It all started when I in the midst of an interesting arguement with my wife regarding how a piece of code should be coded in one of the extract programs, I completely involved in the argument that I didnt realize for sometime that my phone was ringing and its was my manager calling up. I rushed and picked up the phone and guess what I heard..."Hi Partha, you and priya are travelling to UK in few weeks, Get in touch with the travel desk and get your visa stamped!! [click]". Ramesh (My manager) has always been direct in all conversations and I kinda liked it, but even I could not believe that he would be so direct and upto the point in such a thing. It took a moment(probably more) for me to digest and realize what I just heard.....Oh My God..We are travelling to UK!! I am travelling to the UK!!! My first onsite assignment and whats more great, I have been official chosen to travel onsite along with my wife!!!! Not everyone gets such a chance...but never did I realize that the next few weeks were going to be one of the most amusing and tiring weeks of my life!!!!!
Onsite is supposed to be every Indian Software whizkid's dream!!!! Believe me anybody who says that he/she is not interested in a software assignment is a bloody liar!!! I have been in this industry for 5 years now and before that I was aspiring to get into this field for 3 years and all these years, I would have thought about an onsite oppurtuinity atleast once a day!!! I have been laughed at, teased, mocked by a lot of people citing this reason (I have never been to onsite eventhough I have 4+ experience). My wait was long, people of my batch kept travelling but I never lost hope, I have known people who have waited longer than me...I knew that I would get my chance someday for sure........
But not even once did I imagine that my oppurtuinity would jump in at this moment when I least expected it!! Now you might be wondering WTF?? This guy says he has thought about an onsite oppurtuinity atleast once a day, but now he says he got one when he least expected it... Hmm yes its true let me explain, After I joined my current company around Feb this month, it was informed that everyone of our team members would be travelling to UK in the coming months for an onsite assignment, but since we were new and werent yet confirmed, our chance would come eventually but not immediately. A colleague of ours was supposed to travel acouple of months back and all arrangements were complete, but the plan was changed exactly the day before she started!!!! This resulted in the shift of my paradigm :))...
What I describe now are the incidents that took place after I received the call from my manager!!
After planning we were down to implementing few of them,w e bough winter clothing and shifted our house too, but suddenly we started to hear rumours that ours too would be another cancelled onsite assignment and to make matters worse my manager wasnt willing to give me the exact date of travel!!!! Imagine what would have happened then... :))
Having invested quite a few amount in shifting the house and winter clothing we were left in doubt whether we had taken the correct decision of buying/planning things for the travel before the confirmation of the date. This period of stalemate continued for few more days and then finally we received the date of travel and finished all the necessary processes. We got a visas on the expected date without any hassles and finally we received our tickets too!! So we were all set for travelling, but if u think that was the end of all tensions and we had a very smooth flight, then you are more than wrong!!!!! Whatever happened next would take an entire separate blog, so I would describe those events separately tomorrow........until then c ya all guys!!! :)
