The day David Vergara took me out to lunch

I was at dinner with friends- Swapna and Varun who have recently moved office spaces. Swapna was relating an incident when she said she had bought a new accessory for her cube - a mirror (Dont ask....yes, its a weird accessory, but if you knew Swapna, it wouldnt seem weird. She has an explanation for everything :-)). She mentioned how normally her cubicle is so bare.

This conversation triggered off a memory from the year 2000 in San Jose, California. It was my first job after school in a French company. Everyone wore suits. I bet I was the youngest employee in the office. I reported into an adorable Italian Director of Marketing, Luca. He was great but he spoke very measuredly. The office was generally very quiet except for this one admin guy who would appear to be loudly chatting away on the phone. The whole office knew about all the professional and personal ongoings in his life. Anyway, I had a laptop that I was given and I would bring it in to work everyday. Over the first three months, I also collected a bunch of scrap paper on which Luca and I would have brainstormed a market analysis model in the previsous weeks, some research reports and some conference collateral. Other than this, I really didnt have anything else in my cubicle. I had only two large suitcases worth of possessions overall in life with me at the time (which was very typical of Indians who had gone to the US for their Masters degree and had just started working). I shared an apt with two friends and slept on a sleeping bag....etc etc.

One day, David Vergara, the HR recruiter who had found me at school and recruited me for this role, asked me if I would go to lunch with him the nect day. He even picked an Indian restaurant that he knew. I thought this odd but figured..he is a nice guy...and also, lunch outside the cafeteria may not be a bad thing at all. After talking pleasanteries at lunch, he asked me if I was happy with my role. I told him, I most certainly was (Its true I was happy there). He double checked and asked about everyone that I worked with and more...


Finally, I asked him why he was so concerned. Honestly, I didnt think I had given anyone any reason to believe that. He mentioned how he and some other collegues had noticed that my cubicle was so bare. It to them was a sign of someone that didnt feel settled in. So they were concerned I would leave :-). Come to think of it, what a nice and thoughtful HR guy eh?

I didnt know how to explain to him that at that point, I didnt even know that I could put photographs in my cube....it was my first job and also, it wasnt something that was culturally was such a big deal to me...to have pictures of my family, then boyfriend (Hari) et all.....

So when Swapna talked about the bare cure the other day...It all came back to me:-). What David said had had some impact on me. Today, I look around my cubicle at work and I know that I have consciously included photos of my LA trip with my parents and sis and two pictures of Hari in there dilligently along with cards and other stuff I could find :-)