Moving on...away from my comfort zone

So finally 20th July is going to be my last day working for the project in which I worked on from the day I joined Infosys. It is only apt that merely 3 days before that day I will have completed 6 whole years as well with the company. 

6 years is a long time especially if you consider that apart from my training months in Mysore, each and every day I have logged into the same client mainframe, maybe looked at pretty much the same programs, jobs, procs, parms and what not. As if a receipt of my hardwork or maybe mere luck (I think it was just plain luck) I also got an opportunity to travel to onsite for this very project. Till 20th July 2012 it will have been 1 year 2 months and 11 days since I landed in the US for this project.

I was non-plussed with the idea of travelling to a foreign land and more so interacting with clients. The major reason for that was that I had everything sorted out before hand. There was a large contingent of Infosys folks from my project already here. Folks with whom I had worked at some point in time back in India for a period of 6 to 12 months or more. Each and every details right from the airport pickup, to the acco was already set. I had only to present myself at the given time, which I did not find much of a problem with. So even in the US I was very much in the comfort zone.

However come 23rd July, I will have stepped out of my comfort zone. I will be moving to Des Moines, Iowa. Apart from it being a new place it is also going to be new people and the fact that I would be the only bachelor around doesn't make things rosier. Add to that the fact that in the past year I didn't even get my DL done and I feel screwed. So its going to be as fresh a start as anybody would have had in a foreign land. Starting from a week's acco in a hotel to maybe hunting for a residence and yes also sooner than later getting your own wheels to become that much more independent.

Move over and to the kind of work I am going to do and we have to talk about a totally new game. The domain remains the same - Healthcare but to use an analogy I would say, if it was cricket I was playing earlier, then its baseball that I have opted to play now. The only common thing between the two being that hitting the ball out of the park gives the crowd something to cheer about in both. I am not saying that I will be the next Babe Ruth, well not that I was ever Don Bradman to begin with. Guess these things are to be done just to be in the sport ;) (i have a feeling my carefully worked analogy went for a toss right there with that last statement).

I am somehow savoring the challenge to say the least and not to mention I am backing myself to come out on tops as well.

In the coming months the old Chinese proverb is sure gonna come true for me - 'May you live in interesting times' :)