satisfied with my performance. I was not expecting any return call from them and started thinking about other options

But somehow, the interviewers had seen something during interview that I had missed out.
I got call for a second round of interview. This time I was well prepared. And as expected, the interview went well and I got an offer too. I was expected to join within a month. With leman ready to bear any payback that may be required, this looked like a sure thing.

Till now everything was fine. I submitted my resignation letter asking for a release after a month.
At this point the real story began. There was no response for the resignation mail. Initially I got a call from my top management to discuss the things but after that what followed was complete ignorance. No commitment on the release date… no comment on handover of activities…

Frustrated… finally I threatened to stop working on the project if I was not given due attention. Only after this, I got a response giving a date after nearly 2 months.
I decided to use the salary payback option. There was one more bad news in store for me. The documents had the payback clause at the discretion of the company!!! My bosses chose to use it immediately and denied me that opportunity also.

Frustrated, I walked out of Hong Kong and came back to Mumbai. I was expecting that this will have some impact. But there was none.
I escalated the matter to still higher management as well as HR…. as a result I got a call where I was threatened in indirect terms about disciplinary actions and all.
On the other hand I got calls from other senior mangers making all sort of promises so that I stay back.

On the other hand Lehman team was also getting frustrated at the entire episode. They finally decided to break the ties and revoked the offer.
I decided to go ahead with resignation and vowed to quit Infosys even in case I did not find a job for a few days. The hunt started again.
Fortunately I got another job. So I went ahead with resignation.
This was how my 4+ years stint with Infosys ended. I never wanted to end it the way it happened. I had started my career there and I had grown up professionally there. I Always wanted to end it in a graceful manner but alas!!!

A few days before my joining date, I again got call for Lehman!!! This was to be a fresh round of selection. I decided to try it once again. Results were as expected. I was given another offer and this time there were no restrictions.

This effectively marks end of my first career episode…. I am back in Mumbai…. A whole new game has begun….