Part B -
One of the greatest challenges that I have faced in my life has to be my stint at Saint Gobain, Chennai. I got recruited there after I completed my graduation. The company atmosphere was great. So were the people. Since my role was in operations, I had to engage a fair deal with outsourced service providers in regards to my work, the majority of them being locals. Since I was from Eastern India, I had no knowledge of Tamil, the local language. So there came my biggest problem - communication. I faced great difficulty in expressing myself properly. So I decided to tackle it up front. I decided to learn the language. It might sound easy but it was really to catch on the words on which I had no command. Worse (or maybe better) still, I figured out a way to read and write the language but found it really difficult to speak out a meaningful sentence. This ordeal went for a long time. As a result my performance suffered both work-wise and maintaining a healthy communication. I had to figure out a way soon to improve my situation. So I sought help from colleagues. I tried to learn a word or two for every major expression and along with the best of my abilities tried hard every time to communicate thoroughly. I built a sound relationship with my colleagues and the other shop floor people. I no longer made communications myself but conveyed them to my colleagues in English who could then convey the message to the shop floor people in Tamil. I no longer took the sole responsibility myself but distributed the workflow and rather coordinated the work and the outcome. My ability to trust people and in turn make them trust me made a huge change towards my approach to my work. I started improving my performance and also brushed up my knowledge of Tamil. This enthusiasm spread to other colleagues and they also started to support me keenly. This may have been a trivial matter to most but for me this has been a great mountain to climb on. Afterall a great communication leads to great network. And a great network leads to a great career.
#VGSoM # IIT Kharagpur #ABGLPWooMe
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