While on video call with my parents the other day, a daily ritual since my girls have been born, we were talking about what the kids say they want to be when they grow up. Vedu always says she will be both a firefighter and a chef. And Taaru goes one step further and says she will be a doctor, teacher, and a masseuse. We were laughing about how the girls have combo and backup career plans already.
I then told the girls, “Don’t ever think that you are bound by limits on what you can do. Amma worked in different profiles of HR and as a trainer before you were born. Now, at close to 40, when I started working again, I switched to a totally different career and has become an editor.” My father then made the following comment. “What career did you have anyway? You were just doing some jobs where you were getting some ‘nakkappicha.’” For you non-Malayalis, “nakkappicha” is a much-worse Malayalam slang usage for earning “peanuts” or even “alms.”
Not that I ever thought that anyone in my family thought all that highly of my work (or me in general), this comment kind of felt like a stab in my heart. But since “rocking the boat” is the biggest fear of my life when it comes to my family and “keeping the peace” is the only choice when it comes to my father, I knew that, like always, this time too it was better to laugh it off and not say a word about how bad I felt about that comment. Being the coward that I am, what do I always do then? Write a blog about it, of course, and vent it all out. This is just that.
I started working right after my MBA and worked with a few companies in the next six years, before I took a break to travel to the United States and then to start a family and be with my kids until they started school. That has already been part of a previous blog where I (unnecessarily probably) defended my choices of quitting my job, staying home for the first few years of my girls’ lives, and doing multiple things like blogging, book translations, and freelancing along the way to make sure that I wasn’t leading a life worth nothing.
https://insanereverie.in/yes-im-proud-of-myself/
I started working again on a permanent basis a few months ago while making sure that I am not sending myself into a spiral by taking on more than I can handle, by setting my daily work timing to a maximum of 5 or 6 hours and working from home. That way I get to enjoy my work without drowning in it, and I get to spend time on my other interests and more importantly, my family. It is definitely a privilege, no denying that. But this way, even if I am not earning as much as my peers who work fulltime and in much more grueling conditions (my salutes to them!), I do not find any reason to complain about it.
Come to think of it, this privilege has always been a part of whatever choices I have made in life. When I got placed with a global company during my MBA days and started working there right after college, I was outright disappointed by the fact that I would, in essence, be working more on sales if I stayed on there. I stayed a few months there and then moved out in search of a profile in HR, which I knew wouldn’t be as high-paying as my previous job but still something that I would love. I didn’t stay home jobless all the while when I searched for an HR job though. Even though it was a temporary setup, I worked with a recruiting agency with a very toxic work culture for a couple of months or so, during which time I applied to countless companies, seeking an HR job.
When the recruiting agency was on the verge of shutting down owing to the inflation-hit economy, I was forced to go home and be jobless for a month or so—a time when I just wanted to run away from home worrying about the kind of disappointment I knew my parents (especially my father) had in me for leaving a high-paying job with a global company. I don’t think they ever understood why it was a decision I had to make. But then again, I was able to do it because I didn’t have to worry about sharing the load of any financial burdens at home, like many others of my age, who simply didn’t have a choice other than work wherever they got a job.
While I was immensely grateful for this privilege, I also made it extremely clear to myself that I should in no way live a life beyond my means, and by means, I meant whatever little money I made. When I found a job as an HR Generalist with a small software company in Cochin a month later, my salary was meagre. But I didn’t mind at all because I was given an opportunity to do and learn from something I really wanted and loved. And I put all my heart and mind to it, working long hours, making mistakes, and learning and growing from them for the next two years.
When I moved on to a software giant later as a Business Skills Trainer, my salary was still not really great as they were taking people in only as retainers on contract and not on a permanent basis. Yet again, I didn’t complain because my dream was really coming true. I stayed on with this company for close to four years, in which time I trained thousands of college recruits who joined every year, through the year, scared and excited at the same time, looking lost but ready to be guided, even the ones who pretended otherwise. And this was the best time of my career when I was given a chance to make a tremendous impact in the lives of so many youngsters.
I did make my mistakes here as well and learned from them. But the feedback I have received from these youngsters have been the biggest motivating force in my life. Their words, their love, their affection, and the memories I share with them have been so positive that while I never let it go to my head, I have always cherished that in my heart, and that has always made me proud of the work I have done even in such a short span. Even now, at times when I feel low, reading through the sheets of feedback from these kids can cheer me up and make me feel good about myself.
It was only towards the end of my stint with this software giant that I was absorbed into the company and finally started earning a salary that was at par with my experience and the amount of work I had been doing. However, months later, when I chose to quit, the last thing I worried about was losing the higher pay that I had finally managed to get. My priorities were just different, yet again, thanks to the privilege that I have had.
But in all those years of working on lower-than-average salaries (and to an extent, even now for that matter) I lived a frugal life, determined not to depend on my parents’ money for my needs. I saved as much as I could and kept checking my bank balance every second day. I never let my privilege get the best of me; instead, I used it to set my priorities right in doing what I really wanted to do. And wherever I worked, I worked my ass off to make sure that I never gave anyone a chance to complain about my work ethic or results.
Sure, I never really had a “career” in the real sense of it. I went from being a namesake customer service management trainee to an HR Recruiter to an HR Generalist to a Business Skills Trainer and now to an Editor. And for most part of this “here-and-there” career, I have earned nothing great. Still, I have saved all I can and made my ends meet without depending on anyone. I have done whatever I can to be one of the best at my work. I have got feedback after feedback and heartwarming comments to prove that if I ever had to (not that I am going to).
But it was none of this that first came to my mind when my father made that comment with a smirk on his face. It was an incident from those days when I was earning a “nakkappicha” like he said. It was his birthday and I tried calling him up to wish him; but he didn’t answer my calls because he hadn’t been talking to me for a long time since I wasn’t getting married as he wanted me to. I ignored the hurt of the rejected calls and got a gift for him—a Samsung phone worth 13K, one of the best of those times, which I really couldn’t afford but still wanted to get him as I knew he had a thing for high-end gadgets and was very picky about the gifts he got.
I still remember going to the ATM and getting 13K in notes as the shop I went to didn’t accept cards. As I handed over the thick bundle of notes, I was asking myself if I was getting ahead of myself by doing this. But I told myself that it was okay because it was for my father who had got me so many things in my life. I went to him with the gift, all excited. He never touched it, never even looked at it, despite my pleas. That phone stayed buried in a table drawer for a long time before I told my elder brother to use it as he needed a phone at the time.
When he was making that comment about my “nakkappicha” jobs, I wonder if he thought of that gift that I got for him using the very same “nakkappicha.” I wonder if he even remembers that “nakkappicha”-bought gift that he heartlessly rejected. But I guess the memories and positive reinforcements I have received from my “nakkappicha” jobs should be enough for me to get over his comment and similar stabs I have received over the years. So maybe I should think of those “nakkappicha” jobs as my blessings.
Also published on Medium.
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