Colleague - A blog on every pro to fun

Let's start with a fact: I am an excellent gift-giver. I love the hunt. I keep a running list on my phone of random "ooh, that's cool" things my friends mention. I take pride in finding that perfectly specific, thoughtful, "how-did-you-know-I-wanted-this?" present. Unless it's for my boyfriend. My boyfriend is wonderful. He's driven, he's smart, he's kind, and... he's successful. He's one of those people who, if he wants something, he just... gets it. New tech gadget? Pre-ordered. That cool watch? Already on his wrist. A weekend trip? He booked it last month. Which is fantastic, 99% of the time. I'm so proud of him. The other 1% of the time is the two-week panic before his birthday. How do you find a gift for a person who has removed all the friction from their own "want list"? My search history becomes a digital graveyard of bad ideas. "Gifts for men who have everything." "Luxury gifts for boyfriend....

The silence at our dinner table had become heavier than the air before a monsoon. We’d be sitting across from each other, the aroma of a simple home-cooked meal between us, but the distance felt like miles. The elephant in the room wasn't just big; it was stamping its feet, and its name was my salary. When Priya and I moved in together, we were high on love and dreams. We planned weekend trips, talked about saving for a bigger place, maybe even a dog. We were a team. But somewhere along the way, the financial reality started to creep in. I work in a field I'm passionate about—graphic design for a small non-profit. It's fulfilling, but it doesn't come with a hefty paycheck. Priya, on the other hand, is excelling in her corporate marketing job. Her salary grew, and with it, a subtle shift in our dynamic. It started with small things. "My friends are all going to Thailand for a week, shouldn't we plan a trip?" she'd ask, her eyes sparkling with excitement...

It started, as many modern friendships do, as a casual add-on. "I'm meeting my friend Sameer for drinks, he's bringing his girlfriend," the text read. In my mind, a vague, stock image formed. I didn't mean for it to, but the label "Software Engineer's Girlfriend" came with its own set of preconceived notions, like a default CSS style sheet for a person. I pictured someone who was either also in tech, ready to talk shop about APIs and agile methodologies, or someone completely outside of it, patiently nodding along, her eyes glazing over as the conversation inevitably drifted towards debugging and deployment cycles. When I met Anika, she was neither. Our first few hangouts were exactly as predicted. The conversation was a triangle. Sameer and my other tech friends would be at two points, deep in a discussion about a new JavaScript framework, and Anika and I would be the third, making small talk about the weather, the terrible traffic in Kanpur, or how...

From a young age, I had a very specific plan. While my friends were crushing on movie stars and musicians, my heart was set on a different kind of hero: an engineer. Whenever the aunties at weddings would pinch my cheeks and ask, "So, beta, what kind of boy are you looking for?" I wouldn't say "handsome" or "rich." I'd confidently declare, "An engineer." This was usually met with a mix of impressed nods and confused smiles. ### The Blueprint is Drawn My fascination wasn't random; it was born from observation. My father, while not an engineer by trade, had the soul of one. Our home was a symphony of perfectly executed solutions. A leaky tap was a puzzle to be solved, a broken toy was a challenge to be reverse-engineered, and a power cut was an opportunity to demonstrate the brilliance of his emergency inverter setup. He brought a quiet, methodical calm to chaos. For me, that was the ultimate form of security and care. I didn't want...

The email landed in my inbox like a digital lightning bolt. "Offer of Employment – [Your Name] – AI Engineer." My breath caught. I reread it, then reread it again, just to be sure. This wasn't just an offer; this was the offer. The one from a company whose innovations I'd admired for years, whose products redefine industries, and whose name is synonymous with cutting-edge technology. I had done it. I was going to be an AI Engineer at a top tech giant. It feels surreal even now, typing this out. Just a few years ago, the idea of working at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence, shaping the future with algorithms and neural networks, felt like a distant, almost audacious dream. Today, it's my reality. And I want to share how I got here, hoping my journey can inspire yours. 🧠 The Spark: When AI Became More Than a Buzzword My fascination with AI wasn't a sudden epiphany; it was a gradual immersion. I started with the basics, intrigued by machine learning algor...

The Ultimate Return on Investment When I first walked through the hallowed halls of business school, my mind was a spreadsheet. Life was a series of calculations: the cost of tuition versus the projected salary increase, the number of networking events to attend for maximum ROI, the optimal study hours required to land in the top percentile. My five-year plan was meticulously crafted, and nowhere in its color-coded cells was there a line item for "fall in love." That would be an inefficient allocation of resources. Or so I thought. Then came Strategic Management, and with it, Ananya. Ananya wasn't just smart; she was a different kind of smart. While I was busy memorizing frameworks, she was deconstructing them. While I saw Porter's Five Forces as a rigid model, she saw it as a conversation starter. In class, her hand would shoot up, and she’d ask the one question that made the professor pause and the rest of us scribble furiously in our notebooks. She had this laugh t...

It was the kind of week every college student dreads: mid-terms looming, caffeine levels critically low, and a project deadline that felt less like a finish line and more like a cliff edge. Mine was a particularly complex coding assignment, and I was drowning in a sea of syntax errors and logic bugs. That's when Sarah walked into my life, or more accurately, into the computer lab, looking just as stressed as I felt. [Image: A slightly messy but cozy computer lab scene, two students (one resembling the narrator, one Sarah) are hunched over laptops, surrounded by energy drink cans and textbooks, with a soft glow from the screens.] We were in the same advanced algorithms class, but I'd barely spoken to her. She was quiet, focused, and always seemed to have her act together. Today, however, her usual calm was replaced by a frantic energy as she wrestled with her own project – a complex data visualisation that refused to render. "Everything okay?" I asked, probably soundin...

The air in the corporate waiting room was sterile and intimidating. The only sounds were the soft hum of the air conditioner and the frantic beating of my own heart. I was there for a final-round interview, a role I desperately wanted. As I mentally rehearsed answers to questions I'd found online, the door opened, and she walked in. She had a calm confidence that I envied, clutching a file just like mine. She gave me a brief, polite smile before taking a seat opposite me. We were rivals, competitors for the same coveted position. The tension was palpable. Her name was Priya, I learned, when the receptionist called her in first. I watched her go, feeling a strange mix of relief and anxiety. When she came out twenty minutes later, her expression was unreadable. Then it was my turn. The interview was a blur of technical questions and personality assessments. When it was over, I walked out feeling drained but hopeful. Priya was gone. I figured I'd never see her again. A week later,...