151 lines
12 KiB
TypeScript
151 lines
12 KiB
TypeScript
import React from 'react';
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import type { Metadata } from 'next';
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import { notFound } from 'next/navigation';
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export const metadata: Metadata = {
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title: 'Bbuddy - Blog item',
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description: 'Bbuddy desc blog item'
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};
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export function generateStaticParams() {
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return [{ blogId: 'news-1' }, { blogId: 'news-2' }];
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}
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export default function BlogItem({ params }: { params: { blogId: string } }) {
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if (!params?.blogId) notFound();
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return (
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<div className="b-news-page">
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<div className="b-inner">
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<h1 className="b-news-page__title">6 learnings from Shivpuri to Silicon Valley</h1>
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<div className="news-item__badge">Leadership & Management</div>
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<div className="b-news-page__text">
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{`news id ${params.blogId}`}<br />
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I’m excited to kick off this series of newsletters where I’ll be sharing my experiences, learnings,
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and best practices which helped me to grow both in my personal and professional life. My hope is to
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give back to the community and help anyone connect directly with me who may have got impacted with
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recent layoffs, dealing with immigration challenges.
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</div>
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<div className="b-news-page__image">
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<img className="" src="/images/news1.png" alt="" />
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</div>
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<div className="news-item__info">
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<div className="news-item__info__author">
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<img className="" src="/images/author.png" alt="" />
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<div className="news-item__info__author__inner">
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<div className="news-item__info__name">Sonali Garg</div>
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<div className="news-item__info__date">February 6th, 2023</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div className="news-item__info__counter">
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<div className="news-item__info__like">
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<img className="" src="/images/heart-outline.svg" alt="" />
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165
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</div>
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<div className="news-item__info__share">
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<img className="" src="/images/share-social.svg" alt="" />
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Share
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div className="b-news-page__inner">
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<h2 className="title-h2">
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This is not about layoffs, it's about living with whatever life throws at you..
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</h2>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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Over the past few months, as the macro-economic events have unfolded, I have heard voices filled
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with anxiety, helplessness and general lack of confidence to deal with this ambiguity from my
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mentees, colleagues, friends and family. I was laid off from Meta last November and I firmly
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believe this is nothing but a bump in the road that might seem like a steep climb in the
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short-term. I may not have all the answers but this has inspired me to share my story. If you
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are looking for a sob story, you can stop reading now. Ever wondered what it takes for a girl
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born into a conservative family in a small sleepy town in India, who lost one of her parents at
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age 17, earned her living while pursuing engineering, moved to the UK by herself and ended up
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working in big tech in Silicon valley? My goal with this series of posts is to inspire and share
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my mental models that helped me throughout my professional and personal life.
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</p>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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After completing my engineering, I started my career at a small software company in Bhopal and
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then worked for TCS(Tata Consultancy Services), one of the largest IT-outsourcing companies in
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the world for almost 5 years. Over the past 14 years, I have worked for big tech companies like
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Meta (Facebook) and Google, wore multiple hats, led strategic programs, scaled multi
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billion-dollar businesses, built teams and helped achieve business operational excellence.
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Throughout my career, I’ve dealt with several challenges from execution to scale to building a
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high performance team. A lot of my early struggles were about how to assimilate in a new
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culture, create a network in a new environment, earn trust, create and nurture work
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relationships into fruitful friendships and so on.
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</p>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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I was born in a conservative family in a small town called ‘Shivpuri’, also known as ‘Mini
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Kashmir’ because of its natural beauty. My father was a civil engineer working on Madikheda Dam
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on Sindh river and was a strict disciplinarian. He was gone from dawn to dusk and was always
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focused. My mother was a teacher in a school that was about 30 kms from our home. We (me and my
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sister) would often be left with neighbors to be taken care of and this led us to become
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independent at an early age. Our otherwise slow paced, simple life with only a few families
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around in the government quarters that were set up to support construction of the dam was filled
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with natural beauty, wildlife and a community of close friends. Our lives were balanced and
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while my parents worked hard to provide basic needs, we were satisfied. There were only a few
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schools with Hindi being the prevalent language as the medium of teaching. There were no
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colleges for advanced studies and most girls did not go to college often married off by their
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18th birthday. Generally speaking, we had a joyous childhood with just the basics. While most
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folks we interacted with were not highly educated nor ambitious, earned lower middle class
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salaries and lacked exposure to the outside world but there was plenty to learn from them.
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People had learnt to stick together in good and bad times. They embodied the old school
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qualities of hard work, dedication and commitment. Be willing to give it all- hard work,
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dedication and commitment.
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</p>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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In 2003, my father passed away suddenly and we found ourselves in crisis. My mother was a
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teacher and she did not have time to deal with her grief. Rather, she was struggling to garner
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support to get transferred to a school in Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh to be closer to our
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maternal grandparents. As we uprooted ourselves from Shivpuri to Bhopal, one of my father’s
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loyal friends came to help load the moving truck. While he had nothing to gain out of us, he
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continued to serve us until the last day in Shivpuri. Remember, in crisis your team matters more
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than any other time. Advocate for them ruthlessly in good and bad times, they will come through
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in crisis.
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</p>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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Eventually we found our footing, my mother’s job was transferred to a local school in Bhopal and
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I got admission in a government engineering college. My sister was still attending high school
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and both of us were teaching tuition classes to middle school students in the evenings to make
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ends meet. I also started a tiffin service for a few out of town students while attending
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college to pay for my transportation and cost of supplies. We refused to give up. Persevere when
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all else fails.
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</p>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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Our 5 years went by quickly in Bhopal as we worked towards improving our financial situation and
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I completed my Bachelors in Computer Science. This was the time I first stepped out to live in a
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metropolitan city, Mumbai for my job at TCS. This was a paradigm shift from Bhopal and I was
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blown away to meet so many talented folks in Mumbai. In my head, I did not belong in this place.
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I had imposter syndrome and felt like an outsider trying to make it in a new city. Most people I
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met were fluent in more than 1 language, well-dressed, communicated openly and with confidence,
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and presented themselves well. I was always in a dilemma when it came to adopting values. It
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took me a while to adjust to it but I was still not confident about my work and communication
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while my hard skills that I learnt in engineering were top notch. I kept questioning my
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abilities but persisted. This was not the first time I was out of my comfort zone. Persist, when
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in discomfort.
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</p>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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I worked with multiple global companies who were clients of TCS and was presented an opportunity
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to move to Scotland, UK for an year to work for GE, who was also a client. This was my first
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opportunity to explore a different culture, food, music, languages etc. I remember working on my
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english when in Mumbai, in preparation for my UK trip. It was really difficult to understand the
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accent in the UK, even though language was not a barrier. I still remember certain words would
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just not get across no matter how hard some of my colleagues tried and they would end up using
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signs to convey. Be prepared, opportunities come to those who are prepared.
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</p>
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<p className="b-news-page__text">
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In 2013, I came to the US on a dependent visa after marriage and quickly realized the curse of
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H4 visa. I paved my path by going back to school at UC Berkeley and then jumped back into
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building my career from scratch. While working in the US over the past years, I realized college
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degrees with good grades and certifications definitely help you to get your foot in the door but
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are not enough to be successful in your career. As I was again starting from scratch in a new
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culture, determined to do whatever it takes, having done this a few times before, it doesn’t
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scare me as much. Never be afraid to start from zero again!
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</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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);
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};
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