Cricket Love, Strict Boss and Perfect Tuning

The love for cricket gave me a breakthrough at a very crucial point in my career…The story dates back to my very first job. I was loving the tag as a graduate trainee in one of the best MNC in my field. (Yes, I had graduated as an electronics and communications engineer). After the rosy induction and kicking training program, when the reality struck to me, I realized it would  not be easy.  I work in Telecom sector and the gender diversity in the technical side is merely 12% in the best of the companies unlike the IT sector where there is a balanced ratio.  Somewhere its feels nice that I am among those who prove that there isn’t anything that women can’t do but on most of the days I get my blues in the male dominated sector.

Cricket too has been considered all boy’s thing for a long long time. Until there was a women cricket team, it was termed as the man’s sport. And even today its largely male dominated. However, I have always been fond of this game as the sport has had fans irrespective of age, caste, creed and gender.  My Mumma was always more crazy than my Dad for the India- Pakistan matches and she adored Brian Lara till Sachin Tendulkar had not arrived. Thus, I have always had people in my house glued to television in the days of one-day series and world cup. Even my grandparents loved it. Together we would all enjoy the tussle of ball and the bat over lemon soda drinks. And I consider myself lucky that I have grown watching Sachin’s brilliant knocks.

So there goes a story of my craziness for cricket and how it helped me to impress my boss. My first posting was in Lucknow and they sent me to a all male’s office (part of the drive to increase gender diversity but they never thought how only one would make any difference). On the first day, I was petrified to find no female face in my department and the hyperactive guys who were all cheerful to see  a glowing face (Remember, I was a fresh grad all set to rock in my corporate attire with dreams to impress the boss   🙂 ).

By the end of the day, the team members were friendly and I felt a little calm. But the happiness did not last long when I met my angry, young man type boss. First thing he wasn’t impressed with the idea of having a girl in the team. ( Yes, he did tell me on my face, why did the central team send you here, I will ensure you have a tough time and will make you climb on the BTS towers. ) He was furious to have me there because according to him girls were too weak, they always had thousand of issues for taking leaves and most important they could not be sent on field jobs… OMG!!! I had never thought I would be welcomed this way on my first working day.  I panicked…

The first month was painful. He made me do all the paper work, totally non technical job. Nothing worked well with him. He did not let me show my talent at all. But then all men have weaknesses and this one had too. I found it soon. He was crazy for cricket and yes I had got my mantra to show my talents. Thank God, I understood the game and knew the best in the game. 2007 was the year and World Cup was slated in couple of days. No doubt, I was waiting for it too. I had heard stories about my boss’ s craziness for cricket. On the other days, he would always have a straight face but during the match he would mingle with the team and gel around with them during the game. By this time he had also seen my enthusiasm towards the game. I wasn’t dumb in this matter, I had brushed up my knowledge on cricket too and all this did make him mellow down towards me. (But he still hated girls I think)

I had seen him keep an update on the scores even during the meetings. But one fine day, on the crucial match day when India was pitted against the best there came a crucial customer visit which made my boss panic. He was worried about many things and one of it was how would he keep a tab on the match. That was the day when I played smart. I dint want to miss the match too nor I wanted him to do so. I faked a stomach ache a few hours before the match. I knew boss would deny it straight but I had a plan. He, along with the whole team was making preparations for the customer visit, no match for today was clearly mentioned, the cafeteria wasn’t allowed to buzz with cricket lovers at all. So I made the best use of it, I knew my plan would work and help me pack my laptop and leave for home for  half day, I made a helpful offer to my team lead..

Sir,  Please let me go home….I promise, I would sms you updated cricket scores every minute…. I said

His eyes brightened… He was unhappy about missing the match too… (another big cricket fan he was)

He liked the offer and Immediately agreed to intervene and talk to Boss for allowing me to go home…

I played a sixer this time… I was quick to add…. Sir, I will send a message to Big Boss too…rather the whole team along with him.

This absolutely worked for me… Within ten minutes I was allowed to go home on one condition that BIG BOSS would not entertain any delay in the score update….

I gleefully agreed and that was the day when I made the best use of CUG numbers and free messaging package.

I religiously enjoyed every stroke over pizza and coke (which I had already ordered timely. Couched on my sofa, I enjoyed every bit to send cricket score messages  to the deprived souls with my added commentary. It was really very exciting and an experience in itself to deliver scores non stop…

My team members loved it, obviously all their message tones on mobile phones were on silent during the meetings but they never missed a chance to peek in on the small screen once in a while. The meeting with the customer rocked and no more was it mere boring nor they missed the match scores…

BIG BOSS sent me a thank you and smiley at the end of the day…. as India won the match too..

And this is how Cricket love helped me to tune up with Boss as well… and not miss the match also…

Starsports has always felicitated our  love for sports. I never miss my TENNIS and CRICKET matches on the channel. The picture quality is always undoubtedly the best.

And what I love about New Starsports is fastest scorecard. Its actually very quick. Even today if I have to impress my boss, I will be the quickest.. watsay…It does help to remain on top of the game always being abreast with the scores before everyone even in the office or other places when you cannot sit and catch it live. Now, one does not need to panic to catch the score or ask someone everytime. Its simple keep the homepage open on your laptop and keep following the scores silently. It simple and easy. 

Action recap is also very interesting feature. Even when I miss the matches on busy days, I ensure to catch up the fun of best fours, sixes, wickets and catches. Recently, I had gone to see the live match between Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals and in the fit of excitement of watching live match, my attention was diverted and I had missed a few sixes.  There at the stadium I actually felt the need of seeing Action recap, I missed starsports. On the website one can actually see as many times one wants.

So for cricket when its only SACHIN, SACHIN

For catching all the fun, its one and only STARSPORTS, STARSPORTS!!!

This post is a part of Cricket Just Got Better Activity by Starsports.com in association with BlogAdda.com