Space.

You will always find it:

Space.

Meandering
Like veins under the skin;
Joining the various limbs
In a system of interconnected pathways-
Binding.

Sustaining Life.

This is how Atom and Coco make paths for themselves, ensuring that they are in the centre of all activity.

While the probability of you walking into our office and seeing at least a handful of people surrounding Sai’s desk is high, the probability of you seeing little incisions and elongated corridors stretching between the seats chosen by the people that form this organisation, irrespective of whether or not we’re in a meeting are even higher.

They sprawl on the floor: snoozing, nibbling, yawning or even walking around, sometimes constantly fishing for attention. And that’s one of the things that binds us as an office- this shared love for these sweet creatures and the energy that we draw from them, the quick breaks we take to laugh at their sleep poses and of course, the annoyance we feign when they’re being too needy.

The space they’ve barged into and hollowed out for themselves seems pretty permanent- evident in the literal and figurative sense; in the space we spend our entire day in and in the crevices of each of our minds.

Gushing about them to whoever I meet is almost a predictable part of my routine and so obviously, you, my reader, will not be spared.

Hoping you don’t mind it,
Namitha.

Keeping It Short.

What do I write in the blogs? When do I write the blogs?

These two questions have been a part of the daily internal dialogues running in my mind right from the time I joined the firm. The only difference between then and now is that the question of ‘when’ has taken precedence over ‘what’.

There seems to be a constantly growing list of interesting conversations that occur in office that could be converted into quality content for the blog but there also seems to be an increasingly diminishing ability to maintain focus beyond the time when assigned work gets completed. Is it the stress of the changes that we’re making or the fact that gradually, everyone is becoming more accountable and responsive w.r.t the roles they play in the office, I’m not sure yet. Either way, as I’ve mentioned time and again, the general level of productivity at the end of the day seems higher than it used to be.

As with everything else, I hope time will allow us to find our groove and get back to having time for things beyond designated tasks, activities and deadlines. 

Keeping things short for probably the first time,
Namitha.

Gradual Destruction and Constant Upliftment.

It has been about 3 days since our little experiments pertaining to the systemization of the office structure have begun and the mood in the office has shifted. The past few days have seemed like high tension, high stakes days for most people. There is no denying that by the end of the day we are so mentally obsolete that I, for one, don’t know whether to feel exhilarated or just exhausted.

This shift in atmosphere is not something anyone can ignore or even leave unnoticed. We did what we, as an office, always do- had a conversation that involved everyone that was in the office at that moment. The end result of this was the decision to start splitting roles and delegating work to establish the next step in this organisational process.

The good thing about this, if we are able to achieve it, is that eventually all the pending work would be done once and for all and from that point onward, there will only be a sustainable amount of work each person has to do. The flip side in my head, however, is that this isn’t an easy exercise to do as the outcomes are far too varied and probably even extreme:

One outcome could be that each of us, being unsure of how much the other person will be able to complete, will end up delegating the bare minimum. The other way would be that we just pass on everything that we can’t do leading to an extreme testing of the patience and work capacity of the last person on the hierarchical ladder.
Either of these methods would set us up for spectacular failure.

The only positive solution to this activity would be to follow a balanced approach that relies on gradual change of systems rather than a sudden upheaval of habits that have been inculcated over a long period of time. 

How we reach this balance is a whole ‘nother story altogether- One that I will share with you, as and when we progress forward.

Stick around, it seems like it is going to be a bumpy but crazy ride!
Namitha.

Baby Steps.

The office is alive.

That’s the only way to describe the past few days. After discussions upon discussion and talks upon talks, it finally feels like we’re going somewhere with our work.

Don’t get me wrong. We never stopped working, but we’ve only started working, very recently, with gusto. Almost all the deliberations we have nowadays are based on one word: consequence.

You’d think that there is only so much you can talk about consequences but you’d be sadly mistaken. Spend one day in our office and you’ll see various reasons to identify and link activities with corresponding consequences- not just in terms of immediate good or bad but also in terms of the manifold systems that revolve around that one word.

Another thing we’ve been touching upon is the fact that our organisation doesn’t end at the rung of interns or at the rung of people who supervise the site. Rather, our office and all that it stands for and believes in needs to reach the level of workers who ensure that all the office work is translated into something tangible.

These are, obviously, not ideas, ideals or concepts that can be introduced and implemented in one day and slowly, but surely, there is a shift in the way we view our work and as of now, the shift is one that moves us towards a better version of what we currently are.

As always,
I’ll keep you updated about the implications of these baby steps.

So long,
Namitha.

Non-Christmas Christmas Hullabaloo

After a month of celebrations, January is usually considered to be a downer of a month; what with the entire year ahead of you (am I the only one who feels better towards the end of the year?) and almost no grand festivals in the near future.  However, today was a day everyone in office was excited about. Turns out that between the public holidays and breaks taken by people in the office, we’d ended up never having the pre-christmas gift exchange last year and obviously, playing Christmas santa is an activity that cannot be ignored.

After 2 date changes and a lot of hullabaloo, we finally celebrated Christmas in office today and when I say celebrate, I mean the entire shindig with a make-do Christmas tree, borrowed lights, Christmas songs on the speaker and a bucket of gifts.

Now I expected us to start playing the game towards the end of the day because I really didn’t have much faith in the probability of anyone getting back into the groove of working afterwards. However, I was perfectly pleasantly surprised when (surprise!) it took everyone about 15 minutes to switch gears and go back to whatever was on the agenda  for the day and all this…wait for it..without any cribbing or whining!

I don’t want to believe it but it turns out that all of us, actually enjoy working! That, I feel, is quite a revelation (at least for me) and a happy one, at that.

Hoping to maintaining this positivity throughout the year!

Namitha.

Never Ending Questions.

Somewhere in the third week of working here, I started typing questions that I needed to figure out the answers to. These could be anything- from ‘what on earth is masala in the context of site work?’ and ‘what should I write in the blog today?’ to ‘does this drawing have to be completed first or that one?’ or even ‘where do I add this in the grand scheme of pending work?’

Initially, I thought that this would just end up becoming one of those random documents scattered in my drive that contain bits and pieces of text that I will accidentally stumble across a few weeks from then. How wrong I was.

Every time one question gets answered, it seems like two more pop up- making it impossible for me to stay on top of it, let alone forget about it. And this is why soon enough, this note got the title- "never ending questions".

You'd think that this random snippet from my life has not a lot to do with office but that's not true. It is testimony to the fact that if you just look around this chaos that is slowly (very slowly) starting to get sorted out, you'll always find something new to do or figure out. It is also an indication of the way we work, the hands on experience of being thrown into the deep end and the type of environment we work in where questions are encouraged and answers don't always need to be found on Google.

I think it'd be quite interesting to see how each of the new people react to this space. Maybe, soon enough, I'll write about their experiences.

Hope you stick around!

Namitha.

5 Minutes.

‘Atom is the reason I can’t work.’

Someone said this is the garage the other day and all of us automatically had a smirk on our faces. Almost everyone who has worked here has probably thought this at least one time.

If you’ve met Atom, you know what I’m talking about.

It can be the sad droopy eyes he looks at you with every time he wants your attention (which is all the time, by the way), the way he makes these noises when he’s trying to communicate with you or even the fact that he is the friendliest great dane you will ever meet; something about this gentle giant will draw you to him.

Of course, all isn’t always good. He can be over enthusiastic while running around, can knock you ever if you’re in his way and worst of all can stamp your feet or semi-crush your shoulders with his paws. But all in all, if atom wants attention, chances are that he’ll get it- if not from you, then someone else.

While this might occasionally disrupt your focus or even annoy you once in a blue moon; the fact that such an energetic and quirky creature is around you automatically makes you feel more at ease, usually irrespective of how stressed you are.

Sharing an office with Atom and Coco has shown me the reason dogs are often chosen as therapy animals- they don't need to try very hard to help you calm down; you just spend 5 minutes with them and that's almost all you need.

Thank you, boys.

See you soon,
Namitha.

Direction is so much more important than speed. Most are heading fast nowhere. 

Scene 1: 

While in college, we were constantly told by our professors about practical exposure. How visiting a few construction sites, observing and interacting with the workers or engineers at site would really help us empirically. The processes taking place right in front of us will be imprinted in our minds. 

Scene 2: 

Cut to working at Sandarbh. On a daily basis we are working from sites, interacting with our tradesmen understanding the processes. Giving us a better insight to understand how we execute our designs. 

In college, We were never told how important managing  project, people and materials are in keeping a project well on track. Learning about processes that go well beyond drawings and softwares. To understand scale and proportion, the materials and their touch right in front of you. 

The direction we are heading towards, as an Organisation,as an individual is quite an exciting one. The educational experience at Sandarbh up until now has been an Unreal Plot twist. 

Pushing the Envelope

It has been a month!

Wait.
It has only been a month?!

This first month at Sandarbh has been quite something. But it also feels like a blur. We’ve had good days and bad days and days that are so mentally exhausting that you don’t know whether it’s good or bad.

We’ve had sites that have flourished and sites where we couldn’t go the extra mile; work that got completed and files and lists that kept piling up; times where everyone was in sync and times where you didn’t even know what the person next to you was doing. But most importantly, we had people who kept pushing forward, with Sai at the helm of this movement.

As I said earlier, this month has been a month of momentum building- towards achieving even higher quality in terms of work, an even more conducive work environment and an even more holistic work life than we have. This is an ongoing journey where everyone is starting to make conscious efforts to reach the same the goal. A goal that we will achieve and hopefully even push the envelope on this year. 

In the previous blog Leena spoke about what an incredible ride 2018 has been for Sandarbh and I’m writing in hope that 2019 will be even better.

Have a great year ahead!
Namitha.