By Surangi Tissera
This is Preshantha’s first paid job. Just after her secondary education, she joined “Rise International” as a Data Analysis. The company is an UK (United Kingdom) based pioneers in outsourcing field and also the first of its kind to choose Sri Lanka as one prospective location to open a branch office. Preshantha was lucky enough to be chosen as a “Real Time Worker” which provides more and more benefits comparative to general employees of the company.
A “Real Time Work” means work according to the Europe working hours. This requires starting the work at odd times to cope up with the five and a half hour to six and a half hours time gap between Europe continent and Asia continent. And also it requires working in odd days like local holidays as well and having leaves in odd days like holidays in Europe countries. At first, it was the most extraordinary experience for her and her family. All by her at ten o’clock at night outside home was the most horrible thing she could imagine at the time. Even her elder brother is supposed to be back at home before nine o’clock in the night. This is due to the fact that most of the government and private offices are closed down around six o’clock in the evening. And public transports were hard to find after nine o’clock in the night.
But now the excitement period is over for her. This is her second year after getting the permanent employment with the company. Now a day it’s only the counting hours to get off for the day and days for the next salary is all that matter to her. But she couldn’t figure out what is the cause for her present uneasiness or unhappiness. Could it be the Aruna’s marriage? Could it be Rohan’s promotion or something else? She started dipping to the most depth of her feelings in the heart.
Aruna, Preshantha and Rohan comprised the “Trio” group as it is known to everyone in the Rise. There are few other groups except Trio which are having interesting names like “Spice” also from Sri Lanka, “Duel Ducks” from Germany and “Xmen” from America. Most of the other groups have only the boring names documented at origin like D10.1 or CIX which were the official identification given to the groups at the beginning of those projects.
The Trio group which comprises of two female employees and a male employee is one of the oldest and the most successful project carrying out by the Rise International. Trio always kept this same blend of two females and a male from the day it was first initiated, although original team members had left the Trio group.
When Preshantha was joining to Trio, both Rohan and Aruna were there. When consider their ages Aruna is the eldest where Preshantha is the youngest. When time slowly passes, three of them became the best friends. They are belonging to three different religions and it was always an interesting combination. They together spend most of their free times at work and even each others religious festivals they get together and celebrated. Although their friendship gets flourished, at the same time they get isolated from fellow members at the Rise International. This is the very reason why Preshantha has to spend an unhappy isolated times at office now.
It was the Aruna’s wedding that the first change Trio experienced. It was a proposal from Aruna’s relatives in India. As a result, after the marriage Aruna had to leave from Sri Lanka to go to India where her husband lives. But the Trio operated as usual with Preshantha and Rohan are working in the Rise International’s Sri Lankan branch and Aruna is working in the Rise International’s Indian branch.
Gradually two of them learned to pass the time without Aruna in physically with them. Through e-mails and phone calls they continued their friendship. It didn’t take so long to start rumors about Preshantha and Rohan. Also two of them felt very bad about the situation and gradually tried to minimize the time they spend together.
Rohan started playing Badminton, which gave him the opportunity to make new contacts and evade from Preshantha most of the time. Preshantha started to study for a Computer Diploma just for the sake of doing something to pass the time. At first she wanted to move from the Trio group. But Ms. Silva, who was the projects manager, didn’t allow her as the Trio group performance was excellence and if Preshantha leaves suddenly it takes sometime to find another suitable person to the vacating post and to train that person. On the other hand there were no new project openings for Preshantha to join in.
Another two months passed with this same routing until one day after a management meeting came the news of Ms. Silva‘s promotion as Assistance Service delivery Manager in Asia Operation.
The vacating position of the Project Manager became the main aim of Preshantha. She got new hopes to do daily works. She knew she has the most qualifications among all of others. She was glad to think that all the others including Rohan are going to work under her.
Sometimes she thought why she became so angry with Rohan, who was once a good friend of her. Is it sheer jealousy or anything else? She felt the need to take revenge from him by hurting him so badly. She thought it’s very unfair of her to remain isolated while Rohan is having all the people around him after they started to walk in different routes.
Of course as always Aruna was a good friend to them and the Aruna’s e-mails and phone calls were the only things Rohan and Preshantha shared together in those days.
Her hope doesn’t last for weeks when the announcement came of Rohan’s promotion as the Project Manager. Only sensible thing Preshantha could do at that time was to congratulate him for his achievement. To Preshantha this new Promotion signaled the Rohan’s winning from the cold war two of them had.
For the first time in Trio’s history it comprised with three females. The newly joined girl was a fresher from high school and needed to go through a rigorous training in order to do her job properly. All in all it is really a tough time for Preshantha as she has to look into the newly joined Trio member’s training and together with Aruna had to cover most of the daily works in the Trio group. But the most intolerable thing for Preshantha is to report working progress to the new Project Manager – Rohan who is now called as Mr. Peris.
She thought Rohan is laughing to her at every time she saw him. Therefore tried to evade from him as much as possible which most of the time doesn’t work at all. There was thousand of other information he needed to request from her or discuss with her about the ongoing projects. At some point she thought he is trying to steal her innovative ideas and use them as if they were his own. Or may be he is trying to find a fault of her so he may come up with a good scheme of punishing her and ultimately sacking her from her current job.
She has taken all her available official leave for the present year. Today is one of the worst days for her as she has to hand over a leave application form to Mr. Peris’s approval. She had to struggle with herself over the idea of walking up to Rohan’s new seat. She felt sad about herself because she couldn’t help her out of this shameful situation.
A plot started to work in her mind. That is if he speaks a word about her works or her overly taken leaves to resign from her current position at once. At the same time she knew it’s a difficult thing to find so quickly a new job which will provide her present salary and benefits. She can remember the time she spent before getting the present job. Looking for jobs in the news papers, writing applications and facing desperate interviews which turn out to be she is lacking experience, qualification or she is having everything more than interviewing panel expected. She wondered whether she will have to stay long in unemployment, struggling to find a job or with her current experience she will be able to land in a much better job than her current position.
She was in this day dreaming when she heard a familiar call of her name.
“Preshantha what are you doing at this hour of the night? It’s nearly 11 O’clock now.” Rohan was walking toward Preshantha’s seat.
She got out of her dream only to find empty seats around her which symbolize that all of the other Real Time Workers have taken off for the day. She is not scared at all because she knew there are people working around the clock in other sections of the office. But Preshantha felt glad to speak with Rohan all along. She hasn’t spoken with him along during the last eight months as they were evading all the possible casual meetings. She thought she saw the familiar friendly smile of Rohan’s which always in his face and which most of the time she thought was a mocking remark. But she doesn’t want to show any of her feelings now. So she hardens her facial muscles and manages to pose back the same question to him.
“What are you doing Rohan? Oh! I forgot, Mr. Peris. You must be busy with those reports preparation I guess.”
She is not expecting an answer and is not looking at him at all. She is getting ready to take off.
All of a sudden she could feel a hand touching hers. She tried to get rid of it but couldn’t. In a second she could hear his caring voice.
“Preshantha let’s stop this. Aren’t we good friends?” In silence she listened to him without giving any sign to his talking.
“I was looking at you all this hour when others gone. I have good news for you Preshantha, with a bad news too”.
Preshantha looked at him and saw his dark clouded face. He kept speaking while looking at an e-mail on his other hand.
How handsome and good looking he is she thought to herself. She has never admired or looked at him or anybody in this manner. But she thought why she couldn’t notice it before.
“You are given a year scholarship to our head office in England to work and learn as a team leader to our new project going to be launch at the end of next year. This is officially to be informed to you on tomorrow. I was waiting for this message.”
Could he be joking? She thought. Preshantha knew she shouldn’t trust him. So let it be officially informed to her why he should worry about this. But Preshantha needs to quench her curiosity.
“And the bad news is ….” She asks.
He looked at her eyes straightly for a second before talking.
“Preshantha I needed to say this much earlier but I couldn’t… I couldn’t cheat my best friend.”
For the next one or two seconds none of the two speak.
Rohan broke the silence.
“I can’t go on a year without seen you Preshantha. Can you?” Rohan kept his gaze at her eyes while holding her hand in his both hands.
Now Preshantha is sure she too feels difficulties in leaving Rohan behind. Deep in her heart she felt the hatred she had for Rohan is changing for it opposite feeling. But she wanted to understand the clear reason for this sudden behavior of Rohan. She tried to calm down herself and understand the full meaning of his talk.
“What are you talking about? Cheating me?”, Preshantha asked.
“I have far more precious feeling toward you than my best friend should have”, was his answer.
