मैनें अपना सबसे शानदार वक्त तहलका और हेडलाइन्स टुडे में गुजारा- अजीत शाही

अजीत शाही-

In my 33-year work life in India I was sort of a career butterfly, never sticking with one job for long for a variety of reasons.

One job I came home from the first evening and never went back the second day. Another I quit in five business days. A third, as Executive Editor with a tv news channel, lasted 45 days. A fourth, as managing director with a tv news channel, lasted 60 days. Yet another lasted 90 days. For the rest, the average was just under two years.

I never much cared what employers or coworkers thought of my abilities and talent. If I got bored, I quit. If I thought I was in the wrong place, I quit. If I found the office a den of double standards — after all, a news organization should practice all that it sanctimoniously preaches to the rest of the world — you guessed it right: I quit.

I once even worked for the United Nations. I wasn’t a UN employee but worked full-time on a contract. That assignment lasted 11 months. When I decided to move on after less than a year my boss flew in from New York City scratching his head demanding to know why I wouldn’t continue. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that while I did great in the job the whole place was the most boring I’d ever witnessed in my life.

My best career decisions were two.

One, working for Tehelka, where I turned into an investigative reporter and did the most satisfying work of my life.

And two, as Executive Editor with Headlines Today, now called India Today, which I never joined after taking the offer letter for a monthly salary of INR 2.5 lakh back in 2010.

How well I dodged that bullet! That’s a story to tell in another post.

अजीत शाही वरिष्ठ पत्रकार हैं और भारत के ढ़ेर सारे बड़े मीडिया घरानों में कार्यरत रहे हैं.