2019 - A year of Rejections

My last proper post was in October 2019, almost 6 months back. I wrote my last 7-8 posts from Chennai and Mumbai airport. I use to travel to Mumbai every alternate month. In January I wrote a short blog on the installation of some python modules (it got only one read). I had flight tickets for Mid March and I decided to write this post in 2019 on that trip. Covid - Corona - etc lead to restrictions on travel and I canceled my trip and this post too. Anyway, finally, the time has to pen down my thoughts on the year that was. The next post may be on lockdown experiences.

When December started, I tagged 2019 as a year of rejections and I wanted to post all the details about it. When 2019 ended I was so so determined to change things and make 2020 as so-called - MY YEAR. I celebrated my 30th birthday last month, an event that led me to think that I'll be making a big impact in 2020.

February - Valentine - Proposed my crush and never heard from her since that day. I had like more than 5-6 crush when 2018 ended and few of them were yet to be married. By the end of 2019, all my crushes had got married and it was time for me to move on :P

My Marriage - Same story like a year before. Most of them wanted a guy settled in Mumbai or US/UK. Anyway, I got the chance to meet a few of them face to face and obviously, things didn't move forward. People can call it anything - I rejected her, she rejected me, mutually rejections, family rejections, compatibility issues, horoscopes not matching, etc. Bottom line - It was one of meet.

Feeling stagnant at my workplace, I started looking out for higher studies. I applied to couple of Institutes only to get rejected in the first round. This was a hard blow and it took me some time to come to terms with the decision. If this was not enough, I rejected something soon after. I was offered a chance from the company to pursue a course in data science, but I didn't find it too promising and rejected it. From then and now my perspective has changed. The ground reality has changed too. I am still looking to study even more but more focused on my strengths and hobbies. Maybe I should have worked more on my statement of purpose to get an interview call. or maybe I should have accepted my company's offer to study - I don't know. What's done is done and accepted.

Jobs - Let me not shy away from this topic. In early 2019 I got an opportunity to interview for a few jobs. One was in auto-sector, not 100% what I was looking for but still, it would have been a decent change for me. Where things failed - they found me too expensive :D

The second was a startup, focused on android app development. I was more interested in this because it was a startup and aa core programming job. What I liked the most is the hiring process. Two co-founders put forward a puzzle and asked to write an algorithm to solve the same. They liked my approach and then big BUT in this case was the joining period. They wanted me to join in a month but that was not possible at all.

The BEST outcome of those two rejections - I got promoted to the Manager band, got a chance to work on a machine learning project. I also presented my first ever paper after coming to the corporate world. I am really happy the way Mahindra is managing us in this condition of lockdown. The IT and HR teams rose to the occasion and went 10 miles more than their normal call of duty. It is times like this that help me connect to Mahindra on a deeper level.

I think these were the biggest letdowns of 2019. 4 months have passed in 2020 and I am not sure what to label it. I miss being with the family in this lockdown and I don't see meeting them for next two months. If it wasn't for the lockdown, I wouldn't have learned to cook or manage groceries, etc(more on this later).

So far in my posts, I have tried to be selective of what I share with my readers. I am trying to open up a bit more with each passing post. I am sure this will be reflected in my writings in the future. My Whatsapp statuses used to get 100 views before lockdown and post lockdown it has been 140+, a 40% increase in the viewership. I expect the same for this blog post too.

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