WORKING EXPERIENCE IN TELECOM SECTOR

 

Telecom Sector :

Working with Telecom sector was quit interesting.  When I passed 10th Examination SSC Board exam in Pune in May, 1977, the financial condition of my family was very poor.  My Father was lonely earning member in our family.  My father was working with State Transport Depo, Dapodi, Pune, in the cadre of unskilled labour.  He has been very hard working and very decent in nature.  As and when he used to come home on Salary day, my mother used to take whole salary away in her pocket, pretending that now a days his salary was becoming insufficient.  She was knowing I was working as Casual Labour on daily wages, to cope up my education expenses, she used to ask me also whole salary.

Struggling to make ends meet to afford two nutritious meals for his family, and the dwindling prospects for work is experienced by many daily wage workers standing beside me.   My family have so many problems- financial, health and emotional. Parents keep on fighting and life had become stagnant.  Most of the times we fail to communicate properly with each other. We fail to express what we actually feel. Every family has its ups and downs, how you portray yourself is what actually matters.   Start with making your parents sit down calmly, ask them to be patient with you. Take a deep breath and in a calm voice tell them how you feel about them fighting all the time. Let them know how it is bothering you. Then start with how you are concerned about their health. Make them understand being hyper wont help them solve their problems. 

I was asked by my mother to shift my books and study material to the Room in nearby area where my grand father was staying alone. After his son and wife passed away long before, my grand father was staying in a rented room.  My grand father has so many health problems and dependent on our family for food and take care of his health.  When I started living along with my grand father, I got a peaceful place for study as well as help to the grand father.

The biggest concern for me was how I would take care of whole family, when my father took invalid retirement from Govt. service. He had almost more than 5 years left to the superannuation retirement and all my sisters were in School and colleges for education. My brother was on Govt. duties on daily wages basis and having a meager salary.

My brother tried, at request of my Ismail uncle, to seek a job for me in Pune Telecom and I got the job in Cable Pressurization of Telecom sector.  I got the job for night duty at Cable route. My duties were of 12 hours 7pm to 7am daily after that I used to go to College at 9am.  When I come to know the night time can be utilized for study, I started studying at night, for some time after 1am.  One day, a controlling boss came for surprise visit to the cable route. On seeing me studying at night, he shown some mercy and asked me to join for office work, in day time.  When I told him my difficulties about collage attendance and study, he replied me with a smile that it can be adjusted with time hours and adjusted.  There are three main parts of a student’s life which consumes most of their time; study, work, and personal life. Study and work both can take up an ample amount of time and very less time may remain for personal stuff. This is one of the major issues a student face. So the question is: How to balance study, work, and personal life?

The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income.  During college education and working in Telecom sector, I used to wake up daily at 5am for college study and make a cup of black tea on kerosene stove.  At 7am I had a breakfast of a cup of black tea and biscuit, so that I could join College classes at 8am. Whenever kerosene stove becomes faulty or kerosene is exhausted, I had a water with biscuit as breakfast.  

I have been assigned the job at Telecom unit, of loading and unloading of Gas cylinder and book keeping of all cylinders at hand and at sight.  The main reason of assigning this job was due to my on going day to day college education, as I was allowed to attend the classes of college education from 7am to 10am, and telecom duties from 10.30am to 5.30pm.  This timing of college education and working hours were adjusted by engineer at the request of my brother.

People around me used to tell that study as well as work is not good choice.  It is very important and necessary for young people to have and manage their own money, that is why most of them decide to work and study at the same time, but sometimes to do both things simultaneously can bring some consequences that can affect different aspects of their life like, less time for their families and friends; they do not have enough time to do their homework correctly; their mind is full of mixed ideas and worries and also they suffer from physical exhaustion.  As a result, it is quite difficult to balance the attention towards study and work equally.

You usually go out of your house to attend College early in the morning and come back late in the evening or night, depending on your schedule. You do not have much time to share with your family or visit your friends and at some point the complaints begin.  Moreover, my parent starts complaining about my ignorance towards family responsibilities. 

Parents say you do not want to talk or spend time with them; friends keep on saying that now that you are working you are boring because you do not want to go out or do not visit them, but they do not understand that is not because you do not want to is just because you do not have the time or you are too tired to do it, but that does not mean that you do not care about them. It has been routine of facing such family issues and settle it down.  On the other hand, as regards to college education and classes, you try to do as much as you can to carry out all the homework and assignments you have, but sometimes you do not have enough time to do them or you have to stay awake late at night for hours just to finish one work or to study for a huge test and the results are not always good, even though you have put a lot on effort it.  Students who work a lot lose many hours of sleep; in addition, if a student got out of work at eleven pm and had to wake up at six am, they only have seven unhealthy hours of sleep. The number of hours of sleep a healthy student should have is about nine. But many a time I was forced to sit studying whole night during examination days.  

Working and studying while in college can be rewarding and tiring at the same time.  Rewarding in the sense, my success without any break in clearing each and every semester of college education. Tiring in the sense about sleepless night for educating.

As a matter of fact, the idea of whether working and studying at the same time provides more advantages than disadvantages varies.  If I prefer only Work means, my education will stuck up for want of financial support and If I prefer only studies means I will loose my job.  If you work and learn in the same time, your free time will slowly disappear.  You have to sacrifice every free time for the sake of your academic education.