Team Lunch

As mentioned earlier, I tried a vegetarian diet for 90 days. With 30 more days to go, I was planning on having a sumptuous barbecue with a couple of friends, gorging on those tasty meat snacks. And lucky did I get! My team planned on an impromptu lunch at Barbeque Pride, Jubilee Hills. It was a very fun gathering, interacting with my teammates over lunch.

Badminton Tournament & Flash Mob

The Tournament

Soon after I joined ADP, I got to know that there’s a badminton championship being held for our Business Unit. With over 150 unique registrations, this event was surely going to be a competitive. Coming back from the marathon on 26th August, I decided not to practice for the tournament and rather rest those tired legs.

Two days before the event one of my colleague asked if I would like to join for a flash mob on the day of the event. The only time I danced in public was during my sister’s Sangeeth and that didn’t turn out pretty well 😀

But the thought of  ‘getting comfortable with the uncomfortable’ made me accept the invitation and we had a practice session on Friday. Though I got repeated advice from the regulars to not think about anything else and just enjoy, it was pretty hard to shush away the pricking thought of being judged – ‘ What might they be thinking‘.

After a lazy sleep and waking up late, I rushed to the event arena on Saturday morning by 10 am. In brief, I lost my singles match in the 2nd round after getting a walk over in the 1st. After a last minute pair up with a new friend, we lost the doubles match in the 2nd round after a close 1st.  We lacked the perfect coordination. And later, I paired up with Vineeta, my college mate and now colleague and we were given a direct walkover till semi finals where we lost. No regrets for losing since I had zero expectations. It felt great being back on a badminton court after a long while. The thought of having weekly badminton hours crossed my mind too.

The Flashmob

Though I’m calling it a flashmob we were actually 7 people in total 😀
After many practice sessions (where I sucked), the matches were put on hold around 2:45. I found myself trying to cope up with others and watching their moves but had a lot of fun. We performed once again in the presence of the leaders of our division and I had more fun this time around. Post this, I had my mixed doubles match and after that a lot of boomerangs and selfies 😉

 

What was a fun Saturday turned out to be ugly on Sunday morning with pretty bad body sores. I met up with my school friends in the evening and had a good burger meal at Burger King. The week ended with some late night journaling and reflections 🙂

 

Tipping Point

 

As a fresher when you join a company and assigned a team, you are usually kept away from any project related tasks and KT (Knowledge Transfer) sessions are held with any of the senior team members. You have two choices here: Be proactive and take ownership and learn things on your own or slack. I was slightly guilty of the latter but upon some much needed guidance from my senior, I was back on track.

The takeaway being don’t wait to be told what to do. Play around. Learn things. Discover things. Be proactive. First impressions matter a lot. Try setting a very positive momentum in a new environment, be it a new university or work location, so that you’ll have to live up to it later on.

 

Person of the Week

It’s Mohammed Furqan for this week. Close to 400 days ago, I met him at Master Orator Championship – 2017. From being a semi finalist in 2017 to becoming a 2nd runner up in 2018, he walked away with an Apple Ipad. He’s a photographer, speedcuber, beatboxer, orator, rapper-all packed into one.

Check out his blog here and you’ll definitely walk away with a lesson or two 🙂

 

Podcast of the Week

I tried listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History but I couldn’t continue after the initial 30 minutes.
But, I’ve listened to two really good podcast episodes.

One was about the the interesting things happened with domains during the dot com era.

https://www.gimletmedia.com/startup/domain-king-season-6-episode-1

The second was an episode with Manoj Vasudevan who was the World Champion of Public Speaking in 2017. He talked about becoming a master public speaker, how to be an effective leader and much much more.

http://theinspiringtalk.com/manoj-vasudevan-interview/

 

Moving On

I’m very excited for this week(and month) as I’m planning to publish a series of very informative blogposts. Lot of ideas for this blog but for starters, this week will be having two blogposts taking you through the recent Hyderabad Marathon I finished and also an Introduction to Randonnuering since Brevet season is just around the corner 😉 More details soon.

Apart from that, I’m still pending on Ryan Holiday’s ‘Obstacle is the Way’. It’s also Amma’s birthday this week. Let me know if you’d like a slice of the cake.

 

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