The start of every offsite brings in this unknown feeling of fear and anxiety. Rushabh coined the term “Refresh“ for this offsite and I was dreading the drama and all the things that could go wrong. I had opted to take a flight to Jaipur (for health reasons) and started contemplating my decision when I had to wake up at 2 am to catch the flight. The thought behind taking an early morning flight was not to miss the opening session but the “refresh” started sooner than planned and we missed half of the very first session.
My drowsiness faded away as the first discussion began - What is the why behind what you do? When my turn came up, I shared my personal ”why”. Apart from the love for the craft, it was the need to satisfy my ego to continuously succeed after switching my career from Architecture (Yes, I did it for 2 months and hated it before switching to computer science 🙈). Also, I fear the lack of respect one experiences when they are dependent on someone. I soon started reflecting on my habit of oversharing.
We then headed for a “small walk” up the hill. Thanks to my footwear (assuming this was supposed to be a walk), I chose the easier one to climb. This also made me reflect on how I am always so risk-averse with everything I do. I take a step back whenever I sense a lot of uncertainty along the journey.
After a few more sessions, we gathered to play games. I enjoy this time during every offsite as people are more candid and free during such conversations. The next day, we were supposed to go for an early morning trip to the Ranthambore fort. I managed to wake up on time despite having a sore throat. Soon after Gursheen and Michelle (my roommates) got ready, we realized that the water supply in our washroom had stopped and I couldn’t make it to the trip 😒.
Most discussions were more structured than before. I enjoyed the discussions on social capital, accountability, and engineering. Social capital is something everyone measures subconsciously but is never openly talked about. Also, it’s strange how you don’t actively try to build it but it’s just an outcome of most of the things you do. The engineering session ended with me ranting about not having good docs and other practices (reviews, testing). During offsites, I am always in awe of how well people can articulate their thoughts. That’s something I need to get better at.
Having a bad cold and a sore throat, dinner was mostly a disappointment for me. Watching people savoring sweets and fried food, I ended up having dal rice and paneer every day and swore to not touch paneer for at least a week after going back home.
The dance workshop was pleasantly surprising and fun! I remember the last time I danced was back in school and I enjoyed every moment of it. Dance is an activity that requires you to overcome your mind blocks on people’s judgments and to do this with colleagues requires extra effort, at least for me. The next day, I went on the safari without any expectations. While the cold left me frozen, I was grateful to spot a leopard for a split second.
On the last day, the team decided to play FPL (cricket). Even though I managed to do most of the other extracurricular activities back in school, I have always hated sports (except swimming). I went to the field with my laptop to solve an issue with Navin but was dumped with the responsibility of keeping the score for the matches. I wondered how to exercise my “freedom“ here. The team started the match without any preparation on scorekeeping. While few people started discovering apps to fulfill this task, I began noting scores on Google Sheets with a few formulas. I was irritated by the amount of multitasking this needed - umpiring the match given my minimal knowledge about cricket, keeping and tallying the scores, answering people’s "Kitna hua, Kitna chahiye aur?” I lost my patience and felt the need to restart my meditations.
During the closing session, I remember Aditya saying most of the things apart from the people were uninspiring - the trains, the washrooms, the food, the station, the place. On our way back to the airport we took the new Jaipur-Delhi highway. We reached the airport within 2 hours. The journey was smooth, with clean roads and beautiful plantations along the way and that’s when we thought that this was what we could call “inspiring“. Overall, this offsite turned out to be wholesome and complete with lots of thoughts I carried back home, some reflections, and some complaints I have with myself.
