What a welcome! :)

I had taken 3 weeks off for my wife's delivery in Jan. This, at a time, when going on vacation or leave might result in a memo from the management asking you not to come back ever! So in that context, I think my boss is really cool. And that too after giving me 12 days off in December as well. Does the fact that I hit my annual sales target in December matter? For argumentative sake, let's just ignore that for the time being! ;)

And was it hard for me to leave my new born baby and wife behind and come back to work? Hell, Yes! How on earth was I supposed to concentrate on work? How would I feel when I sat at my desk?

This is what awaited me when I got to my desk.


Balloons, a big teddy bear, candles, chocolates, sweets, a baby record book, wind chime, small baby porcelain boy, funny messages posted on my cubicle walls, message saying 'Welcome Ibrahim' and a card signed by the whole team - everything in BLUE! And to top it all up, everyone was dressed in blue as well. Here are some more snaps of my desk





It was just unbelievable. My team had spent a large portion of Friday making arrangements. It was perfect. There couldn't have been any other way that I'd have liked to get back to work with. It raised my spirits. Felt so much at home. I was amongst a team where human emotions mattered. We are not working at a sweatshop. They were there to share my happiness and welcome me. I felt happy when I could have felt sad, lonely and depressed. It was so overwhelming that I almost cried. To me, this is a TEAM. And I am proud to be part of it.

Later found out that it was my boss's idea and another member of my team. But in the end, everyone helped set things up. I've been raving about this to whoever I find. Surprisingly its taken me four days to blog about.