PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT As you all know, I am currently serving my notice period with my present organization. It’s a long long, in fact, very long frustrating 3-month period. I have completed 50 days, 40 more days to go… to be more precise, 40 more days of NO WORK. Using all my experiences of the past 50 days, I have compiled a list titled “25 Effective Ways to Spend Notice Period”. I am sure this would help you while you are serving your notice period. This might also help you at those instances when you have decided not to do any work when you are frustrated with your boss/management. I would also like to express my special thanks to my batchmate in school and a good friend of mine, Ms Pooja Rundwal, for her creative assistance. Her contributions have given the compilation a different colour altogether. She has been a source of appreciation and encouragement for me. She is a Team Leader with a major IT firm and currently serving her notice period. My thanks are also for my colleagues, who had to bear the brunt of a workless Ajay. It’s said – An idle mind is a Devil’s workshop. They have been tortured day in-and-out by this Devil’s workshop. At the end, last but not the least, my thanks to the management of my current organization. Without their rigid policy of 3-month notice period policy (even if the employee does not have any pending assignment), I would not have had the opportunity to even think of compiling this list. I would request the readers to remember the mantra of notice period – “One task a day will keep your notice period healthy and all tensions at bay.” At the end, a gesture of thanks. You may like to read the article http://www.totaljobs.com/Content/Jobseeking_plus/Thenoticeperiod.html Cheers !!! Ajay Gandhi Dated November 12, 2008 (Ironically, today I complete exact six months in my present organization!!)

25 EFFECTIVE WAYS TO SPEND NOTICE PERIOD

1. Reading newspapers is a good habit… but reading newspapers when your office

subscribes it is absolutely wastage of time. Stop reading newspapers at home. Save that time by sleeping an extra hour. Ask the peon/office staff to bring all the newspapers which your office subscribes, along with all the supplements which come with the newspapers. More the newspapers, more the number of supplements, and even more time u will end up spending time reading those.

2. Understanding the city where you are going to relocate is necessary. Start reading e-

paper of the newspaper of that city’s edition. Say you are going to relocate to Pune. Start reading e-papers related to Pune. This will help you to keep a tab on what all is happening in the city and you won’t feel absolutely new to the city when you relocate.

3. Chatting remains one of the best pass times. Explore the flaws in your IT security

system. Look which software you can install. If possible, install MSN/Yahoo Messenger/GTalk. There is nothing like spending time on chat with your friends. If you cannot install Gtalk, then run the chat from your Gmail browser.

4. In your huge network of friends, look for those who are also in notice period. Invite

them to chat with you. You would be surprised to find that they would be also looking for people like you in notice period. It’s rightly said - A person serving notice period can only understand the sentiments of another person serving notice period.

5. During your routine office days, you would have begged for leisure time to read your

favorite books. This is the time… go to Crossword, buy your favorite titles... but one by one. You don’t need to read all the books in one go… no way!

6. Go for the special free SMS scheme by your mobile service provider. Compile a list

of thought provoking good morning quotes. Make a group of all those friends who are as free as you are and those who have got their free SMS scheme activated. Send them the quotes everyday. Be patient, you are certain to start off an SMS conversation with one or two.

7. There is a saying – Beer brings people closer... notice period does that too!! Look for

employees in your office who are also in notice period like you. Take this golden opportunity to make new friends. Don’t be surprised if you end up with them on their workstation more than often and vice versa. If you both feel bored with each other’s workstation, move on to the canteen or to the chai ki laari opposite to your office building.

8. How many times you would have received the call from your Boss in middle of your

lunch and you leave your lunch halfway for work. Or rush from your lunch time for meeting. Time to change my friend. Make a list of good restaurants around your

office. Plan out-of-office lunch outings regularly with your best colleagues. Logic: Lunch in office spans only the stipulated lunch time duration. And going out gives you the justifiable reason for spending much more time than your stipulated office time.

9. In addition to point 7, you can reach out to those people who are not in notice period

too. When you would have been working hard, you would have felt that you know only a few people in your own office building. You didn’t had time even to move out of your department. Now, it’s the golden opportunity. Invite people over afternoon tea on your workstation.. I am sure they will also reciprocate. A 30-minute over-the-tea interaction is not going to waste anyone’s time.

10. Attracting people to initiate chat with you is another art you must master. Put though-

provoking quotes as your profile status line, which would force people to drop in with their comments. Once the chat starts, it’s all upto your abilities how long you sustain the momentum in the chat.

11. Search for desktop-based games… which are small in size to download and easy to

play too.. something you can enjoy without music too. It can be variants of bricks, ping pong balls, chess, penguin games, etc.

12. You should not only play those games, try to get addicted to one or two of them.

Getting addicted is not an easy process… you will have to continuously spend time in playing one game, all the time, with all the patience you have. And then see what wonder they can make to improve your efficiency of spending notice period time.

13. In addition to desktop-based games, you can also try your hand in online stuff. There

are lots of websites providing online games. There are online contests too wherein there are puzzles, contests, prizes, etc. One of the famous sites is www.contests2win.com.

14. Orkut is usually banned in most offices. But the buck doesn’t stop at Orkut. There are

a hell lot of social networks on the net which are equally famous as orkut is. Facebook & LinkedIn are two of them. Search for more, there are bucketful of them on internet. Bigadda, etc. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites )

15. Unlike other sites, LinkedIn provides an amazing platform to expand your

professional network. Make the optimum use of it. In this period of competition, I am sure an expanded professional network is will be more helpful than having the best drafted resume in your hand. ( www.linkedin.com )

16. During your pre-resignation period, for sure, you would have ended up with a lot of

pending out-of-office tasks… this can be meeting your insurance agent to take

insurance advices, meeting your CA for better tax planning, meeting your stock agent to understand the SIP. Here is the time to do all these and more.

17. Submitting your resignation doesn’t mean you stop logging onto job portals. Keep on

searching for more jobs & forward them to your colleagues. There cannot be a better way to take revenge from your present employer, who is torturing you with this frustrating notice period. (www.naukri.com, www.timesjob.com, www.monster.com, www.jobsahead.com, www.devnetjobs.org)

18. Pre-resignation period would have called for late sitting, no socializing, listening to abuses from friends – tu to bada aadmi ho gaya re. This is the time to do some public relation activity. Make a list of old friends with whom you would like to get back in touch. Make optimum utilization of resources. Pick up your office phone and call them. Again, not all on the same day… remember the notice period mantra – “One task a day will keep your notice period healthy and all tensions at bay.”

19. You plan for those much needed weekend trips with your lovely wife/handsome

husband/wonderful family. And there your Boss calls you on his/her cabin on Saturday evening, asking you to come on Sunday to complete the task/assignment and you end up canceling all your plans and saying all those nasty f**king abuses to your boss !!

Golden chance to compensate for all what you have lost. Search for all the possible nearby locations for weekend getaways. Don’t limit yourself to the present place you stay. Search for all possible tourist places near to the town/city you are going to relocate. See.. how much time it has saved.

20. This one is for our dear female friends, especially those who love cooking. Search on the internet for new, different recipes and try them at home. Males can also have a look at easy-to-make cuisines and give their partners surprise at home.

You can also think a bit long term with regards to city where you are going to relocate. Say you are relocating to Goa, you can go through a lot of recipes of fish which you can give a try once you relocate. Or you can browse through South Indian dishes, if you are relocating to the southern part of the country; then you can simbly make south indian dishes

21. This one is exclusive for our bachelor friends. Register yourself on various

matrimonial sites, spend time on making a mind blowing profile for yourself and start searching for your life partner. Who knows… by the end of notice period, you might end up being engaged.

Tip: Target those boys/girls who are employed with your future employer.

22. The greed for professional growth should be always there alive. You have got an offer… should you stop there??? No way. Search for all the good industries/organizations in the city where you are going to relocate. This is a ready reference for your next change.

23. Discover the “counselor” in you. I am sure when your colleagues know that you have

put your papers, they would certainly come to you to seek guidance. Time to become the “Agony Aunt” of your office. They would seek guidance regarding how did you managed to get the new job, what questions were asked in interview, what is salary rate prevailing in market. Answer all their queries. Don’t be apologetic if your answers inspire someone else to put his/her papers.

24. This is for those who have a good vocabulary and a passion for writing. Create your

own blog with some interesting and funny topics. Put your blog’s link on the status line of Gtalk and ask people to visit your blog & drop their comments. As days go by, take my word, you are going to spend a major part of your day making amends on your blog.

25. Prepare a list of “50 better effective ways to spend notice period”. Make sure that

there are no repetitions from this list. If there are any, it would be seen as violation of copyright rules.