Once an Infoscion, Always an Infoscion

Today, it has been one year since my last working day at Infosys. The day makes me nostalgic and takes me down the memory lane of the entire span of 3 years with Infosys. After submitting the I-card when I walked back from the building to gate, I was thinking about all the activities done during the day - making some final calls to close colleagues, sending farewell mail, farewell party at the food court celebrated with team and my theatre group, sending the last mail from my ID to my best friend at office, watching my I-card shredded in front of me. I was looking at the buildings and associating a memory with each of them like building 9 - where I got my first seat allocated, building 19 where my team sat together and many more like this. At the end of it I reached the main gate and while swiping out for the last time, I did not know when I will ever be able to enter this campus again. I was surely taken over by my emotions.

Being a less emotional human being than most others, missing Infosys is very unlike me. But there are various reasons to justify this. One gets a lot of things at Infosys like good mentors, lavish infrastructure, picturesque campus, friends for life, love of life and other material things like onsite opportunities, etc. But the best and most important boon that an Infoscion is privy to is the culture of nurturing one's career and aspirations. To quote my example, I got exposure to three different teams across two different locations in a three-year span which enabled my experience in various avenues of HR. I wonder how many companies would give such opportunities to an employee who is fresh out of college. I was privileged to get this courtesy the trust shown in me by all my managers throughout. And this is not just my case. Many have been benefited like me courtesy the culture of nurturing which stands try to the very core values of Infosys endorsed by Mr. Murthy and entrusted by Mr. Sikka.

Personally, to start my career with Infosys was the best thing to have happened in my field considering all the experiences I got. I got to work with some of the best minds in the business. And the fact that Infoscions follow the rule of 'Work hard, party harder' just adds to the youthfulness of the Company. I wonder I was just lucky to get good mentors, friendly managers, awesome friends and preservable learning in my first job itself. Having heard a lot about the training days in Mysore campus, I feel sad to have missed out on that though. Getting associated with a theatre group within the company was one more gift from Infosys to me. I missed doing professional theatre for almost 7 years prior to that. After this association, the graph of my involvement in theatre has definitely gone up.

So this day will be marked in my life as the day when the umbilical cord of my professional life was cut after 3 years for maternal nurturing. I have joined another organization and may move to another or even stick to this one forever. But Infosys will always stay as my first job, and first job just like first love is always special.

PS - This is not an attempt to appease Infosys to hire me back. :-) In fact I don't know if I want to be back. As a person who has been there and now out of system, my position is fair to judge. I have ended Infosys tenure on a sweet note and I would like that feeling to stay. But there is no doubt in my mind that it was an experience worth cherishing through this blog.