Chapter 6 : 11th May 2017

Next day, 11th May 2017

I reached office around 9:10 am in office. As soon as I opened my system I saw a mail in my inbox from Sumeetha.

“Hello John,

Thank you for the note. Your contributions as the Pillar of the EL team is much valued and appreciated. I would not recommend that someone like you who has a genuine passion and talent towards organizing events and driving it to a successful closure totally moving off. You could still continue to be our trusted advisor and honorary leader at the same time dedicating your time to pursue your career aspirations. Meanwhile we could induct Reshma to take some load off your shoulders and do a divide and conquer approach. We could work out a plan towards how to handle this.

Let me know your thoughts.

Regards

Sumeetha”

On the same day , I received an another email from Varghese as well, who was manager of Sumeetha

“’John,

I agree with Sumeetha. Your passion and energy are one of the driving factors for the EL team and activities. I do not want to lose that.

We can look at someone to lead/co-ordinate the activities and you can be part of the team guiding them.

Thanks

Varghese”’

I almost took more than a week to reply to them. At the end , I replied on 20th May.

“Thanks Varghese and Sumeetha for your kind words.

As Varghese mentioned, I can be a part of team.

It would be great if we make Reshma Nair as Lead, Lakshmy Manoj and Unmesh as Deputy Lead. They are really active in our team.

Organic Farming event went well today, and I trying my best to conduct an event in Chennai location.

All iz Well

John Peter”

But I was damn sure that I will be leaving the team by june end and time for me to switch the company. I found my earned leaves were near to 30. So I applied leave for two days on May 22nd and 23rd .

Two weeks later,23rd May 2017

It was the second day of my leave. I was sleeping in my room and I received a call from my manager around 11:00 am.

“Hi John.”

“Hi Mohan.”

“Sorry to disturb you. I know you are busy at your hometown but wanted to discuss an important thing with you.”

“No problem. Right now, I am free. We could have a conversation.”

“I didn’t know what happened to you, you look dull or feeling sad for the past few week or months. Is it due to your H1B visa?”

“No, I am ok. Just I might be tired for past few days”

“I really didn’t have the authority to process your H1B visa. I tried my best to initiate the visa for few of us in our team. If you could check with other team, you would be knowing the count of people for whom H1B were initiated would be less than our team. Are you trying to find jobs outside the company?”

I took few seconds to breathe and to think. Why is he calling me now? He could have discussed with me in office. Did Sumeetha meet him and informed about the mail which I sent them a week before. I knew I should never respond emotionally if the opponent is not willing to listen. Though I was willing to change the company, I didn’t want to tell him the truth.

“No Mohan. I have not thought of changing the job. Meanwhile I knew that you tried your best in initiating my visa. Thanks for that and for calling me today.”

“Are you sure? If you have any other plan in your mind, please tell me frankly. I won’t tell others “

“I don’t have any company-switching plans as of now, I’m planning to focus more on learning automation which would help me in building my career. I need more time to learn these automations. Hence I planned to quit from Emerging Leaders Team.”

“That’s a good thing. I know you were working as AS400 developer. Please brush your knowledge in that as well along with new technologies. It would help your career in future.”

He also added “I wanted to say one more thing to you. I don’t know whether our company would be processing H1B Visa for next year. So, I can’t guarantee that your H1B visa would be initiated in next year. I would be promoting you to Test Analyst from Senior Tester under one condition. You should give me a word that you wouldn’t leave the company at-least for a year. Please don’t disclose our discussion to anyone”

“Thanks a lot. You have my word that I am accepting your Conditions.”

The call got ended after saying bye. I was happy that at least my designation got changed.