Day: February 26, 2011

Thoughts Of Leaving An Office

- Roshan

As I approach my last week as an employee in my current company, I am filled with a lot of thoughts mulling around in my mind. After 4 years, during which I was promoted once in profile and once in grade, there are bound to be many memories good & bad. I have a few close friends who I will be leaving behind when I shut down my system for the final time come Saturday evening. I remember the initial days after I joined the company (also chronicled in this blog, January 2007), the feeling I got of joining up, the induction & the training, conducting my first training batch in a temporary office (that was the hottest and stupidest place in the city), the feeling of being lost when we finally got our new office up & running, some moments of despair and some of happiness.

Amongst the most memorable moments coming back home from the office and crossing the railway track, are once when I was lost in my thoughts and just missed being hit by a train, another night when I tripped in the darkness and fell onto the railway track, glasses & phone flying in different directions. I also got to be the lead for two awesome of teams with some awesome individuals. I became wary of the dreaded con-call (or waste of phone calls) and the even more dreaded reviews. Being in this company has also shown me what a bunch of dullards people in corporate can be and how arrogant & hypocritical people can be. One or two departments ruling & bossing over the others and being so high & mighty. And how the rich keep getting richer while the entry level & those just slightly above them are kept poorer.

I will miss a lot of people from the office here in Cochin and a few in other centers. I am not naive enough to think that I will be able to keep in touch with all of them, even in this day & age of affordable phone charges, internet, email, Facebook and chat. It just doesn’t work like that anymore. Life & work gets in the way for that to happen but maybe a couple here and there will keep in touch and call or chat once or twice a week/month. I’m willing to settle for that.

Kovalev Moves To Pittsburgh

- Roshan

Joining his former team mates in the exodus from Ottawa, Alexie Kovalev was the latest Senator to find a new team as he was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 7th round conditional draft pick. Kovalev, who used to play with the Penguins for 5 seasons, said being involved again with a franchise run by Mario Lemieux made Pittsburgh a very attractive destination for him.

In the past month the Sens have shipped  veterans  Mike Fisher, Chris Kelly,  Jarkko  Ruutu and Brian Eliott out of town while receiving several draft picks but little in the way of actual players other than goalie Craig Anderson. An Olympic gold medalist with Russia in 1992, Kovalev has scored over 400 goals and recorded over 1000 points in his 18-year NHL career.

Earlier in the season Kovalev went public with his general unhappiness in Ottawa and openly complained about his role under head coach Cory Clouston who demoted Kovalev to the fourth line for a period of time.  Although Murray could not define exactly why Kovalev never quite seemed comfortable in Ottawa, but admitted that his relationship with Clouston may have been a factor.

It has been a disappointing tenure for Kovalev in Ottawa after signing a two-year, $10 million deal with the team as a free agent in 2009; however the enigmatic Russian sniper has turned up his game as of late.  He has 14 goals and 13 assists in 54 games this season.  He waived his the ‘no-trade’ clause in his contract in order to get the deal with the Penguins done. He said his biggest regret was being unable to help turn things around in Ottawa.