I picked up writing during my career days with a non government organization, back then, I was young and reckless boy, living life completely on auto pilot mode. As per the verses from my job description, I was compelled to document narratives of field level activities on a day to day basis, before that, I had never thought or have ever bothered myself to write anything. Appalling revelation came to me, I realized that writing come natural to me and I picked up good and fast.
Meager after two years of hard work I was able to write technical papers like writing a proposal or contributing in research work writing. Not so glorious years, my days were filled with both field and office work, As I was also part of community level activities performed in the villages, for instance, “Participatory Research Assessment” and other trainings, technically I was acquainted with all the details of the activities, only thing was left was to narrate the going-ons which was preferably done in a time dedicated only for documentation of field work back in the office. If I could still remember precisely, even on hard summer days, coffee and biscuits were served during weekly Saturday meetings, fun and chaos was common on Saturday, office witnessed the presence of field staff, reason, inscribe and submit their weekly reports and plan for the coming week. Reports were then submitted to the Project Director who would analyze the targets and offer feedback wherever necessary.
Spinning Sun turned days into night, with each passing day I learned a lot about myself and writing, even my boss and my peer noticed the flow, they become my raving fans, but it came with a down side, more work and often . Welcome to the hustler’s club, pathetic, can you beat it, skilled employees are always burdened with more work and I hated the fact. Secretly hoping to get paid more or even promoted, but in vain, I had no choice, only to embrace the workload as if it was rigged in my favor. I proudly completed 4 years on the position of documentation officer, with nobody their to rock my boat or even challenge my authority, I guess I hit saturation, there was nothing new to learn, I was plagiarizing my own work, simply copy pasting and changing the dates, as mundane as it sounds, field engagement was turning into the same old gramophone records.
Like the break of dawn an opportunity appeared, through peer grapevine, came to know about a vacancy for a project manager in other reputed organization, I was desperate for a change, and it’s the only way to grow. I applied online, their HR called me up to set up an interview, under the mirage of confidence I gave my best, and guess what, birthed a breakthrough, I got the job. It was 14th August, the day of coronation, I joined as project manager, in a new job excitement is not optional it comes with the package, exhilarated, I was ready for the new responsibility. Little did I knew that life had other plans for me, day one went quite well, everything seems just fine, a warm hearty welcome from my new boss and colleagues, I jumped into the work right away. Next day was a national holiday 15th August (Independence Day), spend my day with a little rest and work. The next day “the most dreaded day of my life”, and why I say that, I joined office as usual and then “Life Turned on Me”, like literally, odds turned against me, all hell break loose, misunderstandings, failures, office politics, even my very attempt to keep things on even keel went down the drain. I fought through the rough patches alone, realizing something is attacking my journey; it was getting harder and worse every day. I could not find another job so I have to make it work with a smirk on my face even though I was dyeing inside and I kept it that way for another 2 years, when finally I had to give in and resign from the post. Although I didn’t wanted to, but I had enough of bad times, I struggled another year to get myself a job but I was turned down by every organization I applied to, something didn’t work and it happened for another year, jobless and running out of money then I came to know about blogging, I resorted to writing, my only refuge left at that moment.
Blogging was not an easy road; I had to trudge through the misery of learning word press platform from scratch, YouTube videos came in for the rescue, I burned midnight oil, I build a website for myself on education and started writing articles, reminiscing old days when I was over worked with document writing, I still remember saying to myself I embrace workload as its rigged in my favor, maybe I didn’t realize I was learning a life saving skill and that was writing.
