Ali joined CVS Caremark project at TCS-Noida in November after a successful stint at Aviva in TCS-Bangalore, where he had worked as a trainee. He had always wanted to go back to his hometown and live with his parents and when he got a transfer to Delhi he didn’t waste a single moment in saying yes to the new project and heading towards Delhi. Many of his friends were also moving out from Bangalore at the same time which only made his decision easier. He felt that Caremark offered better career prospects, as it was a new project and they were offered to work on the current technologies that were in demand in the market. Ali was sure he would excel in his new position at Caremark, just as he had done in his old job at Aviva.
He joined as Assistant Systems Engineer at Caremark, with a handsome pay hike for becoming a confirmed employee of the company. Caremark also had international operations and there was more than a slim chance that he would be sent to USA or the UK on a project. Knowing that this would give him a lot of exposure, besides looking good on his resume, he was quite excited about the new job.
He joined Ashish Mehta's five-member team at Caremark. He had met Ashish during the interview sessions, and was looking forward to working under him. His team members seemed warm and friendly, and comfortable with their work. Ali introduced myself to the team members and got to know more about each of them.
Wanting to know more about my boss, Ali casually asked Shobha, one of the team members, about Ashish. Shobha said, "Ashish does not interfere with our work. In fact, you could even say that he tries to ignore us as much as he can."
Ali was surprised by the comment but decided that Ashish was probably leaving them alone to do their work without any guidance, in order to allow them to realize their full potential.
At Aviva, he had worked under Sudhir Reddy and had looked up to him as a guide and mentor - always guiding, but never