Difficult "Good byes"

What is the feeling of a person when he/she is led by circumstances to bundle up all the rewarding workplace experiences and cast the bundle into a dark airless room and shut the door firmly on it? In short, what happens to a person who decides to move on in his/her career either due to compulsions or out of volition? If it is the former, the challenge of adjustment confronting a person may be daunting and if it is the latter, the move may be a little easy.

“It is 7.38 on a Friday morning in Bangalore city and you are listening to the ‘Friday flashback’ on radio city with me, Vasanthi.” That Friday morning was the last that Bangalore would be hearing Vasanthi, one of the city’s favorite Radio Jockeys hosting the breakfast show. She was saying that she’d be missing the chance of hosting the show and her 3.5 years of experience with radio city would soon be coming to an end.

I was relatively a recent listener of the FM channels and the whole thing started after I moved to Bangalore. While in the morning shuttle to office, I had made it a habit to listen to Vasanthi’s greeting “Good Morning, Bangalore”, which as many among the public felt made them better equipped to face the daily chores of the day ahead.

Being in a profession which involves many opportunities to interact with the public on a day to day basis and making them speak, being party to different moods and swings and finding something to say to every person that would make the caller feel a little special and heard is no easy task. To gain the appreciation of the public for a work well done and consistently at that irrespective of a city’s early morning cold requires grit and above all enthusiasm towards the job itself. For the nature of a job like the one that I am speaking about can easily betray a dull person!!

Her pronouncement made me contemplate the whole issue of “difficult goodbyes”. We all go through this moment at some time or the other in our lives and every person’s reaction to it inevitably differs. For God hasn’t programmed all human beings to respond to every challenge in the same vein!! If he had, the world would be a boring place.

So, I thought about Vasanthi’s journey as she was herself describing it between songs amidst messages form the junta. I was reminded of another such instance when a person quit my team in the office out of her own will. It was like a branch of a tree slowly felled and it requires some time for another branch to take its place and bear fruit. We were all asked by our manager to say what we thought about the concerned person and it came to an end with the manager sending a mail that we would all be missing a good human being and an efficient resource. Though the mail sounded clichéd, there wasn’t any other way to have said it better.

When it is time to move on in life, one has to take leave of many experiences and force oneself to focus on a new role and a little different setting. It is not always easy particularly when the association with the workplace is not just professional but beyond that, a little personally satisfying. I shuddered at the prospect of the people who had to confront a different environment and more at the emotional loss that they may experience. I listened to my friend say, “But that is life na?” I couldn’t help but agree. After all, life is sometimes about “moving on”.