The story of my redemption day

and it was worth the wait!

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What better example of Redemption day than that of Daniel Ricciardo in Monaco 2018. An errored pit stop made him lose the race in 2016. Coming back to Monaco in 2018, taking pole, leading the race, overcoming the power unit issues and winning the race - a redemption worth goosebumps!

Image - https://f1i.com/

Okay, so mine may not be as interesting as Daniel's, but it was a delightful experience indeed. Here it goes.

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I was assigned a project as soon as I joined my current organisation. Infact, I was hired for a particular project. With a US onsite visit in prospect too, I was super excited. The visa got rejected within a week of joining, which is a different story!

I started my contribution on the project. The work was usual, everything I had done in my previous experience. No rocket science stuff. Of course there was some learning to do, with the product domain new to me.

I was supposed to work directly with John, the CEO of the client company.

On the very first call, John asked me open up a google doc, and share my screen. He then asked me to write the definitions of a user story, epic, acceptance criteria etc. I was irritated right away. This was like checking if I know to ride a bicycle, when I was riding a bike.

Having already reaped the benefits of being patient, I followed through. And thus began my product knowledge transfer.

This felt no less than a MBA program. Along with the regular scrum and other meetings, John started scheduling 1-to-1s day in and out. I was there on calls until 12am, and again at 9am (IST). I almost felt sick. In between calls, there were assignments, and other project work I had to manage.

To cater to all these, I started staying back in office, finishing up the calls and then coming back home. This meant me reaching home at 1am most of the nights. In between all this debacle, I felt sick. Like super-sick! Even while I was resting, all I could think of is how I am failing to produce the results as per John's standards. Huh!

I got back to work within couple of days. I felt vulnerable, disrespected for some reason. I still decided to give it a fight. My manager supported me all this while.

As I gathered more knowledge on the product side, I gradually started earning John's confidence. He then started assigning me tasks which I could independently work on. He started relying on my inputs with regards to the feature development and UX. I became one of the “important” people in the product team. This was not my win though. I was waiting for my redemption. My "Sabka badla lega" moment was yet to come.

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Meanwhile, the only thing keeping me sane was playing TT. I had learnt to play TT during my MBA. And had continued to play some in the previous organisations. But here at the current one, it became a serious thingy. All the work frustration was getting transmitted in my game. An hour of game everyday became a routine. And not to brag, but the game indeed improved. Improved to such an extent that winning became kind of a habit.

On one of the meetings with John, we were discussing sports and I told him how I loved TT. Ping-pong, thats what he calls it. Saying he himself likes the game too, he said that we would play together sometime. And this eventually happened in couple of months, when he was visiting the office for a week. I felt a redemption vibe!

He had gotten brand new ping pong bats, much much better than what I had. We met, and this was the first thing he told me.

I had been waiting for this opportunity all my life, I grinned.

I for sure had not seen his game, and I never underestimate opponents in any of the games. But I had decided long back that no matter how good he might turn out to be, a couple of smashes lashing onto his body were a surety.

After meeting the team and aligning the work, it was finally game time.

“Me tera game kar dalunga”, in the voice of Teja bhai is what I constantly murmured in my head.

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The Game

I got a good picture of his game during the warm up. For a hefty person, he was quite agile with the movements. And I was impressed. He also had some good shots and spins in his armoury.

But being determined with hitting those 2 smashes onto his body, I was not too worried about losing.

We started with the sets of 21. He was straightaway in the attack mode. This rather turned out easier for me, as my defense is stronger than attack. A long rally of smashes and I could see his limitations of stamina. Thats when I started pouncing back, at his most vulnerable state.

I gradually picked up points to cover up for his lead. The first set came to the game point. He was short of breath by then. With my rally of defenses, I lashed one back onto his chest to win the final point.

From just aiming to hit couple of body smashes to winning the first set, I was delighted.

Undercommit and over deliver, right?

He immediately was all ready for the next set.

The next sets were mostly a repetition of above, but this time I was leading from the beginning and was having a larger points difference with sets 2 and 3.

The score now: 3-0

My manager came to watch, and John grunted to him, “He’s really good”.

John took a loo break after the fourth set, losing that one too. While he was away, my manager said “Abe client hai wo apna, ek set to jeetne de usse”

We laughed but I did not budge. I was even ready to lose my job to see a 5-0 win.

In the 5th one, I still provided him couple of opportunities to cover up the points difference, but maybe he was too tired. The last set was relatively easy and it was indeed a 5-0 victory!

After that day, John never uttered anything remotely to ping pong again during the remainder of the visit or in any of the meetings, and I had my redemption done right!

I did have an imaginary celebration, on my imaginary podium, splashing an imaginary wine!