Rachna Maurya, Bengaluru
My career started as a freelancer with MR division of one of the largest FMCG firms in India. Despite working there for a decade, I couldn’t graduate to a permanent employee tag, which led me to eventually lookout for options as I was the sole bread earner in my family and required fixed monthly income to make ends meet. Soon, an opportunity came when one of my ex-colleagues who had joined Market Xcel (MX) informed me about a permanent job opening with MX. Despite being a small agency with hardly 8-10 employees, I still chose to join there as my expectations were being met. This is how my journey with MX started.
It was fun to be at work and it was a different work environment. Though we were a small setup; our aspirations were high. Everyone was shared what the goals were & knew we could achieve them together. We were guided well at each step towards our professional & personal success. For instance, though we had just one desktop computer, but the founders always advised us to learn how to operate it & acquire basic operating skills which may help in one’s future growth.
There was also a lot of respect & love around e.g. one of my old colleagues who joined MX soon after me, used to call me Didi (elder sister) out of affection, but eventually this is how everyone started addressing me including the founders & do so till date. “This has become my identity now”.
Things were rosy and we were doing well, but then came a time when because of some strategic changes, our organization decided to let go certain key clients. The work started to deplete & for next 4-5 months, we were practically doing nothing & sitting idle most of the days. Many of us got concerned for the organization thinking how are they going to pay us and why should they pay us since we hardly had any work. With these thoughts, we went to the one of the founders to share this concern and asked if we should start looking for a job elsewhere. But his answer to this came as an utter surprise, and till date I remember what he said that day – “It’s my headache from where & how I pay you, please go back to your seat and don’t get such notions to your head ever again. We are certain on generating more business but it will be quite difficult to get a team like you guys”. Those words were good enough to boost our morale. It still makes me feel energetic when I think of the journey back then. Slowly and gradually we started to grow, I also got many promotions with more responsibilities. Subsequently, to give me a better avenue, I was offered a role to work at our South center with my base being Bengaluru (besides there was another reason to offer me this opportunity; my husband was transferred to the same city about a year back & somewhere, the founders knew that I felt incomplete here without him in my personal life) . Initially, it was challenging for me to adjust to the culture, language, and new environment as it was completely different from how I had lived all my life. But again, it was only faith shown by my superiors who always comforted me on every step towards my rise to the new role that I gradually became comfortable and adapted to the changes.
I would say, it has turned my life completely and helped me perform better. I look forward to working all my life for the organization with engulfing new challenges and opportunities each passing day.
Rachna Maurya, Proud Family Member