Farewells

In the last three years with my current organisation, I have seen a number of farewells – Farewell of close friends, farewell of not so close friends, farewell of seniors, farewell of peers.

Some leave as they are moving for better career opportunities, some others leave as they are moving to a new phase in their personal lives and some others leave not the organisation but their current roles to move to a different role in a different city. Each one has his own reason for moving on.

While each farewell ends with a speech of the person leaving and a few others who have worked closely with the concerned person, what each and every farewell has been telling me is that there is more to a person than his professional role in the organisation.

Every farewell makes me realise that I don’t know a large part of that person – his personal life, his goals and ambitions, things he is passionate about, causes he supports or would like to support, his knowledge and experience from his past jobs, etc.

Every time a person I leaving, it hits me that here was a person from whom I could have learnt so many things outside our current roles, could have connected with him better and got more closer, could have understood him more and better. But……one gets so involved and wrapped in the time warp of work that getting ten minutes out even once a week with the idea of knowing a person better seems an energy sapping and time wasting effort. Then there are inhibitions of the mind that how the other person will take it, will he be comfortable in opening up and sharing beyond the professional part or the regular and mundane part, which are the hygiene factors which everyone knows about everyone.

Well, the truth is that the other person does not feel uncomfortable… in fact it is oneself who is uncomfortable. The other person is more than willing to impart and share his knowledge and experiences if there is a genuine seeker for it. Who would not want to have someone within the organisation who doesn’t talk to him or come to him to only discuss work and its periphery.

Knowing this and being fully aware of it and now even blogging about it, I shall take sincere efforts to know people around me better and beyond the professional domain so that when I am a part of the next farewell, I can proudly say to myself that I have known this person well enough and even taken a few lessons of life from him.