Post 2- IBM CSC- #CSCCAN1 - The first CSC team to Canada - Halifax1 Nova Scotia & my personal story

As CSC completed 10 years of its existence, the CSC service looked into some possible additional opportunities across the globe.    The thought process to explore possibilities of piloting several teams in locations/ countries where CSC has not served before came into action.  

 

The First 10 years of the CSC engagements have been strictly in growth markets.   As the program stepped into the 11^th Year, the possibilities of extending this service to more developed markets in the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Western Europe came into consideration.   The new pilot teams will bring in new dimension to the strategy and opportunities for more IBMers to serve.

In the words of Jamie McDonald, CSC- Operations Manager,  Some may hesitate about serving on a CSC team deployed to a country with a highly developed economy because they believe that:

·    Communities in those countries do not require assistance OR

·    IBMers deployed to those countries will not have the same cultural experience as IBMers deployed to countries with developing economies

This is not true!

·    Communities in Countries with Developed Economies Need Help Too

o  All countries, like all individuals, have something they can improve.

o  There is not one country on the planet that has fully met all of their goals for its entire population, so all countries need some help.

o  For that very reason, CSC expansion projects, like all CSC projects that have come before, will focus on having a positive impact on under-served communities.

·    CSC Expansion Projects will be Culturally Immersive Like All CSC Projects

o  CSC expansion project teams will be international, made up of IBMers from all over the world

o  The under-served communities that will be served by CSC expansion projects are culturally distinct from even the rest of the cities that they are in so they will likely be very different from the countries that IBMers will be coming from

 

The Personal Story:

As the applicant who has been selected to this coveted assignment, I was given an opportunity to select a preference of working in one of the 5 newly added countries – USA, Canada, Japan, Western Europe or Australia.    This does not entitle direct selection to an assignment to the country of our choice but was kept as one of the preferred option.

My first option was Canada, followed by Western Europe, Australia, Japan and then USA.     And I just left it at that without giving it a second thought as the deployments do not always happen to your location preference.

However,  it was on 9 June 2018, I got the much awaited confirmation mail from Jamie, informing that I will be part of the Canada1 team, the first team to be deployed in Canada and based out to work from Halfiax.

My happiness knew no bounds when I was assigned to Canada1 team and the first people to share were my family and my sister Jayanthi who is a Citizen of Canada now. 

Same time, tears started to dwell to the fact that my mother, who has been ailing for a while now, is critical and is in the Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai, taken care by elder sister and my daughter giving me time and space to complete my final semester of Law.     Is this travel needed now?  Was my question.  I started contemplating on personal front, if I should say no to this assignment, to the given fact that Amma will be back with me in July and I will definitely need to take care of her and that is the first and biggest priority to me in life at that point of time.

I started to think on those lines, and discussed with my sisters and my manager.  My family stood as rock solid support saying that all of them will pitch in to take turns and take care of my mom, as I embark on this CSC Journey.    My manager gave me the most empathical shoulder needed giving me options and thinking of various possibilities.   He said that I take small steps, and we will decide as we get closer to the date of travel depending on the situation then.

It was my mom, who gave me the biggest pat and said that she will stay in a cosy retirement home called Nandini in the 4 weeks of my travel and will also have time with her age group people to talk to & spend some time  and I can come back and bring her back home.  This woman, who was terribly sick, so dependent on me even to feed her, help her small errands to the washroom and frequent visits to the hospital, is here pushing me to apply for my visa as I kept hesitating to do that.  I kept asking myself, is service to the society is so important, when my own mother needs me around to help her even to bath, eat and take medicines. 

I silently started my pre-work, as any decision to take back on the assignment would mean that I will upset her the first thing, as she will be very guilty of being the reason for my decision.  In the last few years, she stood behind me as rock support in all the work I was doing to this society in the smallest ways possible and she would hate the idea of me losing on an opportunity because of her.   It was on Friday, 3 August 2018, I finally went to the VFS office and applied for my visa rather hesitantly.

And then on Tuesday, 7 Aug 2018,  the guardian Angel of my life took to her eternal sleep.  Giving me no room to feel guilty of leaving her behind as she is suffering.  Leaving me dismayed.  What else can I do, than to dedicate this whole experience to her?   Tears dwell again as I write this, but that’s how life is.   Having raised by this brave woman, I have no choice than to be brave, and move on!