It was the year 2016. I was working as a senior relationship manager in Aviva life at Kolkata. On one particular Tuesday, as I was juggling with work, I received a call from one of my friends from school. Happily, I picked up the call, but the next few seconds made me fall on my knees, literally. I had just received the news of my other childhood best friend Ayan, passing away. Ayan, and I studied together in elementary and high school.
Ayan was always a bright student. When we tried to find out the reason for his death, we found out that it happened due to an incident at work. Ayan worked in Chennai as a chemical engineer and around a week before this news came out, he had fallen from a height of 30-40 feet at his work site. This had him going into a coma and never making it back again. This was all the more disturbing and I just couldn’t process the whole thing – it all felt so unreal. The day they brought his body back home, despite being mentally unprepared, I went but didn’t know how to react. Seeing his mother, girlfriend, and other friends, devastated, I couldn’t say anything. After a while, not able to handle it anymore, I went home.
As I went home, a whole lot of things were going in my mind. The incident had triggered something inside of me. It reminded me of how I wanted to achieve something in life, and always wanted to move out of Kolkata but nothing had worked out. It was the moment when I decided that it was either now or never. If I don’t move out now, maybe I never will. I mean, no one has seen the future! I can’t and didn’t want to be stuck in the same city as the one where I was born.
On 28th January 2017, I had an interview with Amazon. I made it all the way through and only my final round was pending. So, the very next day, I booked my ticket, packed my bags, and left for Hyderabad. The next day, I reached Secunderabad station around 8:30 p.m. With two bags, eight thousand in cash, and loads of dreams in my eyes, I was ready to start my life from scratch. I used to have a Blackberry Z3 and it the era of 2G then. By luck, I was finally able to find a PG to stay, at Madhapur.
As days passed by, I got anxious as Amazon hadn’t reached out to me for my final round. So, I had no choice but to keep trying for other jobs. I did get selected in a few but the hope of hearing from Amazon stopped me from joining these jobs. Neither did I want to give up nor did I want to go back home. My patience did pay off as I finally got their call and joined Amazon on 29th May 2017. As I now complete 4 years, across 4 teams in Amazon, I feel proud of myself. There are so many memories that I’ve made and found amazing people who make life amazing. But at any point in time, if I’m in any trouble, I remind myself of the night that I landed in the city – alone and clueless. It gives me the courage that I can survive anything in life. Amazon, in short, has literally become my way of life!
Total Work Experience : 5.5 Years(Amazon, Aviva India, ICICI Bank)