They said to Me
How it should Be
I should Need to See
Only Four and Me
Fifty to Four
Tougher than One Know
When a Heart that was More
Was Not in the Four
His Heart was So New
His Secrets All Knew
His Innocence Far and Few
His Energy that always Grew
He had to be In
Everyone Chipped In
We All saw the Sin
If He was Not In
Four Became Five
In that Blessed Hive
He was the first to Dive
Aruna here’s a Hi-Five!
Today happens to mark the second wedding anniversary of the most junior engineer I hired, for Returnpool Sri Lanka, an offshore development centre that was setup to assist Returnpool Netherlands.
All the staff I hired, with the help of Arjuna, who assisted in the final round of interviews, were nothing less than excellent. They made my time there my MOST memorable experience in my 15 years of a career in Information Technology. Hareendra, Nisala, Sirikumara, and Chamil were the four engineers that were selected from the interview. But, Aruna had showed something the others hadn’t yet shown, an honest heart.
After the entire interview was finalized, I asked him a few personal questions around parties, girls, clubbing, etc.
One such question was
“So you have a girl?”
For which his answer was
“Yes, but nobody knows, I’m in love with my cousin sister!”
I couldn’t help but laugh, at this cute young thing, who revealed something he hid from the rest of the world (so he thought), to me, a random stranger, his potential manager!
He hadn’t done too bad in the rest of the interview, he showed quite a bit of potential, and he freely said he didn’t know, if he didn’t know. So I had to take him in. I adjusted the budget and requested the board of directors (Jaap, Ron, Arjuna, and Mahesh) to approve an extra resource, to my surprise they did.
He was the first to come in along with Hareendra. His first task was to setup the four laptops other engineers got, and his tower computer (that’s all the budget allowed for his junior role).
Every little task I gave him reminded me of a little annoying puppy. Just like when you throw a ball as far as possible, hoping it would stay away for awhile, only to realize he was back with the ball, Aruna completed all tasks well ahead of time, to the point I had nothing more to give him that first day.
Now he is in a Lead role, and doing well. He ended up marrying the love of his life, Anjali. He maintains a very open and honest relationship, and soon to be a father.
I’m truly blessed to meet him, he gives me hope that such people exist. When in my own life, many cheated on me, were dishonest to me, in romance and otherwise, people like Aruna and Anjali give me hope.
I wish them nothing less than happiness, peace and pure bliss, knowing all there is to know.
– Nim –
P.S: The company grew quite a bit eventually, and during my stay we hired Anuradha, Supun, Dharshana, Amry, Jagath, Indunil, Buddika, and a few more. Once Mahesh came down to settle in Sri Lanka, I migrated to Australia in March, 2010, leaving behind my most pleasurable professional experience.
A Moment with Nim! 