Summer Internship with Petrofac – Karippath Rahul Narayanan from National Institute Of Technology, Calicut
Daily Winner for: – 30th August 2013
Name of the intern: – Karippath Rahul Narayanan
Institute: – National Institute Of Technology, Calicut
Organization interned with: – Petrofac
This story happened in the year 2012, soon after I successfully completed my 2nd year in NIT, Calicut in Electrical and Electronics. We had a long two-month holiday after the end semester exams and following the famous ritual, I decided to spend these days doing absolutely nothing. Getting up late in the mornings, staying up all night playing games and watching movies.. Bliss!
But as they say, ‘Man proposes, God Disposes’. Things turned out to be very different. In my case, my dad took up the role of God and unceremoniously dumped all my plans and flushed them down the toilet. He got me an internship in the company where he was working. It was to last a month and I had to go everyday with him to office at 8:15 AM and be back by 6:30 PM. Jolly good way to spend your vacations, won’t you agree.
Within a week after my college ended, my 30-day sentence began. Getting up at 7 in the morning, having breakfast, wearing formals, travelling, sitting on a desk for 10 hrs, travelling back, changing back to gorilla clothes, dinner and then sleep. This was my typical work day routine. I started counting the days to my retirement and hoping for a natural calamity to occur somewhere adjacent to our office building. Neither Mother Nature, nor the laws of time changed and soon boredom hit me. Very hard and right on my face. I started sleeping off and having very sweet dreams on my desk. Employees around me (who had some serious work to do) would just give me glances and put on the ‘You pathetic loser’ face and move on. Frankly, I didn’t care and I ignored all of them. Sometimes I would be given work and sometimes I would be given things to read (sweet dreams). I never thought of learning much or contributing much there. But as it often happens to me, I was wrong.
Right across my desk, was a guy from Kerala named David, who was working in the design department. He was this 30-something, chubby guy with a smiling face and pleasant attitude. He wasn’t there in the first week I joined. So when he saw me for the first time, he came and introduced himself with a big Colgate smile. I too was happy that someone actually spoke to me after this long and smiled back. He explained that he was on site and had just came back. I too told him about myself and how I was having the time of my life here. He got my sarcasm and explained that people here are very busy and since I’m in 2nd year, there isn’t much they can show me as it would be too advanced. I was really happy about my day and he told me a lot of other things about the company.
Two weeks passed this way and I heard from my dad that lot of people are getting terminated as they are planning to open new offices in other parts of the world and want to reduce the staff here. Meanwhile, I was busy bad mouthing the company to my friends and telling them how bored I was. I couldn’t meet my friends or hangout with them often. They started going places without me and I felt angry.
I told my dad about this and asked for his permission to stop my internship. He said its just a matter of another week and I could stop after that. I used to tell all this to my friend back in the company and he used to laugh it off. He told me that I should feel happy that I got an opportunity to work in such a big company with so many talented and hard-working engineers. Anyway I was in my final week and happy that I could finally get out of this place and enjoy my holidays like I had planned.
Soon after, my final day in that office came and I waited for 6:30 with bated breath. As I went to talk to my friend after the afternoon break, I found his desk empty. No books, pens, notes – nothing. It was as if he didn’t exist. I was astonished. I thought maybe he shifted his place. I searched the whole floor but couldn’t find him. I waited for him to show up in the evening at least. But he didn’t.
Then I asked the peon in the printer room if he knew where I could find Mr. David. He replied, “Sir had to leave the company. He was fired and given one month’s notice. This was his last month. Everyone knew this. Didn’t he tell you?”
I was shocked! At first, I was angry. How could he not tell me something like this? Then the truth dawned on me. He got fired from the company, but still he defended it and told me to embrace this opportunity. It was my first month and I complained so much about this place while he was spending his last month and still had so many good things to say. I couldn’t wait to get out of here and kept counting days down, but imagine what would have gone through his mind when he heard all of this from me. Maybe he would have wished for a month more so he can get more time to find another job and support his family.
Often in life we take so many things for granted, not once realizing the true value of it or the struggle others go through in order to achieve it. If I see that man ever again, I will not ask him why he didn’t say goodbye before leaving but instead say ‘Thank You’ to him for teaching me a wonderful lesson in life.
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