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 11th 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!
