Farewell - What do you think about it?
Let's ask first the Google baba. Haha! It says, used to express good wishes on parting, marking someone’s departure.
In the same sense, I felt many farewells in my life. Saying bye-bye to unfriendly things, habits, persons, thoughts, events and so many other affairs or incidences throughout time. I always think of “Good wishes” while leaving something or someone as a gesture of keeping experience with ourselves. Many a time it becomes a mere farewell and not a final Goodbye. How do I say Goodbye?
Every farewell gives us majorly 2 things.
Memories
Wishes/wisdom for new entrants.
Memories include leaving (or living) past bad experiences and keeping the good ones for life as long with the same expectation (desire) to share with others as if we won the battle (sometimes as fancy fantasy). Memories, that are starting with the introduction, friendship and obsession with work, things around us, culture and people who make me smile.
People always gave me good wishes and said all the very best and luck for my new joining to anything. Life is uncertain but praying for someone and wishing are the things which can be certain.
After writing all the above thoughts of mine, It’s becoming an impossible task because trying to find the right words has me reminiscing about so much. I am trying to write about the last week in Dhyey. I don’t want to write much but it's like feeling a tsunami (waves of thoughts and earthquake of feelings).
The last week in my first longest job Dhyey was very tough in the sense of emotions, obsessions, sentiments, sympathies, craze, crushes etc. Emotions and sentiments with people; obsessions with many things, workplace, habits of calling people, watching them secretly in hope searching smile that made my day many a time; there was the craze of bringing/creating new things before the youngsters (including my self) and the crush on my favourite relations having those beautiful smiles with bold asserters. I was in thought that how would I live after leaving all these behinds. But I kept everything in my memories and wished them in good faith.
I was having so much confusion telling others that I am leaving the organisation. I was in prejudice in my mind that people may react badly who have a greater attachment to me (or I have). My favourite tunes (Voice of persons) saying me “Bhai” (Brother), “Kem chho Rutvikbhai?” (How are you Rutvik?), “Su kare chhe?” (What are you doing?) etc. I was preparing my mind to have days without these tunes and missing them badly. Many dialogues I missed and left. Many dialogues I kept in their mind. The habit of taking care or seeking care was the most amazing part over there. All the legacies given by all my Directors and Ashishbhai, I tried to impart in me as well as others. How much I did ?, I was thinking and reconciling in my mind. I was thinking that not repeating my mistakes and adopting new things that are coming further.
It was a total flashback starting from my five years of Journey with Dhyey in June 2017 and ending in October 2022. I felt actually the time fly. The challenges, the experiments, the enthusiastic projects and people with those projects, the ups and downs, and the motivational colleagues. Everything was flashing in my memory. I was also having some excitement about joining Hitachi along with the pain of leaving the Dhyey family. I cried when my farewell was getting celebrated. I was thinking to write everyone’s name here as a memory but also thinking to keep it secrete in many places.
I missed taking many things as a backup for my memories, things I left in the office. I can’t do goodbye to this place or this career justice, I’m going to leave you instead with the greatest lessons that working here has taught me and the things that I am most grateful for.
1. Be kind
First and foremost, be kind to everyone you meet in or outside of your organisation. Everyone has a story, and you don’t know what burdens someone is carrying. This career in particular overemphasised to me to be kind to every single person – even the person who might not like me at a particular moment. I am so grateful for the kindness that was also extended to me: from my directors, Nilesh Mandani and Sahil Amin, who has been so supportive of me over the years; my work friends like Bhusha who have helped make each day fun and enjoyable; and the stakeholders of the different projects, I’ve met or worked with who made me feel special for doing what was quite simply, my job. This was not possible without Dhyey.
2. Be a good steward of your talents:
Recognise that your current gifts are not all your own; you have them because someone else helped you, cultivated you, gave you a chance, etc. I learnt from Santoshbhai, Aakashbhai, Amitbhai and Sanjaybhai to point out others’ good traits, and you’ll help build someone else up at the same time that you develop a good character trait in yourself. Learnings from Saying yes to everything with faith in God's Power given to me, to saying No for diplomatic reasons. I am so thankful for the leadership in our team who were supportive of growing me and gave me the chance to represent and grow up my abilities in so many ways. I have had the opportunities to learn and thrive because others took a chance and faith in me and let me find, and experiment the ways to incorporate my own talents into my daily work.
"Servant leadership not only works but is deeply satisfying."
3. Be open and flexible.
There was once a time when I thought I had a plan for life [inserting laughter here]. I couldn’t have imagined or dreamed up my life now, and none of it happened according to some great plan I executed! Be open to the “what if” and be flexible when your most prepared-for plans don’t work out. This is really where the best parts of life happen! I am so grateful that when opportunities arose to do different tasks in the Dhyey Family people believed in me and thought I might be a good fit to move into those positions, even when I wasn’t sure that I could do them. I am also grateful when sometimes an answer to something was “no” and when things changed and I had to adapt. It is what has brought me to this moment!
4. Don’t pretend like you know it all:
It’s okay – and healthy – to utter the words, “I don’t know.” It’s also a marvellously freeing thing to say, “I messed up; thank you for pointing out my mistake.” Over a period of time, after meeting different people across the world, I inculcated a culture, these two things are antitheses, it seems, to the pursuit of perfection (impossible) and success (limiting on its own). But yet these two things foster our humanity and actually allow others to trust us more. I am so grateful that I had people to go to when I had a question. I never felt like I had to “know it all” or that I wasn’t supported when I needed guidance on what to do. I was supported when I seek moral faith in myself by saying, “Rutvikbhai tame nai karo to kon karse?” (Who can do if you say you can not do?) - Mansi.
Being yourself at work is powerful. I wish I could take credit for this mantra but it was innovative in our office. It is really powerful. When I started my career, I never felt pressure to be the model employee that the company expected but a good mentor and leader. At Dhyey, I learned that encouraging people to be their authentic selves unlocks incredible value. It also generates more diversity in the workplace which I saw firsthand directly drives high performance. Unfortunately, people do have to tolerate a much higher frequency of "dad jokes" from me in the office.
5. It is OK to have fun at work:
There is no reason why fun and productivity should be mutually exclusive. Jeet and Vivekbhai were very helpful with the same. I learned that no matter how absurd my annual April Fool's joke was, there was a non-trivial number of people who would fall for it. I would spend the rest of the day calling clients and sharing the play-by-play of how my prank had landed and jokes were cracked.
6. Be thankful:
For everything, the attitude of gratitude is something our Indian culture has always taught me. Say “thank you, thank you, thank you” for the little things, the good things, and especially for the hard things. You will have so many tough days in life – days that you think you can’t possibly survive – but being able to say “thank you” on those days irrevocably alters something within you and helps you to see how great life really is. I’ve experienced a lot of heartache at the Dhyey Family with colleagues – and I’ve brought plenty of my own heartache with me – but the good days far outnumbered the bad. I am so grateful for each and every day I spent here … for the path, it placed me on so many years ago … and where it led me … what it allowed me to do … and who it allowed me to work with … how it has shaped and grown me … and how it has supported me and my family … how it has given me a graceful and positive exit … and for where it will lead me next.
I have a friend who told me years ago (when her life was taking a big turn), “This isn’t goodbye. It’s just a see-ya-later or a well farewell.” I liked that because final goodbyes are hard to bear, but knowing that there would always be a window for us to reconnect gave me some peace with the same relationship of brotherhood and deep friendship. No one knows where life will take us. We may meet one day again on the office premises or in some other way. However, you all shall remain in our hearts forever with all the bitter and sweet memories. Thank you Dhyey and family.
Yours Lovingly,
- Rutvik
