Worst Years Of My Life

God has been fair to me. He gave me 22 years of bliss and harmony, fun and frolic, filled with lots of love from friends and family. Therefore when he gave me two years of pain and torture and embarrassment, I couldn't really complain to Him. It was like due in a big way.

First few months in Adfactors were like the honeymoon period... then it started going from good to bad to worse.... and below that....

My work increased like crazy, there was a time when i was handling 11 (yeah you read it right) 11 clients; though I had a team of five people working for me but it was enough to drive me crazy. I was on the job for 12 hrs at a stretch and yet it was not enough most of the times. I would not say, I enjoyed that period, as my quality of work went for a toss as the quantity increased.. may be I was still not capable of doing it. At the same time I think it wasn't because of the work that my performance went down, it was rather because of my personal life which was in a complete mess and I allowed it to interfere in my work.

I remember a colleague of mine telling rather warning me not to mix my professional life with personal, now I so wish I had heeded to her advise. I always tell myself that whatever decision I take in life I will not regret it. However this is one decision I regret it and maybe will go on regretting it for the rest of my life. My decision of mixing my both lives almost resulted in losing my job and making my career go for a toss !

However as its said that every dark cloud has a silver lining, so had mine. Mine came in the form of two close friends and a completely new career option. Adfactors gave me two very close friends, they cheered me up, they helped me to overcome my problems and gave me joy when I had forgotten that something called joy existed.

My tenure with Adfactors was very different from any working professional. I say it because I had quit the company twice, just to join back again. My final goodbye came when my current boss completely boxed me in to join his organization... :) I am very happy that I took that decision. I joined WAT Media pvt ltd. in Jume 2008.

A completely new beginning, but 2008 still had some bad news in stored for me. Well not personally but as an Indian and Mumbaite. 26/11 was a rude shock for every Indian and perhaps for the rest of the world as well.

I remember praying to God for ending 2008. 2009 did begun on a good note, hoping it continues that way for the rest of the year.

June 2006

June 2006... nothing great happened just a new chapter began in my life... I got through Adfactors PR. Well yeah looking back it was a great thing :). Adfactors PR... amongst the top 5 PR agencies in India and me working there was a dream come true!

This was the first time when I actually understood the true sense of working. The unrealistic expectations from your boss, from your clients... the process, the deadlines to be met... its like you are thrown in the sea without a life jacket and you don't even know how to swim. However when you just feel you cant survive any more... there comes a life guard will help you swim over the high tides and then again leave you... but that made me strong.

Working in PR field exposes you to a lot of people... you learn to tackle people... learn to control your emotions and be a complete professional. I changed...of course not overnight but I changed... people around me felt it. However for my mom I still remained the 'bholibhali girl'. She felt I was too naive and people would take advantage of me. She would be worried about me, and I had to explain to her time and again, I am a completely different person when I am in office and some one else when I am at home. It took more then a year for my mom to accept that.

This is also the place where I met Rahul Khanna ( not the actor). I instantly fell in love with him :). Love at first sight! Fair, handsome, tall, goes red when he laughs, slight American accent, intelligent, chivalrous, funny, awesome sense of humour and married! :( yeah my heart broke when I came to know that...Never the less I gave more then 100% to service the account.

All my colleagues and even my sir knew I had a huge crush on him. They use to pull my leg and I use to go complete red blushing... those were the days!

2005 and 2006 were the best years of my life... but hell I never knew back then that the next two years were going to be the worst years....

Life till twenty two

My life till twenty two was as simple as it gets. Hated studying so was more involved in extra curricular activities to stay out of lectures. School was a blur, average student only struggled in maths! Maths and Marathi too both use to give me nightmares but hard work and practice has never failed anyone, come SSE and i must have solved at least 100 papers in both Maths and Marathi for the board exam. Result got good marks in both of them. There were two things my school nurtured me in : My interest in reading and my qualities to be a leader :). I graduated from being a class monitor to a house prefect. Also took part in school plays and made my team win the Inter- House Throw-ball cup when I was the prefect in 10th std. So all in all good thirteen years of school life.

College was a different Ball game all together. First two years wiled away my time in the campus... the next three was a roller-coaster ride. Did a lot of events hanged around campus and the usual time pass and checking out guys... ragging juniors bitching about people.... and no studies what so ever... The only year I actually studied ( 13 years of school and 5 years of college) was the last year in College... i studied for 6 months made huge answers referred to fat fat books from college lib, constantly solving papers and guess what all my hard work resulted in... just barely managed to pass my board exam. It was a shocker! That's when I realized hard work is necessary but never to stress or completely slog ... at least not in studies... lol

Even though i planned not to slog my a** out in studying I did a diploma course in advertising and PR ... gained good experience in doing projects and made many friends.... fun filled year all together...

Year 2006 am 22 ... and it changed my life completely.... I started working!... i had worked before as well during summer vacation back in college... worked as an assistant to an education counselor... she had an fully air conditioned office and free access to internet so the best way to kill time in the hot summer of Mumbai! however it was a part time job... Actual work started when i joined a place called Mediacom.. a small PR company located at Worli. The place was not that great at all, but it gave me first hand experience of PR which like everything else I realized is different then what we have been taught in school or college. I was in Mediacom from Feb 2006 till April 2006. May 2006 I spent in giving interviews and June 2006 was a new begining.

That was life till 22... My story of June 2006 will be in the next post....





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