Flight from Newark

Newark airport

It’s 6:25 PM, I have a connecting flight to Mumbai in 10.  With laptop in one hand, cabin luggage in the other and the Bluetooth headset clutched in my teeth (!) I am sprinting my way to Gate 6, which is 15 minutes away per the signboards. I am still hopeful to make it. The thought of waiting for another flight to Mumbai, which might be 10 hours later, is making me run faster. “ Honk honk” I step out of the way, there she is, my savior on the battery driven cart! “ssup…how much time?” “10”, I say. “Hop on”…

All the domestic flights in the US were running behind the schedule that day. Hurricane Ike was on its peak. My flight from Chicago to Newark also got delayed by more than 2 hours. That 2 and ½ hours flight was unforgettable because of the worst ever turbulence I had experienced!! Wow…The restlessness was evident throughout the cabin. Those 15 minutes saw 3 puke bags being utilized in my aisle.

 

That’s how I was late for my connecting flight to Mumbai. Somehow with the help of my “savior” I reached at the gate 5 minutes before the departure. The flight was held up due to the delays in domestic connecting flights all over….Phew…..I got onto the plane…finally.

I was looking for 36F. Reached there, kept my bag in the overhead compartment and settled in my seat. “So you are the one!” I turned. She was my co-passenger. “They were holding the take off for you”. “Oh really? Lucky me!” I said. The conversation started after the first round of introduction. This Canadian girl, Jessica, became my “single serving friend” for that flight.

Chicago

2 days before the flight. Starbucks near the office. I am having a career discussion over a coffee with my boss/mentor. He is congratulating me on the award for the best performer for the quarter.

The situation on my end is different. I am looking for a change in my role in a big way. The intellectual trip has gone away from the current work for a while now. How do I change my current role in the org is the impending Q. There is nothing wrong in the current organization I am with, considering the growth and opportunities I got and I see in future here. The only problem is “Mundaneness”. After some discussion and introspection, I see 2 ways out of this boredom. One is to take a 3 months (to indefinite) break and go to Ladakh, away from the regular predictability, indulge in some landscape photography, some trekking, camping, unwind for a while. May be this will bring the energy back. The other way is to think seriously about getting a management degree from a good school!

I kept thinking…throughout those 2 days and even when I entered the Newark terminal from my flight from Chicago.

“Hi, I am Jessica”, She offered me a hand. "Aditya", I said, "How u doing?". She tried saying my name but bounced back immediately, “ That’s too difficult, will Adi work?”. “Fine” I was so used to this by now. 

Jessica was reading a book on statistics and data warehousing. “Woho, is that your interest or a ‘forced interest’ due to work?” I asked Jessica. She giggled and told me that she was a fresh grad from a management school in Ontario and has a paper presentation on the same topic in some management school in Mumbai. 

“Wow, that’s cool” 

“What do you do Adi?”

“I am a Financial Analyst”

The next 20 minutes in the discussion were devoted to me answering her various queries about my role and my company! She was definitely keen on knowing more and more about the role and the profile. On the other hand I was interested in knowing more about her management school, the class composition, the admission procedure, the recos and the references and all the other granular stuff.

This is strange, after 3 years into this role of Financial Analyst in a consulting company I was looking for major change in path and one of the options I was contemplating was going for an MBA. There was this girl, pass-out from a good school who was keen on getting into a role like mine. Later in the discussion, she asked if my company is recruiting fresh MBA grads!! :))

This is more confusing than ever. The subjectivity is so complex. 

Life is open ended!