NRI Career Stagnation - Why NRIs Stick Through Boring Jobs
I was unhappy in my first job. It was with a small ERP firm, in Atlanta. The gratitude & relief of getting the H1B Visa slowly turned into boredom— conversations like “the accounting flag is unchecked in the package processing flow”, felt meaningless to a data girl like me.
Once, inside the cave-like cubicle at office, the 24-yr old me, nodded off to sleep. Not just anyhow. While on a call. With a client. Chin on palm, phone between the ears, I slept. I woke up on a sound (cheek red, eyes opened by extreme willpower), to see my colleague standing at the entrance of the cave-cubicle— “Everything ok Nupur?”.
Of course, everything was ok. From far, yeah.
At 24, I was living my NRI life hypnotically. Waiting for something to come and save me. For most single NRIs that something, is marriage. Life, in boring jobs, colours everything grey— the same routine, same wake up, shower, drive to office, drip coffee, sync meetings. Then the 1:00 pm lunch— after standing in the microwave queue or walking on the building perimeter, over wood-shavings, to the streetwalk, crossing a red light, inside a mall, to buy a Subway foot-long. Then forcing yourself the same route back—because the next fours go by slowly. I’ve imagined hitting the wall clock with my stapler— once it was 2:31 pm and after one hour I looked up again, and it was 2:39 pm. Time in a boring job distorts. By 5:00 pm I was out, mentally and physically. Hey, this is not F.R.I.E.N.D.S or Seinfeld where your buddies will come home or meet at a cafe. Usually, NRIs go to an empty home.
Yes, I could have made friends but No. Remember this is not Manhattan. This is not the bay area. This is not a high-density desi area. This is Atlanta suburbs. Atlanta is a pass-through station for desis. Some settle, most move out.
If I compare that 24 yr old NRIs life with a parallel universe where there’s another 24-yr old Nupur but she’s in India— her life seems so much more… alive. Maybe she got a similar ERP job, but the thing is, in India, you make friends at office. You’re chatting during breakfast, you’re eating gossip for lunch, you’re sipping small talk at tea time, and by evening you’re either home with family (parents) or with friends.
So why do NRIs stay in a boring jobs? You can accuse me— “who asked you to live alone, in an out-of-the-way city, get bored in a job, in a foreign country?” But hey, there are many NRIs like me, who stay put, because of the visa, need of money, and the hope for a future opportunity. That pushed me. It made me show up every day for writing test plans. It made me show up on 4 hours of sleep. It made me show up on rainy days, headache days, stomach pain days.
Change takes time. I never stopped wanting more. I longed to work with numbers & data crunching— I wanted my graphs, I wanted my time series, I wanted my trendlines. I hoped magic would happen, and light that happiness bulb of mine. It drove me to keep trying. One day I applied to Manhattan Associates, a better-known company in Atlanta. That job felt better but didn’t last long. Why would it? The “Warehouse row & SKU number should be displayed on the left side instead of top right” didn’t feel engaging. I kept pushing. One day I applied to Google, randomly, on their website, and got through. To do, guess what? Everything I wanted— number crunching, graphs, stats, data analytics. It eased at least the next 3-4 years for me.
If you’re an NRI and hate your job— I hear you. You live in the suburbs, may have only a few friends, you’re single, and no family to return home to, and stuck in the swamp of the H1B— I hear you. It hurts. Hang in there. Real tight. But just for this moment, remember it’s a choice. So take the first step, modify your resume, and try for that next job. I promise it will get better.
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Are you an NRI and need help? I'm Nupur and I help NRIs live a better life. Reach out!
PS: Still grateful to the companies I have mentioned here. They have shaped me into who I am.