Following is the mail I wrote as a last day mail to a few people at Microsoft. Thought this needs to be up here for sure.
I have been planning this mail for 2 months now. Telling myself I'd write it when the feeling hits the most. But damn it, tomorrow is my last day and yet I don't feel that way. Yep, it's that time of the year where a whole bunch of people begin to say goodbye in their own weird ways and move towards their apparent long term plans and dreams while we stayed on, feeling weirdly left behind. Or maybe we all have our paths and it is finally my cue to take that sharp turn I was waiting to take all this time.
In about three months, I will be found studying at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor waiting to die of too much cold or too many assignments. For that matter, when this admit came, I might as well have died. I honestly did not believe it. I kept waiting for one sign after the other to confirm that they aren't taking this away from me. That it is indeed mine. When you haven't had anything to celebrate in too long a time, I don't think you remember how to do it anymore when something good does happen. Even now, while I type this mail, my flight has been booked. I have the visa in my hand. There is technically nothing that can stop me. Yet, this incredulity, this amazement, this emotional upheaval, I think it is just stupid, but oh well, that's how it is.
In three years, a lot of things have changed. I have learnt to bargain (might I say very successfully ;) ) because of the 'very friendly' autowallahs here. I have watched an average of 15 movies per year in the theatre (which seems like less but is a lot for someone who barely watched one and only when the title included Harry Potter/Hobbit etc). I can actually converse completely in Hindi, retorting back too without actually struggling for a witty way to do it. I have had more girl friends in these three years than I have had in all of my life. Which is why even today, I refrain from wearing this horrid pair of sandals I had. (Story goes that someone thought that I was committed and deeply in love with someone(verbatim) in a long distance relationship which is why the change in dressing sense happened. I guffawed when I heard of it. IF only!). I have gone out and experienced most things people ought to try and then ideally abstain from and have quite a few crazy stories attesting to the fact too. :P
Most significant of them all, I am a lot more realistic bordering on pessimistic. I am more perceptive to pain. I cry a lot easier ( and I hate it!) and feel Nirvana is therapeutic. Like one of my friends put it very aptly, I came in a with a government-esque five year plan, so sure of its execution. But sometimes you fight so hard for something you're so sure you want, when it comes to you, you no longer believe you were meant for it, you deserve it or even that you want it. I think I have forgotten the pain, the hard earned joy and glory at the end of a long struggle. We don't realize how comfortable we get with this life of ours. Maybe the point is to give it up. Go back and struggle. Not stop unless you are truly happy, the kind of happiness you get when you are sweating like a pig at the end of a workout but you can't wait to do it again the next day. Maybe that's what I miss right now. Maybe that's why I don't truly feel like myself anymore. I think I want that real happiness. And I am going to try and get to that.
If there is one thing that I want to leave you with, it is how much I have loved the company, right since day 1, and I mean Microsoft as a whole. I always tend to find a new reason or a new facet that I am amazed by, that I want to embody, that I wish to be a part of. I have been lucky to have the most amazing mentors who always encouraged me and kept challenging me with every task I completed and I am hoping that will come of some use where I am going. I have had some of the most amazing managers ranging from those who made me strive hard to deserve to be a part of the team, to those who told me it is intention and hard work that is important, and that as long as I love what I do, I will do my best. I also came across the most amazing people who despite being in a position where they could make me feel really small, they made me feel like I mattered and it was worth it. Just for that, if I do end up getting a Ph.D or become a postdoc etc. , irrespective of offers from anywhere else, I believe my heart would still choose Microsoft, because somehow, something about it just feels right. I feel like I fit right in and I don't think I am ever going to let myself forget that.
This is quite a long mail I have written. If you know me well enough, I think you'll know this is just about the right length. If you don't, I am very very happy that you reached until this point. I will always be amazed at people reading something that I write, right until the end and am thankful to them too. The years at Microsoft changed my world and me in a way that I don't think I had ever imagined possible. I am leaving with a curious mind open to possibilities, waiting to explore and dreaming of making a difference enough to change the world.
That this mail has reached your inbox means that I have had at least one interaction with you that mattered and you are someone I hope to keep in touch with. ( I know bcc kinda defeats that point but it is a requirement only for technical purposes). I shall be available on different mediums as specified below and I promise not to add to the list of airport check-ins that shall happen like a craze in the following months. :) I wish you a life of happiness, excitement and will to do whatever you wish to do in life. Leaving you with this song while I bid adios.
