What a day! A little after I reached the office, I was called up the center head to his cabin and told to join the AM for HR and a guy heading the recruitment department and go to visit a training organization which has ties with the local government to try and place jobs for young adults from lower income families. We’ve been hiring and hiring and the monthly attrition list is alarming as the salary is not that good and most new hires use us a a stepping stone to the next job either in the state or in the Gulf.
And that’s cool, I don’t expect people to stay with us at the salary that we are offering for the rest of their careers or even for more than a year or two. But 2 months average! Come on, it’s not worth the time, energy, pain & money spent on recruiting, training these buggers and get them certified to become call center associates for inbound customer care. Hence the alternate option of the said government involved training institute. I was to join them for the visit and take a trainer along.
We ended up leaving our premises at 12:20 pm in a company cab and man was it hot outside. We went to Kadavanthara to meet with the man in charge of running this venture and then traveled to Maradu to visit one of the training batches. We met the trainer and the batch that he was training and interacted with them. Seems ok. By the time we came back to our office, it was past 3pm. We were tired, sweaty and hungry.
After the day’s work ended, I left the office and boarded a bus heading for home. With the heavy rains we’ve had from late afternoon, there were traffic blocks in Kalloor. And a transformer exploded (do I see a trend) in Kalloor just as I passed it. Bam! The poor went out in that area. Man was it loud & bright.
And then – I saw that the guy next to me in the bus was playing with …..a squirrel! A live squirrel in his hands. When I asked, he said that he found the squirrel when it was a baby a few months ago, while cutting down a tree in his wife’s parents’ land. The other babies died but this one survived and he saved it and raised it as his pet. He carries it with him in a small box lined with some cloth and keeps the box in his carry bag. The squirrel is his constant companion. Cool eh?
