Things Happening around me

Feeling when you quit your job

sonalrajgarhia — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 15:12:04 +0000

It’s a weird feeling to work for an employer where you have put in your papers. In
UK it is a common practise to serve your notice period. Which means that you work for 1 or 2 or in some extreme cases 3 months where you have put in your papers with your? As opposed to, in
India, the new employer pays for the notice period, or the old employer is just happy to get rid of you J. I guess it’s a matter of better planning done by the organisations in the
UK or maybe a cultural thing.

Now let us come back to the feeling which one goes through when you are just serving your notice period. In this period, you just come to office to vile your time away, looking for things which do not require a lot of thinking power but would keep you occupied till its official time to go home. Anything which requires major concentration or thinking too much is just not what you want to do. Moreover your enthusiasm to start new projects is zilch. One reason is that you can not start and finish a new project in the time you will be there in the organisation and you will have one more thing to handover. Another is you don’t want to start as the person who will come and replace you will want to do it a different way than you. And plus I think you loose that passion which you would have had in making your point if you are going to stay with the organisation.

You are in a period of limbo where you cannot put your heart in what you are doing and this is somehow not a very nice feeling. Now some would say that I am thinking too much and I should just enjoy the period. This is a break which I will get before the new job would start and life would become hectic again. I see from where they are coming from and it makes a lot of sense theoretically, but it is difficult to do the same: just passing time for 8 weeks when you are not wired that way.

Christmas

sonalrajgarhia — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 20:49:38 +0000

Christmas is what keeps UK going in the winter. Christmas just comes at the right time, just after summer has gone and the days start to shorten and before you realise it’s the time of long black overcoats and scarves. London turns a sea of people wearing black from head to toe but Christmas puts some colour in that black sea. People also need something to look forward to .…and Christmas fits the bill. There is lighting on the streets. shop windows are done up..
London looks decked up…it looks like a lady going for a ballJ. London in Christmas reminds me of Bombay during Ganesh Chaturthi or Calcutta in Durga Puja… It’s the same lighting on the streets and the festive spirit in the air. There is just a happy spirit in the air I don’t understand why…but it just is. No one is cross with anyone, and any amount of difficulties, be it delayed trains, long queues or too many shoppers, cannot wipe the smile off people’s faces.

Christmas brings a lot of things with it…I don’t know all as I am also learning…it brings an entire package of mulled wine, mince pies, carols, presents , Christmas tree , Christmas dinner (including turkey, Brussel sprouts etc )and Santa Claus. A quick note on mince pies that it is called mince meat pies but it is vegetarian. It originally had meat in it but somewhere along the way, the meat was replaced with candied and dry fruits. As opposed to any tradition in
India where gifts are usually given by elders to younger relatives, Christmas gifts do not work like that. Christmas are given by everyone to everyone else. So with the amount of money being spent, you can imagine the importance Christmas to the high street retailers. But Christmas does not only affect the big departmental stores, it affects the pubs, bars, restaurants and offices as well. Pubs and restaurants rake in a lot of money, with the Christmas parties happening everywhere.

Work reduces in offices, as half the staff is on leave. People take time off to visit family and the staff strength is offices really come down half. Hence it’s a good time to take leave as there is less work you miss when you are on leave. But the other side of it is that one shouldn’t take leave this time, as it is anyway a paid holiday, so why should you take leave. On that happy note, let me wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Summer in UK

sonalrajgarhia — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:40:31 +0000

Today it is going to be 23 degrees C which is hot . We will be able to enjoy the sun god from dawn to dusk. Seeing the sun is a such a joyous feeling , I cannot tell you. When you are in a country like India you take sunshine for granted, and you dont know that sunshine has a such a huge bearing on your general well being. It is just uplifting to see the sun shine brightly in the morning when you leave home from office. You realise all the above as usual when you are deprived of it in a country like UK. Here you see grey weather majority of time when you wake up in the morning and it gets dark by 3.30-4.00 p.m in the winter months (which is there for 50% of the time!!) . Sometimes, you leave for work when their is darkness and you come back when thier is darkness.

Don’t get me wrong here, I love staying in London. There are other countries which are worse off than the UK in terms of brightness but I am writing about UK as I live in it and that is why it bothers me.

As a celebration of the summer I have decided to wear salwar kurtas ( indian dress) for this week at office. Summer is the only time in the UK you can wear salwar kurtas with open toed shoes or sandals ( which according to me is a necessity for wearing salwars, as sneakers or closed shoes looks positively horrible with them). Today I am wearing a dark green kurta with dark blue flowers and sequins on it. The entire week is going to be hot in
London and it might get 28- 30 degrees C by Sunday.

Come Sunday and I might be cribbing about the weather being….too hot and too sweaty in the house which were not made to handle such temperatures. But that’s human nature I suppose!!! But for the time being I am a happy flower and planning to have my lunch in the sunshine near the
Thames …:))

Hello world!

sonalrajgarhia — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:29:43 +0000

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