In Year 2013 I came to Australia and the first ever Job I could land with was for Nikesh Patel in Hospitality Industry as a House Keeper in Oxygen Apartments Brisbane.
In the start I was ashamed to join the job as the fake “ENGINEERING PRIDE” was stopping me from accepting the reality of life.

Engineering Pride is most common stigma in India and that is because “ENGINEERING” is a reputed Degree, but way more Engineers get their Degree every year than the number of Engineering Jobs available.

Thus Engineers are Forced to work in a Industry where they had no prior knowledge or skills about the Industry. And Since no skills are installed in the Engineers they had to start with very low position with minimum wage jobs. Another common
thing Engineers do is to compare their success with the Top Notches Academic Student of their own batch and live in self Guilt of underachievement. These two forces of “low start” and “underachievement” along with the socio-logical pressure
coming from society accounts for “ENGINEERING PRIDE” self implying that, “the job offer in Hand is below my dignity to work”.

Thus in My case I was a Bachelors in Technology in Biotechnology and Housekeeper in Hospitality Industry basically means a clearer. Thus mentally it was me going down certain level of work ethics (which I had none to start with).

But when there was last $160 left in account and
a decision to make weather to pay the $155 Rent or Buy Bread for the week, working for the Job Offer in had was a no brainier choice. During those weeks I was so ashamed of myself that I decided not to declare what I was working as to my friends, relatives and even to my own family. It took me years to get out of the “Engineering Pride” and then set my life progress accepting the reality of life, learning more skills to gain different variety of jobs and keep uplifting yourself time to time.

In the mid year 2014 – 2015 I met with my 2nd boss Mazin Albassit, in the same Industry and fortunately same venue. And Since this time I had the skills and experience already, so convincing him to get the job offer was very easy than the initial struggle I had in year 2013.

Then came the second stage of learning work ethics which is called “KNOWING YOURSELF”

I remember in the start of days of his business days Mazin was so focused that he spent time to understand the working style of each and every staff he had. He concentrated and spent time for continuous improvement of every individual and whole team under his supervision. I sometimes still hear good stories about him that how he went out of the way to take a step further and help his staff when they needed of him.

One of the one to one meeting I had about self reflection changed the way and direction of the work culture I got exposed to. I remember this meeting word to word as if it had just happen yesterday.

He sat with me with a pen an paper, and explained to me how I would understand the concept of Industry where we were working at that stage. He drew a straight line in between two points saying “Thats an Ideal work position and working culture where only Robots can work. With 100 percent accuracy and consuming the least amount of time.” Then he draw a parabola meeting the same starting and ending point, saying, “this is your working style, you want to achieve the perfection and therefore consume a tremendous amount of time to achieve that.” Then he drew a Diagonal line from the starting point to a random interference in my parabola which dint even touch the ending point. He continued, “You are a human. Learn to accept that. This is where I want to you work. Consume a moderate amount of time and finish all task in had for the day. Sometimes it is OK to forgive yourself for not achieving the perfection you aimed for. We all will achieve the Perfection one day with more practice and more and persistence, but today is the day where if you invest all the time one task you may never be able to complete all what you have in your hand for the day. Thus believe in yourself and learn to accept minute imperfections in life as well as your work”

The results of that meeting dint get immediate affect but eventually I was able to absorb the learning value of what was been taught to me that day. Since childhood in India academically we are so forced and focused to achieve the 100% result in life that we fail to accept or even appropriate the imperfection.

Your academic life goes in aiming for getting 100 out of 100 marks the field that you fail to observe that only one or two students in each batch actually made to nearest 90% of that academic culture and rest all are between range of some of self guilt, jealousy, comparative nature, and non acceptance of reality of their result.
In our minds the person achieving nearest to perfection becomes a hero that we fail to support our own mates who couldn’t even pass the examination. I am not demeaning the high scores for their academic excellence but I am just appreciating the existence and acknowledgement of all the students who could not come under the perfection bracket.

The same academic culture we try to implement in our working ethics and thus live in the same guilt of not achieving perfection or comparing our misery with the top notches of your surrounding who could achieve that perfection. Thus Knowing, acknowledging and accepting yourself is important and accepting imperfection is way more important.

With the Guidance in my work culture, I definitely did not transform into Steve Jobs or ended up having the urge/need for end to end control and coming up with a great product like “APPLE”. But, I was and I am “Tapish Dongre” somewhere in between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates work ethics and positive that one day I will make a recognisable contribution in the world.

Only because of past experience and learning with different teachers in life, when I was given a position to run a team, I could accept the imperfection among individuals in my team
without getting mad on my team members or myself, learned to move on, complete the task and be ready for(if) I get another day in hand.

With this hope I sign off believing in Mazin Albassit words that, “Yes one day we will achieve perfection but today is the day to accept who you are and complete the task for the day.” You may never have a tommrow.

Have a Great Imperfect Day Guys
#tapishdongre #utsp